I know that meteorologists tend to consider that winter begins on the first day of December, but I’ve always felt that winter usually arrives about three weeks earlier than that. In my experience, somewhere towards the end of the first week in November is when the gloves and scarves come out.

And so when, on the evening of the 6th of November, my friend George phoned from Adelaide, Australia (where he now lives), and suggested that I go out there and spend a month or so watching cricket, I didn’t really need to give it too much thought. Summer Downunder. Cricket. The Ashes Series. England versus Australia. What was not to like about the idea?

‘Yes. I could do that,’ I said. ‘Now that I don’t have the business to worry about.’

‘If you get your skates on,’ George said, ‘we can catch the warm-up match, President’s Eleven or whatever; watch the First Test here in sunny Adelaide; and then nip down to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test.’

‘Done!’ I said.

When I told Anna, my Whitecliffs Hall neighbour and … umm … ‘special friend’, that I was going to join The Barmy Army out in Australia, she said: ‘Oh, that’s wonderful, Humphrey. What an excellent idea.’ But then, no sooner were the words out of her mouth than a look of horror fell across her face. ‘Oh, no. On second thoughts, it’s not wonderful at all. You’ll miss Christmas.’

I laughed. ‘I think it’ll be OK, Anna,’ I said, ‘I’m pretty sure that they celebrate Christmas out in Australia. It’s just that they celebrate it with a can of Fosters and barbie on the beach rather that with undercooked turkey and Brussels sprouts that have had the life boiled out of them.’

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘You’ll miss the Whitecliffs Hall Christmas – or at least you’ll miss the Whitecliffs Hall Christmas party.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Oh, stuff Christmas,’ she said. ‘But the Christmas party … that’s another story.’

‘Well … maybe next Christmas,’ I said.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to find a way around this. Let me think. Perhaps we can bring the date forward a bit. When do you leave?’

‘In about ten days’ time.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s probably not going to work then. The Smiths have a pre-Christmas family gathering out in Spain. But perhaps we can have two Christmas parties this year. Yes. Let me see what I can arrange.’

‘Well, I don’t want things messed up on my account,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t think it will be a question of “messed up”, she said. ‘Personally, I quite like the idea of two parties. Last year’s was a real humdinger.’ And she smiled that smile that I just knew signified that copious amounts of gin had been consumed and more would be required this year. ‘Yes. Just leave it with me for a day or two,’ she said.

Two days later, Anna was once again knocking on my door. She was also carrying a bottle of Tanqueray. ‘It’s sorted,’ she said. ‘We are going to have a pre-Christmas-party Christmas party. It won’t be a full muster, I’m afraid. But, as you said, there will always be next year. We can think of this year’s pre-party as a sort of undress rehearsal.’

I glanced at my watch. It was almost five-thirty. ‘I suppose it is almost that time, isn’t it?’ I said, nodding in the direction of the bottle of Tanqueray that she had now placed on the little side table in my entrance hall.

‘Well, just a quick one,’ she said. ‘I have my niece coming over this evening. Her father thinks it is time that someone instructed her. She’s 22 and never been kissed. Well … I’m sure that she has been kissed. In a perfunctory manner. But her father’s pretty sure that she’s never been kissed down there where it counts. Her dear mother died when Gillian was only 15. Didn’t get an opportunity to bring her up to speed. Her father thinks that I – as her closest female relative – should take her under my wing, so to speak. Broaden her horizons. Open her mind to a few carnal possibilities.’

‘Right.’ I had to admit that I could think of worse teachers than Anna. ‘I’ll … umm … just get some glasses,’ I said. I also got some ice and some tonic.

‘So … do you have a plan?’ I asked when I returned.

Anna smiled and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Umm … a plan? No. Not as such. I think I shall just have to make it up as we go along,’ she said. ‘There may have to be alcohol involved. Also, while she’s a bit taller than I am, she is probably not that different in her other vital statistics. I was thinking that, after a cocktail or two, we might try a bit of girlish dressing up. Get her to try on a few things.’

‘A few of your more interesting undergarments?’ I said.

Anna laughed her naughty laugh. ‘That would be my aim,’ she said. ‘But, as I say, we shall have to see how we go.’

‘Well, good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ And then she smiled and said: ‘Actually, I am quite looking forward to the challenge.’ And she put down her glass, lifted the front of her skirt, spread her legs slightly, and ran an extended finger along her cuntal valley. I couldn’t see if she was wearing a corselet. But she certainly canlı bahis şirketleri wasn’t wearing any knickers. ‘Yes. Just talking about it is getting me started,’ she said. ‘If we had a little more time, I might invite you to finger fuck me. But, alas …’

Anna rearranged her skirt, sculled what was left of her gin and tonic, gave me a quick kiss, and headed for the door. ‘Oh … and the party-party. I almost forgot. This Saturday. Curtain goes up at seven sharp. Usual rules. OK? Now … wish me luck with young Gillian.’ And she was gone.

I met up with Anna the following day – in our little local supermarket. ‘Just a few essentials,’ she said when I glanced into her trolley. There was Tanqueray. And there was Tanqueray. And there were lemons.

‘Tonic?’ I said.

‘Oh, yes. I knew I’d forgotten something.’

‘And how did you get on with your niece?’ I asked, lowering my voice.

‘Gillian? A great success. Of course, she had no real idea of the purpose of her visit. She thought that she was just having a little light supper with her dotty aunt.

‘We had a glass or two of wine. And we had a bite to eat. And during the course of our conversation, she happened to mention that she had been invited to a swish cocktail party but she was finding it difficult to find something suitable to wear. She’s a student and her budget doesn’t quite run to designer cocktail frocks. A friend had offered to lend her a little black dress, but it was a size or two too small. “I’m sure I can find you something,” I said. And, ten minutes later, we were going through my wardrobe – which, as you know, is more than adequately furnished with cocktail dresses of one sort or another.’

‘And you were able to find something?’

Anna smiled. ‘Well … yes. But that was only the beginning. That was just the icing on the cake, so to speak.’

I laughed. ‘And a good building is only as good as its foundations,’ I suggested.

‘Exactly. A corselet for all occasions. She was a little bit nervous about the idea of an open-fronted style initially – especially when I insisted that it should be worn without knickers. But we got there in the end. And, Humphrey, you will be pleased to know that she is a Hairy Mary. A little too hairy, I thought. A bit of a wild and woolly Mary. But while we were making other adjustments, I was able to persuade her to let me give her a bit of trim. I don’t think that it will be too long before she gets kissed “down where it matters” as her father so aptly put it.’

On Friday afternoon, Anna called by with a large bag of lemons. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Life has given you lemons and now we are going to make lemonade.’

‘Humphrey, we have a bit of a problem,’ she said. ‘Everyone in The Hall seems to be going down with some dreadful flu bug. And we can’t have you joining their ranks. As well as the party tomorrow night, you have to fly all the way to Australia. We need to start packing some vitamin C into you. And we need to start now.’

I took a deep breath, checking for signs of congestion. ‘I feel OK,’ I said.

‘Yes. But we can’t take any risks,’ Anna said. ‘The juice of two lemons; a spoonful of honey; and a splash of gin. Sip, and repeat every two hours. That should do the trick.’

‘Are you going to join me?’

‘Umm … I’ll join you for the first one,’ she said. ‘And then I think that you had better go and lie down. We need you in tip top condition tomorrow.’

I’m not sure if the lemon worked or not, but I woke up on Saturday morning feeling as if Spring had sprung twice in the same year. I spent the morning doing chores, and an hour or so of the afternoon napping. And then, at seven o’clock on the dot, I knocked on Anna’s door. Anna answered, looking fabulous – except for a frown.

‘Well … the bug has done its worst,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid it is just you and me, Humphrey.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘looking on the bright side, at least your “cure” seems to have worked for us. I don’t think I have felt this healthy for … well … years.’

‘Humphrey, you are such a dear boy,’ she said. ‘I am almost tempted to invite you to take me up the arse here and now, without further ado. But first I think that we should have a small gin and tonic. You never know, one of the others might have made a remarkable late recovery.’

Anna poured a couple of her stiff G and Ts, and we were just raising our glasses in a toast when her phone rang. ‘Oh,’ she said, as she looked at the display on her phone.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’ And then after a bit of a pause: ‘Oh. Yes. Yes, that’s wonderful, darling. We shall be waiting. Wonderful.’ And she smiled.

‘Well, well,’ she said as she returned her phone to its charger, ‘we are going to have some company.’

‘Oh? Someone has made a recovery?’

‘Umm … not so much a recovery as a giant leap forward,’ Anna said.

I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘A giant leap forward?’

‘You’ll see,’ she said. ‘Now … where were we?’

‘I canlı kaçak iddaa think we were just about to drink a toast to the spirit of Christmas.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘To Tanqueray. And all those who sail in her.’

‘Cin, cin. To Tanqueray.’

It was clear that Anna was not going to share with me who had phoned or who would be joining us. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop smiling. And she couldn’t stop muttering ‘Well, well. Who would have thought?’ And, occasionally, ‘Well, well, well.’

We chatted on and sipped our gin, and then, after about 15 minutes, there was the faint sound of a car door followed by an intercom chime as someone pressed the downstairs doorbell.

‘Come on up,’ Anna said, pressing the door release key.

I was intrigued. It appeared that our mystery guest was not someone from within the Hall, not one of our Whitecliffs neighbours.

Anna went and opened the door. ‘Hello, darling,’ she said even before anyone appeared. ‘I’m so glad that you decided to come.’ And then she was hugging and kissing a young woman in a three-quarter-length coat. ‘Come on in and meet Humphrey. Humphrey,’ Anna said, ‘may I present my favourite of all favourite nieces? Gillian, this is Humphrey.’

The young woman frowned briefly and then smiled. ‘I believe that I am in fact your only niece, Anna,’ she said.

‘And all the more favourite because of it,’ Anna told her.

‘How do you do, Gillian,’ I said.

Even without the introduction, I think that I would have recognised Gillian. She was a younger, taller version of Anna.

‘Let me take your coat,’ Anna said. ‘And, Humphrey, perhaps you could do the honours with the gin bottle.’

As I poured Gillian a G and T, I was not totally surprised to see that, under her coat, she was wearing one of Anna’s cocktail dresses. And while the dress unquestionably suited Anna, it may have suited Gillian even better. On Anna, the dress was sort of knee-length; on the taller Gillian, the dress ended a good hand’s span above her knees, offering a tantalising glimpse of her thighs.

‘Canapés,’ Anna said. ‘I almost forgot.’ And she disappeared off in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Cin cin,’ I said, raising my glass.

‘Cheers,’ Gillian said.

I had made Gillian’s drink a little less robust than I suspect Anna would have made it, but Gillian still blinked after her first sip. ‘Gosh,’ she said.

‘I think your aunt may have got me into bad habits,’ I said.

Gillian laughed and then looked around the room. ‘This retrofit has been very sympathetically done, hasn’t it? The proportions. The materiality.’

‘I suppose it has,’ I said.

‘I think Charles Claxton would have approved.’

‘Charles Claxton?’

‘The original architect.’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course. You’re well informed,’ I said.

‘I’m studying architecture. We considered several of Claxton’s built spaces in our first year,’ Gillian said. ‘He had a near-perfect sense of proportion.’

And then Anna returned with a couple of ornate salvers laden with delicious-looking finger food.

‘Well, well, you have been busy,’ I said.

‘I had some help from the chaps at the village deli,’ Anna conceded. ‘But I can lay claim to the gravadlax. The recipe was handed down by my Swedish grandmother. Although I have used gin rather than vodka in the curing process. Specifically, Tanqueray gin.’

‘But of course,’ I said. ‘How could it be otherwise?’

While Gillian and I tried a little of Anna’s home-cured gravadlax (and it was excellent!), I noticed that Anna sneakily splashed a little more gin into Gillian’s glass. I could see Anna’s plan: the sooner that she could get Gillian ‘up to speed’, the sooner that Anna could break out her own exhibitionist streak and everything that followed, as inevitably night follows day. Interestingly, I’m also pretty sure that Anna had turned the heating up a notch or two. The room was certainly getting warm.

‘This gravadlax is excellent,’ I said.

Anna smiled. Graciously. ‘I think you should try an oyster or two,’ she said. ‘A little extra lead in the pencil perhaps?’ And she nodded, ever so discreetly, in Gillian’s direction. Could I be so bold as to hope, I wondered.

‘Did you realise that Gillian has studied the chap who designed Whitecliffs Hall?’ I asked.

‘No, I didn’t,’ Anna said. And, turning to Gillian, Anna asked: ‘And is this a good example of his oeuvre?’

‘One of the finest,’ Gillian said. ‘In my opinion. But then I think I’m a bit of a fan of well-proportioned restrained elegance.’

Anna smiled and leapt at the opportunity. ‘A bit like the effects of a well-designed corselet,’ she said.

Gillian frowned slightly. And then she took a deep sip of her G and T. And then she smiled. Nervously. ‘Umm … yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I suppose there are similarities.’

‘Humphrey is a fan of a well-designed corselet,’ Anna said. ‘Open-fronted, of course.’

Gillian smiled.

‘Why don’t you show Humphrey your early Christmas present?’ canlı kaçak bahis Anna said.

As I said, the room was definitely getting warmer. But I’m not sure that that was the reason that Gillian flushed slightly.

‘You mean …?’

‘I do, darling,’ Anna said. ‘It would be a shame to keeps something so beautiful hidden away.’

Gillian took another deep sip of her G and T. I sensed that she was teetering on the point of making a decision. Would she? Or wouldn’t she?

‘Let me help you,’ Anna said. And, before Gillian had a chance to accept or decline, Anna was lowering the zip at the back of Gillian’s dress. ‘There you are,’ Anna said. ‘I shall leave the rest up to you.’

Whether Gillian was hesitating or teasing, I could not be sure. But, for a long moment (or two), she just stood there, looking at me with faint smile. And then she put her drink down on the side table, leaned towards me slightly, and shrugged her shoulders. Her cocktail dress (well, Anna’s cocktail dress really, but still … ) started to peel away from her generously proportioned breasts and I got my first glimpse of her ‘early Christmas present’.

The navy blue shoulder straps were sturdy. They had clearly been designed to provide adequate support for what I believe the late Dudley Moore (or was it Peter Cook?) described as ‘ample busty substance’. As Gillian lowered her shared dress still further, I got an unobstructed view of the elegant navy blue cups that contained the actual busty substance (and I assure you that it was appropriately ample). The cups themselves were constructed of a satiny material – no doubt reinforced in some clever way – and they were decorated with paler blue scattered flowers.

As the dress continued its decent to the floor, I was able to observe that the undergarment’s side panels were also cut from a fabric of the paler blue. ‘Very nice,’ I heard myself saying. And then, as the dress completed its descent, I was able to gaze upon the full picture. Panels of darker blue and lighter blue lace and satin and Lycra, were perfectly enhancing what was already a delicious figure. And then there was the arched lower hem framing Gillian’s beautiful hair-covered mound. Oh yes. ‘Beautiful,’ I said. ‘Beautiful.’

Anna agreed. ‘Isn’t she?’ she said. And then, suddenly it was a normal night at Anna’s place: Anna was removing her own dress, the better to display her own sexy foundation garment, and she was instructing me to remove my trousers.

‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ I said. ‘I was distracted – as, indeed, any chap would be with such a heavenly creature in the room.’

I took another sip of my G and T, put my glass on the side table next to Gillian’s and set about removing my trousers. As I am sure I have said before, when attending one of Anna’s soirées, gentlemen are permitted to keep their shirts on, but the lower parts of their bodies must be naked.

‘Much better,’ Anna said, as I draped my trousers over a convenient chair and rearranged my cock which, by then, was beginning to stiffen with expectation.

‘Gillian,’ Anna said, ‘perhaps you would be so kind as to give Humphrey a bit of a hand, darling.’

Gillian looked slightly perplexed.

‘A hand, darling,’ Anna said. And she mimed a rather elegant hand job.

‘Oh. Yes,’ Gillian said. And she took a couple of steps towards me and took my growing cock in her fair fingers.

‘And, Humphrey,’ Anna said, ‘perhaps you could return the favour.’

‘With your permission, ma’am,’ I said softly to Gillian.

Gillian smiled. ‘It seems that Anna has already taken charge,’ she said.

‘She does tend to do that,’ I said. And I placed my hand on Gillian’s plump mound.

‘Mmm,’ she said.

I allowed my fingers to wander freely through her silky bush. Anna had reported that it had started out a tad wild and woolly. However, by the time that I made its acquaintance, I thought that it was trimmed perfectly. And then I allowed my fingers to move lower, seeking out the divide between Gillian’s plump outer labia. Gillian adjusted her feet, and my fingers suddenly fell into her gloriously-slick cuntal valley. ‘Nice,’ I said.

Gillian half giggled. ‘Nice?’ she said softly. ‘Yes. It certainly feels nice from my side anyway. In fact, just about perfect.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Anna self-pleasuring and smiling. How much the smile had to do with the self-pleasuring and how much it had to do with the progress she had made in her role as Gillian’s closest female relative, I couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. But, hey, a smile’s a smile.

And then a lightbulb appeared above Anna’s head. Not literally, you understand. But it appeared nevertheless. Now, Gillian darling,’ she said, ‘with those fabulous long legs of yours, I think you should perch yourself on the edge of this table.’

Gillian looked at the table and frowned slightly.

‘It’s OK,’ Anna said, ‘the table is circa 1820. I’m sure you won’t be the first. And, Humphrey, I think you’ll need a chair.’

Gillian broke away – reluctantly, I thought – from my ministering fingers, and perched herself on the edge of the table. And Anna positioned a chair, facing the table, facing Gillian’s beautifully-slick honey pot. ‘You know what to do, Humphrey,’ Anna said.