Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails)

by Marina Simcoe

  She rubbed her chin, pausing for a moment.

  “Well, come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever got back to him to confirm.” She shrugged. “Anyway. I happen to have some time today. And here I am. Do you want to come or not?”

  “Oh, I do! Give me a moment, I’ll be ready in no time.” I pivoted on my heels to run up to the bedroom, then turned back to her. “Do I need to change? What do you think?”

  Lievoa gave me a critical once-over. “No. This dress is lovely. One of my favorites. You may just want to add some jewelry, it looks kind of bare otherwise.”

  “Okay, come wait in the main room.” I waved her to follow me inside. “Would you like some tea in the meantime? Maybe?”

  “No. We’ll eat at the mall. Hurry up, please. I’m a very busy woman and have places to be.”

  Leaving her in the main room, I ran upstairs. In the closet, I changed from my comfy ballet flats into a pair of dressier closed-toe sandals. Roaming through the box of jewelry I had brought with me, I searched for something more appropriate for Neron.

  My thin silver chains and fresh-water pearls seemed way too understated for this planet. And I didn’t dare wear the jewelry set that the Colonel had given to me—his priceless family heirloom—to the mall.

  Finally, I pulled out a long string of large, bright glass beads I thought were pretty but too big and loud to wear to most places on Earth. In Voran, these should do just fine.

  I wound the string of beads around my neck a few times then ran downstairs.

  “I’ll let the Colonel know I’m leaving!” I shouted to Lievoa on my way to the stairs leading to the exercise room on the lower level.

  The invigorating scent of heat and male—the Colonel’s scent—reached me even before I’d made it to the last step.

  He was training in the middle of the room, sparring with one of the stuffed electronic dummies.

  Dressed in nothing but a pair of tight shorts, the Colonel attacked the dummy while gracefully evading its maneuvers. Not restricted by his stiff uniform, his movements were both smooth and powerful. His fur, slick with sweat, was plastered to his bulging muscles underneath.

  I stared at him, mesmerized by this blatant display of masculinity. Whether anyone thought the Colonel handsome or not, no one would deny his inescapable animalistic appeal. My body had responded to it from the very first moment we’d met. Knowing him so much better now had only weakened my defenses against it.

  I was no longer afraid of his raw power; I craved to feel it in other ways. I imagined those arms wrapped around me in a crushing embrace, his mouth devouring mine with abandon. Those trim hips of his fitted perfectly between my thighs... I wanted him to take me with the same passion he put into the fight.

  Since that first night when he fiercely tried to claim me as his wife, there hadn’t been anything physical between us, save for an occasional hand-holding. And now, I was afraid there never would be. The thought filled me with a deep sense of loss.

  His tail swaying back for balance, the Colonel crouched down, evading yet another strike from the dummy. He then kicked his hoof out, landing it in the robot’s side.

  A holographic display flickered to life over the dummy’s head, its impassive voice read aloud the score of the strength and number of hits.

  Yanking out the towel stuffed into a pocket on the dummy, the Colonel wiped the sweat from his face and neck. As he turned, he saw me.

  “Daisy?” He walked over to me, and I suddenly forgot how to breathe.

  Up close, his presence was even more overwhelming, overloading all my senses. His hot, intoxicating scent wrapped around me like a caress. The sight of him—tall, broad, and strong—filled my vision. The fur on his belly was much shorter than on his arms and chest, making his granite abs appear as if they were covered in fine velvet.

  I clenched my hands into fists at my sides, fighting the intense desire to reach out and stroke him.

  “...something happened?”

  I realized suddenly that the Colonel was talking to me while I ogled the hell out of him.

  “Sorry...” I blinked, trying to remember what I came here for.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with concern, making me feel dumb.

  The tell-all blush instantly heated my cheeks.

  “No... I mean yes. I’m fine.” I tore my gaze from his hips and abs with an effort, focusing it on the room behind him instead. “Sorry...um, Lievoa is here.”

  “Lievoa? She never got back to me.” He tossed the towel back to the dummy.

  “She forgot.” My gaze returned to him again, drawn to his body like a magnet. I stared at his wide chest covered in gray, wavy fur. “She has the time to take me shopping right now.”

  “When will you be back?” He stepped closer. So close, the heat radiating from him brushed against my bare arms.

  “Later this afternoon.” I knew I should take a step back, to keep the distance, but I stayed, stealing another moment of being this intimately close to him.

  “Will she feed you lunch, then?” he asked as if I were a kid going to someone’s house for a playdate.

  I couldn’t hold back a smile at the comparison.

  “We’ll eat at the mall.”

  “Omni,” the Colonel tossed over his shoulder to a drone hovering nearby. “Do you have a credit bracelet for Daisy?”

  Another drone silently floated down the stairs with a wide, golden bangle grasped in one of its pincers.

  “Buy whatever you want.” The Colonel clipped the bangle around my left wrist, letting his fingers linger on my arm for a few moments. “And be careful out there.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Take your tablet with you, call me right away if you need any help.”

  I nodded with a warm feeling of gratitude spreading through me. It felt awfully nice to have someone like the Colonel just a call away, ready to rush to me if I needed help.

  “YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD get this!” Lievoa straightened out the voluminous skirt of the chiffon cocktail dress I was trying on in her shop. “This pale-green color goes so well with your hair.”

  “I’ve already spent a lot of the Colonel’s money,” I argued.

  We’d shopped for over an hour in the spice market, talking to dozens of vendors. Each of them had some advice for the Earth girl who was into baking. I had taken a lot of notes and bought a bunch of stuff that we’d sent to Lievoa’s aircraft by mall drones.

  “Why do you call him the Colonel?” she asked, unexpectedly. “Close family members normally refer to each other by their first names. And husband and wife are as close as it gets.”

  “Oh. It’s...um, it’s an Earth thing,” I said quickly, frantically searching for another topic. “Can I see that scarf, please?”

  Lievoa’s dress shop turned out to be a huge, multi-level store, with drones in every corner and live shopping assistants on every floor. Lievoa had talked me into trying on a few dresses. I couldn’t say no. The clothes were gorgeous, and I’d always loved playing dress-up. I’d had no intention of buying any, though.

  “This one?” She tied a gold scarf around my head in leu of a headband. “It’s perfect! You have to get it, too. I’ll give you a family discount, of course, and don’t worry about spending Grevar’s money. What did he say when he gave you this credit bracelet?”

  “Buy whatever you want.”

  “See?” She shrugged casually. “This is a woman’s bangle, he obviously had it made specifically for you. It’s every man’s dream to have a wife he can dote on. Grevar will be glad you had fun and found something you liked. Just say ‘thank you’ to him when you wear your new clothes for the first time. It will make him happy.”

  Except that I wasn’t the Colonel’s wife. Not in the true sense of that word. My parenting course was ending in two weeks. After that, Olvar and Zun would be regularly spending two days a week at home. I felt like I was finally about to fulfill my true purpose for being here. My actual employment was about to start.


  Would an employer splurge on his nanny like that? Even if she was disguised as his wife?

  Would a real nanny have the intense desire to rub her hands all over her boss’s abs the way I had this morning?

  The role of a nanny came with the restrictions I was beginning to realize I couldn’t follow. That’s where all this confusion was coming from in the first place. My head, my body—and yes, my heart, too—were all in disagreement on what I should and shouldn’t want.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, struggling to collect my thoughts and emotions.

  A nanny would negotiate for a salary to be paid to her, instead of buying a dress. Money defined a relationship better than words.

  A wife would buy the clothes without overthinking it.

  Which one did I really want to be?

  “I’ll take it,” I said to Lievoa.

  “Great! Let me find some matching shoes, too. We’ll need to custom order those, you know, with your feet being the only pair of human feet in all of Voran.” She giggled, grabbing her tablet.

  After buying the dress, the scarf, the shoes, and also a few pieces of fashion jewelry to go with all of it, I finally managed to leave the store.

  Lievoa and I had lunch under one of the indoor gazebos draped in flower garlands in the mall. Then, we went to the beauty boutique where Lievoa had a polishing appointment booked that afternoon. “Polishing,” as she had explained to me on the way, included a series of procedures meant to make her horns, hooves, and claws smooth and shiny. The service also included painting designs on them.

  Unlike many other places in Voran, there was almost the same number of women as men in the Central Mall. No one appeared to be in a hurry. Groups of people gathered under vine-draped gazebos built between the stores, enjoying refreshments served by drones and chatting with friends.

  As expected, I got a lot of stares. By now, news of my arrival had been broadcast everywhere. The pictures of me on the Colonel’s arm at the Governor’s Ball had been in every print publication and online tabloid.

  Most people knew who I was, but it didn’t stop them from eyeing me with curiosity. Those who knew Lievoa approached us to say hi to her and to take a closer look at me, which considerably slowed our progress through the mall.

  “Listen,” Lievoa said to me as we came to the beauty boutique. “You have no horns or hooves to polish. This will be boring for you.”

  “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “It’ll take at least an hour. Too long to wait with nothing to do.” She glanced around. “I can’t really send you store browsing on your own, either.”

  “I can take care of myself,” I protested.

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that, but Grevar would lift me on his horns if he learned I left you alone in the middle of the crowded mall. Here!” She dragged me to a tall arch of pale pink flowers that marked the entrance to a store with a glowing sign over it.

  An AI frame that looked like a festive version of Omni, draped in sheer, shimmering fabrics and decorated with paint and flowers, rolled out to greet us.

  “Welcome to the Dream Spa,” it said in a melodious, feminine voice.

  “Hi,” Lievoa yanked me to her by my hand. “A massage for the lady, please?”

  “Would it be for excitement or relaxation?” the frame enquired.

  “Relaxation. How long does a full body massage take?”

  “An hour.”

  “Perfect.” Lievoa turned to me. “You’ll have a massage while I get my stuff done. By the time you’re ready, I’ll be here to get you.”

  She bounced off, leaving me in the care of the AI.

  The frame led me into a changing room. The walls here were covered in the same shimmering pink material and flowers.

  “Please change here.” The arrow on the screen pointed at the cream-coloured silk robe on the wall. “And leave your clothing in this room.”

  As soon as the AI left me alone and the door to the dressing room closed, I got out of my dress and shoes. I found no spa slippers anywhere, as was to be expected. Wrapped into the bathrobe, I padded out of the room barefoot.

  “I’m ready,” I said to the frame. “Now what?”

  “Excellent!” the AI exclaimed in an excited tone. “Follow me to the machine, please.”

  It took me to a larger room this time.

  A curious contraption in gold-tone metal and black glass stood in the middle. Shaped like a long cylinder, it vaguely reminded me of tanning beds back on Earth. Except that unlike a tanning bed, this cylinder was completely closed, like a capsule.

  “Is that how you get a massage on Neron?” I asked, wondering how exactly this worked.

  “Yes. It has been programmed for an hour for you, but you will be able to adjust the settings as you go. The machine is very intuitive. It uses your own past experiences to design the best custom program for you.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Enjoy.” The AI rolled out of the room, and the sliding door closed behind it.

  The lid of the cylindrical machine in front of me silently opened, revealing a padded interior. It appeared cozy like a cocoon, with round, gold-framed openings in seemingly random locations on the sides of the capsule and inside the lid.

  I stroked the gray-velvet-padded surface, suddenly thinking about the Colonel’s abs again.

  It would be a long year living side by side with a man who had this effect on me. However, leaving him was the last thing I wanted to do, now.

  My physical attraction to him was in no way criminal or forbidden. The Colonel was my husband, dammit. The whole of Voran already thought we were having sex as much and as often as we wanted.

  The problem was, he didn’t seem to want me in that way, anymore.

  “Once was enough for me,” he’d said when talking about Shula rejecting his marriage proposal.

  Proud man that he was, I feared he would never forget my initial rejection, either. I didn’t regret my behaviour that first night. The timing had been wrong, and we didn’t know each other at all. Now, however, if the Colonel made another move on me, I wouldn’t reject him.

  By now, I got to know him enough to appreciate and respect him as a person. He was a strong and reliable man like a rock, with a gentle side to him that made my insides melt. I wanted him. In every sense.

  Had he so much as touched me in his home gym this morning, I wouldn’t be standing here, alone and sexually frustrated.

  “Sooner or later you will want to be fucked by a man. Then, you’ll beg me for it.”

  His words sounded prophetic now. This time, even the idea of begging didn’t seem that appalling.

  “And it could only be me.”

  Well, I didn’t want anyone else.

  I sighed deeply. The gesture made my nipples rub against the smooth silk of the robe. Sparks of desire fluttered from my chest down to my thighs. The smooth caress of the silk robe against my skin only made it worse.

  I ripped the bathrobe off, then climbed into the massage machine.

  “Welcome,” a soothing voice flowed over me as the lid lowered down smoothly the moment I’d lain down. “Please close your eyes and focus on the vision of your mind.”

  The vision of my mind?

  Whatever the heck did that mean?

  I did what I was told, though, closing my eyes. With the light inside the capsule dimmed, I could hardly see anything, anyway.

  A cool strip of metal pressed to my forehead, circling my head. I jerked at the contact.

  “Nothing to worry about here,” the voice reassured me as soothing music started to play in the background. “You are safe and calm.”

  Calm? I wasn’t so sure about that.

  A fine mist covered my skin with warm fragrant oil then a series of soft rubbery things rolled up and down my body, massaging every muscle under my skin.

  “This is really nice,” I murmured.

  “Please select a setting.”

  A slideshow of images went through my mind.
My bedroom in my parents’ house when I was little. A white-sand beach we had gone to while on vacation. A large rock in the valley behind my Grandma’s old house. The luxurious, round bed that used to be Colonel’s but was mine for the next ten and a half months.

  “That one,” I whispered.

  The picture no longer was in front of me, but around me. The machine seemed to have disappeared, as I lay on the bed in the Colonel’s bedroom, the starry night sky over the flowery canopy twinkling above me.

  As the things massaged and rubbed my body, my thoughts went to the Colonel once again. The illusion of being in his house was so real, I started wondering where under the glass domes would he be while I lay on his bed, naked. Would he be reading the news downstairs? Or working on his tablet? Or maybe training in his exercise room again? Hot and sweaty in his barely decent shorts...

  “May we suggest a change in the program?” the machine’s voice filtered through.

  My mind still floated somewhere, focusing wasn’t easy. “Okay.”

  “A relaxation mode has been requested. However, our sensors indicate that the excitement mode would be more beneficial for you, right now.”

  “Excitement?”

  “Would you prefer one partner or multiple for this session?”

  “An exciting massage partner, you mean? I’m afraid I don’t get—”

  “You don’t need to answer any questions vocally,” the voice continued, soothing and pleasant. “Let your mind make the selection.”

  Another series of images floated through my mind like a slideshow.

  The face of my grandma’s hot neighbour I had a crush on when still in high school. A couple of my ex-boyfriends. Several male celebrities from Earth—two movie actors, a male model, and a few Olympic athletes.

  Then, the face of the Colonel filled my mind’s vision. The usual grumpy expression in his hard-set mouth. The eerie red eyes under his long, thick eyelashes.

  My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. I believed I could even smell his heady scent again, his large, hard body radiating heat and energy after a vigorous work-out.