Chapter 88: Christmas Belle
The morning bled into a tense, expectant afternoon. Rupert moved through the house in a state of suspended animation, the collar’s weight a constant reminder. He vacuumed. He polished. He arranged biscuits on a china plate with a precision usually reserved for ledgers. Libby was coming to ‘assess his flexibility’. The phrase echoed, ominously cheerful.
At three-thirty, Margot swept into the living room, a whirlwind of purpose and lavender scent. “Change of plan, my love. The WI Christmas shindig is tonight. Doris is doing mulled wine that could strip paint, and I intend to be pristine for it.”
She beckoned him upstairs. “Forget the tea. I need a bath. You’re on duty.”
The bathroom steamed, fogging the mirrors. Rupert ran the water, testing the temperature with his elbow as she’d taught him years ago, adding a capful of her favourite jasmine oil. The air grew thick and floral.
Margot stepped in, her skin pebbling in the humid air. She sank into the tub with a luxurious sigh, her curls darkening at the ends. “Soap me.”
He knelt on the bathmat, took the French-milled soap, and worked a lather in his hands. He started at her shoulders, kneading the tense muscles there. Her eyes were closed. He moved down, over the full curves of her breasts, her stomach. The ritual was familiar, yet now every touch was loaded with intention, with audit.
“My legs,” she murmured, lifting one from the water. “A proper job, please. The TRÈftoner was snagging on stubble yesterday. Unforgivable.”
He fetched the razor and the can of shaving foam. The task required an accountant’s focus. He turned her ankle, propping her foot on the rim. He coated her calf in white foam, then drew the blade down in smooth, steady strokes, rinsing it in the bathwater. The silence was broken only by the drip of the tap and the soft scrape of metal on skin.
“And the other bit,” she said, her voice lazy. “You know I like it neat for a party.”
He paused. This was newer territory, a service rendered only since ‘the awakening’. He applied the foam with careful fingers, his own breath shallow. The razor’s path here was delicate, navigating the soft folds. She was utterly relaxed, trusting, which made the act more profoundly intimate than any violent ravishing. He was a gardener tending a prized plot.
“Good,” she sighed, when he was done, rinsing herself with a cupped hand. “A Diamond Dazzle buff, I think. Now, out. Towel me.”
He held the large, warm towel open. She stepped into it, and he enveloped her, rubbing briskly. In their bedroom, she shook her hair and stood naked before the wardrobe, contemplating its contents with a strategic gleam.
“Right. The festive arsenal.” She pulled open a drawer not of socks, but of impossibility. She laid three sets on the bed.
The first was virginal white lace, demure and cut high on the hip. The second was a brutalist arrangement of black leather straps that seemed to suggest rather than cover. The third was coral-pink silk, sheer and brief, with a little ribbon bow at the front.
“You choose,” she said, turning to face him. “What do you want your wife to wear under her dress tonight? What secret will you be thinking of while you’re here, alone?”
He stared. The white was a lie. The black was a challenge. The pink was a whispered joke. His finger touched the silk. “This,” he said, his voice rough.
“Excellent choice. Saucy but sweet. Confusing.” She stepped into the delicate garment, the fabric dissolving against her skin. “Now the dress.”
These were not sweet. A sliver of red sequins. A black velvet bandage. A emerald green slip that looked poured on. She held them up, one by one. “The red is obvious. The black is wicked. The green… the green is knowing.”
“The green,” he said, immediately.
“You’re learning,” she grinned. She slipped the dress over her head; it clung to every curve, the satin whispering secrets as she moved. She sat at her vanity, applying makeup with swift, sure strokes. Finally, she took a tube of lipstick, uncapping it with a definitive click. It was the colour of arterial blood.
She applied it, blotting her lips on a tissue. She turned to him, a vision of vibrant, dangerous beauty. “Come here.”
He approached. She grabbed the back of his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him. It was a messy, possessive kiss, the new lipstick transferring, slick and waxy. Her other hand grabbed his arse, squeezing hard, pulling him against her. He could feel the faint ridge of the coral silk through the satin dress.
She released him, leaving him breathless and marked. His lips felt bizarre, sticky. She examined her handiwork, smirking at the crimson smudge on his mouth. “A little keepsake,” she said. “A reminder of what I’m wearing, and where I’m going, and who I might be.”
A soft ping came from her phone on the dresser. She glanced at it. “My chariot awaits.” She smoothed the dress, spritzed perfume at her throat—a cloud of tuberose and dark amber—and headed for the stairs.
Bewildered, he followed. In the drive, idling silently, was a long, black Mercedes with tinted windows. No driver got out.
Margot opened the front door, the winter chill rushing in. She turned, her eyes glinting with the same mischief they’d held when she’d first presented the little locked cage. She leaned in, her lips brushing his smudged ones.
She slipped out, the door closing softly behind her. The car’s passenger door opened as she approached. From where Rupert stood, frozen in the hall, he could see nothing of the interior, only a dark rectangle. Margot slid in without a backward glance. The door thunked shut. The Mercedes purred away down the lane, its red tail lights vanishing into the gathering dusk.
The house was silent, save for the thump of his own heart. He walked slowly back to the living room. The fire crackled. The nude WI calendar stared down, its gold stars winking. He touched his sticky, red-stained lips. He had chosen the underwear, the dress. But he had no idea who had sent the car, or where it was taking her. The ghost of a secret pussy had been joined by the solid, terrifying reality of a secret car. The game, it seemed, had drivers he hadn’t even met.