The Stocking Was Hung

by Tara Sivec

  Aunt Bobbie immediately drops her hand from Sam’s crotch and whirls around, the remainder of her martini sloshing all over the front of his jeans as she shuffles away to grab the fresh drink my father holds out to her from behind my mother.

  “Seriously? Again?” Sam growls as Aunt Bobbie stumbles toward my father in her four-inch green stilettos that perfectly match her floor-length green velvet gown.

  “Sorry, Aunt Bobbie is a little handsy,” I whisper as he drops our luggage and swipes at the wetness on his pants.

  “Gee, you think?” Sam mutters. “She’s got the grip of a sumo wrestler. If she broke my dick, we’re going to have a big problem.”

  Thankfully, my mother rushes toward us and pulls my mind out of the gutter where it’s busy thinking about Sam’s huge package and how Christmas really would be ruined if it were broken.

  Heartbroken, jobless, homeless…get your shit together, Noel.

  My mother yanks me into a quick hug, and before I can even get my arms around her, she’s shoving me aside to get a better look at Sam.

  “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Logan,” I exclaim her with a bright smile, feeling a massive amount of guilt, not because I’m lying to my mother, surprisingly, but because I’m making Sam pretend to be someone else.

  Why should I even care? I just met this guy and I’m offering him a chance to have a nice Christmas instead of a boring, lonely one surrounded by Amish peeking in his windows looking for porn. I have nothing to feel guilty about, right?

  Sam dutifully holds out his hand for my mother to take, but she immediately smacks it away and pulls him into a tight hug. And doesn’t let go.

  “Okay Mom, that’s enough,” I inform her when the embrace lasts entirely too long and Sam shoots me a look of panic.

  She finally releases him and takes a step back, looking up and down his body before zoning in on the wet stain on his crotch. “Merry Christmas, Logan.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” Sam says with a tight smile, not answering her Christmas greeting.

  “Oh my, did you have another accident? It’s a good thing I made that urologist appointment,” she announces with a tsk and a shake of her head. “You look different than how Noel described you. I thought you had blonde hair.” Her eyes cut over to me. “Noel, didn’t you say he had blonde hair that’s a little longer on top?”

  Pushing up on her toes, she stares more intently at Sam’s short, dark hair. “I distinctly remember you telling me he kept using your hair gel and it was getting on your nerves.”

  “Dumb shit,” Sam coughs out, covering his mouth with his fist before smiling innocently at my mother. “I wanted to change things up for the holidays so I dyed my hair.”

  My mother nods, but I can see she’s still not convinced and now I really am panicking. This was a dumb idea. Why the hell didn’t I just tell her the truth on the phone? I’m thirty-four-years old and so afraid of my mother that I’ve brought a stranger home to be my boyfriend. She’ll never believe it. Talk about pathetic.

  “I hear a hint of southern in your voice,” Mom probes Sam with a raise of one eyebrow. “Noel, I thought you said he was from Seattle? Why does he sound Southern?”

  Shit, shit, shit! I didn’t even think about the slight twang in his voice, probably from living in southern Ohio. I’ve been too mesmerized by how damn hot he sounds when he speaks.

  Sam lets out another cough, remembering my helpful tip to cough if he gets stuck and my brain quickly scrambles to come up with a plausible reason for his slight Southern accent.

  “Uh, Logan is in a local production of Oklahoma back in Seattle,” I lie lamely. “He’s just trying to stay in character. Go ahead, honey. Say something else Southern!”

  Sam sighs softly and looks at me like he’s about two seconds away from walking back out the front door and running down the street. I hold my breath and keep the fake smile plastered on my face, hoping to God he doesn’t leave. At this point, I’m not even sure if it’s because I’m not ready to face the truth with my family or because I just really want to spend more time with him. God, I need therapy.

  “Yee-haw,” Sam replies in a monotone, non-Southern voice.

  The fact that he played along, albeit with an annoyed look on his face, makes me want to jump into his arms, wrap my legs around his waist, and kiss the hell out of him. Not good thoughts to have when we’re standing here in front of my family who are all looking at us like we’re insane. And I’m heartbroken, jobless, and homeless. What is it about this guy that makes me forget all my problems and replace them with sexual thoughts? I have sex brain and I might need an intervention.

  “Did you see his package, Bev? Leon should unwrap it for us!” Aunt Bobbie slurs from behind my mother, lifting her martini glass in the air.

  Oh yeah, his package. That’s what keeps turning me into sex-starved moron.

  “You’ll have to excuse my brister, Logan. She likes her vodka,” my mother informs Sam.

  His baffled gaze bounces back and forth between my mother and me several times as he asks, “Um, brister?”

  “Didn’t Leon tell you?” she asks him before turning her questioning to me. “Leon, why didn’t you tell him? Are you ashamed of your Ancle?”

  With a sigh, I shake my head as Aunt Bobbie holds up her martini glass, throws her arm, around my father’s shoulders and lets out a yell. “YEE-HAW!”

  Ignoring her outburst, I look back at my mother. “You know I’m not ashamed, Mom, it just never came up.”

  Sam still looks like he’s debating whether or not running out into the snow is a good idea as my father steps forward to clear up his confusion.

  “Aunt Bobbie used to be Uncle Bob,” Dad explains, like every family has a resident transvestite. “His wife left him when she caught him in her closet trying on all her clothes.”

  “Good riddance! She had shitty taste in shoes anyway,” Aunt Bobbie comments from behind him.

  “Reggie, take their bags upstairs,” my mom interrupts and steps aside so my dad can start grabbing our things. “You kids go on into the living room while I finish heating up some leftovers for you. I’ve got homemade meatloaf, fried potatoes and sweet corn.”

  My mom quickly turns, grabs Aunt Bobbie’s arm, and pulls her with her into the kitchen down the hall, all while my dad loads up his arms with our bags and heads upstairs, leaving Sam and I alone in the entryway.

  “I will completely understand if you’ve changed your mind and want to leave,” I tell him softly, the faint sounds of my mother trying to shush my aunt when she won’t shut up about the size of Sam’s package floats down the hall.

  “Are you kidding me? She made meatloaf,” Sam replies with a serious look on his face. “Nobody fucks around with homemade meatloaf.”

  I can’t help but smile as he slides his warm hand around mine and we make our way down the hall to the living room.

  Chapter 4

  Sam

  We eat heated-up leftovers off of paper plates on the couch next to a roaring fire with stockings hung on a mantle overcrowded with pine branches, blinking lights, and enough Christmas knick-knacks to fill ten mantles. The largest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen takes up the corner of the room across from us, and as much as I want to deny it, seeing the softly falling snow out the window next to the tree is kind of nice.

  Trying not to look like a fucking pig while Noel’s mom and…Ancle stare at me silently as I shovel meatloaf and mashed potatoes in my mouth—not so nice. After eating nothing but shitty M.R.E.’s (meals ready to eat) for a year and a half, I have a hard time containing my moans each time I bring the fork up to my mouth.

  “Leon, I put you in your old room. Logan can sleep in your mother’s sewing room,” Noel’s dad states as he walks back into the room and I set my now-empty plate on the coffee table in front of me, Noel doing the same.

  “Reggie, they can both sleep in Leon’s room. It’s fine,” Noel’s mother says with a sigh.

  While the two of them argue a
bout sleeping arrangements, I lean closer to Noel. “You need to tell me what the deal is with them calling you Leon. I’m starting to get concerned.”

  She turns her face toward me and whispers back. “Later.”

  With a smile and a wink, she returns her attention back to her arguing parents while I stare at her profile. Her long, thick hair hangs over one shoulder, and I have the sudden urge to slide my fingers through the silky length, pushing it aside so I have a better view of the smooth skin of her neck. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her lips and I mentally tell my dick to keep his shit together. This Leon nonsense needs to be cleared up soon. If this ancle/brister thing runs in the family and Noel used to be Neal, I will never live this shit down.

  While I was preoccupied with staring at Noel and thinking about what her lips would taste like, her father stalks over to us and stands right next to the arm of the couch on my end, peering down at me with his hands in his pockets.

  “I’m not very comfortable with my daughter shacking up with you under my roof,” he informs me. “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Do you like milk, son?”

  Noel’s father is about five-foot-six, a small man compared to my six foot height, but the look on his face tells me he wouldn’t hesitate to kick my ass right out the door if I answer his question wrong. I’m not going to lie; I’m a little scared of him right now.

  “Uh, yes?” I answer in confusion. “No. Yes. Wait, I don’t know!”

  I cough, shooting a worried look at Noel so she can save me from the wrath of her father. It’s like he knows I’ve done nothing but think about having her naked and underneath me since the moment I met her, and our close proximity on the couch with our thighs touching makes it even worse when thoughts of her bare legs wrapped around my waist consume my thoughts.

  Noel’s father pulls his hands out of his pockets and throws them up in the air in annoyance. “That’s it! I’m banning milk in this house for the foreseeable future. No milk, no cheese, no yogurt, no dairy products of any kind. Bev, clean out the fridge. I don’t want this guy getting any funny ideas about our daughter’s eggnog.”

  Even though getting closer to Noel is a danger to my health since my dick refuses to listen to me, I still lean closer to her again.

  “Is he still talking about sex?” I whisper.

  “I honestly have no idea,” she mumbles back.

  Her father finally stops giving me the evil eye and stalks out of the room, heading toward the kitchen to rid the house of the evilness that is dairy-based foods and beverages.

  “You’ll have to forgive my husband,” Bev apologizes with a smile as she holds a cup of coffee in her hands. “This is the first time Leon has brought a man home and he’s a little on edge. You two go right ahead and sleep in her old room together. Shack up, get your groove on, get busy with it…whatever the kids are calling it these days.”

  “Mooooom,” Noel complains with a roll of her eyes. “It’s fine if Dad isn’t comfortable with it. S-oooogan can sleep in another room.”

  She almost slips and calls me Sam, stuttering out an awkward combination of Sam and Logan, which makes Aunt Bobbie and her mother give her similar looks of confusion.

  “Did you just call him Sogan?” her mom asks.

  Noel’s leg starts bouncing nervously on the couch next to me, her thigh brushing against mine with each frantic tap of her foot on the floor. I quickly reach over and rest my hand on top of her leg, pressing down gently to calm her, trying to ignore the warmth of her skin through the denim.

  “Uh, um, well,” Noel stammers. “Funny story. Whenever I need to tell Logan something, I always start off the conversation with ‘Sooooooooo, Logan’ and it just turned into this joke where I call him Sogan. Ha ha, get it? Sogan? Sooooooo Logan?”

  I lightly squeeze her thigh to get her to stop talking, but the muscle of her leg clenching under my hand incites visions of those same muscles tightening around my hips.

  “I guess you had to be there,” Noel finishes lamely while her mother and aunt still look at her like she’s crazy.

  “You know, if you don’t want to sleep in the same room with this hot piece of man meat, I’ll gladly take your place,” Aunt Bobbie announces brightly as she lifts her martini glass in my direction in a silent toast, waving at me with a wiggle of the fingers of her free hand.

  The same hand that clutched my dick like a vice. I shudder a little remembering that moment.

  “Is Aunt Bobbie gay?” I whisper to Noel out of the corner of my mouth.

  Unfortunately, my whisper carries across the room even over the sounds of Christmas music playing on the sound system set up behind where Aunt Bobbie sits.

  “No, but my penis is,” Aunt Bobbie informs me with a drunken smile, polishing off the last drop of her fifth martini since I got here.

  Noel suddenly jumps up from the couch, grabs my hand, and pulls me up with her.

  “It’s been a really long day, I think we should probably get some sleep,” she blurts out to the women, tugging my hand and yanking me behind her as she moves around the couch and to the doorway.

  My body is so exhausted I can barely feel my legs now that I’m standing again and sleep does sound really good right now, but the thought of being in a bedroom alone with Noel all night immediately wakes me up.

  “STOP!” Noel’s mother suddenly shouts, causing Noel to freeze as I bump into her back, grabbing her hips to stop us both from tumbling to the floor.

  Noel twists in my arms with my hands still holding onto her and we both turn our heads back to look at her mother.

  “Look! You’re under the mistletoe. That means you have to kiss. It’s a Christmas law,” she sing-songs happily, then takes a sip of her coffee.

  Noel and I both look up while we stand in the entrance of the living room to see a small green plant of some kind, tied with a red ribbon, hanging from the archway above us.

  “Um, that doesn’t look like mistletoe,” I muse, staring at the leaves dangling above our heads.

  Noel leans her body toward mine, pushing up on her toes to get a better look, and my hands tighten on her hips to keep her steady while pulling her closer at the same time. Our chests press together and the warmth and softness of her fantastic tits underneath her sweater press against me and I feel my dick start to stir once again in my pants.

  “Mom, do you have pot hanging from the ceiling?” Noel asks.

  “You know your father needs it for his arthritis,” her mother sighs. “Pot—mistletoe, potato—potahto. It’s green and it’s festive, and you have to kiss under it.”

  Noel’s head comes back down to look at me and on the tips of her toes, her mouth is level with mine. Her hot, plump lips that she nervously licks like she knows I can’t keep my eyes off of them when she does that.

  We both shrug, realizing we’ll never get out of this living room if we don’t do what her mother says. Tilting our heads closer, Noel’s hands come up between us and she rests her palms against my chest. Our lips quickly press together and Noel jerks her head back before I can even enjoy the feeling of her mouth on mine.

  “Yep, I think I’ll be taking him from here,” Aunt Bobbie announces.

  “Leon, are you his mustache?” her mother asks worriedly.

  Noel glances over at her mother in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  Her mother shrugs, setting her coffee cup down on the side table next to her chair. “You know, his mustache. His cover for being gay, like Aunt Bobbie’s dresses,” she explains.

  “Hey! I resemble that remark!” Aunt Bobbie shouts, followed by a loud belch.

  Noel sighs and rolls her eyes while I stand here wondering what the hell would possibly make her mother think I’m gay. Did she really expect me to maul her daughter right in front of her and stick my tongue down her throat? Not that I’d mind, but I do have some morals and making out with a woman right in front of her family is at the top of my Do Not Do list.

  “It’s called a beard
, Mom, not a mustache,” Noel corrects her.

  “No offense, but that boring kiss says otherwise.” Aunt Bobbie shrugs. “Leon, trade places with me, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  What the fuck? I am NOT gay!

  “It’s okay if you’re gay. We like the gays and we fully support them,” Bev assures me with a kind smile.

  “I’m not gay,” I state, finally finding my voice and defending myself.

  “Okay, whatever you say,” Bev replies, not believing a word.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter, my hands still on Noel’s hips, wondering if I should just lay one on her to shut everyone up.

  “Mom, give it a rest. We’re tired and we’re going to bed.”

  I notice Noel doesn’t reiterate that I’m not gay and that doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, that kiss was pretty boring and sad, and you couldn’t even really call it a kiss since it lasted shorter than a blink, but give me a break. We’re standing in her parent’s living room with her mother giving me a pitying look, her ancle staring at me like she wants to eat me whole, and her father cursing under his breath in the kitchen down the hall, the sounds of cartons of milk and containers of sour cream thumping into the bottom of the trash can while he makes sure I stay far away from Noel’s eggnog.

  “I’m just saying, a boyfriend should kiss his girlfriend like he means it, not like he’s kissing a dead fish. If it walks like a gay and kisses like a gay…” her mother trails off.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  When Noel opens her mouth, probably to tell her mother about how tired we are again instead of defending my heterosexuality, I decide to take matters into my own hands and fuck the fact that her family is sitting right here looking at us. Letting go of her hips, I quickly move my hands up, grab her face, and turn it toward me, pulling her mouth to mine.

  I cut off her words and her breath, sliding my tongue between her surprised, slightly parted lips. A soft moan floats from her mouth into mine when our tongues meet, and I feel her hands against my chest clutch tightly to the front of my shirt when I use my palms to angle her head to the side for better access. I suck her tongue gently, then swirl mine around it, deepening the kiss until I forget where I am and everything around me. She tastes like home cooking and heaven, her mouth hot and wet against mine as our lips move together in perfect sync, like we’ve been kissing for years. There’s no sloppy mess of drool or awkward darting of tongues, there’s just sliding and sucking, tasting and exploring.