12. The Sixth Day Before Christmas
The Sixth Day Before Christmas
Scene II
[Santa’s photo courtyard.]
Viola, in Santa attire, sits on the throne with a mob/line of children and parents in front of her.
Later, while I sit on my Santa chair, there is the cutest little kid on my lap, busy requesting a dozen different dolls, but it’s a little hard to concentrate on her right now. Because Duke has decided to spend his lunch break, out of costume and out of the loft, watching me.
“And I want Daisy Farm Girl doll. With green eyes,” the girl adds.
I freeze. Her mom shakes her head at me from beside our photographer.
“But Daisy Farm Girl has blue eyes now,” I say, adding a ‘ho, ho, ho’ to soften the correction.
The girl’s face hardens. “I want the green eye one.”
Taking a steadying breath, I prepare myself for what’s officially become a tricky customer.
The impossible requests are always the hardest: the unicorns, the space trips, the dogs that have passed…
It never gets any easier telling a child no.
Not when this should be one of the most magical experiences for them.
I look the girl over. She’s wearing pyjama pants under a tutu.
“Did you dress yourself this morning? Before you came to take a picture with me?” The girl nods, suspicious.
“And your mother agreed to let you wear it, right?” The girl nods again.
“Even though she maybe suggested a different outfit for you.”
“I want a Daisy Farm Girl with green eyes.”
I nod. “It’s just that Daisy Farm Girl doesn’t want to be made with green eyes anymore.
And if you forced my elves to make her with green eyes, she would feel the same way that you would feel if your mom forced you to wear a different outfit today.
So, we don’t do that. We accept people and dolls however they want to be. ”
The girl frowns.
“But, if you love and accept Daisy Farm Girl with her blue eyes, if you don’t try to change her or tell her she’s not enough the way she is, she’ll love and accept you right back. And that is a friendship that will last a lifetime.”
The girl pauses. “Do your elves still have any green eye dolls?” I shake my head. “Well…” the girl hedges, already an expert negotiator at six, “will she still come with her turnip farm?”
I peek to her mom, who nods frantically. “Why yes! Of course she’ll come with her… turnip farm.”
The girl breaks out into a wide smile that’s missing both her front teeth. “Good! Turnips are my favourite.”
I shake my head, smiling under my enormous beard. Turnips. Beside me, I can hear Duke cracking up.
The girl jumps off my lap.
There’s a bit of a lag between kids. The next kiddo really doesn’t want to come up. He’s probably four and bawling. I try my best to smile and wave, give a little ‘ho, ho ho,’ but he’s not having it.
It happens sometimes.
Some kids just need some time to find the courage, so I sit and wait, enjoying the slight reprieve.
“That was really well done,” Duke says, leaning on the velvet rope partitioning off the courtyard. He’s eating a meatball sub, and just generally looking like he’s enjoying the heck out of life. “With the little girl.” He gestures with his sub.
“Thanks.”
The little boy still doesn’t want to come up.
“You ever think about being a teacher or something?”
A simple question that’s like a gut-punch.
Back when Mal’s words were still sweet, I was enrolled in an Early Childhood Education program. I dropped out though because Mal and I couldn’t make ends meet with us both in school. I agreed to support him through his degree, and he agreed to support me through mine afterwards.
Except, now that we’re in the ‘afterwards’ and done as a couple, it’s clear that I’m not getting anything except a dose of reality.
I shrug. “That would require a degree.” One that’s not compatible with working, and I so desperately need to work if I ever want to move out of Seb’s living room.
“So? Lots of Santas use their bonus to get started on a degree.” He pauses, taking the biggest bite of sub I’ve ever seen to finish it off.
“Besides, Maria will put in a great character reference for working with kids. She actually told me that she thinks you’re doing a good job, which is quite the compliment from her.
The nicest thing she’s ever said about me is that I’m not quite stupid enough to choke on my Santa beard. ”
Right. Another character reference for Sebastian—as if he needs any more favours to have life fall in front of his feet.
I don’t have time to dwell on my bad luck because the next kid in line has finally taken Olivia’s hand as she walks him up to me. He scrambles onto my lap. His poor little body still tense.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
He sniffs. “No one listens to me.”
My heart breaks. “I’m listening.”
“I didn’t want to come up ‘cause I got to go,” he says.
“Go where?” By the time it registers what that means, it’s too late. It’s just too much for him and he pees. All over me. And, oh boy, was he ever holding it.
“I’m sorry,” the boy cries.
I wrap him in a hug, even though my knees are drenched. “There is absolutely nothing to be sorry for on your part. I’m sorry no one listened to what you were trying to say.”
The boy sniffs. “I’m not on the naughty list?”
“Not even close,” I promise.
“Can I still tell you what I want for Christmas or do you have to leave now?” He looks up at me with big brown eyes that threaten to spill over at any moment. Crier that I am, I feel the same way. This poor kid.
I give him a little squeeze. “Tell me everything.”
He does. Both of us shivering and soaked, we have the strangest heart-to-heart that I will most likely have all day. After that, Santa takes a little break ‘to check on the reindeer’. I.e., get changed in the shed while Olivia washes Santa’s chair.
“Brutal,” Duke commiserates as he walks me to the shed. “It’s sort of a rite of passage, though. Except you handled it a lot better than I did. I cried. Seriously.”
“Mmhmm,” I agree. Funnily enough, marinating in urine is not conducive to me wanting to make small talk. Instead, I just unlock the shed while pee drips onto the ground from my faux-velvet pants. It doesn’t colour the fake snow at all, which has me seriously questioning what it’s made of.
“I’ll cover you,” Duke says, gesturing towards the shed. “Make sure no one comes in.”
I sigh. “That’d actually be really great.”
“Well, I am pretty great.”
Oh, I know.
The inside of the small shed is pitch black and super squished.
I barely have enough room to wiggle my pants off and wipe myself down with the disinfectant wipes without knocking into the garbage can or spare camera tripod.
After I get my wet suit in what I hope is the right plastic bag, I set about my next task.
I feel around, hitting random objects, but I don’t feel it: I can’t find the spare Santa suit.
Pants-less, I open the door just a crack, carefully shielding my lower, mostly naked torso. The bright light pricks at my eyes after the complete dark of the shed.
“Hey, Duke,” I hiss. “I can’t find the Santa suit. Do you know where it is?”
Duke turns around. I squeeze the door shut a little more. “Yeah, it’s kept in like this little bin that’s vacuumed sealed. If you open the door a bit more, I can show it to you.”
Yeah, that’s not happening. Not only will Duke see my pink, cherry-print panties if I open the door, so will all the other people who are now looking on in interest at what Santa is doing in the shed.
I sigh. It’s completely dark inside the shed. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
I reach forward and grab Duke by the front of his shirt. “Just get in here and help me find it.”
Between my big Santa belly and Duke’s hulking frame, there’s scarcely enough room in the shed to even breathe deeply. As carefully as possible, I turn around so that my back is against him. You know, so he can’t feel my lack of a penis, should some accidental bumping happen.
The only problem is that this puts my ass flush against him.
Fantastic.
For a second, Duke’s hands flutter down to my hips, his fingers gripping around their curves. Then his hands flash back with a strangled sound from him. “Maybe I should leave and just try to tell you where they are.”
“I tried. It’s just so dark in here that I... Just help me find them. Quickly.”
Duke takes a ragged breath. “I think they’re down—” He reaches forward, but I’m in the way. He tries to go around me, but there’s just not enough give in the shed. “I think they’re down in the right-hand corner. It’s a rain-proof box so they don’t get wet.”
My knees bash into something when I try to squat down. “Fuck,” I swear.
Duke laughs.
I must be just about at my breaking point because, suddenly, I feel like laughing, too.
“Is this funny to you? I got peed on and now I’m getting contusions left, right, and center.”
“Not funny—hilarious. I never thought I’d hear Santa say fuck.”
Yeah, it is funny. This is all ridiculous and funny.
“Fuck,” I say again in my Santa voice.
“No, don’t,” he warns.
“Shit, damn, ass, cunt.”
Duke loses it. “Cunt,” he repeats in his own Santa voice. Then, I lose it, too. In the pitch-black, claustrophobic shed, one wrong touch away from getting found out that I’m a woman, I laugh.
I laugh until tears stream down my face. I laugh until I feel this slimy Mal-shape clog wrench itself free from my soul. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this.
Still laughing, I try to squat down again to find the box. Again, my shins hit something down there. “Fiddlesticks,” I pseudo-swear as I straighten up. “Is that better?”
Duke chuckles. “Much more in character.”
Since I can’t squat down, I bend over at the waist. The good news is that I can easily access the box. The bad news is that my ass pushes right up against Duke’s crotch.
His laughing stops.
I try to ignore the friction of our bodies, along with the fact that his breathing starts to come in rapid pulls, as I get to work on the latch. The latch that, clearly, has not been used in some time.
“I can’t get the latch open,” I say through my teeth as I wrench and wrench at it. My body shakes with each effort. My ass brushes up and into him with each pull.
Behind me, Duke groans.
With a grunt, I give the latch a particularly hard pull.
To my surprise, it opens. I almost fall over, but Duke catches me.
His hands fly to my hips again just as I’m about to tumble sideways.
One of his hands is over my Santa coat, but the other one lands underneath—half against my skin, half overtop of my panties.
We both freeze, each heaving breath an eternity between us. There’s something sparking in his touch, especially as his fingers go from holding me, to gripping me. His fingers bite into the flimsy fabric of my panties. The intensity of his touch has me catching my breath as heat floods into my core.
“What are you wearing?” He breathes the words into my neck, branding and tickling me with desire.
I gulp. This is dangerous territory. This is not aloof and cold and distant. I should kick him out of the shed and hide in here for the rest of my shift.
Possibly life.
I don’t.
“My regular boxers were too hot under the suit, so I bought something lighter.” I’m going for casual, but my voice comes out as sputtering as the beat of my heart.
“And these are what you bought?” While he sounds mostly lust-drunk, there’s a hard edge to his voice. A hardness that’s not matched with his touch, as his pinky finger creeps off the fabric and lightly runs up and down against my skin just beyond my panties.
“Your skin is so soft.” His whisper fills the shed. It hums along my skin, sending goosebumps down the back of my neck.
“Yeah?”
His ring finger joins his pinky on its torturous journey, dipping just underneath my panties. Slowly, his fingers trail from my hip to the curve of my ass.
“And your ass is fucking spectacular.”
Behind me, I can feel the beginnings of just how spectacular he finds it.
“Duke…” I start, having no idea where my sentence is going.
Where this is going.
“What is it about you?” He pulls my ass even closer against him. “I can’t get you out of my mind.”
He’s fully erect now, his cock hard and long. He rocks me gently against him. Softly enough that we could almost pretend it’s not happening. Hard enough that our breathing synchronizes with barely restrained pants.
“Duke… are you…?” I ask, wondering something that I maybe should have wondered a while ago.
My unfinished question breaks whatever spell of denial we’re under. His hands snap off me, as he shakes his body.
“I don’t know… At least, I never… I’m just a little…” He clears his throat. “You got the box open?”
“What? Oh, yes. Right.” I rifle through the box until I find the pants. “I got them.”
“Thank fuck,” Duke says in his Santa voice. We both laugh, but there’s a tension taut between us. “I’m going to leave you to change, then.”
“Oh, good. Yeah,” I say, even though the memory of his fingers moving still tickles my skin.
Duke lingers. “Sebastian, are you—” He trails off.
He tries again. “Are you into—” He exhales, long and slow, his breath hot on my ear.
Then, his mouth and body pull away from me.
“You did a really good job with that kid. It could have become a very bad memory for him, but instead, it’ll be a special one. ”
“Thanks.”
“You’re pretty amazing,” he says, then he slips out of the shed, leaving me to think about what he just said.
And about what he didn’t say.
Exit Duke as he pulls his baggy sweatshirt down lower.
Viola changes in the shed, a distinct flush on her cheeks.