A Family's Christmas Stockings

Author's Note: This is a 2013 Winter Holiday Contest submission, so please vote. Your comments are also greatly appreciated--I would love to hear from you. Thank you again for reading.

Prologue

They were both in their pantyhose, still holding each other as she awoke.

She looked at him in the dim morning light. Christmas morning. How could she have ever imagined it would be like this? Even a few days ago, she never saw it coming.

She felt so safe and warm and good in bed, his body against hers as they spooned. She felt something hard press against her. She knew what it was, of course. It had been inside her quite a bit recently, after all. She could still feel his seed inside her. He'd gotten quite adept at tearing a narrow hole in her hose, and then fucking her through them. As a matter of fact, he wasn't the only one that had gotten good at that. And she wasn't the only one that had gotten good at receiving cock that way.

But for the moment, there was simply him. She turned around, and facing him cupped her hand and stroked his nylon encased balls with one hand. With the other, she stroked his morning wood even harder through the material.

His eyes fluttered. He wasn't fully awake, but it was as though his cock pulled the rest of his body. He rolled on top of her.

"That's it, baby. Fucking do it again. You know what I want."

He did. Even half asleep he knew, because he needed it too.

He freed his dick from his pantyhose, pulling down the front of his waistband. She wrapped her own nylon clad legs around his ass.

"That's it. Put it in my pussy. I need an early morning Christmas gift." He pushed his cock inside her wet slit, and she breathed in sharply. "Tell me how much you need this, baby."

"I need it so much," he said. "I need to keep fucking Mommy's pussy.

***

December 22

"They upped the accumulation totals again," Jessica Hollings said as she checked her iPhone.

Her brother was driving them along the winding road leading to their parents' house. Pewter colored clouds blanketed the afternoon sky ahead of the coming storm. "How much now?" Chad asked.

Three days ago, the nor'easter was still being projected to head out to sea. Now its track had shifted hard inland, and weathermen were starting to call it the storm of the decade.

"Over two feet in the city."

"It'll be worse out here," he said. "Best Christmas vacation ever."

They were both college students, albeit attending schools on different sides of the country. They'd timed it so they'd both arrive at JFK at the same time, then take a car up to deepest, darkest upstate together.

"It'll be nice to have a white Christmas."

"Assuming mom and dad are speaking to one another."

"They'll play nice around us, if nothing else. Besides, I'm kind of looking forward to being isolated from the outside world for a little while," Jessica said.

"Why's that? I'd have thought a freshman would be chomping at the bit to get back to the party."

"I'm sick of partying."

"You must have had a crazy first semester then," Chad said with a smile.

He'd meant it as a polite joke, and Jess understood that. But he was more right than he knew.

It wasn't that the first semester had been crazy, but that she had been, pursuing with reckless abandon all those supposed rights of passage that college--far more than the academics--is about these days: the campus party scene, getting drunk, having sex. With Jessica, those first two led inevitably to the last one.

Perhaps it was inevitable being on her own and having grown up on CW shows and old Sex and the City reruns. She was a biology major, and wondered now if those shows' messages weren't similar to viruses. If so, they'd infected her because she now saw how unconsciously she'd followed their script.

You had sex. A lot. With lots of different people. It was fun and exciting and no big deal.

The reality had been markedly different. She didn't feel very sexy or powerful or fulfilled walking home hung over after a hookup with some upperclassman she'd only met the night before. No, she felt empty and cheap, a cold ache in her that only deepened when he passed on her texts inviting him to grab coffee with her later that afternoon.

Which wasn't to say she didn't hear from him again. He'd text her telling her to come over to his apartment to hang out. It amazed her how happy she was to hear from him, as if the (drunken) decision to give him the gift of her virginity would be validated now that there was a continuing relationship.

Except it wasn't really either continuing or a relationship. It took her a couple more times of this routine to figure out that "hang out" was code for "use her for sex" and nothing more.

There had been others. Once you break the seal, why stop, right? Besides, doing it a lot just reinforced that sex wasn't that big a deal.

Her body had seemed to agree. It started to crave sex, from that wonderful, tiny hurt of first penetration, to the warm fullness of having him fully in, to the rush at the end as she was being jackhammered by his cock as he could no longer contain himself. It helped justify that she was doing this for recreation, and nothing more. It made it easy to accept the late night booty text, and not expect anything meaningful after he emptied his load into the condom.

Seven. Seven dicks inside her in the four months she'd been at school.

There came a morning in the middle of finals when she was staring at herself in her dorm's mirror.

She was a pretty if not beautiful girl with strawberry blond hair, smooth skin, and a dynamite smile. Tall and thin, like her mother there was more leg than anything else to her. She dressed nice, preferring skirts and dresses even when going to an early morning class when most girls on campus were content bumming around in pajama pants and sweatshirts. The kind of a girl a man should want to keep, in other words.

So why was she alone? Why, after letting all those men fuck her, had none of them invited her to visit during Christmas vacation? Or even mentioned seeing her when next semester began? Or at least sent her a text wishing her good luck on her exams?

In her reflection, she noticed a weariness--a disappointment--in her eyes that didn't belong in a girl still so young. And seeing it, she realized that while her body may have craved sex, she herself wanted something more: simply someone that loved her.

Being home would be a chance to regroup. Get away from the parties, alcohol, and texts. She hoped she'd be able to pull herself together before she went back. She wanted to be more than just a slut passed between men who didn't really give a damn about her.

Maybe the storm would help. After all, isolation helped protect fragile things. On islands, it allowed new and exotic life forms to thrive where otherwise they'd have been snuffed out. Perhaps it would be the same for her, allow a new her to emerge. In that way, maybe the storm could be a kind of Christmas miracle.

She hoped. She so desperately hoped.

"Yeah, this past semester was something I'll never forget. What about you? You must be having a good time at school to be so down on coming back home," Jessica said, trying to get the subject away from herself.

Beyond the road ahead of him, Chad could see gray, rolling hills. A few flurries began to fall. He spared a glance over at his sister. Or rather, what she wearing.

Jess had inherited a fashion preference for skirts over jeans from their mother. Which in turn meant they both wore hosiery a lot. His sister was wearing a pair of jet black hose now, contrasting nicely with her tan boots.

This bugged him. Always had. For as long as he could remember, Chad had had a pantyhose fetish.

He couldn't remember when it started or what incident had forever fused nylon stockings with sex in his mind. The fact that his mother and sister wore them a lot, however, seemed both a likely and troubling root cause. In high school he had masturbated on pairs stolen from the both of them, and the disgust he'd felt with himself after he climaxed on them continued to be felt all these years later.

Chad regarded his fetish as crippling as being born with a disability that forever held him back. Like his father--or more accurately, like his father had once been--Chad was a visionary programmer. Or almost was. He could never quite realize the breakthrough he felt was somewhere just beyond his reach.

In computer systems, if you have a useless program that sucks up a lot of memory running in the background, it slows the machine's function. Always on guard, always hiding his fetish from those that knew him, Chad wondered if all that wasted mental energy was why he never seemed quite able to live up to his potential.

It transcended mere work, though. Tall, handsome and intelligent, he sometimes marveled at how much he had going for him, and how it seemed all undone by his recurring thought: I'm a pervert.

The thing about any fetish is that if its "carrier" isn't comfortable with it--refuses to embrace it--he rejects a crucial part of himself. It's not too far from there to simply start hating yourself, a small step that Chad had long ago taken.

He hated that he needed them being worn by his partner to enjoy sex, otherwise it was a more of a chore performed with an only semi-functioning tool. Women aren't stupid, of course--they can sense with an uncanny ability when something is wrong. The few girls he'd confided what he liked had been surprisingly willing to accommodate him. At first, at any rate. Eventually, it seemed like they all began to ask him if it was really them he loved, or the nylons they were wearing.

If that was the way things inevitably went, how worse would it have gone if he'd admitted to any of them that he wanted to wear them as well? It's hard to overstate the pain of wondering if you're ever going to get so yawning a need met by a real person, or if it'd just going to be your hand and a high speed internet connection forever.

Chad's most recent relationship had ended in an argument that began when she'd tried to initiate wearing a negligee that would have been sexy to anyone besides him. She could tell he wasn't that into it, but when the inevitable question arose about whether he loved her or the hose, he was unusually candid: "I love you, and I need you to love it as much as me." That hadn't been the answer she was looking for.

Given his mother and daughter's fashion preferences, it would be impossible not to be reminded both of why he was alone, and all it had cost him.

Of course he didn't tell this to Jess, saying instead, "Yeah, things have been going great out west. I guess I just would have preferred staying out there, keeping up the momentum."

Jessica looked at him. "You're lying," she said.

He almost laughed at how transparent he was. But at least she couldn't guess the exact truth. "You're right," he said simply.

As they continued down the darkening road, Chad found himself thinking about Christmas miracles. He wished something would fix him or at least ease his self-loathing, but doubted very much he would find it snowed in with his family.

Flurries began to fall.

***

"The kids will be here in a little bit! I just received a text from Chad!" Rachael Holloway shouted over the sound of incoming small arms fire and exploding RPG's.

Her husband Gene was downstairs in the media room. With stadium seating, a wide, hi-def protection screen, surround sound, and recently added 3D capacity, the room had been meant as the family's private movie theatre when the home was built back in 2001. Even before the kids had left for college, however, it had devolved into Gene's personal Xbox room.

He was playing it now. On the screen, his SEAL team was meeting heavy resistance as they moved up the streets of Fallujah.

"What?" he shouted back, not looking at her.

"The kids will be here soon! Oh, fuck this," Rachael said, walking to the front of the room where the Xbox sat neatly next to several other game consoles, she hit its power button.

"What the fuck?" he said, the room suddenly quiet.

"Jess and Chad will be here shortly. You know, for Christmas. Where we, say, interact as a family, as opposed to hiding from life playing video games."

Gene got out of the middle row's center, cushioned chair, walked over to her. He was a tall man and decently built. Though she held her ground at his advance, her heart beat did pick up at his approach. Being rich meant he could spend his time doing whatever he wanted. Anymore this consisted mostly of video games, but also lifting.

He slowed, however, as he approached. In a calm voice he said, "I know family is important. I manage our money. I've grown our investments. It's because of me the kids can attend college debt free."

"It's because of something you did over a decade ago! What have you done recently? You could be doing so much more with your life--with our lives!"

He sighed. She was right, of course. He had been coasting for years now. And every day, the apathetic momentum gained speed with him. "We have more than most. This house alone--"

She cut him off. "A house you never leave! I'm the one that drove thirty miles to the nearest store and back to get supplies for the blizzard while you spent the morning screwing off."

"I leave the house all the time."

"Going for runs on property you own doesn't count! It's like saying the people you play your shooter games against counts as social interaction!"

"It counts in my book."

"You're not engaged in anything--not with life, not with your kids, certainly not with me. Christ, when was the last time we had sex? At least pretend like you give a damn about something besides a high score. Acting like you care that our kids are on the road would be a good start."

She was provoking him. She was always trying to provoke. Part of her almost wished he'd get upset and overturn furniture or punch through walls. At least that would mean there was still some energy inside of him.

His face was red, and she thought this might be the moment.

But no. He turned from her, picked up another remote control. In a small corner of the screen, images from the house appeared. The image cycled through exterior shots of the house--with the sun having set they were in night vision. Then the images moved to the house's hallways, living room, kitchen, indoor pool, gym--even the media room they were presently in--before stopping on a scene of the front door.

"There. Now I'll see them when they come in," he said, then powered the Xbox back on.

She picked up a game controller laying on the floor and threw it at him. It beaned him in the head. Maybe that would get a reaction.

"Glad you're getting into the Christmas spirit too," he said, rubbing his bruising forehead before turning back to the booting up game.

She stomped up the stairs, knowing on some level that the fact that she was angry was probably a good thing. Anger meant there was still emotion there, that she at least still cared.

And she cared because she understood.

Gene Holloway had been a brilliant coder when they'd first met. His intensity and passion had been what had attracted her most--it certainly hadn't been his money because he didn't have any when they first met. But they married scandalously young, had Chad within first year as man and wife.

Years before Facebook or YouTube, he'd come up with a video sharing platform, and sold it to a Silicon Valley company for stock options. When he was permitted to cash them in several months later, suddenly he was worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

Then, exactly two weeks later, the dot-com bubble had burst. Within a few months, the stock he'd sold had become worthless. He had dodged the bullet, gotten out at exactly the right time.

And it had scared Gene to death. The difference between success and failure had not been all the hard work he'd put into the technology, but stupid, blind chance.

He'd ripped his family out of California and moved it up into the rural New York where he'd grown up. Here he had bought a hundred acres and built his high tech castle, and hidden from the world ever since. The exciting man she'd known--passionate and possessive about both his work and of her--had disappeared.

When was the last time they'd had sex? Weeks. When was the last time they'd had filthy, hot sex? Probably about the same time he'd given up on life. It was hard to overstate how much she missed that Gene Holloway, how much she longed for his return.

At the top of the stairs, she looked down the hall to see his study's closed door. It was the one room in the house that was locked to her. He still went in there from time-to-time. Rachael hoped he was working on something, but it wouldn't have surprised her to learn that all he did in there was masturbate or buy 80's toys on eBay.

The house--villa, really--that Gene had built included an indoor pool which was essentially their home's heart. It was modest at 12' x 28', but jets on one end allowed Rachael to swim "laps" in place. The pool was surrounded by an interior courtyard, rising two stories up. The upstairs bedroom had balconies opening onto the atrium. Christmas lights adorned those balconies now, their multicolored bulbs glowing warmly. Large panes of glass held in place by a latticework of wrought iron formed a skylight ceiling reminiscent of a Victorian conservatory.

Conservatory was appropriate. The pool was kept warm, and the atrium itself could sometimes feel like a sauna. Fountains trickled here and there amidst the trees and plants that lined the walls of the courtyard's first floor. In a house that was so separate from everything else already, this room could make one feel as though they were on another continent.

Whenever she was angry, Rachael would swim her stationary laps in the pool. She was angry a lot, which while it had fouled her marriage had at least helped keep her in exquisite shape.

There was a changing room immediate off the pool area. She quickly shucked off her blouse, then unhooked and slipped out of her black bra. Her wool skirt slid off her nylon covered legs, and hitching her thumbs into the waistband she peeled off her pantyhose as well.

She quickly put on a swimsuit from a drawer, and tossed her clothes on a deckchair by the pool. The warm water was a relief, easing some of the tension she felt in her shoulders and calves. Her wet auburn hair looked black once wet. The windows high above her were covered in condensation. Her hands drifted down to her waist, then to the interior of her thighs. She lightly touched her bathing suit where it covered her pussy. She relaxed some more. Her workout could wait. It wouldn't be the first time she'd gotten herself off in here. It wouldn't even be the first time this week.

And as her fingers pushed aside her bathing suit's crotch to give complete access to herself, Rachael imagined giving herself completely to a man. Someone with passion and intensity, someone with strength sufficient to impose his will on her. She imagined the pleasure it would give her, knowing that she was the object by which such a man himself derived pleasure. Being used as his vessel. She longed for that as she massaged her clit beneath the water, biting her lip as pleasure began to move through her body in waves. If her husband was that man, as he once had been, so much the better. If not, in her fantasies she found herself increasingly open to something new.

Above her, snow began to slowly fall onto the atrium's glass roof.

***

It's going to be a long Christmas vacation, Chad thought.

It was a little before midnight, and Chad was sipping his beer as he sat in the darkened living room. The Christmas tree and fire that he'd built in the hearth were the room's only source of light now. Four kitschy, red, Santa stockings, each with a family member's name on it, hung over the fireplace. He glanced over at the large windows that looked over the vast property the house commanded. Even without the outdoor floodlights on, he could see the windswept snow falling steadily. The distant hills were already covered with a thin crust, and now shown dully silver on the horizon. The wind howled as it beat against their home.