The Patience of a Present

By TammyJo Eckhart

“It is a good thing I like tight spaces,” he thought to himself, “or this damn box would be unbearable. My own choice – I’m the fool who decided he’d be a surprise Yule gift – but still, how much longer until Mistress Lydia gets home?”  He adjusted his kneeling position.

Todd had gotten the box from work, from one of the new server racks that IT had installed this past week.  When he saw the large boxes he knew he had to have one, and frankly the difficulty hadn’t been in getting it; the difficulty had been getting it home, taking a taxi instead of the usual subway. He’d made sure he’d had enough wrapping paper squirreled away, and to set it all up he’d used their storage closet in the complex basement that she never ventured down to.  He’d used tissue paper of the same basic color as the wrapping paper to cover his breathing holes, and then today when Mistress had confirmed that she wouldn’t be back until after 6 pm, he’d decided to go for the surprise.

Because of the holiday season, she was extra busy at the shop, while things were winding down where he worked. This gave him plenty of time to get the box, get it set up in front of the tree, and get dressed. He wasn’t the present; the outfit he was wearing was – it was one of several for her; the others were lodged around his feet in smaller boxes. There was also an annual pass to a spa she loved, a gift certificate for a weekend at a B&B they’d stayed at a few weeks back, a gift card to Macy’s with a note that he’d “attend and carry” for her that day, and three gift cards to her favorite chocolate shops in the city with similar notes from him in his best handwriting.

At a kink community potluck a few weeks back, he’d heard his mistress and a couple of other women talking about the lack of sexy things for men to wear compared to women. They didn’t mean fetish garb, either, and suits weren’t the same as lingerie. From eavesdropping he’d determined what might qualify as sexy by Lydia’s standards and set about trying to find it. There were a lot of sexy clothes out there for men, but apparently you had to look for them in the more upscale or gay sections of the metro area. Neither was a problem for him, so he’d taken two days of built-up overtime to go out and look.

Two of the three outfits he’d bought were wrapped and cushioning his knees and back currently, while he was wearing the third. This was a silk pajama set with a color she’d said brought out his eyes. The pants were snug but not overly so, with the front closed by a braided tie. The top had two pieces: a sleeveless tunic that only fell to the edge of his butt and a short robe that could be tied two ways to expose more or less of his chest.

Just as he was cursing at the burning of his thighs from his kneeling position, he heard the door being unlocked, then opened and closed.

“Todd!”

“In the front room, Mistress!” he called back through the box.

He heard the clumping sound of her boots with an accompanied “What’s wrong with your voice?” before the sounds stopped and her steps brought her to the box itself.

“Are you in this box?”

“Yes, Mistress! Blessed Yule!”

“You are crazy,” she tsked him as she fiddled with the lid, then lifted it off. She peered down at him as he tilted his head up to smile at her. “And how do we get you out now?”

“Ribbon on the left and right side – if you pull it the side should fall down, but you’ll want to back up a bit,” he offered.

She reached in and pulled the right-hand ribbon, then moved around to be on the side of the box when she released the left one. As he’d hoped, the front panel of the box fell down with a whoosh of air. “This is a new way to offer yourself to me,” Mistress Lydia agreed as he stood up and stepped out, careful not to damage the boxes.

“I’m not the present, Mistress – these are,” he offered, motioning to the pajamas with his hand and the boxes now behind him with a foot.

“You’re not the present?” she asked with a giggle and scooped up several of the boxes into her arms.

“Can’t really be a present, since you already own me,” he chuckled, now a bit worried that his plan had been a miscalculation.

She stood up, the wrapped boxes in her arms, and tilted her head at him. “Of course you can. You gift yourself to me every time you obey, every time you pleasure me, every time you stand for a flogging. Not that I’m turning these down,” she added with another giggle before flopping on the couch.

“Thank you, Mistress,” Todd said as he sank to his knees in front of her.

She smiled and reached out to caress the robe and the vest visible under it. “You know, I need a table to set these on before I can open them.”

Without an order he bent down and arranged himself so that she could set the gifts on his back. “And the gift of foresight,” she whispered as she used him.