The sound of people having sex wafts down from above.
I don’t know whose room it is, or who the inhabitants are, but between the roaring fire and the Christmas music, it doesn’t matter. The mistletoe is hung and doing its job, and the candles throughout the house remind us that the darkest day of the year also implies the coming of the light.
She’s sitting across the room on a low velvet couch holding a glass of champagne with lipstick on the rim. Her hair, her smile, and her neck are familiar, but the look in her eyes is new.
They glimmer with a happiness that I rarely saw, and it makes my heart ache with both joy and regret.
Later in the evening, as Patrick Kingsley recites A Child’s Christmas in Wales by memory, she comes and sits on my lap. We listen wordlessly for long and beautiful minutes as the vivid imagery sings to me.
Nostalgia hurts in the right way, and she squeezes my hand as if she knows it too.
Upstairs, I find her leaning on a door frame, her long dress caressing the floor. The bed inside is ruffled and unmade; the smell of cinnamon and apples doesn’t cover the memory of sex.
“You look hungry,” she says. “Was that you earlier?”
“You mean the sounds? Oh god, no. I’m here alone.”
“Me too,” she says as we step into the room and close the door behind us. She always knew how to ask the right questions at the right time. A gift from her mother, she said.
“You look happy. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you look so happy.”
She shrugs, sits down on the bed, and runs a hand over the sloppy sheets. The ring on her finger shines brightly as downstairs someone begins to sing Oh Holy Night.
She waves me to her with one finger, and I follow on pure instinct.
When she undoes my pants, I close my eyes and listen to the music, because it must be a dream. She’s too happy, too settled, and too important to make a mistake like me.
“You still have a nice cock,” she whispers before taking me into her mouth.
From there, it’s a frantic race without thought. She uses her lips and her tongue for brief moments before I’m on her with hands beneath her dress as I struggle to find something to remove.
“I thought you might be here,” she says when I find nothing.
She ignores my raised eyebrow as she pulls me to her, and I kiss her gently until I feel teeth. Everything returns in a breath, and without another second to think, I have her hands pinned above her head as I kneel between her legs.
I tease her for long moments, as downstairs, a grateful chorus is raised. She arches her back, her legs spread wide apart as she whimpers and whines, the head of my cock pressed against her clit.
“Beg,” I demand, wondering if for it’s kink or necessity.
“Fuck me, you bastard. Fuck me hard.”
I have no grave self-satisfaction as I thrust into her, but I do remember, and my god, is it good. I take her and kiss her, feeling her old familiar body beneath me, and in a moment of angry glory, I wonder if I can fuck the happiness from her eyes.
Her face grows red, her wrists still struggle, and as the music grows slower and more somber, I stop thinking and only feel: her cunt, her resistance, her breath, her hair, her regret.
Oh, night divine, I think as I let go, coming within her as I’ve done so many times in the past. She grows limp beneath me, and I release my grasp and kiss her cheek in attempted affection. When I feel her arms wrap around me, I lie still, and for a long while, we’re both there, both holy, and both somewhere between the humanity and the divinity that define the night.
Later, when she sits up and brushes down her dress, I can’t resist asking.
“You look so happy. Why this? Why me?”
Downstairs someone starts drunkenly singing FairyTale of New York, and instead of getting thrown out, I hear a chorus of voices join in. The smell of the fire is scotch and cedar, and the warmth rises.
“I am happy,” she says.
She stands and walks towards the door, resuming her position of thoughtful observation. “But it’s Christmas, and happiness isn’t everything. You should know that.”
I nod and follow her downstairs, although I don’t understand anything. We’re quickly swept into the crowd, the chorus bursting from our lips as someone hands us drinks. I lose her to candlelight and dancing––the room spins from love more than liquor.
Oh, night divine, I think again as I find a corner and a chair.
Oh, night divine.