Merry F-ing Christmas

Every night, Jack stayed up late, waiting and watching for Mary to come to the park to dance but she didn't come back. The following Thursday, he picked up his tux and his shoes. On Friday at lunch he took the carefully wrapped music box with him when he went to the park to eat lunch with Mary. She eyed it curiously, but he let it sit there until they had finished eating. Then he said: "I bought you a present. I don't do Christmas gifts, so there's no reason to wait."

She looked at him. He tried to figure out what the look in her eyes was. It looked like fear. "Don't worry, it won't explode," he said.

She untied the bow and carefully unwrapped the box. She lifted the lid and looked inside. For a long time she sat looking at the dancing couple. Gingerly, she reached in and moved the little lever. The music box began playing her waltz and the enameled couple began circling and twirling. She sat, looking into the box. She didn't say anything. Then he saw tears falling onto the wrapping paper. Sobs shook her. She sat hunched over, watching, listening, crying, until finally the spring ran down. Jack, fearing he had made a big mistake, fearing he had hurt her in some way, started to go to her, to touch her, to hold her, but she warned him off with a hand.

She carefully put the lid back on the box. She stood up with it and glared at him: "Damn you, Jack! I said: 'Just friends,' that's all. What part of 'no relationship' don't you understand? Merry Fucking Christmas, Jack." She took the package and walked off to her shop. For some reason, the sexy sway of her ass wasn't there this time.

After that, she quit coming to the park for lunch. He didn't see her again for the next week. The day before Christmas Eve, Michael closed up shop at 5 o'clock. He told Jack they were done for the season. He said it wasn't right to work on Christmas Eve. He told Jack he would be gone until after Christmas. He brought out a packed suitcase, and a little while later a taxi stopped in front of the shop to pick him up.

(Now, dear reader, if you wish to imagine that Michael took a cab to the North Pole, and spent the next day and night whooshing across the sky in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, delivering presents to all the children of the world, who am I to disabuse you of that notion. The much less romantic reality is that he flew United Airlines to LAX to visit his daughter in California. But which you wish to believe is entirely up to you.)

On Christmas Eve, the little street that time forgot got its first snow fall of the season. It started just before midnight. The silence of the snow damping out the normal sounds woke Jack. He sat up and looked out at the park, the gentle snow barely sticking to the ground. As he watched, the snow slowed to a stop. The clouds cleared enough for the moon to shine softly through. Then he saw her. She came from the back path into the park and to the bandstand. The moonlight reflecting off the snow gave the scene an unearthly light.

(Yes dear reader, it would have been a lot sexier to write that last sentence as: "The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave a luster of midday to objects below", but Clement Moore beat me to it.)

He saw her set the music box on the bench at the side of the gazebo. Jack got out of bed and quickly dressed in his tuxedo, tails, top hat and dancing shoes. When he got downstairs and over to the park, she had wound the music box and started it playing the waltz, but she wasn't dancing. She was standing, waiting for him. He walked to the bandstand.

Bowing he asked: "May I have this dance?" She held out her hand for him and he took her in his arms. She was shivering. She melted against his chest seeking warmth. They waltzed 'til the music ran down, then wound it up again and danced another time. Finally, standing clinging to him, she looked up at him with tears freezing on her face. She hugged him close. And then she said: "Merry Fucking Christmas, Jack," and picking up the music box, led him by the hand to her bedroom.

They lit a fire in the fireplace. She put her hand against his hardness and said: "Frozen stiff. I hope this doesn't thaw out any time soon."

This time, it was truly love making. He started out gently, sensing that Mary was making herself her gift to him, not just her body, but her trust, trusting with difficulty, still fearful of being hurt. He was also fearful, doubtful, cautious, hesitant, trying to relearn trust, faith, hope. Then, as she responded to his gentleness, their gentle kissing, touching holding, clinging turned to passionate eagerness, throwing clothing aside, stripping to bare skin against bare skin, stroking, feeling, minds filled with each other, hearts emptied of distrust, fear, heartache, bitterness.

Mary broke the embrace and pulled the quilt and top sheet back, opening her bed to him in invitation.

Gently, he picked her up in his arms like a child, one arm beneath her bottom, the other around her back, the hand curling up to touch the side of her breast. She put her arms around his neck and clung tightly. He lifted her in his arms until her mouth met his in a lingering kiss. Carefully, he carried her to the bed and laid her gently down. He stood over her for a long moment, looking at her from head to toe, thinking how beautiful, how wonderful, how sweet, how sexy she was. He gently brushed her hair back from her face, searching her face. She held out her arms to him: "Please come to me, Jack. Love me. Make love to me. I want you inside me."

He was more than ready for that opportunity, his hard, throbbing erection reaching toward her, seeking its special place within her. His eyes were drawn to that spot as she raised her knees and opened her thighs, her secret place within opening to him also, its swelling wet readiness apparent to him.

Jack leaned down and kissed her again, then kissed down her body to her breasts. She grasped his swollen cock, pulling it toward her, wanting it; wanting him; feeling the wetness at the end of his cock signaling his desire.

He smelled her perfume, the scent she wore and the scents that were her own, the smell of her arousal. He touched her legs, her calves, her thighs, stroking his way toward her center, sending shivers of pleasure through her.

Gently, still holding his cock tightly, she drew him onto the bed over her. He straddled her, teasing her, not wanting to rush. He grasped her breasts, filling his hands with them, feeling her hard nipples against his palms, feeling their softness and fullness with his finger tips, drawing his hands slowly, slowly out, his fingertips stroking their way toward her sensitive buds, then gently squeezing them, making her arch her body toward him as the feeling traveled from her nipples to her clit. She arched her head back, exposing her throat, unable to hold his gaze as the intensity of the feelings he caused forced her to squeeze her eyes tightly shut, reveling in the sensations, the hard insistent throb at her clit.

And then, he said it. the words that had been growing within him for weeks. Words that were too trite, too ordinary, too simple to convey what he really felt. Words that came not from his mouth, but from his gut: "I love you, Mary. I want you. I need you. Not just tonight, but always. Not just friends. Not just fucking. I want all of you. I want to be a part of your heart."

She opened her eyes again. She looked again into his eyes. She searched as if she could see deep inside them, through them, to his mind and heart. "And I love you too, Jack. I tried to keep you out of my heart, but I couldn't. It is already yours. Take me. Now. Please."

Jack moved his thighs between hers and positioned his cock at her entrance, tantalizing her with the delicate sensation of it touching her, then slowly, gently, he entered her, his length stretching her, filling her.

As Jack entered her, Mary tensed and groaned, almost as though in pain. Jack felt the tight, hot wetness of her canal as the muscles inside her clamped down on him. For a moment he thought he might have hurt her, and one part of his mind panicked, but another part rejoiced. He was taking this woman, owning her, and he loved her for this gift of herself, this seeming sacrifice of her body for his pleasure. Then he heard the gentle laugh of her exultation as she surrounded encompassed, possessed him as well, each owning the other.

She met his thrusts, not with the giggles of a girl, but with the vigor and grunts of a full-blooded woman. Her body became slippery below him as they both began to sweat with sexual exertion. He could clearly smell her, the scent of aroused and used woman, and he reveled in that scent and in the wet sounds they made as he drove repeatedly deep into her thrusting belly.

Mary's responses told Jack that he was rubbing her where she needed it on every thrust. He could feel the orgasm forming in her tensing and quivering belly and thighs; her arching toward him. He licked her throat, nipped her ear lobe with his teeth, kissed her under the ear, and whispered in her ear: "Come for me Mary, I want to feel you come." And she did, losing all control, her body's response taking over, spasms and contractions wracking her body and thrilling his. She clutched herself to him, lost in the pleasure.

He continued to thrust into her, his own climax not far away as she gasped, panting from her exertion, still moving underneath him. She whispered back to him: "I want your seed inside me, Jack. I want to suck it all out of you. I want to feel your pleasure in my body. Cum inside me Jack."

His thrusting turned to frenzied uncontrolled passion. He too gave in to the desire of his body, thrashing on top of her so that he feared he would hurt her, but her renewed moans and shivers of pleasure told him otherwise. He went almost rigid, his legs stiff, his toes curled and then the dam within him burst. With a hot surging in his cock, he began pumping his juice into her womb, feeling the fluid burning its way out of him in glorious pulses of ecstasy, his thrusts synchronizing with the jets of fluid he was forcing deep inside her. He felt her final response as she too thrust against him, grinding herself against him, reaching a new climax of grunting, moaning pleasure.

He collapsed on top of her, and then, clutching her tightly, rolled over onto his back, turning her, stilled impaled on him, to the top, loving the weight of her slight body on his larger one. She lay her head down on his shoulder, nestled in the crook of his neck and with the tip of her tongue tasted the sweat on his throat. They lay like that for a long time, basking in the warmth they had created between them; in the feel of warm, wet, slippery skin against warm, wet, slippery skin.<

Alas, Mary's hope for Jack's member to remain frozen was not granted, though she was able to re-freeze it a bit later. They didn't really sleep that night. Between couplings at intervals and whispers interspersed with hungry kisses, they kept each other awake and aroused most of the time until dawn.

In the morning, they showered together and, fully lathered, did it standing up, her back against the shower wall, legs wrapped tightly around his hips, impaled on his again re-frozen member. Clean and dried, they went back to bed where they slept the morning away, tangled naked in each other's arms.

After the holidays, Jack stayed on to work at the toy shop but spent the nights down the street with Mary. She accepted his proposal of marriage and they were married on June 25^th, as far away from Christmas as possible, in the bandstand in the park, she in a wedding gown of Victorian lace and he in his top hat and tails.

Michael's health was not good. He was able to do less and less and depended more and more on Jack. The following year was the last trip Michael was able to make to the children's ward in his Santa suit to deliver gifts to the boys and girls. It seemed to take every last bit of his energy to get through that and hang on 'til Christmas Eve. That year, he said he was going to New York to visit his son for Christmas. Jack doubted that he was up to traveling but Michael insisted on going.

The day after Christmas, Jack got a call from Michael's son. The son said that Michael had died in his sleep that night. His heart had finally given out. The son said his Dad had struggled to make it through Christmas this year to enjoy it with the children. It was a time he really lived for. Jack said how sorry he was, then gently hung the phone up and wept. He thought: "Merry Fucking Christmas, Michael."

Knowing how Michael had loved the toy shop, Jack wondered what would become of it now that Michael was gone. Later, the son called back about funeral arrangements. He asked if Jack could watch the store until after the funeral. Michael's body was being flown back and arrived down the street at the little mortuary. Michael's son and his wife and children and Michael's daughter and her husband and their children all flew in each from their own coasts.

After the funeral, the son and daughter asked Jack to meet them at the toy shop. The son, a lawyer, told Jack that his father's will left the toy store to Jack. He said that his dad loved the shop and wanted it to stay in business. He and his sister had their own lives on opposite coasts, he with his law firm, and she in the advertising business. Jack said he didn't know if he could make a living at running the shop. He'd be lucky to be able to pay the rent. No problem about the rent, said the son as actually, all the buildings both sides of the street belonged to Michael. He rented the other stores out and kept the rents low so they could all stay in business. Michael's will said that the stores would belong to Jack as long as he kept them in operation as small shops.

The son gave Jack a sealed envelope that had been in the will, addressed to Jack. Inside was a note with just four words: "Merry Fucking Christmas, Jack. (signed) Michael."

They remodeled the floor above the toy store, clearing out the storage room at the back and turning it into one large apartment. Reluctantly, Mary changed her last name for the last time. Oh, yeah. That. I forgot to mention that. Jack's last name: "Christmas," what else?

(And so, dear reader, yes, there is real magic in the world. Oh, it's not the magic of elves making toys or flying reindeer or chubby men sliding down chimneys. It is not magic that cures disease or poverty or unemployment. It is not the magic of swords that slay the dragons of war, famine or pestilence. The real magic is the magic of the heart: that wellspring of hope, love and faith. The true magic is the magic of the human spirit that knows that while not everything can be repaired, there are a very great many things, and many people, that, one at a time, can be mended, patched and salvaged if there is but one of us who truly cares to try. Well, yes, and then too, there's the magic of a great Merry Christmas fucking.)

The End