Here is part one of the Christmas story. A lot more to come... Happy Holidays! xo
'Twas the night after Thanksgiving and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even Chester, or the photographer, or the turkey in his bachelor pad barn. The stockings are going to be hung tomorrow over the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of Playstation 47 or 102, and a five story Barbie Villa on a private island with a mermaid lagoon danced in their heads. And Ana in her silk stockings and I in my Santa hat had just settled down for a long, long, winter's fuck...
"Ho, ho, ho... Merry Christmas," I say, doing my best jolly old St. Nick as I walk into the bedroom—or rather Santa's after-hours candy cane boudoir—ready to spread some legs, some icy peppermint lube and some marital holiday cheer.
"Santa Claus! I've been waiting for you to come all night!" As have I...
It's beginning to look a lot like the best fucking Christmas ever as Ana—dressed up in a white and pink ribbon trimmed baby doll getup that looks like Little Bo Peep who lost her sheep, her skirt and the crotch area to her ruffled panties—skips toward me.
"Come and sit on Santa's lap, young lady," I say, patting my felt panted leg as I sit in my chair. I've got the real Ho-Ho-Ho get-up—red suit, hat, a long white beard and sack full and bursting to be delivered from Santa's north facing pole.
"Well, Santa..." she knocks her knees together and I take in the full view of her garters, her stockings and those sweet Mary Janes.
"Why so shy? Tell Santa what you want him to give you." Oh, I know what I want to give my girl. I have to shift in my seat to adjust myself before I give it too soon. Nothing worse than a Santa who comes and never makes it to the chimney.
"Do bad girls get presents, Santa?" she asks, batting her lashes and giving me doe eyes as her pregnant peach of an ass meets my waiting knee. God, she's so fucking hot with her hair in those little pigtails with the bows. It takes all my willpower not to finger her braids, wrap them around my cock and fuck her hair; but I don't want this scene to be over just yet and she'll kill me if I come in her fresh blow-out. I'm just glad the bedroom door is locked and the kids are asleep. This would scar their images of Santa Claus for life.
"Depends on how bad the girl has been." I want so badly to set the girls free as she shifts and pushes them into my face.
"Oh, I've been soooo naughty." She gives them a jiggle that has my jangle crying for some jingle. Those baby making tits are so big and juicy—fuck the milk and cookies, Santa wants a taste of them.
"I know. I've been making my lists and checking them twice and I see that you are oh so naughty, but oh so nice." I run my fingers along the lace edge of her thigh high. "Tell Santa what a bad girl you've been."
"Well,..." She puts on her best pouty face and purposely gives that bottom lip a slow, fleshy bite. My cock jumps, fighting the furry lining in my pants. "I like candy too much."
"Do you now? What kind of candy?" I stroke the inside of her thigh with my thumb, traveling upward. "Chocolate, butterscotch,... vanilla?" I wink.
"Lollipops."
"Lollipops?" I slide my fingers to where the elastic of her panty edge just kisses her upper thigh and play with her there.
She nods. "Long, thick, hard lollipops." My own lollipop is getting longer, thicker and harder as we speak. "I like to roll my tongue around the tip, then slide the whole thing into my mouth and suck on it," she leans in and whispers in my ear, those little braids tickling my face and her sugar lips brushing my lobe. "All. Night. Long."
"That is a very bad girl. Very, very bad." She nips at my lobe and I find it hard to concentrate. "You know all that sucking..." I move my thumb across the opening of her panties where the crotch fabric is supposed to be and tease. "...and all that sugar dripping down your throat... is very bad for you." I think I've said very and bad about seventy-five times in a span of ninety-two seconds, but I can't think with an advanced vocabulary when she's licking Santa's neck and there's sugar dripping on my fingers that I want to taste all night long.
She nods against my cheek—agreeing with my very bad assessment— and pulls back to face me, licking her lips in such a slow, purposeful way I can almost taste her skin.
"Santa can't let this go unpunished." I continue to tease her clit.
"Yes, Santa," she says with a breathy moan, willingly accepting her fate.
"If you take your punishment like a good girl," I whisper into her ear. "Santa will give you his special package." I take hold of her fingers and place them over my growing erection. "Would you like, that?"
"Oh yes, Santa!" She strokes me through the fabric as I continue teasing her with my fingers. "I can't wait to rip open your package!" She starts bucking against my hand as she strokes me oh so good. But, I pull away just as she's about to come and I'm about to mess my Santa pants. She whimpers and this time she doesn't have to put on her pout—it's the real deal.
I lift her and gently position her across my knee—so as not to harm the baby—and she squeals. To think there was a time she didn't think she'd like spankings. She's squirming around my lap so much, you'd think this was the present itself.
"Why am I spanking you?" I ask, peeling her panties from her beautiful ass and sliding them down her milky thighs, allowing them to rest at her knees.
"Because I'm a naughty girl," she says, cutting her eyes up to me and giggling.
I rub her cheek with my hand and then surprise her with a swat. She yelps.
"Stop your giggling, little miss or I'll have to quiet that mouth somehow." I can think of one way.
"Sorry, I'm being naughty again." She giggles again! I'm trying to keep my serious punishment face on, but she keeps making me smile with all of her giggle antics.
"And do naughty girls deserve presents from Santa?"
"No, Sir—err, Santa." I think she forgot where we were for a moment—not the playroom, Santa's dirty workshop. Color theme's the same.
I give her a few more swats until her ass is the glorious color of her middle name. I can feel her wetness against my fingertips with each smack, which makes my dick rise like Rudolph on Christmas Eve night.
"Oh, you are so ready for Santa to deliver his package." I run my fingers up and down her slit, where I find a soaking wet ribbon sticking out from her opening."What have we here?" I pull on the ribbon and she moans as I tug the two silver balls out, one-by-one, at a torturously slow pace.
"Those are my favorite toys, Santa." She turns her head to face me, nibbling at her own shoulder to prevent a smile.
"Did Santa say you could play with your toys before Christmas?"
"No, Santa."
I surprise her with another swat. She jerks back. I then give her another and another, taking special care to hit just the spot that's aching for me.
"Have you learned your lesson?" I ask, rubbing her glorious ass in soft, circular motions.
"No, Santa. I think I need a little more of a reminder." This is not the way this is supposed to work, but she's been topping from the bottom from day one, so why change things now. She really is into this. I give her a few more swats until we're both panting from exhaustion and arousal. I can't take it any more. Santa's sleigh needs to land.
"Will you behave from now on?"
"Yes, Santa."
I pull her up and sit her on my knee. Her cheeks have flushed to match her bottom, and she's breathy and wanton. She's so fucking beautiful. She's the best present I could ever ask for and I get to have her every day of my life.
"Now, why don't you unwrap Santa's package and show him what you do with those lollipops..."
She grins and climbs down, falling to her knees between my legs. She unzips me and my erection springs forth.
"Are you going down my chimney after I'm done?" she asks, swirling her tongue around my dewy tip.
"Oh no, Santa's going up the chimney this time..." I give her braids a little tug and her a wicked smile. "Hard."
She grins and not taking her eyes off mine, takes the full length of me into her mouth.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...
#######
Every year, right after Thanksgiving, fathers everywhere are stricken with a terror so unexpected, it rivals Halloween. It isn't the long Christmas lists the children write to Santa, where the old bearded guy gets credit for the checklist Dad has to fill; or the shopping for, wrapping and decorating of said packages; or the incessant off-tune caroling of the neighbor children in those Dickens style cloaks you can see their Nikes peeking out from underneath that scream Christmas present when they're supposed to be of Christmas past. No, it's the arrival of one guest who comes without warning, instills fear daily, and doesn't leave until Christmas is over.
"Ana!" I scream, nearly scalding myself at breakfast with coffee splashing out of my mug—the one the kids made me for Father's Day that's supposed to read Super Dad, but instead is spelled with two p's like the meal. I see his face staring back at me from behind a white poinsettia plant. His ears are pointed; his eyes demented under overly arched brows that resemble a newly plucked and needle poked Beverly Hills housewife; and he's got a smile so jolly, it claims to be of Santa, but you know it is purely of Satan.
"What is it?" she asks, rushing over with a helping of pancakes for the kids and I at the breakfast nook. They're shaped like snow people and gingerbread couples and I think the large one on the end is either Santa with a sack of toys on his back or an overweight reindeer taking a shit. Of course Teddy grabs for that one.
"Why is there a scary little man in a red leotard watching me from behind the Christmas flowers?" I asked myself that question the morning after Thanksgiving when I saw Jose—in his holiday themed long johns—peeping at Ana and I kissing under the newly hung mistletoe, before he and his father went on their way. I'm sure that father swiped some hair from my comb or a toothbrush for voodoo purposes. Lucky for me, like everything else the photographer attempts, his curses fail to perform.
"You founded him, Daddy!" Phoebe says, jumping up and down on her seat and pointing to the thing like she's just seen a friend returning from war or Chester after he's escaped and had an adventure in the pantry, eating and shitting on my dried oats—I always double check the raisins now before consumption. No, this fucker looks more like he's Barbie's jolly red stalker, watching her from the Malibu dream house bushes and plotting to take out Ken.
"Who?" I ask, motioning for her to sit down and finish her pancakes. I swear, she's liable to slip and break her neck over this. Just like her mother—no care for her own self-preservation.
"That's Wayne," Teddy says, pouring a fountain of syrup on the shit part of the reindeer pancake, then trying to push the whole thing into his mouth. Of course, it doesn't fit, so it just falls down onto his shirt and then onto his pants, instead—syrup everywhere!
"No, it's Wayne Sparkle!" Phoebe corrects.
"His name's not Sparkle, it just Wayne!" Thank the Tooth Fairy and Mother Theresa it's not Stan, his usual choice. He now picks the pancake up off his lap, folds it over and starts to eat it from the middle out. I would try and prevent this mess, but I've learned it's easier to let him have his fill and just hose him down afterward. "I don't want nobody peeping on my naughties named Sparkle!" Wise for his six years.
"No! The Sparkle makes him Christmas! Waynes are just fat and old guys," Phoebe says.
"Regular Waynes are all old and fat?" I ask.
She nods and looks at me like where have I been my whole life not to know this.
"Like Wayne Newton?"
"Is he the guy with the poopie tasting cookies?" Teddy asks.
"Yes."
"Eww!" They both say, surely remembering their first taste of fig newtons and subsequent projectile spit-up in the middle of a Sunday school social that landed all over old lady Ditmeyer's tan orthotic pumps. Luckily no one else saw and everyone thought she did it, herself—including her.
"So who is this Wayne Sparkle, anyway?" I ask. It sounds like a Vegas cowboy with an off-the-strip show. So far off-the-strip, it's his grandmother's basement via webcam.
"It's elf on a shelf," Ana laughs as she puts a gingerbread woman on my plate. I'm about to tease that I will never eat another woman but her, but the children are around.
"He's not on a shelf, he's practically in my breakfast." He's smiling and staring like he's just cut the cheese and is amused that nobody knows it's him. Well, I'm on to you, Wayne Sparkle! And stay the fuck away from my wife's pancakes!
"He's a scout elf, Daddy," Teddy says. "He only chooses shelves like one of the some of the times."
"Yeah, mostly he likes to hide so he can spy real good, 'cause peoples is more naughty when they can't see the eyeballs watching them." Phoebe adds. "And every night he flies..."Phoebe flaps her hands like a butterfly. "...way back to the Northest Pole that's seventy-two and one million miles away and it's shaped like a big peptomint J and he tells Santy all of it." What a tattle-tailing little shit.
"What's a peptomint J?" It sounds like something you take for the runs.
"A candy cane." Of course.
"So, this Wayne Sparkle boy spies on me all day and reports back to Santa if I've been bad?"
They nod.
Shit, I'm in trouble. I'm surprised I got that tie and King of the Grill collector's tool set last year—it should've been all coal.
"Daddy, did Santa come last night?" Phoebe asks. I nearly choke on the skirt of my pancake.
"Why do you say that?"
"I thought I heard him "Ho ho ho" and I waked up." Oh shit, we'll have to be quieter next time.
"Yes..." I say. Ana gives me a look. Think fast, Grey! "He came by to discuss what you kids are getting for Christmas."
"You know Santa?" Teddy asks, thoroughly awed.
"Of course I do. And he's not happy with your messy rooms. He doesn't think anything else can fit, so he may just bring you socks and pencils. Wayne Sparkle's giving a full report tonight."
They both stare at me in open mouth shock, like I just told them Christmas might be canceled, which I guess I kind of did. Fuck, I didn't mean to do that.
"I'm done!" Phoebe says, putting her napkin on her plate. "I gotta go make the messies in my room go bye-bye." She waves.
"Me, too!" Teddy says, licking the syrup off his fingers.
Well, that's one way to get them to straighten up their rooms.
"Go find Mrs. Taylor and have her clean you two up before you touch anything," Ana says. "And start on your lists for Santa! We have to get them off to the North Pole by Monday!" Or rather, Dad's pocket. But, I already know some big gifts I'm giving them and they involve two of my favorite companies—Boeing and Audi.
"Yay!" They holler and run out.
"What did I say about running and breaking your necks?" I call after them and get no response. "And don't go outside first, Teddy! You'll be covered in ants!"
They keep running and hollering, and I think I heard the back door open to the yard. At least it's winter and the bug population is low. I swear, they never listen to their father.
Ana puts another pancake on my plate. This time it's a snowman. I can't resist and wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her bump.
"Maybe you won't defy me," I murmur against her belly, but even as I say it, I know it's a lost cause. I've been openly defied since the day I met Ana. I kiss her stomach. God, I'm a lucky bastard.
"There's definitely more of you, Mrs. Grey," I say, stroking her quickly expanding bump. I could swear a week ago it was much smaller.
"Are you saying I'm fat?!"
"No! You are scrumptious." I nibble at her hip and she giggles. "But, I don't remember you having this much of a baby before, so soon. Are you sure we're only three months along?"
"Dr. Greene said so." Like that means anything. She also said the shot worked—twice. "And I can't be more than three and a half, because that's when I had my ear infection that got me pregnant."
I pull her into my lap and nibble at her ear now. She squeals.
"This ear is not what got you pregnant."
"I think I feel what did." She shifts in my lap. Though it's tempting to cover her naked body in syrup and feast on her bounty, I know I shouldn't fuck her over the leftover family pancakes.
"Do you remember that first Christmas, Ana?" I pull her close and nuzzle her neck. She smells like vanilla and maple and Ana—my favorite scent in all the world.
"Yes, our first together. Our first being married. Our first in our home."
"Our first baby on the way." I stroke her belly. "Now, look at us, we're old pros."
"A lot of firsts that year," she smiles and presses her forehead to mine. "It was special."
"Like you, Mrs. Grey." I give her a kiss. "And I think the seconds and thirds and fiftieths with you are all pretty damn special, too."
"I hope you don't mean fifty children."
"That would be a first—in the world, I think." We both laugh. "No, I'm not crazy. Eight is a good number."
"Eight?! I thought it was six!"
"I say we just keep trying and see how it goes." I kiss her neck.
"Yes, let's practice a lot in the future. On birth control."
"Good idea! We'll definitely get to ten kids that way!" It's the Dr. Greene philosophy: keep 'em coming, so the checks will. But, I do like her plan.
Ana laughs, then strokes my face and tilts my chin up to give me a sweet kiss that quickly deepens.
"Maybe we could bring that mistletoe to the bedroom and have a Mommy and Daddy Christmas meeting with Santa Claus, again," she murmurs against my lips—tinsel time temptress that she is.
"Oh yeah, what does that meeting consist of?" I untie her robe and move my hand up to stroke her breast through her nightgown, her nipple hardening beneath my fingers and pushing against the satin.
"Mostly gift giving and unwrapping of large packages." She strokes my package through my pants, reminding me of all the chimney climbing and gift giving that went on last night. Before Santa comes again, I stop her by taking hold of her greedy little Christmas present loving fingers.
"Good try, Mrs. Grey, but you haven't eaten a bite of your pancakes."
She frowns. "I'm not hungry for that." She starts for the zipper again.
"I mean it, eat your breakfast! I'm not having you or my unborn child starve to death for a blow job." Although the way her fingers are sliding up and down my erection, and after her lollipop sucking demonstration last night, it's tempting.
"I thought you said I was too big," she huffs.
"I never said too big. I like you bigger. More to hold onto." I grab onto her hip and she swats. Before she can get a hand on my cock again, I lift her off and stand. "Now hurry and eat up. We have a big day ahead."
"Big day? What's happening? It's Saturday."
"The Saturday after Thanksgiving, which means it's the Saturday before the four Saturdays before Christmas!" She scrunches her brow like she's trying to follow. "Which means we have to get the kids ready by ten, so we can be there by twelve to get the full experience."
"Have you been drinking egg nog?"
"Nog?! No! I'm high on the season!"
"Should I call Flynn?"
"Only if you want him green with envy." Instead of the usual green he gets from me—dollars.
"Over what?"
"That the Grey family is about to have the best Christmas tree picking experience ever!"
########
"Jingle bells. Batman smells. Robin laid an egg..." The kids sing those same words over and over again as Ana and I sit in the back of the SUV with them in bumper-to-bumper traffic. We're all dressed in matching Christmas sweaters and scarves that I had handmade by a grandmother in Norway. Whose grandmother?—I don't fucking know, but she's known as the sweater granny of some town where it snows like 80% of the time, and that's good enough for me. Being in the Fa la la spirit, I also had one made for Chester, who's sitting on Phoebe's shoulder, staring at me with blood thirsty fangs, in a green knit turtleneck. He kind of looks like he's about to do a poetry reading.
"How much longer, Taylor?" I call up front.
"Just up ahead, sir."
"You said that twenty minutes ago."
"It was up ahead then too, sir." I swear Taylor never gives me good estimates when it comes drive times. I thought they had to do that in the military. I think he makes it vague so I won't get pissed off when it's really an hour off plan.
"Where are we going again?" Ana asks, as I stroke her belly. Lord, if this is three months, then our kid is coming out the size of a linebacker and ready to play. If that's the case, I hope it's a boy. I don't want a girl to have to bear the burden of shoulders bigger than mine in nursery school.
"I told you; to get our tree." I pull at my collar. It is an unseasonably warm day in Seattle for Nordic knits, but damn it, it's Christmas—time to wear sweaters. And, I want our family photo in front of our fresh pick to be just right. Nothing says happy family like a ten footer and matching holiday sweaters.
"We've been driving for over an hour."
"It will be well worth it. Silver Pines Christmas Experience was voted the best hidden gem for Christmas trees in the outer Seattle area by ."
"How outer is outer?"
"Upper outer, not outer outer."
"What?"
"Is it in outer space?" Teddy asks.
"Yay! We can see the moon people and Chester can eat their cheeses!" Phoebe says.
"It's not on the moon! And, I don't care how far it is, it's got a snowman village, a train to the North Pole, Santa's Toyland and a workshop with real elves!" My voice is so high and excited, I sound like I just saw my first pair of tits on the day I hit puberty.
"Are elves really real, Daddy?" Teddy asks.
"Of course they are."
"Are they like Yodas mixed with peoples?" Phoebe asks.
"What? No, they're magical little creatures who help Santa make toys and put gold at the end of rainbows."
"Those are leprechauns," Ana says. Oh, right.
"I never got gold from a rainbow!" Teddy says.
"That's because you haven't been at the end of one."
"How much monies does he pay them?" Phoebe asks, always interested in the bottom dollar.
"Nothing. They just love Christmas so much, they're happy to dedicate their time to the cause."
"That's not very nice that Santa won't pay them monies. Maybe they have babies who would like more candy. And they'd prolly work more harder if their babies was happy." I have a regular Norma Rae here, fighting for the unionization of the elves.
"They don't have families."
"Why not?"
"Because they work too hard for Santa." And I'm not sure if there are any female elves or if they even have functioning genitalia. Why the fuck am I thinking about elf dick when I just want to take my family to buy a Christmas tree?!
"Christian, there's so much traffic!" Ana says, looking out her window. There is quite a holdup.
"Don't worry, Ana. All these people can't be going to the same place."
"Yes, they are."
"How do you know that?"
She points to a sign—Silver Pines Santa Experience Straight Ahead. There's a wooden elf that I think is supposed to be waving or pointing us to the fun ahead, but it looks like a car sideswiped his hand off. Fuck. I didn't know there would so many germ carrying idiots around us when we picked out our tree. At least we'll be outdoors and I brought insect repellent.
"Well, so many people are here because it's just so good!" I think that's what Kavanagh claimed when she invited the frat house over for a party one night in college. But, really it was just because it was free.
"Daddy, it's hot!" Phoebe says, pulling at her scarf.
"Yeah, I feel like my sweat is going to fill up my shirt, shoot up my nose and drownded me," Teddy says. So dramatic.
"You won't be hot when we get there. It's going to be like a frozen wonderland. And I won't have you catch cold."
"How are these trees more authentic than others we've had?" Ana asks, pointing out the window to someone driving down the mountain with a fresh cut on their hood.
"Ana, just like the name of the place, it's all about the experience. Isn't it more Christmasy to go to the woods and smell the pine and get the freshest one, than just pick up some dead branches nailed to a stand that Jeff Fromer sets up every year at that dilapidated tree lot of his to pay for his not-so-secret gin addiction?"
"What's a gin add-itching?" Teddy asks.
"Does he have poison oak itchies or itchies from 'squitos?" Phoebe asks.
"He loves the card game—gin rummy." His wife wishes. At least there would be a chance he'd make money.
"It's straight ahead, sir," Taylor says.
"Trust me, Ana." I take hold of her hand and give it a kiss. "This is going to knock your Christmas stockings off.
#######
"Where is the snowman village?" I ask, as we stand in front of some half-assed wads of snow with twigs and carrots stuck haphazardly in places they don't belong.
"This is it," says a man in overalls whose tag reads Bud, but is no friend of mine.
"This was supposed to be Frosty's family!"
"It was about an hour ago, but we hit a warm spell. And a lot of foot traffic!" He points to a boot track right over Frosty's black top hat. I wanted to take my family to see Frosty and his kin enjoying winter, not an arctic crime scene.
"Did Frosty get stepped on and died, Daddy?" Phoebe asks, looking up at me with those sad eyes.
"Of course not. You know the story. He does what he always does—he melts and a winter breeze blows and he comes back again and walks all over the town, singing with the police."
"I will eat you all!" Teddy says, mimicking a Godzilla attack on snowman land as his right foot pounds down on what I think was grandma.
"Ahhh!" Phoebe screams. "Teddy's killing the snow people!"
"Teddy stop!" Ana says, pulling them both back.
I look out on the experience and all I can see are feet. And worse, the feet belong to people. Hundreds of germ-ridden pedestrians eating cheap cotton candy, turkey legs the size of their heads, and all looking for trees. What the fuck kind of experience is this? It's more like an experiment to see if I can keep my sanity.
"Where is the train to Santa mountain?" I ask Bud. "All I see are rusted tracks." I point to the line of them that wind up a red and white colored mountain. Upon further review, I see that it's been spray painted to look like the face of Santa. It's absolutely horrifying.
"There she is." He points to a broken down choo-choo in the distance that looks like its last ride was 1982.
"I thought that was the main attraction!"
"No, Santa's village is."
"How do we get to that?"
"Normally the train."
"But, the train is broken."
"Right. Since the train is broken, you have to walk."
"How far is the walk?"
"About a mile straight up."
"A mile?! I'm not having my children and pregnant wife walk a mile up Santa's face! We'll take the SUV."
"That won't work."
"Why?"
"You'll destroy the art work with your tires."
"Oh really?" I pull out a hundred dollar bill.
He takes it, puts it in his flannel shirt pocket and I think we're good to go.
"No, that won't work, either," he says. "Because it's closed for the day."
"It's not even noon!"
"We'd have to pay the elves time and a half on a holiday weekend, so we decided to shut her down until next week."
"See, the elves do get paid, Daddy!"' Teddy says.
"Yay for the babies and their candies!" Phoebe cheers.
"Next week? We're here today!"
"I'm sorry. Not my problem."
"Either is carrying my hundred dollar bill around." I snatch it from his shirt pocket. "I thought this place was a hidden gem!"
"It was until all the people who read that dumb website." This is ridiculous. I want to buy this place just so I can shut it the fuck down.
"Christian," Ana says. "Let's just get the tree and go."
"Fine. Where are the trees?"I ask Bud the holiday dud.
He just stands there for a moment.
"Aren't you going to show me?"
He eyes my hundred. Fucker.
#######
"There are three trees here!" I say, surveying the forest of stumps before us. It's like everyone, their mother and their mother's accountant's dry cleaner decided to get a tree here today. One of them is decent, but the other two look like they survived a drought and a wood chipper—barely. "Where are the rest? I saw a flourishing forest online!"
"We don't open up the rear woods until next week when the train starts up and the elves come." I'm not even going to touch that statement. "You can choose any tree out here that you want."
"You're too kind." I grit my teeth.
"Don't mention it." He hands me an ax.
"What's this for?"
"You can't take the tree home attached." He laughs like a fucker would—hard, quick, and bringing no pleasure to anyone but himself.
"You mean I have to cut it down myself?"
"If you're man enough."
I start to lunge.
"Christian," Ana says, holding my arm that's holding the ax, so I won't detach his member from his person with it. She knows me so well. "Let's just go to our regular tree lot."
"No, I can do this."
Bud gives us a wave and leaves us to choose from the pine trifecta.
"I thought you said it would be cold here, Daddy," Teddy says, pulling at his sweater.
"Just use your imagination! And stop stretching your Christmas ensemble!"
"But, I'm trying to widen the yarn holes so air can get on my skin."
"Bat mobiles has losted his wheels and the joker gots away!" Phoebe shouts, then laughs a joker-style ha-ha-ha set to the tune as we walk toward the only real choice on the ransacked lot.
"That's not how the song goes," I say, as they both start in on the original chorus for the fifty-seventh time. "Batman has no part in Christmas!"
"Uh huh," Teddy says. Blayde McCuffen says that the bats help Santa see at night and make the sleigh fly and Batman is the father of all of the bat children and he and Santa are a team and he's right about almost all of everything."
"Who's always right about everything? Batman or Santa?"
"Blayde McCuffen."
"What's he been right about before?"
He thinks for a second so long it's practically an hour.
"He can stick his finger in the air and tell when it's gonna rain!" Teddy says, like its the most unbelievable feat known to man. Blayde's father does the same thing— except it's up the ass of a hooker and he usually gets it wrong.
"You can't trust him! He's not even right on the spelling of own his name!" Blayde with a "y"... I shake my head.
"Christian, Blayde is a nice boy," Ana says.
"I didn't say he wasn't nice. I said he can't be trusted. A lot of nice people can't be trusted to know things." Sort of like Elliot when it came to choosing Kavanagh. "Besides, everyone knows that it's impossible for bats to help a sleigh fly." I snort at the ridiculousness of such fairy stories. "Rudolph and the other reindeer do that!"
"Daddy," Phoebe says. "Does Batman smell of farts?"
"Yes. That's why you shouldn't sing that song. You might catch what's ailing him."
"You can catch farts?" Phoebe asks. "Is it like baseballs of pushed together smelly air?"
"I wanna throw fartballs!" Teddy's says.
And they start singing again in the hopes of playing catch with home-run balls of gas.
"How do I fucking chop down a tree?" I whisper to Taylor as the kids play and Ana tries to control them. All of a sudden I feel like we're living in a Little House on the Prairie Christmas special.
"You just swing the ax into the wood, sir." Taylor says.
"How do you know about tree chopping?"
"I built my mother's house."
"With trees you chopped down yourself?"
"Partially." Why does he sound so shady? Were they his trees? Maybe they were someone else's... I never pictured Taylor as lumber thief.
"Didn't you need permits and such?"
"It's way out, sir." He motions like that's an answer. How way out is this place? Is he really a hillbilly? I wonder what Taylor's mother looks like. I shudder imagining his gorilla hands on a sixty-five year old woman. Or those legs in a skirt.
"Would you like me to do it, Mr. Grey?" Oh he would like that. Showing his lumberjack abilities off in front of my wife. Why not just whip out his dick, piss all over the bark and stake his claim like a lion, while he's at it.
"No, I can handle my own ax and my own wood, Taylor." I ready my chopper. "Just stand back and make sure everything's lined up right.
He stands back and looks. "Your wood and ax look perfect to me, Mr. Grey!" Jesus, could he say that any louder?
"Everyone, get back!" I yell to Ana and the kids.
"What?" Ana says, holding the kids close to her in the distance. They're so far back, they can't even hear me. This is good. I don't want any trees falling anywhere near my family. I don't worry about Taylor. He's obviously used to wood falling on him.
"Is this the one we want?" I point to it and give a thumbs up.
The kids cheer as Ana gives a thumbs up in return.
I lift the ax, pull it backward and give it a swing that hits the wood. I look down, expecting the tree job to be halfway done and I realize I've only made half-an-inch of progress.
"Nice swing, sir!" Taylor praises.
"Thank you." Okay, if I keep making half-an-inch progress with each chop, we should be out of here by Christmas. Maybe. But, I spoke too soon. The next chop I definitely make a good 3/4 of an inch progress, but in another spot entirely!
"Try to keep even with the same line!" Taylor says.
"Oh really? I had no idea!" I roll my eyes.
"It's all in the wrist action, sir. Would you like me to hold onto it with you while you chop?"
"No, Taylor, it's fine." That's the last thing I need—Taylor spooning me from behind with both hands over mine as we hold to my ax and move in unison to find wood.
Fuck it, I'm going to town on this bark! I workout with Claude, I'll be fine. I give it another strike, then another, then another. So far not one of them matches up. I'm sweating up a storm in this sweater and scarf.
"Taylor, hold my scarf!" He tries to pull it off of me, nearly strangling me in the process. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Trying to remove your knits."
"Well, don't remove my life in the process!"
Finally I'm free. I take a few breaths and then chop a few more.
"Yes!" I cheer—hands in the air— when one actually makes contact with an already hit strip. The kids and Ana cheer, too. I finally got it! It's going to be smooth sailing now!
An hour and twenty-seven minutes later...
I'm a man without breath, without sweater, without dignity, as I make my final chop into the bark of a tree that nearly defeated me. The tree falls and so do I.
"I did it, Ana," I say out of breath as I struggle to reach the oasis that is my wife, who's sitting with our two sleeping children on a far-off bench.
"Oh Christian, you did such a beautiful job." God, I love her. I know that she's lying through her teeth and that makes me love her all the more. Our trunk looks like it's been attacked by Edward Scissorhands before he learned how to use them and on a drunk, angry night.
"Take me home, please," I say. She gives me a kiss on the head.
"Come on kids, we have our tree," she says, waking them.
They rub their eyes like they've been in hibernation all winter.
"Do you like it?" I say, as they look.
"Yay!" They cheer and I'm so happy they're happy.
"Wait!" I say, remembering an important task at hand. "We need our picture!"
We gather our kids into their Christmas sweaters and all pose by the tree. Taylor gets out the camera and takes the shot. Instead of a picture card of the perfect Christmas, we look like we've been attacked by it, but we've survived—together. Funny thing is, I love it all the more.
"Great photo, Grey!" A man's voice shouts from the distance. Oh fuck, it's Jim Dubrow. Of course he'd be here to stuff a turkey leg into his mouth. Oh look, that's just what he's doing.
"Jim!" I act like I care, but not really. It's funny, I never associated with the masses before I had a family, now I'm forced to uphold niceties in the community. Just because I live on top of the hill, over everyone, somehow makes me a fucking pillar.
"I see you got your tree!"
"I see you got your leg."
"Indeed." He laughs, then peels some skin off the thing with his teeth. How do they get turkey legs that big? I've never seen one like that in the wild. Of course, the only wild one I've been acquainted with is now a member of my family and surprisingly it's not Elliot. Are they bionic? Or have we all been lied to and they just glue a bunch of extra meat on the bone to fool us into feeling like triumphant cavemen in amusement park environments.
"So, you competing in the contest this year?"
"What contest?"
"The Ho-Ho-House decorating contest. Everyone in the area is competing. The bigger the better. Whoever wins this thing can claim to be King of the neighborhood." He takes another chomp of greasy flesh. I'm already King of the neighborhood. Our home is so big, it practically takes up its own zip code.
"It sounds fun, but I'm sure we're not interested."
"I'm surprised you're not already involved. Didn't Bent tell you? He's the one who organized this whole thing."
"No, Bent didn't." Fucking Bent Richards—that fucker from my rowing team in high school who they called Bent Dicks for obvious anatomically incorrect reasons. I still won't forget what happened at that first Coping Together ball that could've jeopardized my future with Ana. But, I showed him. I hadn't seen him in years, but last summer he moved into a house on Blue Jay Lane at the bottom of the hill with his man-of-a-wife and three unexceptional kids that were probably fathered by the cable guy, considering his sperm can't shoot straight. He knows I'd kick his Ivy League ass in any contest, lights or other—of course he didn't tell me!
"On second thought, Jim—where do I apply?"