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  SEXY SANTA

  A Romantically Sensuous Christmas Story

  by

  Rona Valiere

  Copyright © 2012 Rona Valiere

  The gig appealed to Pam’s feminist instincts as much as to her pocketbook: Play the role of Mrs. Santa Claus at the Maple Grove Mall from the day after Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve. Why should Santa get all the glory? Surely Mrs. Claus did more than stay home and bake cookies for the elves. She liked the idea of sitting on a throne alongside Santa, dressed in a similar white-fur-trimmed red suit, and listening to the little kids talk about their Christmas wishes.

  Pam’s own son and daughter were grown and gone. Now in her mid-forties, divorced for nearly a year and recently “excessed” from her job due to budget cuts, she felt at a crossroads. She'd been spared a midlife crisis, having hit forty and most recently forty-five without a whimper, only to have life hit her with the one-two punch of losing her marriage and then her job. Pam was an optimist, the eternal glass-half-full type, however, and instead of going into a tailspin, she welcomed the new opportunities that she was sure were around the next corner. She didn’t know what her next regular job would be but meanwhile welcomed this temporary gig as Mrs. Claus. It wasn’t a high-paying job or a prestigious job and wouldn’t add much weight to her résumé, but it would bring in some much-needed money and, besides, it would be fun.

  Pam arrived at the Maple Grove Mall on the morning after Thanksgiving, ready to get into costume and go to work. Unlike Santa’s costume, hers involved no padding. After an earnest discussion with the Special Events Coordinator, who had hired her, Pam had persuaded Reg Winkelhof that the 2012 version of Mrs. Claus should be a lean, health-conscious, vibrant woman, neither chubby nor white-haired. She was pretty much going onstage as a red-suited version of herself.

  Reg led her to the newly set up Toyland in a vacant store in the mall. In a back room, she changed quickly into her costume. When she emerged, Santa, a jolly, beaming, white-haired and white-bearded gent in the best Santa tradition was already in place on his throne. Pam wondered if the belly was pillow-padding or real. Beneath the voluminous whiskers, it was hard to get a good idea of the man’s face. He looked properly old, as a Santa should. Pam supposed he was a local retiree looking for a little Christmas money.

  “My name’s Pam,” she said with a smile, offering Santa a hand to shake.

  “Mine’s Santa…but when the kids aren’t around you can call me Ed,” he said with a smile and a conspiratorial wink, standing up with old-fashioned courtliness. He took her proffered hand, shook it, and resumed his seat on the throne on the raised platform.

  “Is this your first year working the Santa gig?” Pam asked.

  “Yes, although I played Santa for our condo association’s Christmas party last year,” he acknowledged. “I’m looking forward to it. Who wouldn’t love to play Santa? Everyone loves Santa, and we all need to be loved.”

  True words indeed, thought Pam, who was ready to be loved again herself.

  “Have you been a good girl this year?” Santa asked.

  “Too good. No opportunities to be bad,” Pam answered with a sad smile.

  “What would you like Santa to bring you, then?”

  “A new husband…or at least a lover.” She was surprised at her own candor, but somehow wearing the Mrs. Claus outfit and pretending to be someone she wasn’t was a remarkably liberating experience.

  “Hmmm…that’s a tall order, but I’ll see what I can do. A charming, vivacious, and attractive woman like yourself shouldn’t have much trouble attracting a man, though.”

  “Ah, there, you see? That’s the problem. I have no trouble attracting a man, but it’s always the wrong one. Either they’re twenty-something cougar aficionados or they’re senior citizens looking for ‘young stuff’—which, at forty-five, I still qualify as, by geezer standards. No offense meant,” she hastily added as she remembered the bewhiskered Ed’s supposed age.

  “None taken,” he assured her with a chuckle.

  “Are you ready?” Reg Winkelhof called out from the front of the store.

  “Yes,” chorused Pam and Ed.

  Reg unlocked the door, and a swarm of eager humanity surged into the store—very young believers and their parents. Pam watched, amused. Some of the kids were pulling sleepy parents impatiently toward Santa and Mrs. Claus. Some of the parents were tugging hesitant, shy kids. All were directed into a cordoned queue that led to the back of the store where she and Ed were enthroned.

  Democratically, as each child reached the front of the line, he or she had a choice to talk to Santa or Mrs. Claus. Understandably, more of the kids opted for Santa, yet Pam was gratified to see how many of them actually preferred to speak with her. When Reg had interviewed her, he had admitted this new pairing of a female counterpart with the traditional Santa was an experiment and something of a crapshoot. It looked like it was working.

  Reg had organized it so that either Santa or Mrs. Claus was on duty at all times while the Toyland display was open. They both got several fifteen-minute breaks during the day, plus lunch break and dinner break, since their working hours were 10 AM to 8 PM, but their breaks were staggered, not simultaneous. Consequently, Pam and Ed had little opportunity to talk to each other through the day. They exchanged a few sentences here and there, and Pam warmed to the senior citizen’s sense of humor and genial smile, which seemed to be for real, and not just part of his Santa persona.

  It wasn’t till eight o’clock that first night that they had a chance to talk meaningfully to each other again. Reg had locked the door to the store and shepherded Ed and Pam to the back rooms, where they could each change back into their own clothes. As Pam, once again in street clothes, opened the door of the small room where she had changed, she encountered a man who looked to be in his late forties, with black hair, blue eyes, a charming smile, and a lean, trim figure. Taken aback, she said, “Oh—hi. I’m Pam. I was just—”

  The man laughed heartily. “Do I look that different out of costume?” She recognized the voice as Ed’s.

  “Migawd!” she gasped, gaping at him unabashedly. “Santa” was no senior citizen! Santa was a sexy chap around her age. Her eyes darted immediately to the ring finger of his left hand. There was no wedding ring, but that meant nothing. Not all married men wore one.

  Indeed, as Reg let them out of the store, then locked the door behind them, a woman was waiting in the corridor who sang out cheerily, “There you are! How did it go?” as Ed emerged with Pam.

  Ed gave the woman a quick peck on the cheek and said to Pam, “This is Misty.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Pam said, taking Misty’s hand and squeezing it.

  Misty squeezed back. “Me too,” she said with a warm smile.

  They’re well matched, Pam thought with a sigh as she mentally shrugged her shoulders and, with a cheery “See you tomorrow!” she waved goodbye to Ed and headed off to the mall exit and her car.

  Pam went home to her too-large house and fixed herself a bite to eat. Though she’d had a half-hour dinner break at five o’clock, she hadn’t eaten that much and now, at quarter to nine, she was hungry again. Thoughts of Ed, and particularly images of his smile flitted through her head, and they remained there as she did the dishes, took her bath, watered her plants, and settled into bed. She was tired, and although ten-thirty was earlier than her usual bedtime, she decided she was ready to go to sleep. Until sleep claimed her, however, images of Ed continued to populate her mind. He certainly was appealing looking, and his smile warmed her heart even now.

  Pam woke in the morning with a warm glow in her heart whose origin she could not immediately pinpoint. Soon, though, the glow transformed
into a mental image of Ed’s smile, and she remembered the charming and sexy Santa she was paired with for the remaining month of the Christmas season. Despite his status as clearly taken, she bounded out of bed eager to see him again. She dressed with care, made herself up with special attention, and when she went downstairs to eat breakfast she found that butterflies had invaded her stomach.

  She left the house early, reasoning that if she got to work early and Ed happened to do the same—as he clearly had done yesterday—they would have a chance to talk before Reg opened the door and admitted the throngs. Sure enough, Ed was in the back, already in his Santa suit. “Ho – ho – ho, good morning. Were you a good little girl last night?” he asked with a wink.

  “Too good, Santa,” she said with a sigh. “But then, chalk that up to lack of opportunity, not to any great will power.”

  “Santa will have to see what he can do about that.” Another wink. “Are you ready for more eager kids?”

  “I love it!” she gushed. “The pay sucks, but it’s the most fun job I’ve had.”

  “Me too. And not a single kid peed in my lap. I understand that’s an occupational hazard that goes with the gig. Guess I broke lucky yesterday. I had kids who clammed up and wouldn’t talk to me, kids who insisted I wasn’t the real Santa—one even tugged at my whiskers to prove it!—and kids with wish lists a mile long. I even had one kid say all he wanted for Christmas was for his daddy to come home again. That one broke my heart. I assume it was a case of divorce until the mother whispered to me that her husband is in the service, overseas in the Middle East. All I could say after that was, ‘God bless you.’ But not a single kid peed in my lap. I wonder what today will bring.”

  “I had more girls than boys,” Pam said. “One girl said, ‘When I grow up, I want to marry Santa and be Mrs. Claus. Do you think you’ll be dead by then?’ My goodness!”

  Ed looked properly shocked, then burst out laughing. “Today’s kids!” he exclaimed. “Can you see yourself saying or even thinking such a thing at that age?”

  Pam shook her head emphatically.

  “Did you have a good evening?” Ed inquired.

  “Good but short. I was tired! You wouldn’t think a job where you sit all day would be that tiring. I guess it’s all the emotional energy we invest into it. And it is a long day. How about you?”

  “I hit the pillow by ten,” Ed admitted.

  I’ll bet Misty was disappointed, Pam thought wryly, remembering the woman who had come to pick Ed up after his shift was over. And I’ll bet if it was me, I’d have found a way to keep you awake. Suddenly her mind was playing mental movies of herself in bed with Ed, licking her way down his strong, muscular chest from his neck to his pecs to his bellybutton to his…. Stop it! She derailed that thought train off its track quickly and felt a bit of a blush spread across her face as if she feared Ed could somehow divine her thoughts.

  “Too bad we don’t get to go to lunch at the same time,” Ed said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’d like that!” she answered—perhaps a bit too eagerly, she thought in retrospect.

  “I have to admit it’s a good plan, staggering our breaks and always having at least one of us on duty, but I sure would enjoy the pleasure of your company over lunch.”

  “You old flirt,” Pam said, elbowing him in the ribs.

  “It isn’t flirting when it’s sincere,” Ed replied with a straight face.

  What would Misty think if she heard you? Pam wondered, but she didn’t voice the question aloud.

  Her biggest challenge that morning, though, proved not to be keeping her impure thoughts at bay but rather facing a girl who proclaimed herself “eight and too old to believe in you anymore.”

  “Then why are you here?” asked Pam logically.

  “Partly just in case, but mostly it was my mother’s idea. She babies me.”

  “Do you show her what a big girl you really are by cleaning your room and brushing your teeth and doing your chores without her having to prod you?”

  “What does ‘prod’ mean?”

  “Push, bug you, get after you.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Maybe if you did it more consistently she’d be more willing to accept that you’re growing up.”

  “If you were really Mrs. Claus you’d know if I was doing all that stuff. You know: ‘He knows if you’ve been bad or good.’” The girl smirked triumphantly.

  Thinking quickly, Pam replied, “He knows. I don’t. He doesn’t always share his lists with me. He’s very busy—and so am I.”

  “Doing what?”

  Pam gulped. “Who do you think oversees all the elves and other factory workers?” she said, giving Mrs. Claus a big promotion from chief cookie-baker. Let’s hear it for women. There goes another glass ceiling, Pam thought as she briefly described “her job” as factory manager. Cookie-baking my ass!

  In the middle of recounting her many duties as manager, she looked to her right and saw that Ed was apparently paying as much attention to her as to the tyke on his own lap. He flashed her a thumbs-up, grinned his 4000-megawatt grin, then returned his attention to the boy whose wish list he was supposed to be memorizing.

  That evening, when Toyland closed its doors for another day, Ed’s first comment before they even disembarked from their thrones was, “I liked the promotion you gave yourself. I heard a lot of what you told that little girl this morning. I think it’s high time Mrs. Claus got credit for more than baking cookies.” He stood up and took a step toward her.

  Standing up, Pam took a step toward him and then squeezed his arm and said, “On behalf of women everywhere, thank you for your support.”

  They walked back to the rear of the store together and lingered in the main area, just talking, till finally Ed said, “Well, I guess we’d better get changed.”

  Yes. Don’t want to keep wifey waiting, Pam thought, an edge of bitterness creeping into her thoughts. She was cordial to Misty, however, when she encountered her outside the storefront once again, waiting for Ed. “How are you this evening?” Pam asked, hoping her smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.

  “Just great! And you?”

  I’d be better if you were out of the picture. “Fine. Fine. It’s surprisingly tiring work, but I enjoy the hell out of it.”

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ed said, squeezing Pam’s shoulder. “G’night.” And he surprised her by giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

  In front of wifey? Well, maybe he’s the sort who kisses all the ladies, and his wife’s gotten used to it.

  The month went on, very much in the same vein. November rolled over into December, and December hurried on in a headlong rush toward Christmas. With no time to go to stores to do her Christmas shopping, Pam found herself shopping on the internet during her few waking hours at home. She fell asleep early every night, pleasantly exhausted from the job.

  Ed did get peed on a few times, and one little girl with an excitable stomach became so agitated over “really, really talking to Santa” that she threw up, soiling the arm of his costume and necessitating an unscheduled break while he scrubbed at it and scrubbed at it.

  Every morning Pam arrived at the store early, eager to enjoy fifteen minutes or so of talking to Ed before their shift started, and every evening the two of them lingered in the back room, chatting each other up and enjoying each other’s company. Or at least, Pam knew how very much she was enjoying Ed’s company and believed it to be mutual, from the way Ed stayed and stayed, talking to her. This was despite Reg’s assistant’s evident impatience to get them out, lock up behind them, and be done. It was also despite the fact that Misty was faithfully waiting for him just outside the door. Every evening Ed would greet Misty with a peck on her cheek, then say “Good night” to Pam with a peck on her cheek. At least I get equal treatment, Pam thought wryly, though she was sure Misty got much more than a peck on the cheek when they got home.

  On December 24th, Pam awoke with a sense of foreboding,
then remembered the reason: Today was her last day of working with Ed…and a shortened day at that. Toyland would be closing at five sharp, the gig over for the year. Well, she would make the best of it.

  She arrived even earlier than usual and was pleased to see that Ed was there early too. Reg himself let her in, instead of the assistant to whom he’d delegated the task after the first day. “It may be a mad last-minute rush,” he warned her. “Be prepared for anything.”

  She was prepared for anything but never seeing Ed again. She was having trouble handling that prospect.

  Ed himself seemed filled with a certain melancholy. “It’s over after today,” he said. “I’ve been peed on for the last time, gotten the last candy cane stuck in my whiskers…but, you know, I’m going to miss the little monsters.” He said it very fondly. “I’m going to miss you, too,” he added.

  “I’m going to miss you also!” Pam blurted out with more emotion than she’d meant to show.

  “Want to have dinner?” Ed asked. “We won’t get a dinner break today, but we get out at five. Would you allow me to take you to dinner? Dinner’s on me…but you have to do the driving.”

  “What about Misty?” Pam couldn’t help but ask.

  “Her sister is making a Christmas Eve afternoon party. I told Misty I’d find my own way home.”

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “I don’t have a license. I lost it last year.” A burning sadness sprang into his eyes and a shadow crossed his face. Pam wanted to ask how it had happened that he’d lost his license, but the sadness and the shadow persuaded her that the question would be inopportune. “If I spring for dinner, will you drive me home?”

  “I would drive you home even if you didn’t buy me dinner.”

  “But I want to buy you dinner! I don’t like the idea of never seeing you again.”

  “It’s bugging the hell out of me too.”

  There. She’d said it. In fact, they’d both said it…but where could things go from here? He was still a married man.

  The traffic that day came in pulses. There were absolute hordes of kids for perhaps forty-five minutes, then a lull with few kids that left time for intermittent conversation, then another influx, followed by another lull, and so it went through the day. At her lunch break, Pam forbore to eat, too nervous at the prospect of dinner with Ed followed, in all probability, by never seeing him again. Yet he seemed from what he’d said to be saddened by that prospect, too. Was he about to propose an extra-marital fling? Would she assent to such an arrangement?