Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:52:03 -0500
From: Daniel Hall <dchdch@gmail.com>
Subject: My First Xmas Tree

There was something about a Christmas tree that I wanted that year.  I had
had enough of going to other people's homes and seeing them all decorated,
and then coming home to my home and having it bare.  It reminded me of the
fact that I had not ever had an Xmas tree of my own, in my own home, since I
had come out to my mother and been kicked out of the house in which I'd
grown up.  But if I were going to do this,  I'd do it my way.

I had a good friend, a man who'd talked about being my boy, but somehow
whenever we tried to start something up, it felt false.  I thought of him as
family, not as a fuck-buddy, and yet not as a partner either, but as soon as
I sat in my living room, picturing the tree in the corner, and imagining
decorating the house to match up to this celebration, in my own way, I saw
him here with me, helping to decorate the house -- naked; servile; lovely.

I didn't tell him what I had in mind.  I knew he'd go along with what I
wanted, since in fact he hadn't the reservations I had about us fucking.  He's
a bottom, what can I say:  they never know why something does or does not
succeed, how it happens the way it does.  (I speak from experience; I am
lost too when I bottom, somehow not aware of the simplest mechanisms by
which the top is manufacturing the experience, molding me.  Just
surrendering into his care.)

We had tried to hook up, but the most that had worked was to strip naked
with each other, a bit of body worship (we both enjoyed the other's body,
and there was real affection), and naked cuddling in my big log bed, or by
the campfire in a few camping trips we undertook.  But somehow I knew -- also
as a top does -- that this new image of a Christmas celebration could
definitely work, even though I didn't yet know how.

So I invited Adam to dinner.  I told him I'd be telling him what to do. I
told him that if he wanted to do this, he would follow my instructions, and
he could begin by cooking a Christmas pie.  He hesitated over the phone, and
then said yes, in a voice more throaty than it had just been.  I could feel
his smile (and his cock rising) over the phone.  I could feel his
excitement.  I decided I'd make him cook me a real large Xmas dinner, days
before the 25th, but with sensations that might last beyond into the family
holiday dinner I knew he'd have to attend later that week.

Of course, he'd have to do the shopping, so I told him that he'd be cooking
up a meal for me, and that we'd be decorating the tree.  I'm sure he had
some idea that I'd be playing with him as we went, but I doubt he figured
out what I'd do.  I didn't even know -- though I let visions of bondage and
piercing dance through my head -- how could he have?  (Shut up, bottoms:  I
don't want to hear it.)

Turkey. And stuffing.  And of course gravy.  All that was required, and on
the Saturday when we two were scheduled to have our night, the house was
filled with the smells of cooking, and of, what shall I say:  boyish
anticipation.  Oooo, Christmas was very alive in my household, for the first
time in a long while.

Adam arrived just before noon and began work. The previous day I had picked
out a tree and bought some decorations and hung some festive greenery around
the house. He had his own key and let himself in. I had slept in.  The first
thing he did was make some coffee and warm up some cinnamon rolls.  And he
brought them up to me in bed.

He was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, with a Christmas sweater of
red and green over it.  He had on loafers, just like Dads wear, and even a
cocky little elf's hat.  As he placed the tray down on my bedside table,
bending over, I told him I liked the outfit, but it'd be better if he lost
the jeans.  He did, standing there in only boxer shorts, and as much as I
liked that, I told him to remove those as well.  So he stood naked below the
waist, in a sweater above the waist, and loafers with Christmas socks on his
muscled shins.  (And the hat.  A nice floppy hat.)  Very nice.  I motioned
for the tray.  He turned around, switching his ass around for my amusement,
picked up the tray and put it on the bed beside me.  I motioned for him to
climb up next to it, so he did, on hands and knees beside me and the tray.  I
motioned for him to put his balls in my hand, which he did.  And then I told
him to sugar my coffee.  First he smirked, but under my Santa glare of
correction, he got to putting sugar in my drink and stirring it, as I played
with my newfound Christmas balls, making my boy toy whimper every so often
(O the sounds of suppressed anticipation and Christmas joy!).

As he finished with the coffee and I took a sip, I reached over to the
bedside table for a little tiny bell, which I tied to his elf's cap.  He
grinned huge.  Then I reached over to the bedside table for a nice little
ball stretcher, flashing traditionally silver in the warm winter's
lamplight, and clamped that on.  He groaned in pleasure; he and I both like
ball play.  His testicles dropped down under the weight.  I reached over to
the bedside table again and pulled out a nice big red ribbon, and tied it a
couple of times, tight, around his cock, so as to be a festive cockribbon,
and finally I reached over to the bedside table and got a larger bell,
clipping it to the ball stretcher so that it dangled down below.  He rang
and rung just like the sprightliest of eager reindeer as he got down off the
bed and stood with cock engorging and rosy cheeks of Xmas cheer to either
side of his grin, and I welcomed him to my home, thanking him for the
breakfast in bed.  I then pulled out a package from under the pillow and had
him open his first present, which he did, bells jangling with every move. In
it was an Xmas apron, just for my little homemaker, which I made him put on
immediately. It was green with cute reindeer embroidered on it, and had a
hole made just for his cock and balls to fit through, with a little red flap
to fall over top so that they wouldn't get burned when the cooking
spattered.  And then I dismissed him.

I listened to the tinkling bells descend the staircase and get busy in the
kitchen, and my cock rose with Christmas cheer to hear and feel and almost
taste the family fill the home.  Eventually I got up and got busy myself.  I
had to put the lights on the tree, and light up the fire in the woodstove.

Dinner was about 4pm, and Adam served me his meal, which I had helped with
all that afternoon -- or at least I called it helping; he might disagree that
it speeded up things at all; I enjoyed causing him delays, actually -- but
that is a story for another time.  And too, the images of Christmas joy I
have from that dinner, with candlelight and snow on the trees outside, as
this man I loved and delighted in served me sometimes on his knees beside
me, sometimes bound to the chair at the other end of my laden table, are
images I will have to tell you of some other time.  I want to tell you now
of decorating my Christmas tree, my good friend Adam and I, that snowy quiet
Solstice evening, as I reclaimed traditions for my own use, and my own boy.

For sometime that evening, Adam and I discovered that we were indeed a
leather family, and he my leather boy. That evening, the Light of dawning
creation occurred to us and we realized how we could do this, and do it in
our own way.  Bad a writer as I am, I don't think I can show you, but I can
stand to testify that in one small house in one small city in one small year
like many another year, two men found their way into new traditions which
felt old, and new love which felt like it had always been there.

After this build-up, you probably think we did mighty things, but it was the
small images I most wanted and remember.  I remember after eating most of
the dinner, we could not begin dessert.  I remember pushing back from the
table, with my boy, my Adam, kneeling by my side, and instructing him to
take off my boots and socks and massage my feet.  I remember ordering him to
bring me my pipe and tobacco.  I remember the heat building from the wood
stove, crackling quietly, so much so that I told him to remove his sweater
and shirt (his apron had come off, of course, before he sat down to dinner),
and saw his chest pressing out against his t-shirt.  And then I told him to
take that off too, and the socks and shoes, and quietly, my naked elf-boy
(for he kept the hat on), with strong shoulders there beneath me, massaged
my feet as I gazed at the leavings of the enormous meal he had created for
me.  Yes, I remember that moment.  Christmas is a celebration of wealth, and
I clearly had much to be thankful for.

After getting my pipe going, though, I wanted some brandy to go with it, and
got up to pour some.  There I stood, smoking my pipe, barefoot and
pleasantly horny, sipping some brandy, gazing at my naked tree.  Well, not
quite naked.  That afternoon, I had put the lights on it, but now I had the
job of decorating it in my way, with my boy at my disposal.  I listened to
the Christmas bells jingle behind me, and the plates clink, as Adam cleared
the dishes into the kitchen.  When I turned around, there was Christmas pie
and steaming coffee waiting, but what caught my eye most was the kneeling
man by the table.  So warm ... so loving ... so excellent.  How had it taken us
so long to find a way to love each other in this very real way?  How had I
let this society tell me that we were not a family, just as loving and
strong and excellent as any other?  The bloom of love and richness of which
this holiday is made thrilled me through and through and I had to have him
in my arms.

So I made him crawl.  Slowly.  Sensuously.  Across the floor to my feet, and
then up my legs, kissing the whole way, past my crotch, up my belly and
kissing my chest through the fabric of my shirt, until his arms reached up
around my shoulders and I grabbed him in my sweatered embrace:  bare skin
against scatchy wool.  He shivered.  I began to run my hands all over his
back.  He was no doubt precumming all over my slacks.  Then I began to slap
his ass affectionately.  His cock grew.  The bells of Christmas tied to his
cap and to his balls, rang with great joy.  His other set of cheeks turned
rosy under my palms.  And so I prepared him for work.

That night, by the light of the fire and of candles, and the singing of
songs from the radio; with the smells of a roast in the air, and almost shy
laughter from both of us, we decorated our tree.  I delighted in slapping
his balls and ass when I could, in hanging ornaments from clips I clipped to
his flesh:  his cock; his nipples, his earlobes (those tiny clamps from the
hardware store are so useful!).  I hung tinsel in his hair, both that of his
head and that above his cock.  I even tied some of it to his armpit hair,
and when that slipped out, clamped it there, so that his pits shone silver
as he clinked around, and I could pull at his hair wonderfully with these
silver tangles.  I swear the boy ended up decorated just as much as the
tree.  We stopped for slices of pie when we got hungry, and he swallowed my
warm Christmas piss when the coffee and brandy worked wonders in my belly.  All
this and more delighted us.  Finally, when my boy was stumbling around in
the midst of an endorphin haze, I pushed him to his knees there at the base
of the tree, his face in the presents we had piled there, and put the
nativity scene in front of him to arrange, and as he did so, placing the
holy sculptures of mother and father and child, of animals and wise men
gathered to witness new birth and holy happenings in the midst of shadowy
marginal spaces, I lubed up my new boy's ass and slowly pressed my cock up
into him.  He was crying by then; I think we both were.  I did not rush it.
There was no reason to hide it.  I loved my man beneath my first Christmas
tree, and he loved me back, in ways that our families probably never would
understand, but which were to us quite holy.

We understood that.  Somehow all our peoples who were somehow present in the
traditions of food and dining and decoration, in turkey and tobacco and
brandy and coffee and pie, in Christmas trees and even nativity scenes --
they understood too, not intellectually perhaps, but we could feel the
presence of these traditions affirming our unusual use of them, and I felt
my heart begin to open in understanding of what true inheritance is.  I was
not a violation of that from which I had come; neither was Adam.  Neither,
for that matter, was hot and holy sex (for though Mary may have been a
virgin, her union with God had been ecstatic, I am convinced).  Instead, in
that private family celebration, I opened up -- and looking into his eyes, I
realized Adam had opened up too -- to the possibility that this Light and
this birth and this holiday was ours too.

Not that night, but in the days that followed, as friends came to visit (and
Adam and looked smilingly on at them as they stood next to that tree, which
had different visions for us than for them), and as we negotiated the
holidays with our respective families, I think we both opened not only to
this holiday but to something far larger and yet more gentle too, a Light
that shone on us, but which neither of us has named for that would seem to
kill it.  We look into each other's eyes now, with great tenderness and not
a little fear at what wonderful thing seems to have been born that Christmas
day, fearful, almost of losing it.  Fearful too, quite, of grasping it and
depending upon it, perhaps.

But there'll be time enough for that.  For since that night, when we had
eaten all we could and decorated all we could, we climbed the stairs to bed,
and finally, after removing the ball weight and the bell, and washing my boy
down with warm water and a wash cloth, we together removed Adam's elf hat
and hung on the bedpost above our heads.  There it has stayed, and there it
will stay, for in some miraculous way, Adam and I can't seem to part now.  We
have many things to work out, but our coming together is no longer one of
those things.  We are not married partners, quite.  We are not fuck-buddies.
We are family, but in ways I don't think anyone else can understand.  This
is my home, and it is his too, and all the traditions of our lives support
it -- including the traditions of men fucking men.

Can't you hear Santa laughing with approval?