"S... Santa...?" You hear a surprised little voice behind you, just as you turn around to find the owner of it standing in the doorway, with one foot still on the stairway leading down from the second floor. "Is... Is that really you...?"
Standing before you in a small red top with long sleeves and fluffy white trimmings, a matching miniskirt and a cute little santa hat, the apparition could as well have been taken straight out of one of your former little helpers favourite wet dreams. Despite the tone to her voice and her sweet little wide-eyed face, framed by long and beautiful honey blonde hair, there's no way her curvaceous form could ever be mistaken for a child's, leaving you captivated by the way that her silky young flesh is barely contained by her tight little outfit.
Normally you've only rarely become attracted to the human physique, finding the greed that you're *gifted* to see in their hearts by far overshadowing any outer appearances. Then again, in the bottom of your soul you're still a man much like any other, and you know how to appreciate true beauty when you see it up front. The lack of overwhelming selfishness that you can see in this one's deep blue eyes makes her an even rarer breed indeed, and you find yourself rooted to the ground and simply staring as she hesitantly takes a step closer.
"Santa...?" She repeats her question, a hint of worry now upon her pretty face as she's looking up into your bewildered face. There's still no sign of fear however, as you'd been expecting from someone who's found a shabby old man like yourself breaking into their livingroom, and instead there's only curiousity that you can sense in her soul as she approaches you slowly. "What's happened to you?"
"Uh...?" You stammer as you realize you haven't spoken to a living being but yourself and your senile old reindeer for many years, and barely manage to keep your voice from breaking. Looking down at yourself you find the reason for her question, and start wondering yourself how you've let yourself become as run-down as this. For some reason you don't want to give her the wrong impression, and decide to give her only the shortest version. "I... fell down from the top of a roof..."
"Oh, no...?!" The young woman lets out a worried little gasp, but then gives you a rather confused kind of look as she consider your confession. "But... Aren't you supposed to be able and climb down even a chimney...?"
"Yeah, I stopped that many years ago..." You tell her with a reluctant sigh, still not knowing how you ever came up with an idea like that in the first place. Towards the end of your career you started letting your helpers do it for you, but the amount of injuries among them grew drastically higher, not to speak of all the problems they started causing once they grew a taste for brandy and cookies...! "I just found it... more comfortable to use the door instead."
"Well, I can see why..." She says with a sudden smile, while glancing over to the open fireplace and looking like she too start wondering why she's never thought of it like that before. "But still... Why don't you land your reindeers in the garden instead...?"
"Long story, and many good reasons." You tell her with another deep sigh, not wanting to give her the full explanation to that either. The fact that you could just barely make all your reindeers go in the same direction at once was always a big thorn in your side, not to speak of all the damage they'd cause to a garden if left unchecked in it for more than a couple of minutes.
"But you do have them? The reindeers I mean?" She asks with renewed interest and fascination in her sweet voice, sounding more and more like a little child on christmas eve while she glances out the window as if expecting them to stare back at her from the garden, despite of what you told her just a second ago. "And they can really fly as well? Would you please let me see them?"
"Uh, well..." You start, hesitating as you know that Marv isn't much more representable than yourself at the moment. Showing him to this young woman would perhaps ruin her view of you forever, allthough she hasn't seemed too offended by your own condition. Also, you're not sure it's a good idea to actually prove that you're the one you say that you are. Once people start truly forgetting about you, maybe you could finally just... cease to exist...
At the other hand, in this very moment you feel more alive than you've done in many long years, just from talking to another human being. And with that feeling comes others, of a kind you thought you'd left behind a long time ago. The wish to keep talking to her for one, and to stay on her good side and impress her so that she would like to speak to you many times again. And... other feelings as well. Such that has very little to do with talking, but a whole lot to do with how your eyes are constantly drawn to every curve and detail of her beautiful appearance.
Certainly, not all of those thoughts and feelings are becoming of such a gentle and beloved figure as yourself... But then again, who are you now to live up to such ancient ideals...? |