When I walked into the party, I was rather glad that I had convinced the others to keep it a little subdued, the music loud enough to dance to but not loud enough to drown out your thoughts.

“Just on time, as always.” Sophia greeted me, before giving me a soft kiss.

“Nowhere I would rather be.” I answered, feeling a little mushy as I did. But the smile on Sophia’s face was well worth it. And it was true, as long as I defined ‘here’ as encircled by her arms, purely geographically, there were a lot of places I wanted to be. Most of them private and just with the two of us.

“You remembered to bring presents, didn’t you? It’s not a Christmas Party but we all wanted to give presents.” Sophia reminded me, while fussing a little with my clothes. I had to smile at that, she liked to do that and was regularly after me to dress up more often. I mostly wore comfortable clothes, not too tight and things I would not be too annoyed if they got damaged in the shop. Sophia liked me in either tight jeans or leather-pants and tops that showed off my physique, which had turned out to be a major turn-on for her. Personally, I thought it was hilarious, she was strong enough to break a normal person in half, including me without the enhancements Galatea had made to my body, but the appearance of physical prowess on me made her especially affectionate.

“I remembered. What did you decide to call it in the end?” I asked, curious what they had settled on. Someone, I did not know who but had my suspicions, had decided that calling it a Christmas Party or get-together or anything along those lines would be culturally insensitive as we had guests from every major religion and a few agnostics and atheists as well. While I was firmly in the latter two camps, I was used to calling the celebration before the end of the year “Christmas” so I was ambivalent on the name. I just did not care, as long as Sophia was there.

“Midwinter-Party, celebrating the winter solstice.” Sophia explained, making me snicker. They had missed the date by a couple of days, not that anyone would really care. It was a party to have fun, to remind all of us that we had friends far from home and all that. For me, it was a little different, I was home after all.

I looked around, noticing a table filled with wrapped presents and told Sophia that I would place the gifts there and then we could dance. She linked arms with me, watching as I placed small, meticulously labeled presents on the table, waiting for Leona, our master of Ceremonies, to hand them out.

Dancing with Sophia was always a treat, not just because it was a great excuse to hold her closely in my arms during the slow songs but also because moving in unison with her during the fast songs was exiting. Due to that, we stayed on the dance-floor until the music was turned down even further and Leona stood on a chair, getting everyone’s attention.

Seeing her, I had to grin, she was once more playing a role to the hilt. It had taken me a few days meeting her, but I had quickly realised, with some help from Sophia, that Leona was playing a role most of the time. She wanted to fit in with the crowd she moved in, so she played the over-the-top sexualised theatre major, whenever she could. Sophia had confided in me that the private Leona was a lot less flamboyant and actually rather shy.

But right now, she had ignored the fact that it was not a Christmas-Party and dressed up as a naughty Santa-Claus, in a red mini-dress that took the mini to the extreme. Standing on the chair did not help her modesty, but she just did not care.

“Hohoho, bitches!” she called out, causing the microphone to give a whine of feedback. She glared at it for a second, before turning it off, tossing it behind her and simply using her voice-training to project her voice into the room.

“Stupid technology.” she muttered, in a stage-whisper. “Anyway, Hohoho, bitches! We are here to party, it’s the longest night of the year and we will use it all to party!

“But what would a party be without presents? Boring, that’s what, so gather round and Lady Santa will give you your goodies. Unlike my stodgy uncle Claus, I don’t care if you’ve been naughty or nice, I was naughty myself and enjoyed it a great deal!”

“As it would be boring to just give out the goodies, I’ll pick up a present, call out the receiver and that person comes up, gets the present and unpacks it before presenting it to everyone, for our amusement. And the first present goes to…” she hopped down from the chair, grabbing one present, seemingly at random.

“Zahra!” she called and one of Sophia’s roommates approached, opening the package to find a box of chocolate inside. There was some applause when Leona pulled Zahra’s hand with the gift up, like some boxer after a fight, allowing everyone to see the present.

It went on for a few presents, going out, when one of mine was picked. I recognised them because i had made the strategic error and used the same wrapping paper for all of them, allowing everyone who had seen me put them down to know who got presents from me.

“Karen!” Leona called and Karen walked up, eyeing the small box almost suspiciously. She quickly ripped off the wrapping paper, taking out a pair of earrings. She shifted them a little in the light, causing the colour to scintillate, showing off their form and pattern. The shape was quite complex, a thin band of titanium wrapped in itself in an almost escher-esque fashion and the colours caused the eye to slide off if trying to follow the shape, causing an intriguing effect. Adding to that, was the fact that the colours were arranged in their own progression that did not follow the shape but drawing the eye to follow that one.

It had been an enjoyable challenge, merging shape and colour to create something akin to an optical illusion, making it look as if the earrings were just going on forever. Working with titanium and anodizing it to create the colours had been quite interesting as well and the colours would not fade for a long time.

Again, there was applause and Leona grabbed the next present.

“Diana!” she called a few presents later and it was my turn. Shrugging, I walked up, getting a maybe twenty centimeters long, slender present handed to me. Curious, I sliced open the wrapping, not just shredding it and opened a nondescript box at Leona’s urging. I should have known better, inside was a plastic phallus and I smelled a set-up when Leona told me to show it to the crowd. Deciding to be a good sport, I turned, raising the object above my head. For a second, I considered breaking or smashing it, but Galatea swiftly reminded me that it was all in good fun. So, I fixed Sophia with my most smoldering gaze and licked my lips, to great amusement.

“I will get you for this.” I whispered to Leona, before walking off. While I did not know if it was from her, she had been in on it, of that I was convinced.

The gift-giving continued some time longer, I was given mostly simple gifts, like a package of good coffee, even by my standards, some chocolate, things like that. Sophia got a similar haul, including the gag-gift with which she copied my performance, until she was called to receive my gift. Before, my gifts had been almost the same, titanium-jewelry in complex, geometric shapes, in shifting colours, but for Sophia, I had gone one step further. While the basic shape was similar, I had added something extra into the center.

Making that extra had been a bit of a challenge but another fun one. Technically, it was a sapphire but I doubted that such a gem would ever occur naturally, if it did, it would be the result of cosmic chance. During the creation, I had carefully added different chemicals, causing the rainbow-spiral that decorated the other jewelry to begin within the gem that was the centerpiece of Sophia’s gift. From there, the pattern followed the overall theme I had used in my jewelry only that Sophia’s had a hidden feature to it, not that anyone would really know, unless told.

All jewelry had a mathematical pattern defining its progression and Sophia’s had a special one, spelling out a message to her. Hiding the message while keeping the theme and the eye-catching features would have been impossible but Galatea had been happy to help.

While the applause was still going on, Sophia had started towards me, almost tackling me while giving me an enthusiastic kiss, causing some laughter as it was clear whose presents those had been. But I was quite fine with that.