Prelude to Space Rape! & Other Stories

by Jordan Krall

  He had promised Diana that he wouldn’t stray again and had intended to keep that promise. But couldn’t she at least give him an occasional handjob or something? Instead, she neglected the intimate part of their marriage and expected him to satisfy himself alone. The whole fucking thing was just too damn frustrating and on top of that, he had to deliver fucking toys again.

  Let’s get this shit over with.

  Santa shook his head free from stress and looked down at the last stop on his Christmas delivery route. It was a new town that had just popped up out of nowhere. There didn’t appear to be any industry nearby, no coal mines or anything like that. It was as if a group of people just decided to settle themselves on a plot of land like their ancestors would have done hundreds of years ago.

  It was situated between two snowy mountains, cradled like a nursery filled with brick and wood babies. Santa thought the place looked like a shit-hole but it possessed a weird, quaint sort of charm that wasn’t usually evident in new towns. If he didn’t know better, Santa would have guessed the town was at least three hundred years old.

  But Santa really didn’t give a shit about the specifics of the place. He automatically resented it and its residents for providing him with an additional delivery stop. He couldn’t wait to get home and kick back with a drink. That would be the routine for the next eleven months. Twelve hours a day of watching kung-fu movies while drinking rum and donkey’s milk. That is, until next December rolled around and he’d have to start preparing for the holidays.

  “Okay, you rat bastards, bring me on down,” Santa said to the reindeer. “Let’s dump our shit and get the hell out of here.”

  The animals answered by snorting and dropping straight down through the air, forcing Santa back in his seat. “Okay, okay, not so fast!” he said, pulling the reins until they cut into his hands and drew blood. “Shit!”

  Deep red blood leaked onto the sleigh and formed the shape of a pair of high heels. Santa looked down at it and smudged it with his elbow as the reindeer pulled the vehicle down closer and closer to the town.

  As the sleigh reached the rooftops, Santa saw a decorative wooden sign, lit up by multi-colored Christmas lights:

  WELCOME TO TUSK Population 2,976

  "A little town.. .just for you_ ”

  “Yeah, yeah, kiss my ass,” Santa said, as he landed the sleigh on the first house.

  II.

  Diana Claus sat on her front porch and looked out at the North Pole, her village of Christmas Spirit, her kingdom of holiday cheer, her dominion of toys and joy.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said.

  She knew that it was her husband’s job to be out all night delivering toys but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d use the opportunity to screw around behind her back. Despite his tight schedule, Diana knew he’d find a way to squeeze in a blowjob or a quick fuck somewhere, probably Amsterdam or Newark. He’d probably hire some slut to dress up like that one-eyed woman from that movie he liked so much, the one where the bad-ass chick gets revenge. The eye patch really made Santa’s dick hard but Diana refused to wear one. It was just plain weird. But that probably meant some other bitch was wearing one for him.

  Well, fuck it.

  She had it. She was sick of being humiliated. Sure, he’d promised he’d never cheat on her again but could she believe him? He was a man, after all. Diana was considerably younger than he was, still had her figure, and had not a wrinkle on her face. Yet he still found the need to order himself a chubby Russian girl!

  The rage and resentment had been building inside her ever since “the incident” and it had boiled over into a plan.

  It was a plan that involved sacrificing her lifestyle or at least temporarily altering it. That is, if they could be settled. The plan would have to be executed with meticulous skill, but Diana didn’t feel like she had the patience to do it herself.

  That’s why she called them.

  The Elves of Fuck.

  Contrary to popular belief, Christmas elves weren’t the only kind of elves around. In fact, they were a small minority among the elf race. There were dozens of varieties of elves and Mrs. Claus counted on the rumors being true, that the Elves of Fuck were the ones to call when you needed something done about an unfaithful spouse.

  Apparently they also had their tiny hands in the pornography business, producing fetish films for customers who found midgets to be a bit too disproportionate. Diana had actually found out about them after viewing one of their films, Spit Shine My Face #4, which consisted of five elf women spitting on and slapping a regular-sized man. It hadn’t been her cup of tea but she was thankful that it introduced her to the Elves of Fuck.

  So there she was, sitting on her front porch on Christmas Eve, waiting for her elf contact to come along and give her an update. A part of her hoped that her fears would be unfounded and Santa would not be sniffing around strange snatch. Maybe then they could repair their marriage and she could go back to trusting him wholeheartedly like she had done in the beginning.

  From behind her, a voice said, “Diana?”

  She turned and saw that it was Smitty, her squidfoot. Smitty had been found roaming the North Pole ten years prior. At first, Diana was terrified of him. After all, he was seven-feet tall and hairy, looking like a cross between a sasquatch and a squid. After spending some time with him, however, Diana learned that he wasn’t the monstrous beast she had expected. In fact, Smitty was quite gentle and cultured.

  “Hey there!” she said.

  Smitty said, “So you’re really going through with it, Diana?”

  “Yeah. Why? You don’t think I should?”

  “I’m just saying, you open up this can of worms and who knows what kind of repercussions will come squirming out. Those elves mean business, you know.”

  “I know. That’s why I hired them.”

  “Did you speak to them already?”

  “Yeah. Someone should be here any minute. I told them not to do anything until I say so.”

  Smitty put a tentacle on Diana’s shoulder. “And what if they tell you he’s messing around with someone else?” “Then I tell them to kill the son of a bitch.”

  Smitty sighed. “Spoken like a true wife.”

  “Hey, I’ve given him more than enough opportunities to show me that he truly wants to be faithful and if he’s not messing around, he has nothing to worry about. If he is, then he deserves it.”

  “But what about all the kids? What about Christmas?” “Oh, fuck Christmas. If no one is able to take over the job, then all those whiny brats don’t get their stupid little toys.”

  Before Smitty could respond, a flash of light appeared in front of them. The flash morphed into a cloud of purple smoke and out of that smoke walked an elf. A naked elf.

  III.

  Santa had delivered to three houses when he realized something was strange about the town.

  The three houses he had delivered in didn’t seem right. The living rooms felt phony, as if they were all sets from a movie or television show. Sure, there were signs of habitation (framed pictures, children’s toys spread across the floor, food in the fridge) but there was an emptiness that could only be felt and not seen. Santa was tempted to look into the rooms so he could see for himself that there were people living there, but he resisted the urge. Doing something like that could only bring trouble.

  It was while sneaking around the back of the fourth house that he smelled the peppermint.

  Santa sniffed and realized that it wasn’t just peppermint. There was a musky odor in there and a fishy smell that was not entirely unpleasant.

  He was about to try to follow the smell when, from behind him, there was the sound of giggling.

  “Yoohoo,” a woman’s voice purred. “Oh my, oh my, oh my. Is it true?”

  Santa put his hand to his forehead. Awww, shit.

  This had happened two years before. Santa had been caught by some nosey good-for-nothing teenage boy over in Dayton, Ohio. It had resulted in hi
s having to commit his first and only kidnapping. He felt slightly guilty for having to drop the fucker into a volcano on the sleigh ride back to the North Pole but it had to be done.

  Still, he didn’t want to have to do it again.

  He turned around but didn’t see the woman. She was in the shadows. He said, “Shhhhhhhh.. .Be quiet. You’re dreaming.” It was a lame trick that rarely worked but he had to try it.

  “No need to be quiet, sweetie, oh, sweetie,” she said. “I know who you are, I do. See?” She stepped out of the snowy shadows.

  Santa nearly fell over. The woman that stood before him was the most beautiful he had ever seen. If he had believed in angels, he’d have sworn she was one.

  She seemed ageless, though if Santa had to guess, he’d say she was probably forty, maybe forty-five years old. Even so, every one of those years must have been smooth ones. Even the small wrinkles on her face looked as if drawn by a god.

  Her breasts were massive, bulging forward, struggling against her dark red business suit. Santa’s eyes moved downward and saw she wore high heels, glittery red like Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of Oz. Santa thought that was funny. Sexy, but funny. He imagined those shoes clicking together, summoning the Lollipop Guild but instead of munchkins, they’d be elves whose sole purpose was to give those shoes (and the feet within) a tongue bath.

  His eyes went back to her breasts. “Uh,” was all he could manage to say.

  “No words?” she said. “You’re looking at my chest. Have anything to get off yours?”

  The peppermint scent grew stronger, forcing itself up Santa’s nostrils and into his head until he felt like his brain was aflame with mint fire. He kept staring at the woman, from her wiggling toes trapped in her glittery shoes up to her thick thighs that were barely covered by her tight skirt. What was she doing out in the snow dressed like that? She didn’t even have a coat on. But he wasn’t complaining. If she had worn a coat, he would never have gotten such a good look at her..

  “Chest?” he said.

  The woman took a step closer. “Yes. Do you have anything to get off your chest? Such as who you really are. You’re not some shopping mall Santa Claus, are you? You’re the real deal, the real McCoy, the whole kit and caboodle. Saint Nicolas himself, not some butter-and-egg man coming through the humble little town of Tusk.”

  “I, uh, don’t know what you’re___ ” he said. Before he

  could finish, however, Santa realized he was an inch away from the woman, eye-level with her cleavage as it spoke to him like erotic hieroglyphs. Snowflakes were falling between her breasts, moistening them. Santa imagined the woman drooling onto her own cleavage, making it sloppy for him to bury his face in. A snow and saliva ride through her plump, milky valley.

  She said, “Oh, silly man, I know all about you. I know your real name isn’t Nicolas but I do know you’re a saint. Well, you used to be, anyway. So sad to hear what happened.”

  Still staring at the hypnotic cleavage, Santa Claus tried shaking himself out of whatever witchcraft the woman had him trapped in. How did she know who he really was? How did she know what had happened to him all those years ago? There were perhaps five people, maybe six, who knew about his losing his sainthood back in ’23.

  The woman shook her chest. “It was nice of the council to let you keep your job, you know, after everything.” “Who are you?” he said. “Do I know you?”

  Santa felt the tip of his nose touch her chest. He smelled peppermint, sweat, and.. .what was that? Talcum powder?

  She giggled, flashing her tiny white teeth. “Know me? Oh, silly, of course not. Why would you know little old me? I’m just a boring girl from a boring town.” She leaned in close, nearly smothering Santa between her breasts.

  As he spoke, Santa felt his lips tingle against the woman’s skin. “What are you doing to me?”

  “Oh, silly. I’m not doing anything to you,” she said, as she grabbed the back of Santa’s head and pushed it down to her crotch.

  IV.

  “Mrs. Claus,” the naked elf said. “My name is Aleph. I believe you spoke to my associate, Gimel.”

  Diana stood up and offered Aleph her hand. “Hi, nice to meet you. Yes, I talked to Gimel this morning about my husband.”

  Aleph shook her hand quickly. He looked at Smitty and then back at Diana. “Before we get down to business, are you available to speak now? What I mean to say is, I’m not at liberty to speak about this in front of anyone but you.” “Oh, yes well, Smitty was just leaving,” she said. She smiled at the squidfoot. “I’ll talk to you later, hon, okay?” Smitty nodded and walked into the street, sliding across the snow on his tentacle-feet.

  Diana said, “So, yes, I talked to Gimel this morning.” “Yes, unfortunately he wasn’t able to meet with you personally. Being his supervisor, I’ll brief you on the current situation.” Aleph pointed to a chair. “May I?”

  “Of course.” Diana motioned with her hand for him to sit. When he did, she noticed that, despite his having a rather long penis, he lacked a scrotum.

  Aleph handed her a folder and said, “Though our organization is known for solving these sorts of.. .problems, we really get no pleasure in relaying this information. It’s simply a job that needs to be done and we are willing to do it. I know it’s a rather difficult thing to deal with, being a spouse of—”

  Diana said, “I don’t need the ‘poor wife’ speech. Just tell me what you have to tell me.”

  Aleph sighed. He opened a folder that appeared out of thin air. “Okay. Here’s where we’re at.”

  V.

  Santa Claus felt like crabmeat squeezed into a sweaty leather glove. There was something coming out of the darkness. There were..

  Sugarplums.

  Sugarplums covered in vulgar snail shells spinning on axe blades. Sugarplums rolling like dice across the pudding-covered floor. Sugarplums giving birth to Saturn’s rings spinning out of control, spinning into other sugarplums made of hairy flaps of pink meat. Sugarplums with legs running to other sugarplums with arms, colliding to form Siamese chunks of quivering fruit-flesh. Sugarplum snowflakes falling like unlucky jumpers from skyscrapers that burn like Yule logs.

  What the hell is happening?

  Santa closed his eyes, saw starbursts and tasted copper. He tried spitting out the mouthful of liquid pennies but couldn’t do it.

  He opened his eyes. The sugarplums were still there. Some of them now wore wooden masks while others were covered in sheep skin and goat horns. Those fucking sugarplums were going to drive him insane.

  How’d I get here?

  Oh yeah, that woman. That beautiful woman. The angel. Oh my god, those tits, I remember those tits. Where the hell is she? Those sugarplums sorta look like tits. Angelic tits ready to burst...a milky supernova.. .all over my face....

  Santa felt a hand on the back of his head and he was shoved straight into the sheep skin sugarplums, which were now twisting into tentacles of red meat.

  A voice reverberated through the void. “Eat___ ”

  And Santa started to eat.

  VI.

  Diana Claus closed the folder full of photographs. She lifted a hand to her forehead and then ran it through her hair. “I can’t believe that bastard. After all the promises, all that shit.”

  Aleph nodded but did not reply even though he knew that Mrs. Claus expected him to. But he hadn’t been hired to be a marriage counselor.

  She said, “Who is she? Another Russian slut?”

  “No, she is not. Who she is exactly, well, we have not been able to confirm anything. As far as we know, she is just a woman from town, from your husband’s last stop, I mean.”

  Diana turned her head and looked at the family photos hanging on the wall. “Well, I want it to be his last stop for good. You do know what I’m talking about, right?” Aleph nodded. “I do.”

  “So you’ll do it,” she said.

  “I will but only if that’s what you really want. I’ll meet with my team, discuss the consequence
s of that action and we will bring it to you in writing. If you still would like to go through with hiring us for that additional task, we will do the job and do it well.”

  Diana nodded.

  “Then I’ll be back in a half hour with the paperwork.” “Okay.”

  Aleph stood up and started for the door. He stopped. “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “This woman, she acted like she knew your husband even though he seemed to have no idea. Does she look familiar to you?”

  Diana reluctantly opened the folder again and perused the photographs. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.” Aleph frowned and continued on his way out of the room.

  VII.

  Santa’s mouth burned. His lips, his tongue, hell, even his teeth felt like they were on fire. What the hell did she do to him? All he could remember was being shoved down face-first into her crotch, forced to suck and lick his way through three hours of warm, wet suffocation. He had only the slightest recollection of something else.

  Sugarplums?

  There was a flood of musky peppermint goo that left him gagging and gasping.

  He looked around but saw nothing in the darkness. It was cold but dry so he wasn’t out in the snow. Was he in a bed? Santa moved his arms around, hoping to feel expensive Egyptian cotton, but instead found himself engulfed in what felt like taffy.

  What the hell is going on?

  Though he had ceased to believe in the god of his fathers, Santa thought maybe the woman was some sort of avenging angel that had come down to punish him for his past infidelities. But that didn’t make sense. Would an angel force a sinner to pleasure her?

  Maybe. Santa hated having to speculate. He valued simplicity and hated when shit got complicated.

  A clip-clop sound echoed around him. The sound was familiar.