Stocking Stuffers

by Sara James

He’d even told them about what happened to him, long after the fact, when bridges had been rebuilt and reinforced with a lot of sharing, honesty and trust. Neither of them believed him. He didn’t care. It felt good to tell them the truth. Besides, they had all gotten a good laugh out of his story. Especially Emily. As he’d predicted, she was on track to never, ever let him live it down. In private, she often called him “C cup” when he was being his most sentimental, empathetic or caring. More than just an inside joke between the three of them, it was her way of telling him he was acting like a girl. She always said it with affection, combining the fine art of the tease with genuine caring.

  Of course, the nickname was Max’s own joke on her. He hadn’t had the heart to tell her his real cup size when he’d been transformed, so he’d told her he was a C cup, a cup size smaller, as it turned out, than she was. That in and of itself was a measure of how close the three of them had grown. He couldn’t imagine his sisters ever volunteering their cup sizes to him prior to his transformation.

  “Yes,” he said said loud enough for Emily to hear through the bathroom door. He made sure the word came came out with far more exasperation than he felt. “She’s really a girl. Her name is Gwen, and I’ve told you both, we’re just friends with a shared interest in movies and video games.”

  Kate was in the process of pulling things out of bags. “So we know you like girls. Come on, Max, fess up. Why did we have to avoid Santa’s Village?” She shook a doll at him. “What warm blooded man wouldn’t want to stare at young, hot, lusty girl-elves in short skirts, leggings and low-cut tops that expose so much cleavage?”

  The toilet flushed and the water in the bathroom sink turned on. “They didn’t seem that big to me,” countered Emily through the closed door. “Only one of them seemed big enough to be a D cup, and I think she was using padding.”

  Kate and Max shared a look, confused. “What are you talking about?” Max had to ask.

  “You said they were busty.”

  “Lusty!” he and Kate yelled at the same time, which made them both crack up. “Not busty,” Kate managed to add even as she kept on giggling.

  Emily emerged from the bathroom and joined them on the floor of the living room. With five children to wrap presents for, she wasted no time getting started. She had two presents wrapped before Max had his first one done. The three of them didn’t quite race, but all of them announced the number of presents they had wrapped each time them finished one. As they worked, teasing about his lack of interest in Santa’s helpers turned to chit-chat about the kids, the presents they had gotten for them, Kate and Emily’s husbands and Max’s developing feelings for Gwen.

  While Emily had started the race strong, Kate was the one that finished wrapping presents first. She had fewer overall to wrap and Emily made sure to point that out even as Kate declared herself the victor.

  Max watched the playful interaction with a sad smile. How many years had he called his youngest sister “Katie” without realizing she’d preferred “Kate” because it sounded less like a little girl’s name? Learning that was just one detail among hundreds that had made the three of them grow closer. If it hadn’t been for Holly’s magical transformation of his body, he was sure that the transformation of his soul would have been impossible. He’d still be living his old, isolated life, thinking his relationship with his sisters was fine the way it was. And Gwen? He’d never have had the nerve to talk to her, let alone treat her like the person she was. He wasn’t sure where things were headed, but he knew that having her as a friend made him happy. If she ended up as his girlfriend, or maybe more, so much the better.

  Kate was putting her wrapped presents back into bags and setting them aside by the Christmas tree to take with her when she left. “Hey,” she asked Max, “what’s this?”

  She reached beneath the tree and pulled out two presents and a card. Both of the boxes were wrapped in matching paper. The pattern was red and white stripes that made them look like they were wrapped in a candy cane. Both had red velvet ribbon with a matching bow. Only the card was different. It was a white paper envelope.

  “Who are they for?” asked Emily.

  “Us,” Kate said, looking from Max to the packages with a sly smile. “But they don’t look like they’re from Max. The writing on the tags is too feminine to be his.”

  “Gimme,” Emily demanded in her best baby-talk voice, adding a reaching hand gesture for good measure that would have done a two-year-old proud.

  Kate obliged by handing over one of the presents to her. She handed the card to Max. It was addressed to him in a familiar ink and handwriting. Without being able to read the tags from where he was sitting on the floor, he could still see that the white tags were also made out in the same broad strokes of a gel pen that wrote in pink glitter ink.

  He couldn’t speak. Was he in trouble? Were his sisters? Was this a punishment or a reward?

  “Max!”

  He looked up, startled by Kate’s shout. Emily was so brash he sometimes forgot his youngest sister could be just as loud when she wanted to be. “Huh?”

  “Are these from Gwen?” she asked, acting as if she was repeating herself. Perhaps she was.

  Emily had already opened hers. It was too late to warn her. She lifted out a golden key on a narrow red ribbon that was long enough to be worn like a necklace. “Nice,” she offered with approval. She looked at Max with a smirk. “I would have gone with a matching chain if I was sucking up to potential in-laws, but it’s still a very thoughtful gift.”

  Kate had opened hers too by then. Her present was identical to Emily’s. “It’s nice,” she agreed. “I’m not sure what it’s supposed to symbolize, but it’s nice.” Her eyes twinkled. “Thank Gwen for us when you see her.”

  He swallowed. “Not Gwen. Holly.”

  There was a long, silent pause before Kate began to laugh so hard she had trouble breathing.

  Emily’s reaction was more subdued. She gave him a hard, level look, lifting one eyebrow. “Really, Max? That’s what this is about? Getting us to believe that tall-tale you told us about Santa’s magic elves?” She laughed along with Kate then, though with less conviction. It came out as more of a chuckle.

  Rather than try to convince them, he opened the card. The cover was unlike any of the cards from the year before. It was a religious scene, showing the manger with baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the animals, as well a pair of angels. They stood behind Mary and Joseph, glowing with a soft light, encircling the young parents and their newborn son with their large wings as if to protect them from the night. The angels were female, with golden hair and shining faces, the air around their heads radiant with their holy purity. Their faces were familiar to him. He’d last seen them at the mall on Christmas Eve the year before.

  Not elves. Angels. Like his sister had suspected in childhood, they worked for a power far greater than Santa Claus. They worked for Saint Nicholas’ boss.

  The inside of the card had a new set of verses, more than in any one card that had come before:

  The season of Christmas

  Is a magical time

  More special than presents

  Or any crude rhyme.

  It’s Love that is precious,

  A gift from His hands

  More potent than magic,

  The crux of his plans.

  Your sisters both prayed

  Though just one admits it

  But both of them asked

  So both will now get it:

  A sister to visit

  For one week each year,

  Just seven short days

  While Christmas draws near.

  Remember this lesson,

  The best one to learn:

  Giving others your Love

  Earns more in return.

  - Your Friends From the Mall

  PS - Be Nice, Holly Day Williams. We’ll be watching.

  As if his brain had been waiting for that moment, he understood the presents that had
been given to his sisters. He looked up at his sisters, face and jaw slack. It had all been for them, an answer to their prayers.

  They were looking at him with concern, all mirth gone. “Are you OK Max?” Emily asked with uncharacteristic levity. “You’re so pale. You look like someone just died.”

  He held out the card to her. She took it from him but didn’t even glance at it. Both of his sisters were focused on him as he stood up, struggling with legs that were trembling. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just … wait here. I have something to show you.”

  It only took a couple of minutes to retrieve the wooden chest from the bedroom closet where he had stored it the year before. He unpiled the things he had put on top of it and carried it to the living room. By the time he returned, Emily had stopped wrapping presents and was standing. She and Kate had their heads together, whispering earnestly to each other. The card was the focus of their attention until they noticed him returning and what he held. Neither of them spoke until he put it on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  “What’s that?” Kate asked before Emily could say anything.

  “The rest of your gift.” He stepped away, allowing them to inspect it for themselves.

  Emily was reading and rereading the card. Each time she finished, she would look between the card’s cover, the wooden box and him, then begin rereading the card again. Kate just stood there, still holding her key, staring at the box like she was afraid of what it might contain. Maybe she was. Max himself was beyond having any fear of it, but he was still adjusting to the idea that his sisters had been given control over his body. Trust, he supposed, was the key that led to acceptance of what he was certain must happen next.

  As if seeing it for the first time, Kate held up her key, examining it in detail. Her eyes moved to the box’s keyhole. Stepping forward, she reached out and put the key into it.

  “If this is a joke, Max,” Emily warned him, her voice trembling, “I’m going going to kick you in the nuts so hard that you’ll still end up a girl.”

  She and Max watched as Kate turned the key. The lock clicked. Without anyone touching it, the lid began to open. The familiar flecks of light began to fly out of the box into the air. Both Kate and Emily withdrew in a mixture of fascination and horror. They watched as the glittering motes surrounded him in a vortex of light. It consumed him, leaving behind his female self, dressed in the mall elf costume.

  He’d dreamed of being female many times since his transformation the previous year. Sometimes they were nightmares of being chased by anonymous men. At other time, they were more pleasant dreams of wandering gardens filled with women, all of whom accepted him as one of them. Sometimes, it was memories of real time spent with his sisters, the only difference being that he was female. In contrast, the reality of standing in front of his sisters with his transformed body for the first time made him feel exposed and timid, but not afraid. He found himself pulling at the hem of his short skirt, wishing it was longer.

  Kate was the first to stop gaping and find her voice. “Shut. Up!” She lifted one hand to cover her forehead. Her bright-red cheeks glowed. Her eyes couldn’t decide where to look. They darted from feature to feature, trying to take in every aspect of his transformation all in at once. “This is crazy.”

  Emily’s reaction was far more straightforward, as suited her nature. Her eyes were locked on his upper torso. “There is no way those things are only a C cup.”

  Max knew he should be serious, but the joke was just too easy. His lips twitched, wanting to smile at his own anticipated wit. “Busted,” he confessed, unable to suppress the smile any longer.

  “Hardee-har-har,” was her less-than-witty comeback. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking her head, or close her mouth. “Wow. You’re really a woman. You told us the truth.” Her eyes found his before repeating those words with moist sincerity. “You told us the truth!”

  Kate gasped, pointing at him. “I get it! The girls at the mall. This is why you wouldn’t look at them. The girls you ogled, they were wearing elf costumes like this one, weren’t they?” She stepped forward, fluffing his short skirt. He slapped at her hands but missed. She stopped, but her point was made. “You left that part out. Was wearing this costume to the mall part of your punishment? It was, wasn’t it?” She was giggling, anticipating his answer.

  It was Max’s turn to blush. “Yes,” he admitted. “I thought that getting turned into a woman and being harassed by a pack of men was the important part.” He glanced at Emily before focusing on Kate. “You already didn’t believe me. I thought that bringing the whole elf costume thing into it would just make it seem even more unbelievable.”

  Emily’s slow smile had been growing every moment since Katie had her flash of insight. “‘Ho, ho, ho,’” she quoted him. “Three girls dressed like Santa’s elves. I get it, now. That makes so much more sense.” She rolled her eyes. “But really, Max? That’s the best you could come up with? Not, ‘Hey, Baby, can I lick those candy canes?’ Or how about, ‘I’ve got a big package for ya. Will you let me give it to you?’ That’s just sad. You could have come up with something way more offensive than, ‘Ho, ho, ho.’”

  “Oo! Me! I’ve got one!” Kate said. She stuck a butch pose, adjusted the groin of her pants and mock spat to one side. “‘Yo! Babe! Forget about Santa. Come sit on my lap.’”

  Max shuddered. While he’d told his sisters about being harassed, he hadn’t told them what specifically had been said to him. Variations on everything they had said had been directed at him during his time at the mall. He laughed, but it was weak. “You’re both going to have to come up with better lines than that. They’re pretty unoriginal.”

  The two shared a look. “We know,” Emily told him. She swallowed. “That’s kind of the punchline. You don’t have to be dressed like an elf to get comments like that from men.”

  That was hard for Max to believe, even after his own experience. “Really? I’ve never overheard men making comments like that to women.” He wiped an involuntary tear from the corner of his eye. Dressed like he was, the memories of what those men had said to him and how vulnerable it had made him feel were a raw wound all over again.

  Emily stepped forward and took his hand. Her lips pulled back, but not in a smile. “Comments like that don’t get made where other men can hear. If they do, all the men are usually in on it together. It’s a kind of pack mentality, in my experience.” She squeezed his hand. “You being on the receiving end of comments like that? That’s pretty typical for a pretty woman like you.” Her quasi-grimace became a smile, if a sad one. “Welcome to womanhood, sister.”

  Kate took his other hand while he let his emotions settle. He didn’t resist their hugs when they came. Emily made a joke about having to climb over his massive boobs to hug him. That led to jokes about having a supermodel as a sister, which led to jokes about Max keeping away from her husband, which led to jokes about how his nieces and nephews would react to having an aunt instead of an uncle, which led to jokes about Max getting pregnant, which led to jokes about who, how, when where and why Max would get pregnant. Humor was how Emily coped with the oddity of the situation. Kate coped by enjoying every second of it, along with an occasional joke of her own. Far from feeling picked on, Max drank in the teasing, knowing that what Emily was doing was forging a bond between the three of them that would never be broken.

  They went back to wrapping presents while Emily kept up her routine. Emily and Kate had to help lower him to the floor first, accompanied by a lot of laughter and teasing about how bad he was coping with wearing heels and skirts. Kate helped Emily and they all finished at about the same time.

  Max looked down at his cleavage. Even though there was just a little of it showing, it drew attention to the full swell of his bosom. He felt overdressed compared to his sisters, but he didn’t have anything else to wear that would fit. “So what now?” Part of him didn’t want them to go home so he could stay female. Part of him was afraid they would stay for
the same reason.

  Kate had retrieved her copy of the key and was examining the wooden box. “There’s a makeup kit in here, still. I could give you a makeover.”

  Emily winced. “Or I could.”

  “I’m not that bad,” Kate griped at her.

  “You’re not that good, either.”

  While delivered as a gentle joke, all three of them knew it was true. Kate relied upon her healthy skin rather than on makeup to look good. Even Max knew that much about her beauty skills. Emily, on the other hand, lived for makeup, jewelery, hair care and all things feminine. She could make Max over with ease if she wanted to.

  Emily picked up the card, rereading the verses inside. “‘... one week each year …’” She closed the card and looked at Max, squinting. “Today’s Saturday, so that give us five days together, including today.”

  The suggestion caught him off guard. “What?!? Five days? How is that supposed to work? I took vacation this week to go home with Kate to help with the kids during their Christmas break. I can’t go like this!”

  “Why not?” Emily asked. “She told me she didn’t tell Will because she didn’t want to fight with him about having you as a house guest. It’s not like he’s expecting you. Now you can pretend to be one of her college friends that she ran into while she was here.”

  “Her?” Kate asked, pointing at Max. “In my house? With my husband? Oh, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Ew,” Max said, catching her point. “Don’t worry. That’s nothing I’m interested in.”

  Kate just crossed her arms and tried to burn holes through Emily with her eyes. “Next suggestion.”

  Emily shook her head. “OK. He can come home with me. It’s more believable if he pretends to be one of my friends anyway. He looks like the kind of woman I would hang out with. Or he will be after I give him a makeover. You can come drop the kids off at my house and Max can still watch them for you, with my help. It will give you and Will a little mini-vacation.”