Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups

by Robert Devereaux

  Santa led Anya to the bed, seated her there, sat beside her.

  "First," he said, "you'll be relieved to know I've broken it off with the Tooth Fairy."

  "No backsliding?" Her eyes were cool.

  "Well, we slept together one last time," he admitted reluctantly, "but I put my foot down at last. She's out of my life for good."

  Exasperation sharpened Anya's eyes. She looked away, then suddenly back, like the steel tips of a cat-o'-nine-tails stinging him across the face. Then her eyes grew soft and a smile glimmered on her lips. "It hardly matters," she said quietly. "I took my revenge while you were gone."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I slept with all of your elves. Many times over. All but Gregor. They've reverted since then for some reason. They don't remember a thing. But I did it and I'm glad I did it and now I just want things back the way they were. Now will you tell me who this McGinnis person is and why she's here?"

  Santa had begun to laugh, but his laughter dissolved when he realized Anya was serious. She really had opened her loins to his elves. "Well, in the process of breaking up—" he faltered. "You couldn't have. Surely they would have stopped you."

  "They didn't and I did. But that's ages ago and all my demons are exorcised," she said dismissively. "Now get off that subject. You can agonize over it later all you want, but right now you're going to tell me about this McGinnis woman."

  Air seemed suddenly in short supply. Santa was sure his face had gone pale, even unto his rosy cheeks. "How dare you boss me around?" he muttered, knowing it was a mistake to let his anger show, but not caring.

  "What was that?"

  "I said how dare you boss me around? And how dare you take advantage of my elves that way?"

  "Keep your voice down."

  "I won't," he shouted. Then lower: "Yes I will, but for their sake, not yours." He sprang from the bed and paced before her. "All right, it was a mistake to carry on for so long with the Tooth Fairy without your knowing about it and it was a mistake to sleep with her tonight, though you've got to believe me I did try to resist her, I really did. I got to thinking about you out there and how much you mean to me and so I vowed to end it and by God I did end it. It was a relief to rid myself of her and it was . . . it was comforting to picture you waiting by the fire, rocking and knitting and glancing out the window at the elves cavorting on the commons."

  "Tell me who she is."

  "Instead I discover you stripped yourself naked and fucked the living daylights out of my co-workers. My God, Anya, what did you expect me to do? Nod sagely, give a sly wink, and say, That's nice, dear?" He caught sight of himself in the mirror over Anya's dressing table, pacing back and forth with his huge bear-like feet ankling out of his robe while his wife sat sad and defiant on the bed. "Oh Anya, my precious one, listen to me carry on. So much pain, so much anger. It feels wrong. But all of that we can let go of. We're husband and wife. We can renew our vows. I love you, after all, and that's all that matters. And you love me, don't you?"

  "Tell me who she is, Claus."

  He sat beside her once more, feeling frantic and elated and talking much too fast. "Yes, as I was about to say: When the Tooth Fairy stormed off—Lord, she was in a towering rage, you should have seen her!—I went upstairs to look in on Rachel. It was her house you see and she'd been an exceptionally well-behaved child in years gone by. But I guess I got sloppy with my magic time because her eyes opened and she caught me. And she was so . . . so fascinating that I let it continue and got to know her and—now I know you're going to be tempted to take this the wrong way, but please try not to—I fell in love with her. Not that I love you any less, because of course I don't. No, it's just a different kind of love. But anyway the upshot was, I asked her to come live with us at the North Pole and I really think you two will hit it off. We're going to give it a week's trial and then she'll decide whether to stay or not." He paused for breath, feeling like he'd been jabbering for hours. Anya sat next to him, head bent, hands picking at each other on her lap. "I mean it will be a group decision of course, whether she goes or stays. She and little Wendy and . . . and all of us will decide."

  "She'll go." Anya spoke with a quiet finality, not looking up. "I'll make it clear to her she's not welcome and she'll go."

  Wonderful, thought Santa. Now she's playing the long-suffering wife. "There, you see? You are taking it the wrong way," he said, his voice as winning as he could make it. "Look, I know this will take some getting used to, but give it a chance, won't you? At least promise me you'll be on your best behavior when Wendy unwraps her Christmas gifts and takes the grand tour."

  She looked up at him, her eyes red and moist. But he guessed it was too hard for her, because she looked away, rested her hand on his shoulder, and stared into the back of it. "Claus, my big little boy," she sighed, "when are you going to grow up? It seems we were once creatures of questionable morality. That much I learned while you were away. But we're the Clauses now and this world depends on our being faithful to each other, on foregoing lust—however lovely the feeling—for the sake of love."

  "Anya, it's true I felt lust and nothing but lust for the Tooth Fairy," said Santa. "But what I feel for Rachel is different. It's love I feel, a love as right and good as the love I hold in my heart for you, and the two loves can co-exist, I know they can, if you'll let them."

  A tiny knock came at the door and then Wendy's voice called his name.

  "Yes, Wendy?"

  The handle turned. The little girl's head poked in, brown braids flying. "Hi. We're all unpacked and Mommy says I should ask you if it's time to open the presents yet."

  "Give me five minutes to dress," he said. "You and your mother make yourselves at home by the Christmas tree. We'll be right along."

  Wendy agreed excitedly and vanished.

  Santa rose from the bed. He pulled a comfortable cambric shirt and a pair of pants from his closet and tossed them over a chair. Long red flannel underwear and two thick red woolen socks joined them out of his dresser drawer. He sighed audibly, unable to look at the silent figure of his wife on the bed. He hung his robe in the closet, pushing his shirts aside so it could dry properly.

  Santa paused naked by the chair. One hand rested on the red shirt draped over the chairback. "Are you . . . are you all right?"

  "Oh yes," she said slowly, not looking up. "Never better."

  "Just try," Santa pleaded, feeling strange in his nakedness but standing there anyway, exposing himself to her, hoping the undeniability of his flesh would turn her around and sweep her along to his conclusion. "Try just a little. That's all I ask. Will you do that for me? Will you give it a try?"

  IV. Trying Times

  Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.

  —Bertrand Russell

  Here's to our wives and sweethearts—may they never meet.

  —John Bunny

  So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it needs two to carry it, and sometimes three.

  —Alexandre Dumas

  11. Modus Vivendi

  Fritz had never been happier.

  The exchange of gifts between Santa and Mrs. Claus on Christmas morning was traditionally a private affair. But now, on top of the arrival of Wendy and her mother—an event which spun Santa's helpers into a leaping tizzy of joy—Fritz had been one of a handful of elves singled out to join them on this special occasion.

  The Christmas tree dominated the living room. It had to be the tallest, greenest, branchiest tree Fritz could recall, riotous with ornaments and icicles, colored lights and unending strings of popcorn.

  On the floor to Fritz's right sat Gregor and his brothers, friends again, though the reason they had fallen out in the first place escaped him. Indeed all the elves were somewhat hazy about what had occurred during Anya's magic sway over them. What remained from that time were vague stabs of pleasure and guilt, a sudden waking on the commons, and delight at Mrs. Claus's newfound exuberance.

  Upon the
couch, somewhat obscured by branches and stepped towers of gift, sat Wilhelm and Siegmund and Karl, specialists in the subtleties of kiln and glaze and brushwork on plateware or piggybank. Their excitement at being in Santa's living room was palpable. Fritz felt it himself, a joy radiating from the pit of his stomach. He needed suddenly to hug somebody, so he latched onto fat Josef, Gregor's younger brother, and squeezed a tight oomph! out of him. Then a door clicked open down the hallway and a young girl's high excited whisper filled the air. At once, they shrank back tight and eager-eyed into their best behavior.

  Wendy, puffed-sleeved and lovely in white, appeared in the archway. She gazed at them, her wide eyes unsure at first. Then she crinkled into a broad grin, reached back for her mother's hand, and pulled her into the room.

  Fritz liked Rachel McGinnis lots. Her face was fresh and open, and there was something bouncy in the way she moved. But now, despite the glee with which she took them in, she seemed to be holding back an essential store of treasure. She dropped into a chair and gave them all a warm smile.

  Her daughter homed in on the couch and thrust out her hand—"Hi, I'm Wendy!"—to an astonished Wilhelm. His hand seemed to rise on its own like a seed-puff in the wind, but he sat there, mouth ajar, saying nothing, until Siegmund knuckled him on the shoulder and began the introductions. Then the others on the couch chimed in, followed by Fritz and Josef and Gregor and Englebert sitting on the floor, and suddenly the room was alive with cheery banter.

  At first it focused on Wendy. But when Fritz sensed that Rachel was feeling left out, he spoke up: "That's a lovely dress Wendy's wearing, Mrs. McGinnis. Did you make it, by chance?"

  "Yes, I did," she said, "last week in fact. Oh and please call me Rachel." Fritz could tell she appreciated his gesture. Her smile generated a warm, baked-bread glow in his heart.

  Everyone reached out to finger the cloth and admire the hemstitches, telling Wendy, who beamed, how fortunate she was to have such a skilled seamstress for a mother. "Yes and she writes very fine computer programs too," Wendy said, and they at once praised Rachel for that talent as well.

  Then Santa burst into the room, trailing Mrs. Claus behind him. "Merry Christmas, everybody!" He swooped Wendy up and charged about the room, gladhanding and hugging each elf in turn. Fritz noticed, as Santa descended upon the crowded couch, that Mrs. Claus slipped silently into her rocking chair by the fire.

  Her hands clung tight to its arms.

  "Fritz, old friend!" Santa's booming voice washed like goodness into his ear, warming him inside and out with the spirit of giving. The jolly old elf's strong red right arm hugged Fritz to the bulge of his belly and to Wendy's thin bony legs where she rode in the crook of his left arm. Hasty kisses to his cheeks, a glimpse into Santa's animated face (but was there something false in that animation?), and Fritz watched him hurry past his wife and deposit Wendy on her mother's lap. Then he sank with a sigh of pleasure into the far end of the couch, lit a long thin white ceramic pipe, and enjoined his elves one by one to retrieve and deliver gifts.

  The ensuing orgy of dissemination swept them all into a sweet oblivion of wrappings torn asunder, boxes unlidded, and tissue paper parted; of squeals of delight and unending thank-yous and you're-welcomes; and beneath it all, like the bowel-stirring pedal point of a Bach passacaglia, the hearty boom of Santa's laughter thundered forth. Fritz found most of his deliveries going to Rachel or Wendy—they had, after all, brought their cache of presents with them—but some he held out to Santa, and others to Mrs. Claus, who, while decidedly less old-ladyish in her movements than at past celebrations, looked at him with the fretted eyes of the elderly. But it was hard to focus on Anya for long, what with the level of excitement whirling about the room and the wonder of having actual mortals sitting here in the same room with them.

  And when the last gift had added its contribution to the colorful mountain of torn wrappings and ribbons, a sly grin spread across Santa's face. "Dear me," he said, "I nearly forgot the best present of all." Fritz saw the slightest flicker about Santa, the telltale discontinuity of magic time kicking in. Leaning forward, he brought forth from behind his back two mewling kittens, one black and one white. They hugged two or three of his fingers with their front paws and let their back legs splay, claws out, to either side of his wrists.

  "Oh, they're so cute," said Wendy. "What are their names?"

  "That's up to you, Wendy," replied Santa. "They're yours."

  From the look on Wendy's face, Fritz understood for the first time why they were in the business of delighting children. Nothing in his experience could compare with watching Wendy's eyes light up. "This one has got to be Snowball," she said. "And this one I'll call Nightwind."

  "Snowball and Nightwind," said Santa, holding the kittens to his rosy cheeks. "Say hello to Wendy." With that, he placed them carefully in her lap and knelt beside Rachel's chair watching the little girl glide her hands in wonder along the fur of their tiny bodies.

  When Fritz chanced to look up, Mrs. Claus's rocker, now empty, was rocking back and forth on its own.

  *****

  A timid knock sounded at Anya's sewing room door. Setting down her knitting, she removed her glasses and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she put them on again and picked up the knitting needles. "Come in," she called.

  It was the little girl, alone, her hand lingering at the brass doorknob. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  "Of course, my dear. Close the door and come sit by me." Anya gestured to the footstool with the embroidered reindeer on top. She felt ashamed. Part of her—a small but vile part—wanted to strike Wendy with such violence that her hated mother would keel over and die. The rest of her wanted to take this dear young child to her heart and hold her there forever, tight and warm and loving. It surprised her that there could be any mitigation to her rejection of Santa's latest folly, yet the little girl filled a vacancy in her life she hadn't been aware of.

  Wendy sat down. "This is a pretty room."

  "Thank you, child."

  "My mommy is teaching me to knit."

  "That's nice. Do you like knitting?"

  "Oh yes," said Wendy. "Um, can I ask you something?" Her voice took on a conspiratorial air.

  Anya smiled tightly as her hands danced before her through the clicking of needles and the slow sweatering of yarn. Somehow her bout with the elves—as crazy as it had been in other ways—had instilled new youth in her, right down to her now nimble fingers. More precisely, it had taught her that the illusion of age had been her choice all along. "Yes, my dear," said Anya, "you may ask me anything you like."

  Wendy stood beside the rocker, her white dress pressed against its arm. When she put her hand on Anya's shoulder and leaned in, Anya, delighting in her touch, turned an ear to receive the girl's confidence. "Mrs. Claus," Wendy whispered, "why don't you like me?"

  Anya pulled back at this, noting the deep runnels of concern on Wendy's forehead. "Where did you ever get such a silly notion?"

  "I'm very observant," Wendy said, a trace of pride in among her concern. "Just like Nancy Drew and Miss Marple. I guess it was mostly how you looked up at us when we flew in. The way you hugged me when Santa lifted me down from the sleigh, like your shawl was doing most of the hugging for you. And the way you sat by the fire and watched me. Stuff like that."

  Anya felt her temples pounding. She set her knitting down on the basket beside her and patted her lap. "Young lady, be so good as to sit here," she said. And when the child had allowed herself to be lifted up and was nestled comfortably against Anya's bosom: "I want you to listen very carefully to me. Will you do that?"

  Wendy said she would.

  "Good girl," said Anya, gently rocking and placing her hand upon Wendy's nape. She did not at all like the streak of jealousy that urged her to do violence to this innocent creature. As she told Wendy how she and Santa sat here on top of the world with their hearts full of love for every boy and girl on earth, how they felt like special godparents to them all,
the savagery of the green-eyed monster made her throat seize up. But for the child's sake, she narrowed her attention to herself and Wendy, two orphans with no connection to anyone else in the world.

  And Anya's core of benevolence triumphed. Her love touched the child's love and she found herself sobbing and hugging her and kissing her, this frail mortal creature on her lap whose beauty was as the beauty of fresh meadow grass. Once more she welcomed Wendy to the North Pole and this time she meant it. She promised to teach her all the tricks she had learned about knitting and needlepoint and crochet and macrame, and how to coax culinary magic out of grains and vegetables.

  "You mean just like my mommy does?"

  Anya smiled. "Maybe even better than your mommy does."

  *****

  Deep in the dark recesses of the workshop, with the smell of manufacture all about and the firm give of foam beneath them, Rachel felt Santa's lips upon her cheek, the thick goodness of his penis nestled like an infant inside her. Her eyes, drifting into the darkness above, could make out only the dim outlines of lighting fixtures and an impression of laddered shelves lofting upward. Cavernous yet comforting this place was, even in the dead of night.

  Santa sighed. "That was beautiful," he said. "You couldn't begin to guess how much I've needed you."

  Rachel ran her fingers idly through his soft white beard and smiled. "Mr. Claus, you are the most amazing lover I've ever had."

  "So glad you enjoyed it, Ms. McGinnis."

  Then it was time to be serious with him.

  "We need to talk," she said. "About Anya." There. It was out. She hated being the other woman, particularly when Santa's wife had been so kind and loving to Wendy and was clearly as dear and sweet and attractive in her own way as Santa was in his. There were oblique reminders—in the sway of her hips, in certain vocal inflections and turns of phrase—of Rachel's fling at college with Rhonda Williamson, whom she still remembered fondly. "You and I have been exchanging looks for three days now, hoping things would improve. But they haven't. You know they haven't."