Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (18 page)

Swallowing his fear, the Easter Bunny hopped closer and sat back on his haunches. "I watch at windows," he began. "I watch acts of copulation. It excites me." He fell silent, though his jaws twitched, wanting to go on.

"Is there a point to this?"

He shut his eyes for a moment and forced his neck to bend forward. When he opened them, he was looking at the animal perfection of her midriff, tight and smooth-haired and kissable where it disappeared behind a muscled arc of upper thigh. "I watched you tonight with Santa Claus. After you—"

"You did?" Rising inflection and a razor-thin edge to her voice.

"Well," he said, losing air, "yes I suppose I did. It's harmless really. Just something I do. At windows. But when you—"

"And did you like what you saw?"

"When you left, he—"

"Answer me, you little shit!"

His glance shot to her eyes, then darted off. Why had he come? Things were always easier in the planning. Reality always tumbled out whichever way it liked, wild and out of control. He swallowed with difficulty. "Yes, I did. I liked what I saw, very much. But I don't think
you're
going to—"

"What in particular did you like?" He was sure she had not yet blinked. Her eyebeams bored like lasers through his left cheek.

"Well uh, I guess when, when you uh, crouched over his face and, you know, moved your hips real slow so he could see your, your fairyhood all wet and swollen, and you fingered yourself until your juices gathered and grew into shiny droplets and splashed onto his beard. That was, that was really"—(
Good God, stay on track!
)—"but as I was saying, after you left, Santa went—"

Her voice cut in like acid. "And what specifically did you like about that?"

"Well . . . you know."

"I'd like you to tell me."

"It's obvious."

"Not to me it isn't."

Some hot hard thing spread upon his mind, twisting his words: "Well uh, I don't know, the glisten, the slickness, the openness of it, it's hard to say, maybe it's seeing it move and shift, knowing he's watching it and taking the abrupt fall of your fluid on his lips and running his tongue over them and reaching out for you and pulling you down onto his mouth, feasting on all those gathering juices, maybe that's it; but—(
Duck out from under!
)—Santa went upstairs and spent twice as much time in bed with Rachel McGinnis—"

"You—"

"—and he told her he loves her and wants her to come live with him at the North Pole." He rode the last tumble of words out over her, pitching them louder and faster and feeling feverish and tight-chested beneath the oppressive cloudcover.

Pure stun beside him.

He became aware of the waves schussing at the shore, at the shore, the shore, shore. Overhead a seagull flew, high and white. The sand felt cold and gritty beneath his haunches.

He took a deep calming breath.

When at last she spoke, her voice was low and flat, but full of points and edges. "Tell me everything they did and said, Mister Rabbit. All of it, right down to the last detail."

And that's what he did. He chattered every bit of it out before her like a pagan worshiper laying the fruits of his labor at the feet of an idol. He not only reported every word and deed, but also volunteered precise contrasts between Santa's interaction with her downstairs and with Rachel upstairs. He scattered before her there on the beach the exact words of love Santa had murmured to the mortal woman. These he lingered over like a jeweler contemplating a velvet of diamonds, then set beside them the dead sheen and roughcut facets of Santa's endearments to
her
. Upstairs, he told her, every thrust, every caress, every lick, clip, and cuddle carried special meaning, special caring. Downstairs, all was, by his account, an impressive display of divine animality, a slickening into sweat, a desperate feasting on body parts—a feasting with its own sensual integrity, to be sure, but one which paled beside identical acts done out of the love Santa had come quickly to share with Rachel McGinnis.

As he spoke, the Easter Bunny's eyes grew bold. They drifted over the Tooth Fairy's flawless body, settling in to linger upon cheek or chin, nape or nipple, thigh or cunt or rump-lovely buttock. She was daunting in her ways, this fairy woman. But he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything. His verbal recounting of her intercourse with Santa brought back into his groin all the passion that had typhooned out of Wendy's bed and washed over him as he watched them. His erection now rose thick and red, right out in front of the Tooth Fairy. He felt no need to conceal it.

"The longer I watched, the more indignant I grew on your behalf," he said. "So when they'd got in their last licks at one another and said goodbye, I took to the sky and crossed the ocean to inform you of Santa's perfidy, knowing that vengeance might interest you, and, if I may be frank, hoping that your sense of gratitude would allow you to . . . to see your way clear to . . . well to—"

But before he could weasel out his oily proposition, his innards began to rumble and pound like thunder. He glanced over in alarm at the Tooth Fairy, who remained in her impassive squat on the strand, staring out to sea. A fist of fury seized on his guts, twisted there with an anger not his own, and splayed open its fingers. He quickly yielded to it, letting it own him and move him, feeling it entwine so with his lust for the Tooth Fairy that it turned into a monstrous meld of emotions, which stood his fur up with rage and sexual need.

"Vengeance?" she said. "The world of men and elves does not yet understand the meaning of the word. But I understand it. And I can see you do too."

"Yes, yes I do. Now please—"

"We feel it in our bones, don't we, you and I?"

"I'm possessed by it, oh believe me I am. But I also need to, to possess, to be possessed by you. Look at the state I'm in and pity me." His head throbbed. His brain felt near to bursting with desire. It didn't help matters to touch a paw to his erection; that felt like the closing of yet another high-voltage circuit in his body.

The Tooth Fairy fell to her knees, her back arched as if to bay at the moon. Her breasts were magnificently pendent. Her fingers dug deep into the sand like gnarled tree roots. At his words, she glanced his way: first a flash of contempt, then a longer look at his privates, a mix of bemusement and loathing and curiosity and some perverse form of reverence. "You want me to give this prick," she reached out and wrapped a rough hand around it, "what it so richly deserves?"

Colors deepened at her touch. Sounds too. "Oh God, yes, anything you say. Please, make me your slave."

"On your back, bunny." She pushed him down onto the sand, leaping upon him like some savage panther and skewering herself on his stiffness. She was dry and harsh there, coarse sandpaper against his tender dickskin.

"Wait, oh Christ, that hurts," he yelped, tearing her thighs to ribbons with his back claws. Splashes of blood spattered the sand behind her.

"Shut the fuck up!" A backhand seared across his face. Never letting up on the bone-dry coitus below, she thrust her hands into his mouth and wrenched his jaw open, straining his facial muscles to their limit. He gave a series of high-pitched squeals and opened deep wounds in her flesh with front claws and back, lacerating her breasts and buttocks until they streamed with gore. But his attacks only turned her on. Her face fisted smack into his mouth and she bit into his huge front teeth, punching through the enamel to the pulp and wrenching at them like a dog worrying a rag, until at last their roots could hold no longer and they broke free of their sockets, drawing fountains of blood after them. She grabbed his front paws and pressed them down into the sand, munching, cheeks full, glaring at him and flaying his dick with her dry tight vagina. Bunny blood embittered his mouth. His jaw muscles throbbed in agony, but shoots of tooth grew back where she had taken her bloody harvest. Down below, sprung sperm coiled up like whomps of flame through his erection, defining it in his mind as one raging column of torment. Every spasm opened a raw wound. Each wrenching spurt dug another barbed hook into his balls. And then she was off him. Blessed healing visited him as he reeled there and her anus opened and dropped gold-foiled coins of chocolate onto the blood-stained beach.

"Did you enjoy that, Mister Rabbit?"

"No, I mean yes, that is I . . ." He was overwhelmed and tingling everywhere.

"Now listen," she said, gripping his testicles and squeezing hard, "I don't give a shit whether you enjoyed it or not, but you'd better get used to it because that's going to be what it's like as long as we work together. And we are going to work together, you and me, aren't we?"

"Yes, ma'am," he gasped. His claws unsheathed into the sand. He hurt everywhere. But by God the pain proved he existed, and my how she thrilled his senses even as she drove them beyond their limits. No, he would gladly give up a ba-zillion nights with Petunia for one eviscerating evening with the Tooth Fairy.

"Be my eyes and ears, bunny rabbit," she said. "I give the fat elf one year to wise up and reclaim my love. I want to know his every move, what he says and where he goes, who he shares his bed with. I want to know every eyeblink, every wink, every sigh. You'll do that for me, won't you? You'll spy on Santa Claus for me?"

Slowly nodding, his eyes wide with pain: "Whatever pleases you." One raised paw. "But what if he doesn't want you back?"

"Why then, my friend," she said, twisting his balls until he beat the sand with his back feet and screamed for mercy, "you and I are going to hurt the fat little bastard like he's never been hurt before."

*****

Rachel hugged Santa tight, not wanting to let him go, but understanding that she had to share him with the rest of the world. "I'm going to miss you."

"You won't wake Wendy until I return?" he said.

"No," she agreed.

Santa told her he'd be thinking about her everywhere he went. Over and over he said he loved her. She echoed his words. The glow of his presence remained with Rachel long after he withdrew the magic time from her and vanished like pixie dust into the night. But depression also claimed her. The bedroom seemed empty without him, as if the sun had blinked out and plunged the earth into unending pitch. It took a middle-of-the-night walk downstairs and a silent vigil at her daughter's bedside to restore her spirits.

As for Santa, his rounds that night took on renewed meaning. These sweet children of earth, as dear as they'd been to him before, seemed more precious than ever. His and Anya's mortal lives lay so far back in the past that humanity had come to seem almost a race apart. Rachel had reestablished a lost link.

Having reached one last time into his pack and set the last gift beneath the last Christmas tree of the night, Santa bounded off the front porch of the Hansen household on Maisonneuve in Montreal, leaped to his sleigh, took up the reins, and shouted, "No Tooth Fairy's island this year, my patient steeds! One last stop to pick up a dear friend and her daughter, and then we're homeward bound!"

At this, the team sprang into the sky with unflagging zest, galloping through miles of winter to set down once more on the lawn of the old Victorian on K Street. Santa wrapped Rachel round with magic time and roused her from sleep with a kiss. She embraced him, and when they broke their kiss, she sighed and said, "If it was a dream, I guess I'm at it again."

"No dream, dear Rachel. I'm here, my sleigh awaits, and all that remains is to obtain Wendy's consent and hop aboard."

Worry marks crimped her forehead. "Oh, my love, you make it sound so simple. But there's Anya to think about and you know it. Let's not gloss over the problems we're going to face."

"One step at a time," said Santa, soothing with his gentle hand her troubled brow. "Let's live our life together day by day, and let the future unfold as it will. Do you still want to come?"

She pursed her lips, looked down, nodded.

"One week's trial?" he asked.

"Yes. Subject to Wendy's approval."

Memories of the sleeping child came to him as he had last seen her, oblivious in normal time, her light-brown braids framing her face, the flowered, ruffed sleeves of her nightgown lapped over the backs of her hands. A good little girl, he knew; one he would be proud to call daughter, if she'd have him as a father. "Shall we wake her?"

Rachel smiled and said yes.

*****

Wendy lay deep in dream. It was a warm cozy dream with Mommy and Daddy and Mrs. Fredericks and Wendy's best friends from school all holding hands and staring up in awe at a Christmas tree that climbed like a beanstalk beyond the clouds. Then Mommy's voice spoke from outside the dream (because her dream mommy's lips didn't move). Wendy, she said, Wendy, Wendy; and her voice was soothing and solid, as solid as the ears of a chocolate bunny at Easter.

"Are you awake, dear?"

Wendy groaned and rubbed her eyes in protest against the harsh light spilling in from the hall. Her mother's comforting shape sat beside her, her loving hand along the side of Wendy's face.

"I have a surprise for you."

"Wanna sleep s'more, Mommy," she said through a yawn. Then she remembered it was Christmas and the sleep drained from her like darkness fleeing light. "Has Santa Claus come yet?"

"Yes, honey. That's part of the surprise."

Raising herself, Wendy saw the sharp outline of someone standing behind her mother, someone large like Daddy. For a moment she thought it might
be
her daddy come down from heaven, but this man walked in a different way and pure beams of happiness came rushing into her like fresh breezes from the fat black hole he made in her room. Then he moved closer. Moonlight painted his face and the bright red and white of his outfit, and Wendy was at once scared out of her wits and giddy with excitement. Such joy filled her as he approached that she threw herself without hesitation into his encircling arms. "Santa!" she said. Above her hug, his beard softened against her forehead.

Santa's voice tickled her insides: "I'm delighted to meet you, Wendy."