Relaxing at home sounds lovely, actually

Lara's eyes glazed as she scanned her inbox. Sometimes when nothing obvious jumps to mind, one has to simply pick one of the less awful options. Other times, however, even that is too much to ask. The offers all seemed dull, none of them able to spark the usual wanderlust within her. She was tired. Deeply tired in a way she hadn't recognized.

"I suppose there's no harm in taking a few days off." Lara said to herself as she closed her laptop. She put out the fire in the study fireplace and quietly slipped to her personal chambers. She stripped down and settled into her elegant bed. She didn't even have time to set up some soft white noise before her body turned to jelly and she passed out.

She woke up a few moments before the soft knocking at her door, stretching her legs quietly and trying to shake the sleep from her brain. How long had it been since she'd woken up in her own bed? It was only the quiet groaning of her joints that seemed to remind her that there was a life outside of the pillowy soft world of satin sheets and blankets with enough gently weighty down to fill a swimming pool. There was a small horrifying part of her brain that told her it had been years since she'd spent more than a couple of days at home. Maybe she was overworking herself, she thought as she burrowed into the blissful sarcophagus of bedding. If she had her way, it would take a whole team of archeologists to excavate her. They'd declare her "the comfiest mummy of the 21st century." When the knock came, she grumbled in indecipherable response. Her door opened gently, Winston poked his head in.

"I've made breakfast for the fair lady, should she desire to ever leave her bed."

"Thank you Winston dear, set it on the table please."

"As you wish, madam." Winston said as he poked quietly into the room. His immaculately-shined shoes clacked once as they came through the doorway before they quietly stepped onto one of her exotic rugs. He gingerly set the silver tray in his hands down on her bedside desk. She caught his gaze as looked at her head poking out of her blankets with something tender in his eyes.

"Is something wrong, Winston?"

"If you'll forgive a moment of sentimentality, mum." Winston sighed. "It brings my heart no small amount of peace to see you safe at home."

Lara shifted, rising to rest her back against her headboard and sitting up. Winston offered her a tank top casually to cover her naked chest.

"Where did that come from, old bean?" Lara asked semi-playfully as she slipped the top on. Winston usually refused that name from anybody but her father, even Lara. Instead of tutting, he just smiled and sat on her bed.

"I'm afraid that ever since your parents left us, I find myself worrying far too much. Even though the fair lady is more than capable of looking after herself, I still see a young woman chasing her father's shadow. Sneaking into the family crypt when she thinks nobody sees her and locking the poor family butler in the freezer."

Lara chuckled "Only because the family butler insisted that studying was more fun than swashbuckling."

"Your father was the same way when we were at Oxford, I fear your whole family is genetically inclined to make me worry." Winston turned away so that Lara couldn't see his face. "All I can do is pray that you keep making it back in one piece."

Lara wrapped her arms around Winston, there were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she couldn't pick just one. She sat quietly holding onto him for a while before deciding on "Thank you, Winston."

He took a deep breath and clutched one of the hands she had wrapped around him before rising back to his feet. "Right, that's enough feeling sorry for myself. I'm afraid this has all put me terribly behind schedule." He turned to Lara and gave a quick bow. "Enjoy your breakfast, Miss Croft."

He ducked his way back out of her room quickly and shut the door quietly behind him. Lara lifted the tray off of the table and set it in her lap, gulping her meal hungrily while savoring the coffee.

Lara walked through the palatial gardens of the Croft Manor slowly. She had changed into her baggiest and rattiest clothing and she was taking the longest way she could to her home gym. How long had it been since she did this? Last she remembered her garden was the dead of winter, all of the flowers and shrubs reduced to skeletons about the marble statues. Now, in summer, it was a rainbow of color. She eyed the hedge maze, recalling childhood afternoons of playful hide and seek and just as playful fleeing from lessons. Her father never lost, she'd never figured out how he was cheating but she knew he was. On the other hand, she'd often be the one leading Winston back out after he lost his way inside. Somewhere deep down, she probably remembered the layout just fine. It just seemed a little more... overgrown than she remembered.

She pulled out her PDA and messaged Winston. "Garden seems overgrown."

It took him only seconds to respond. "I have been needing to speak with you about replacing some of the Manor staff after some of the previous members retired. I have a shortlist for each vacancy, but need your approval on the hirings."

"Hire who you like."

"Understood, most should arrive and begin work within the week. If any fail to live up to standard, simply let me know."

"Ok."

Lara made her way inside the hangar-sized gym her father had ordered built when she began to take after him. She did a quick warm-up of hurdling and light climbing before shifting toward the more intense challenges. It had been a while since she'd done some of them, but the muscle memory hadn't left her. When the sweat was soaking through the logo t-shirt she'd bought for one of her more embarrassing adolescent bands, she let herself drop to the floor and rest her back against the wall. She eyed the course with contemplative restraint. It was one she'd never even seen her father do right, his one attempt resulting in a broken arm. He was lucky to have gotten off that easily, two feet to the left and he'd have dropped a hundred feet onto a concrete floor and not into the pool.

About that pool... it was empty, why?

"Gym pool empty?"

"Afraid the gymnasium plumbing has been on the blink for some time, the technician retired last winter."

"Shower too?"

"Try it if you like, but I believe it's the entirety of the plumbing."

Lara ducked into the washroom and turned on the shower. The pipes groaned and whined for a moment before spitting out a trickle of muddy water. Lara shut the shower off immediately.

After she'd returned to the main house and cleaned herself off there, she went in her bathrobe to her study. She started a cozy fire in the hearth and sat back in her favorite chair to read.

Winston poked his head in soon after "Would the lady like to get dressed for lunch or shall I bring it to her here?"

Lara poked her head up from the book she was skimming with glazed eyes "Lunch, what time is it?"

"Half-past noon, mum."

Lara looked at the clock in disbelief, she could have sworn she'd been up for a full day. Instead, the clock confirmed that it had only been four hours since she'd woken up.

"Is it really still that early?"

"Indeed it is, perhaps the Lady is still a bit jetlagged."

Lara felt a deep restlessness in her core "Perhaps, give me a moment to get dressed and I'll come to eat with you."

"As you will." Winston ducked out.

Lara went back to her room and triple-checked the clock to make sure she wasn't being had. She started up her laptop as she changed. As she slipped into lounge pants and a blouse she checked her inbox. Just since waking up, she'd received more than a hundred messages.

When she arrived downstairs lunch was set out and Winston was waiting. They ate in silence for a short while before Lara spoke.

"Winston."

"Yes, Miss Croft?"

"What exactly did I used to do around here?"

"Pardon?"

"How exactly did I pass the time back before I traveled?"

Winston set down his silverware "I think I understand what's happening. I suspect you've gotten far too high strung and find it difficult to let yourself relax."

"You don't say."

"Tragically, there's no easy cure for it. You simply must get used to the slow living of the homebodies again if you wish to stick around. Might I suggest, if you're truly struggling to cope, that you re-familiarize yourself with the Manor's amenities? Even missing some of its former glory, you'll find what remains to be truly world-class."

"I do suppose it has been a while since I properly explored the place."

"Indeed, you might find some rooms you've never even stepped foot in before should you look hard enough. You must make sure to let me know if you do and any of them are in need of tidying."

Lara finished her lunch and said goodbye to Winston. She went back to her room, though not before grabbing a bottle of wine from the pantry.

She set the wine on her dresser. It was almost 1 pm, still too early to be drinking, even if she wound up going to bed early. She opened her email, scanning her new messages, none of them were substantial. She did a quick search of herself on the net to see what people were saying. She flicked through some news reports about archeological digs. She responded to a few personal messages. She checked the croft family bank account. She did a dozen push-ups. She sorted some of the more promising messages she had.

She looked at the clock, it was 1:02 pm.

She didn't bother with a glass, the French wine came out of the bottle sweet as candy and a lot more scandalous. She took steady sips from the bottle as she browsed the internet, trying to find ways to kill time. She started feeling it when she was halfway down the bottle, she was really feeling it when she drank the last of it. Back before she started traveling so much a single bottle was enough to get her where she was going, but it wasn't enough to floor her. She realized a good deal too late that she'd become a serious lightweight since then. An hour blurred by, then another. Another empty bottle joined the first.

She was laying in her bed, stretching out and running her hands over the smooth fabric. Her skin tingled at the soft touch of her sheets. her skin tingled twice as much when she gave her breasts a firm squeeze and pull through her blouse. She fumbled the buttons open, giving her nipples a hard squeeze and gentle twist. She moaned shamelessly, not like anybody had a room close enough to hear her anymore. She crept a hand under the waistband of her baggy pants and started to toy with her wettening pussy. She felt heat surging below her waist as her clit begged to be played with. She gratified it with steady but quick motions, her clumsy hands moving with a vigorous recollection of what she needed them to do. She arched her back up as her toes dug into her soft sheets for purchase. She thrust up into her hand as she stroked herself.

She gasped out as her orgasm pushed its way through her hazy body. Lara's legs gave out as she rubbed through each wave of pleasure pushing up seemingly through her pussy to her brain. As the pressure of buildup released it sent shots of ecstasy coursing through her, making her body feel both weightless and on fire. She could feel the crotch and back of her pants soaking with her juices as she grabbed her sheets for support. When the last few waves came rolling back she was left in a happily dumb puddle of her own messy satisfaction. She didn't savor the afterglow for long before falling asleep, wrapped in her blankets and still wearing clothes wet with her cum.

When she woke again it was still dark out. She tried to focus her vision through the groggy headache that hung over her. The clock on her wall told her it was just past midnight. Somebody had come into her room and set a glass of water on her bedside table which she gulped thankfully. She staggered up out of bed, immediately noticing her damp pants clinging uncomfortably to her skin and her blouse hanging open. A quick check of her blankets confirmed they'd need to be washed as well. She groaned and staggered into the bathroom, drawing a bath as she slipped out of her clothes. She climbed into the tub and let it fill up, dozing off again. There was a knock at her bedroom door, from inside her bathroom Lara groaned.

"Miss Croft, while you were intoxicated last night, did you happen to spend several thousands of dollars?" Winston called through the door in a voice equal parts concerned and amused.

"What?" Lara asked, her eyes shooting open.

Winston cracked the door and poked his head in "Are you sleeping in the bath, mum?"

"Just resting my eyes, what did you say about money?"

"Well, it's just that we've just received a large number of unexpected deliveries in your name. When I checked the accounts, it seems they were all purchased from your account around the time you were on the lash."

Lara buried her face in her hands, she hadn't been "buying a metric tonne of garbage" drunk in a decade.

"Yeah, that was probably me." She groaned.

"Shall I have them sent to your room? I think we can make them all fit."

"That would be lovely, thank you, Winston."

Winston left the door open but disappeared down the hall with a chuckle. Lara climbed out of her tub and took a quick shower to try washing away her shame. When she slipped into a bathrobe and stepped back into her room, there were no less than a couple of hundred boxes. Lara picked the one closest to her and pulled it into the bathroom. It was only a small box, not even big enough to fit a shoe. How bad could it be?

Inside of it was a metal plug, big enough around at the widest point to be wider than three fingers. At the external end was a pink heart-shaped faux gem with "Daddy's little monster" written on the inside. Lara groaned, as much from the tackiness of the thing as the nature of it.

"Surely they can't all be sex toys." Lara muttered to herself.

Some part of the primal lizard brain within her promised that they were. Lara didn't need to unbox all of them, she could guess well enough. Winston, blessedly, had left her breakfast and coffee on the table among the boxes. Lara ate in silence.

The sun was coming up and another day at home was coming with it. It dawned on Lara that it would probably be best for her to find something to do today to avoid more drinking and questionable purchases. She remembered Winston's advice about exploring the manor. Of course, she could also spend some time with Winston, she'd never really considered he might like some company. Of course, she did have some "chores" sitting in her room that could use doing.

A rogue thought crossed her mind.

"You already bought them, why waste them?"