Miracle on Slutty 4th Street Ch. 14

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

That's what Christmas had turned him into.

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Doris Carroll had been proud of herself and her neighbors on Fourth Street for another great Christmas. She knew the world was becoming more and more jaded, but she was happy to see her street act like a beacon for the greatness of Christmas. Even if the rest of the world was slowly deteriorating, if there could still be an example for all that is good and true, there was still hope yet.

But as she was about to learn, the great show their street put on for Christmas was a façade. A fake. A glitzy event hiding the corruption emanating from within Fourth Street. And as time went on during the next year, the rot at the core of this little hamlet began to finally show through. This was all revealed to the naïve Doris in slow, steady drips.

The first sign that something was off was the first time Doris saw her old rival Janet post-Christmas. She looked like a whole new woman. Janet looked younger, skinnier, more fit, and, uh... perkier where it counted. Had she gotten surgery or something? No... she'd never been out of sight, and if she'd gotten work done, there would have had to be some recovery time. This sudden change, her rival looking 20 years younger... it was impossible to explain. When Doris asked Janet about it when they ran into each other in the neighborhood, Janet got snotty about it.

"Clean living and a well-balanced diet, dear," Janet said with an arrogant smile. No diet in the world could have this affect, but Doris preferred to not deal with Janet any more than she had to, so she let the subject drop.

"So, how's the family?" Janet asked.

"Oh, uh, they are well," Doris replied politely.

"Yeah, I had a long, hard conversation with that grandson of yours, Max," Janet said, barely able to hide her smirk. "He's... grown up quite a lot, hasn't he? He is certainly something..." Doris knew that her grandson had grown up quite a bit, and while she appreciated the compliment, she didn't appreciate hearing these things from Janet, knowing her reputation. Doris wanted to put her foot down and clear out boundaries.

"Yes, he's grown up quite a bit. And he's a good, church going young man, and he has a girlfriend he loves very much," she said very pointedly. At this, Janet grinned.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure," she said, laughing to herself before parting ways with her old rival. Doris didn't like the sound of that laugh, or her fascination with her grandson, but she chose not to pay it too much mind, continuing on as normal. Janet was often strange to Doris, and she didn't allow her old rival to get her down about the positive state of Fourth Street.

But this was just the start.

Thanks to her new body and vivacious appearance, Janet was suddenly a lot more popular. She and Polly were suddenly closer than usual, as if they had more to identify with each other now. Sylvia was right there with them, becoming very friendly and cliquey. Doris didn't know if Janet was sharing her secret about her sudden physical changes with them, but she certainly wasn't with her. These three formed a very tight group, and they were just getting started. They even brought Lacey into the fold, forming a cool girls' group, even within this friendly neighborhood. And Doris... she was suddenly the uncool one on the outside.

It seemed like those four had all become closer, hanging out even outside of the neighborhood meetings. Sans Janet, Doris considered them all friends. She was at least on good terms with all of them. But now, it suddenly felt like she was being excluded from something. Even Lacey, who was so kind and sweet, was now simply polite towards her, and it was only with the others that she seemed to really come alive. Sharing stories about God knows what. Doris couldn't believe that someone as sweet and kind as Lacey would befriend someone like Janet.

Doris remembered when this had first started. As she walked into Sylvia's house for the first neighborhood meeting of the new year, she overheard Lacey talking with Polly and Janet.

"You're kidding me? That's what Bruce does with his free time?" Polly asked.

"I swear! I saw proof," Lacey said, giggling.

"Is that how you convinced him then?" Janet said, smiling wickedly. Lacey blushed slightly and shrugged, making the older women laugh. They'd all seen Janet in passing, each remarking about her new body in shock, which the older attention whore welcomed. So that part of this meet-up wasn't a shock. But this was their first causal get-together since that eventful previous Christmas, and they were all catching up on what they'd been up to.

"If you saw what he's got, you would too," Lacey said. "I swear, it was like this..." she said, holding her hands a foot apart.

"You're kidding?" Polly said incredulously. Lacey shook her head, smiling. At this, the three women looked up to see Doris approaching.

"Hello," the old woman said to her neighbors. "Talking about Bruce? I saw you got him to put up decorations. I was surprised," she said. At this, the other women laughed slightly, and Doris seemed like she was missing out on a joke.

"Uh, yeah. I was too," Lacey said, looking away, smiling.

"Lacey here was telling us all about the long, hard work she had to do to get him on board," Janet said, making all the other women laugh. Doris shook her head, thinking this was one of Janet's patented crass, inappropriate jokes, and she scowled at her rival. This only spurred on Janet.

"I should tell you girls about the conversation I had with Doris's grandson, Max," Janet began, grinning.

"Janet!" Doris warned her rival, not wanting her to spread any vicious lies about her grandson. Doris began setting down the dish she brought along, and with her back turned, Janet nodded at the other women and promised them the details later.

When the meeting wrapped up, Doris bundled up and grabbed her dish and was the first to leave, expecting the others to leave shortly behind her. But none of them did follow her, and glancing out from her house towards Sylvia's place a few hours later, she saw all the other women still there, laughing and talking and having more drinks. Sylvia's husband was upstairs, long asleep, not wanting any part of this meeting nonsense, so the girls let loose, trading stories of their misadventures.

Janet, explaining in great detail her seduction and bedding of Doris's grandson Max, and all the glorious details. Sylvia and Polly were both very impressed, and even sweetheart Lacey felt a building admiration for the bawdy older woman.

Lacey, going into even more detail about the thorough fucking she'd received from Bruce, feeling more validated in her actions by the abject approval of the woman surrounding her.

Sylvia, explaining how her and her son-in-law finally consummated their long brewing relationship. She'd gone on for years about how her and Jon had this unspoken thing going on. None of them ever believed it, at least until Sylvia went into the gory details about their Christmas Eve misadventures. She explained this all loudly and shamelessly, even with her husband upstairs. Rog always slept like a rock. He wasn't gonna hear anything.

But Polly topped them all. After much prodding, and a few glasses of wine, she finally admitted to fucking her handsome grandson Connor. The other girls were all shocked by this, especially the young, naïve Lacey. But the others understood. Janet even admitted that she'd scouted him out a few weeks prior, and if she hadn't gotten lucky with Max, she would have gone for Connor. Janet even asked Polly to send Connor her way next time he was around, inciting a laugh and teasing slap from Polly.

The beating heart of sin lying beneath Fourth Street had been exposed, and instead of these four women being horrified by it, they reveled in it. Festered in it. Allowed it to grow. Allowed it to spread. These four women had found something in common, specifically filthy, nasty sex, and after exposing this side of themselves to each other, they were thick as thieves.

And Doris... that poor old bitty would never understand.

That was kinda how it went from that point onwards. It seemed like these other women were bonding behind her back about something beyond her, and she felt increasingly distant from the pulse of the neighborhood.

This feeling only grew.

Rumors and secrets began spreading soon after that first meeting of the year. Nasty rumors getting spread about her neighbors. And it seemed like the source of most of them were those four women. They were all very social and well-connected within the neighborhood, and through them, some secrets began getting out, getting passed around enough that even Doris heard whispers of them. Like the rumor Kevin Burkhouse from down the street apparently hooking up with a college girl, at least from a rumor that Lacey heard. Kevin was a good man, thought Doris. He would never cheat on his wife. She was the mother of his children. That just wasn't how things worked.

These four women loved sharing gossip, trading off the newest chatter over drinks quite often. But as tight as they seemed to be, as soon as one of the four of them was gone, the others would spread rumors about them as well. These women loved gossip, and they shared it like teenagers, and these rumors too reached Doris's ears.

Lacey having sex with that animal Bruce? No... never. Lacey was such a sweetheart. Never. Although, Doris did see her going over to his place a few times. But no... it wasn't possible. She was just being neighborly.

Sylvia seducing her son-in-law? No. She wouldn't do that. Sure, she always did speak so highly of Jon, so effusively about what a handsome man her daughter had married, but no. She knew better.

And then there were the nasty rumors about Polly, about her fooling around with her own... no. Doris couldn't even speak of such a thing.

And then there was the rumor, no doubt spread by Janet, that her and Doris's kind-hearted, pure grandson had, uh... fooled around. No... NO! Every time she heard someone whispering such a vicious, untrue rumor about her proudly virginal grandson, Doris would shut it down and shame them for spreading such nasty untruths. And it filled her with even more dislike for Janet. The church had taught Doris not to carry hate in her heart, but Janet tested that.

These weren't the only rumors being spread. There were stories going around not just about the women in the neighborhood, but about their families. To Doris, this seemed over the line, but that didn't stop the rumors from spreading and gaining steam.

Sylvia had chatted with this saleswoman at the Capital-Mart, who claimed she had hooked up with a married man named Colin, who sounded a hell of a lot like Polly's son. And that wasn't all the rumors about Polly's sons. Janet heard that her oldest had been seen across town coming out of a church with two sexy young women. Polly dismissed both of these claims upon hearing them, as did Doris. She knew those two. They were good men, just like her own sons.

Another rumor that Lacey had heard was that Sylvia's son had banged one of the company execs during his interview at 'North Pole'. Sylvia, upon hearing this, dismissed it outright, but even she had to admit that his articles about that company seemed bizarrely glowing.

Doris didn't enjoy seeing her neighbors consumed in such rumor mongering, but she did take pride that her family seemed to have avoided such nasty stories. The only one that the girls seemed to be aware of was the Max thing from Janet, but Doris dismissed that immediately.

She dismissed a lot of things about Janet outright. Her behavior lately, the things she'd been saying, the way she'd been dressing, the fact that she seemed to have young men coming through her house all the time... all this allowed Doris to dismiss her and any of the crazy claims she made.

It was at one of the neighborhood meetings that Janet made her craziest claim yet, that the 'Mrs. Claus' lingerie brand had offered her a modeling contract. This was enough for Doris. She'd had enough of her crazy fibs and claims. She'd had enough of the nasty lies and rumors she'd been starting. And she finally said so, laying into Janet during this meeting, letting loose at her rival in a very cathartic way. But Janet simply seemed amused by the old bitty's anger, grinning at her rival.

"I'm not lying, Doris, I can prove it," Janet said. She'd begun looking around, as if trying to locate something. Finally, she looked down at her chest, her low-cut top exposing her expansive cleavage. Reaching down between her breasts with her long, nimble fingers, she pantomimed finding something nestled there. Finally, she grabbed this imaginary thing and removed it, holding up an imaginary card for her rival. "Oh, what's this... oh, it's Max's v-card!" she announced with a grin.

"JANET!" Doris called out angrily. At this point, Janet began grabbing her things and stood up.

"Doris," Janet began. "I'll put an end to the rumors right now. I fucked your grandson! That young man that you speak so highly of, that you said's gonna change the world? I fucked his brains out! And it was really fucking good," she announced, grinning. Doris blanched at this. Janet pulled her stylish purse over her shoulder and approached Doris. "You're gonna have to face facts. Max ain't a virgin anymore, I'm the one that fucked him, and he's into older women now." She then paused before taking one last look at her lifelong rival. "I win."

She walked out proudly at this, and even though Doris was still on good terms with the others at this point, Lacey, Sylvia, and Polly, they all struggled to suppress their laughter. Doris burned with embarrassment and marched home.

That was the last time things even resembled normal on Fourth Street. Doris stopped attending the meetings out of embarrassment, but the others kept meeting, though it probably had less to do with neighborhood business than it did with gossip and rumors. But this didn't last long either, as a series of events occurred that both forever altered the course of Fourth Street and introduced a new threat. And most distressingly for Doris, some of these events gave a bit more evidence to all those vicious rumors that had been swirling across the neighborhood.

First, Polly announced that she was selling the house moving away. Apparently, she was moving in with her young surgeon boyfriend. It was a slightly inappropriate relationship, if you asked Doris. And if she was trying to dismiss those nasty rumors about her and her grandson, the fact that her new boyfriend looked like an older version of Connor certainly didn't help. For a second, Doris considered that that rumor, as insane as it was, might be true, but she did her to dismiss this thinking, wanting to trust her friend. However, despite these rumors being given more weight, Doris was still sad that Polly was leaving the neighborhood. She'd been here for a long time, and now she was moving outside of town to live with her boyfriend in what was apparently a pretty nice modern place. Polly said the house was too big for her now. Plus, someone had come along and made an offer for her place before it even hit the market, and she couldn't turn that much money down.

And the identity of that buyer was surprising.

'North Pole'.

For some reason, they sudden had taken a great interest in this area, and as soon as Polly was out of there, they were in, working on the house, modifying it, modernizing it. To Doris, it was a bit of an eyesore having all those people working on the house.

But this was just the start of 'North Pole' infiltrating Fourth Street.

Dr. Wen 'suddenly' got an offer from another hospital a few states away, one that 'North Pole' liked to donate to. So, he packed up and headed out, and 'North Pole' bought his house as well.

The Burkhouse's then got a straight-up offer for their house from 'North Pole', an obscene amount of cash. Doris couldn't blame them for taking the offer of selling their house and moving across town to a far nicer place. They had a young family to take care of. That being said, Kevin's wife did mention to Doris that it seemed like their marriage had been strained lately, as Kevin seemed busy at work, and she was hoping this move would help close that distance. At this, Doris remembered the rumors of Kevin cheating on her. But no... it couldn't be. A man like him would never cheat on the mother of his children. Any rumors saying otherwise were crazy. And they seemed happy enough when they moved away, but upon moving, the 'North Pole' people swooped in to upgrade their house.

It seemed like they had announced their intention to sink their claws into Fourth Street, and some of the biggest chips had fallen. Doris was concerned about this, and she got a bit paranoid. Was there something going on here? Was North Pole wanting to take over this humble little street she called home? It seemed so.

Fourth Street was a bastion of Christmas spirit. A little street that came alive at Christmas, going all out to celebrate the greatest holiday in the world. They might have had their best showing the previous year. Now, it seemed like 'North Pole' wanted a piece of the action, and Doris's alarms were up.

They would work on these houses, adding on to some of them fast, modernizing all of them. And once that was done, more people would move in. Young people. Young couples. Each gorgeous and successful. Doris realized that a lot of them worked at the plant, some of them young executives, some of them the heads of various departments. And they were all practically off the pages of some magazine, the men handsome but bland, the women beautiful but soulless, like out of that Stepford movie.

Something definitely was off here.

She expected cooler heads to rise, that someone would say no, but it never came. Bruce already worked there, and he clearly made some arrangement with them. He stuck around the neighborhood, and he even had 'North Pole' people come around to update his house a bit.

And they even got to Lacey. Sweet, kind Lacey. She had always spoke out against 'North Pole', and suddenly, she was on board, a peppy, card-carrying member for this corrupt, billion-dollar corporation. It was like she wasn't the same person anymore. That something had changed inside of her at a root level. She was even dressing differently, in outfits far more revealing. Doris tried to be friendly to her despite all these changes, but at this point, Lacey was practically ignoring Doris at times in favor of her new young friends. How could someone so kind and idealistic change so quickly? Doris recalled the nasty rumors from earlier in the year about her and Bruce. No, Lacey wouldn't do that, but... she'd done so many things lately that seemed out of character. So maybe... maybe there was some truth to it, as awful as that sounded. Nevertheless, something had changed her. Something powerful. It was only then that Doris realized that something was happening here far bigger than her. Something wrong... something dark that was affecting even the best of them.

'North Pole' never once talked to Doris as they encroached on Fourth Street, but it seemed like she was slowly being surrounded. Her neighbors were falling to them one by one, and bigger dominoes were falling. Despite living here most of her life, even Janet left, leaving quite suddenly, eagerly selling her house to North Pole, disappearing seemingly overnight. And while Doris was happy to see that old whore leave, her heart almost stopped a month later when a catalog was left on her doorstep. A 'Mrs. Claus' lingerie catalog, advertising their new mature lingerie line. And there on the cover, smirking, dressed only in indecent lingerie, highlighting her indecent, impossibly attractive body, was Janet, modeling the slutty garments. She HAD been telling the truth. But... if she wasn't lying about this, did that mean she wasn't lying about Max? No... never!