Christmas Spirit: with More Christmas Spirits

by David Connor

  “There’s more to the great love of one’s life than an academic upswing.”

  “Well, that is how we got together, if you’ll recall.”

  “I’ll never forget it,” Aidan said.

  We were coming up on our second anniversary—sort of. It was difficult to zero in on the actual date as to when we became an official couple. Sometimes we even argued about it. I wanted to use the night in Aidan’s dorm room two years ago December. He suggested we claim the day we reconnected almost a year later, because the night the year before ended so sadly. Though I could definitely understand that, I thought a happy memory for that day would go a long way toward healing. I’m pretty sure Dr. Wise would love it too. Then there was Christmas Day of 2014, when we declared ourselves committed forever. Maybe I’d just have to marry him. That way we’d have the date legally recorded and notarized in binding government documents, and there couldn’t be any dissention.

  “But what I can’t help thinking,” I countered, “is that Lauren may simply be having feelings for one of her female friends that are a bit confusing at her age. I don’t want to negate those feelings, though. They could be just as powerful even if they turn out not to be forever. I mean, people do experiment. Nothing seems written in stone these days. Saying anything like that, though, would just make it all seem even more complicated and overwhelming. I think this generation is so different than we are, with their pansexuality and experimentation. Give me the good old days when two dudes were hot only for each other.”

  Aidan chuckled. “Old man.”

  “Hanging out with teenagers all day will make you feel like one, I tell you.”

  “I get it. I think you handled it all just right, from what you’ve said.”

  “I gave her some websites to visit too. PFLAG and such. We’ll see.”

  “I’m sure she appreciated it.”

  The tree was finished in no time. As Aidan unwrapped the tissue paper from around the star his grampy had made, he remembered he had never bought a new bulb for it. “Maybe putting it on without one is our tradition,” I said.

  “Unlit stars is so our thing.” He nodded.

  “We were looking at one the first time we kissed. I’ll never forget that either.”

  “How could you? My kisses are legendary,” Aidan boasted.

  “I hear there’s a plaque up at SUNY-A.”

  “My old elementary and high school too.”

  I had him prove it with a long, noisy smooch right there. “I’m jealous I didn’t know you then,” I said when we pulled away, once I’d gotten my lip back from between his teeth, that is. “And also that I never got to add my feet to your wall.”

  “We could go back up.” He had his hand in my underwear again.

  “Campus police would call the real cops on us.”

  “I suppose.” Aidan stepped away and climbed up onto the arm of the couch.

  “I’m pretty sure they’ve painted over them by now, anyway.” I spotted him from on the floor.

  “We can do the wall here… just your feet and mine.” He held one up, balancing like a tightrope walker. “Every wall. Every room.”

  “Dude. Careful.”

  After putting his foot back down and then adjusting the star several times, Aidan plugged it in. I’m not sure why he did. Maybe he wasn’t either, but the reason didn’t matter. The star came on. “Whoa.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “And a sign.”

  “You think?” Why was I the Doubting Thomas all of a sudden?

  “Don’t you?”

  I looked to the elf on the table beside me. “Is it you?” I asked him. “Or did jostling the star in the packing crate just fix whatever was broken, a loose wire or something?

  “You’re asking the elf?” Aidan hopped down from his precarious perch.

  “I am.”

  “Did he answer?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “To tell you the truth, if I have a choice, I’d rather think of Grampy as an angel in flowing white robes with gossamer wings than an elf in red tights and green underpants.”

  I chuckled. I could certainly see Aidan’s point. “Do we even have an angel?”

  “There’s a good question. I’m sure Grams must have. Grampy… like I told you… well, he wasn’t much into the spiritual kind of stuff, which is rather ironic, as it turns out.”

  “True that. I could bring one from my parents’ house, or… How’s about we go shopping for one tomorrow? Maybe one will speak to us.”

  “Literally?”

  “What if?”

  “I can see us now… standing in the middle of Target talking to Christmas decorations. ‘Security to Christmas décor. Security to Christmas décor.’”

  I grabbed him and pulled him close. “As long as they take us both. And speaking of underpants…” I yanked his off. “Why are we wearing them?” And then I took off my own and tossed them across the room with a flourish.

  “Because it’s cold?” Aidan folded his arms across his bare, tattooed chest.

  “I’ll start a fire.” I saw his cock begin to thicken. “I think I already did. Let’s do it in there,” I suggested. “So I can taste you and smell the pot roast at the same time.”

  “Why have we never combined food with sex?”

  I pushed him toward the kitchen door—and through it—as we talked. “That’s an excellent question, my love. After that piping bag thing last Christmas down in Florida, you would think I’d have covered you in frosting by now.”

  “Hot ass!”

  “Yeah it is.” I put my hands back there and squeezed.

  “Ow. No. You backed me into the oven.”

  “Oopsie.” I spun him around, putting his back to the refrigerator, and then pulled him toward me, so I could grind my hard-on into his as we kissed. Opening the fridge door to aim cold air at his metaphorically and actual hot rear end, “There you go,” I said. “Do you need me to rub butter on it?”

  “No… but now I want you to. How about this, instead?” He reached back without looking and came up with a pudding cup. Our refrigerator was that organized.

  “Mmm. Now you’re talking.” Spinning him again, I bent him backward onto the table. “Gimme.” I took the pudding from him and pulled back the foil top. “You want?” I dipped in my finger and put it to his lips. He swallowed it down to the knuckle, and while his attention was on that, I dumped the rest of the cup onto his belly.

  “Fuck!”

  “It’ll warm up.” My fingers traced swirls and circles on his naked torso, like a kindergartner with paints. I offered them to Aidan—just the ones on my left hand. The right ones were all mine. Once I’d licked the five of them clean, I went for Aidan’s dick, which I’d colored in sweet, creamy, shiny chocolate. “Mmm. Pass the whipped cream.”

  “It’s coming, dude. It’s coming.”

  It took a few more minutes, and I made sure to save a bit of what came from the cup to go with it. Mine climax came first, dotting the pudding on Aidan’s tummy with white.

  “Fuck! I’m gonna blow, Kipster,” he warned right after I came on him. My wet heat on his skin always set him off, he said. And I loved it.

  The tang of Aidan’s cum paired with the deliciousness of the chocolaty confection was a taste sensation I suggested we mass produce, package, and sell.

  “Only for you,” Aidan said, wiping his tummy with a dishtowel as he leaned my way for a sticky kiss.

  “I can live with that,” I told him.

  He lamented the fact we were done for the night already. “It was so fast. Now I won’t get to take my time and make you crazy.”

  “Says who?” I challenged. “I very well might come looking for you again.” I licked a smudge of brown from the side of his mouth.

  “You know where to find me. Take the roast out to rest and pop in the biscuits while I hop in the shower, will you?”

  “As long as you’re quick. I burn stuff, remember?” Cooking wasn’t my thing.

/>   “I’ll just rinse and dry.”

  As Aidan headed upstairs, I washed up in the sink, attended to dinner, and then headed to the living room for my underwear. I no sooner had them on than a knock came at the door. “Uh…” Where the hell were my pants? “Just a moment.” I ran back to the kitchen and into the mudroom where a basket of unfolded clean laundry sat atop the dryer. I was still pulling a wrinkled T-shirt down over the top of fleece pajama pants when I opened the door. “Lauren.” I was shocked to see her standing there—the student who’d come out to me earlier in the day. I kicked Aidan’s discarded boxer briefs under an end table and hoped she hadn’t noticed.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Of course. It’s freezing.”

  The first bitter chill of a long winter to come had ascended on us with the promise of a white Christmas, not to mention a white two days before. Snow was expected to start by 8 p.m. and continue off and on right through Christmas weekend.

  Lauren didn’t say much at first. She came in as far as the rug right inside the door and just stood there.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked. “We were just about to sit down to dinner. My…” I never knew what to call Aidan. Partner? Boyfriend? Lover? Okay, that just sounded stupid. “My Aidan is quite talented in the kitchen.” I tried not to think about him jerking me off as I went down on his pudding pecker. “Pot roast and biscuits?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  It was obvious something was.

  “My mother kicked me out,” Lauren said, her voice a little shaky.

  “Oh?”

  “I told her I was a lesbian and she told me to go.”

  “Oh, Lauren. I’m so sorry. Please come in and warm up.”

  “I got no clean underwear up here,” Aidan announced coming down the stairs.

  “We have company,” I told him.

  “Oh.” With only a towel wrapped around his waist, there was a lot of exposed flesh I could see turning suddenly redder. “Sorry.”

  “This is Aidan.” I looked him over to get an idea of how much his huge dick was accentuated by the wet towel. He must have been thinking the same thing, because he covered it with both hands. “There are clean clothes in the laundry room, Babe.” Though we had sworn early on terms of endearment like “Hun”, “Boo”, and “Babe” were off limits, that one had just slipped out one day. Now we’d both become comfortable with it.

  “Thanks.” He headed toward the mudroom, sidestepping all the way, apparently a bit self-conscious about showing his butt as well.

  “No problem. We’re good at doing laundry, just not at putting it away.”

  I was pretty sure Lauren didn’t care.

  We had moved to the sofa by the time Aidan returned dressed similarly to me. “Oh! The biscuits!” I leapt up.

  “I’ll get them. Will you join us for dinner?” Aidan asked Lauren.

  “Maybe.” She hadn’t said much more, so I’d been making small talk about the weather and Christmas carols. She didn’t really have much of an opinion on either. She did perk up a bit when Aidan asked her to eat with us. Maybe she liked him better.

  “It’s ready, then,” he said. “Shall we?”

  “Come on.” I held out my hand to Lauren and she allowed me to lead her to the dining room table. Fortunately, Aidan and I could sometimes read each other’s minds. Though it didn’t really take couples’ telepathy to know the kitchen table was off limits to company at the moment.

  Lauren took a second helping when Aidan offered it. She told us she had called her father, who lived near Hartford, a three hour drive, and she was waiting for him to come get her after he got off work at ten. She didn’t come right out and ask if she could stay with us until he could get from there to here, but we were rather expecting she would. If the snow started as scheduled, we very well might have her even longer. “If your father would like to call me,” I said, “I’d be happy to speak with him.”

  “I’ll tell him when I talk to him again,” she replied rather casually.

  “I have a feeling we’re being played,” I said quietly to Aidan in the kitchen after supper, as I tended to the dishes and he scrubbed town the table we ate and sometimes fucked on. “If I was her father, I’d leave work early, whether I had permission to or not. My kids would come first.”

  “We’re having kids?”

  “Huh? Kids?” I clutched a wet plate to my chest. “I don’t know. Maybe. You think?”

  “I like kids. I’m not sure I’d be good at raising one, though.”

  “You’d be an awesome dad.” My wet hand left a wet print on his white undershirt as he passed to retrieve the roll of paper towels.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do. You’re awesome with Alec when we babysit.”

  “A few hours or a weekend is a whole lot different than all day every day for a lifetime. Fortunately, I can’t knock you up, so if we ever do get one, it’s something we’ll be able to plan well ahead for.”

  I smiled. “I was a bit queasy this morning—and I do have a strange craving for… pudding.”

  “Your star went off!” Lauren interrupted our kiss, shouting from the living room where she was listening to music on her phone via earbuds.

  “You were saying?” Aidan hadn’t let go of me.

  “I don’t doubt there was trouble between Lauren and her mother, but I really need to talk to her father. I have a feeling she’s planning on taking off from here with someone else.”

  “Ah. A girlfriend, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So you’d be the dad who never let anything get past him, and I’d be the fun one.”

  I frowned. “Probably. You do let Alec get away with everything.”

  “I can’t wait to see him Christmas Day.”

  “I’m glad things are good with you and your family.” I kissed him again.

  “When does my dad get to meet your dad?”

  I had been putting that off. “At the wedding,” I joked.

  “A wedding and kids? Things are moving mighty fast here. I’m not sure I’m ready for all that.” Aidan smiled, so I figured he was joking. I hoped he was.

  “Let’s go check out the star,” I said.

  By the time we got to the living room, it was back on. Being the slightly anxious guy I am—okay, I’m a nervous wreck—I worried it might have a short circuit and start a fire. “Maybe we should unplug it.”

  “It’ll be fine.” I furrowed my brow at that, and Aidan shook his head. The anxiety and worry he once found endearing was quickly becoming a bit less cute, it seemed. I worried about everything, all the time. I fretted over adult acne and the wiring in the house, plus everything in between, and also yellow jacket stings and back to zits.

  “Okay. Fine.” I tapped Lauren on the shoulder. “Have you called your father again? Has he called you?”

  She shook her head no. That was all I got.

  “I’m going to see if I have his number in my student log,” I told Aidan back in the kitchen. “I think I’ll call him myself… unless you think I shouldn’t.”

  “No opinion, really.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. She’s kind of your responsibility. I don’t get a say.”

  “I’m asking your opinion, not your permission.”

  “My opinion is… do whatever you think best.”

  I went upstairs a tad annoyed. Why was he being so suddenly stubborn? Sitting on the bed, I swiped through my folders to get to my school stuff and opened the file with my students’ information. I had both Lauren’s mother’s and father’s contact numbers—and their e-mail addresses. After a moment of consideration, I dialed. He answered on the second ring. “Mr. Bauer? This is Matthew Kipling, Lauren’s Biology teacher.”

  “Yes, Mr. Kipling. What can I do for you?”

  “Lauren is here.”

  “Here? Where’s here?”

  “My house.”

  “She
is?”

  Just as I suspected, Lauren was making other plans. “She, um, had an argument with her mother—that’s what she’s told me, anyway. She also told me she had already spoken with you and you’d be coming to pick her up later tonight.”

  “First I’m hearing of it.” He’d sounded more defeated than angry.

  “I’m sorry I… I didn’t mean to be a tattletale.” I cringed at my choice of words. I wasn’t a grown man at all. “I just wanted to touch base. We don’t mind having her here… my partner and I.”

  “Partner?”

  Oh boy. “Significant other. Life partner. Boyfriend.”

  “Oh. I assumed that was what you meant, but I wasn’t sure.” There was a smile in his tone. I’d been afraid he was going to be as anti-gay as his ex-wife allegedly was. Although, who even knew if any of that was true, considering?

  “We’re happy to have her here, as long as one of her parents knows. I’m not exactly sure what happened with her mother…”

  “They tend to argue a lot. Lisa has… issues.”

  “Issues?” I cringed again. Sorry, It’s none of my business, I suppose.”

  “Lauren’s sitting in your house. It is now. She dragged you into it.”

  “I’m just concerned.”

  “I’m glad you called. I’m glad you tattled, as you called it. I see it as concern—going above and beyond your teaching duties. I very much appreciate it. I should have taken the kids with me. They didn’t want to have to change schools. It’s not always good there.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t have a better response.

  “If you don’t mind keeping an eye on her a little longer, I’ll give her a call. I can’t really think of any way not to tell her I know what’s going on. If I could get there within a minute or two, well, I’d surprise her. We’re looking at close to three hours, even if I break the speed limit. I’m at the door right now, car keys in hand. Maybe I’ll hold off… and if she gets ready to leave, you can call me?”

  “I don’t really mind if you throw me under the bus. Whatever’s best.”

  “I’ll call when I’m halfway there. If someone shows to pick her up in the meantime…”

  “I’ll throw myself across the driveway.”