Behind him, Matt spoke up. “You know, I always thought Santa was like the ultimate sugar daddy. I mean, he has to be loaded, right? To give toys to all the kids all over the world? He must trump Trump.”
“Elves make the toys,” Vic reminded him. “It’s just a fairy tale, anyway. He only gives toys to kids whose parents can afford them. What about all the poor children who get nothing? Or the ones who go to bed without even having enough to eat? Where’s Santa for them?”
His thoughts drifted to his own childhood, or what had passed as one. Vic’s father had spent more time in jail than out, and his mother drank away her troubles, leaving Vic to fend for himself. He had a younger sister to look out for, too. Most Christmases, the only presents under the tree were those he’d managed to steal for her. He himself never got a single thing. By the time he was six, he knew Santa Clause was a myth. No one had to break the news to him. The proof was in the empty space under their Christmas tree every year. When they had a tree.
No, Christmas had never had any special meaning for Vic until Matt came into his life.
As he buttoned up his Santa jacket, he studied Matt’s reflection in the mirror. God, he still didn’t know what exactly it was that had made that gorgeous creature give him a double-take in the gym, but every evening when he fell asleep holding Matt close, he thanked the stars above for sending such a perfect man his way. He didn’t deserve Matt, he knew, and the mere fact that Matt loved him just as he was—piercings and tattoos and all—well, the love they shared erased everything bad and negative and cruel in Vic’s past. There was only the two of them, he and Matty, and the rest of their lives stretching ahead of them like a promise.
From the corner, Sadie huffed into her paws, as if to remind him to include her in their future. “You too, you silly mutt,” Vic groused.
Matt snickered. “Are you talking to the dog again? Don’t think I didn’t notice at least one of the presents under the tree for her isn’t from me.”
Vic chose not to answer. Instead, he concentrated on straightening the row of big black buttons lined up on the front of his jacket.
“And it isn’t from Santa, either.” Matt stood and stretched, the turtleneck pulling above the waistband of his pants to expose taut, tanned skin. As he smoothed down the shirt, he appraised Vic and nodded in approval. “You look hot in that, I must admit.”
“I am hot,” Vic grumbled. “I’m roasting in these damn gauchies.”
Matt crossed the room to stand behind Vic. Peering over Vic’s shoulder, Matt bent his knee into the back of Vic’s playfully. “You know what I mean. When I was sixteen, I had this crazy idea that if I fell asleep on the couch half-naked, Santa would see me when he came in and fall madly in love with me. You know, all that nubile young skin just longing to be touched. I could see him scooping me into his arms and whisking me to the North Pole—”
“Where you’d die of frostbite,” Vic pointed out. “So you thought Santa was a pedophile?”
Matt groaned. “Vic, please. I was already having sex. I just thought that would be the life, you know? Pampered by a rich guy in seclusion…”
Stifling a grin, Vic reminded him, “Well, you are pampered all right. Spoiled rotten, if you want to know the truth. I just need to win the lottery and move you into the middle of nowhere, and I’ll have made all your dreams come true.”
“You already do.” Matt wrapped his arms around Vic’s shoulders—easier to reach than around the now ample gut he sported—and pressed his lips to the back of Vic’s neck for a damp kiss.
“Sixteen,” Vic murmured. He met Matt’s gaze in the mirror and asked, louder this time, “You were sixteen?”
“Ish,” Matt admitted. “Old enough to know what I wanted.”
Vic couldn’t hold back his grin any longer. “Old enough to know the truth about Santa. You were sixteen years old and still believed in him…I wouldn’t really tell that to a lot of people.”
A thin blush pinked Matt’s cheeks, making him look flustered and so adorable, Vic’s grin widened. “No, I—”
“I’m just saying you might want to keep that to yourself.”
When Matt tried to pull away from him, Vic caught Matt’s hand between his shoulder and chin and planted a kiss on the fingers. “I’m just playing,” Vic said, staring at Matt until his lover met his gaze, not in the mirror but face to face. “I love you.”
Matt frowned hard to try to keep from smiling, but it was a losing battle. Covering Vic’s mouth with his, he whispered, “You’re just lucky I love you.”
Damn lucky, Vic already knew.
* * * *
As silly as Vic felt all decked out in the Santa suit, it was worth it to hear the cheer that rose up among his coworkers’ children when he stepped into the garage where the company held its dinner. Vic raised a hand to wave, and the crescendo of noise rose to a deafening roar. “It’s Santa!” someone shouted, and another child shrieked in pure joy. “Mommy, Santa’s here, he came!”
Beside him, Matt pointed out, “Didn’t I say you looked convincing? I feel like I should’ve worn green. I could’ve been your assistant.”
Vic grunted. “You’d be a cute elf.”
“See?” Matt cried, triumphant. “I always thought the same thing. If I could’ve just convinced Santa…”
“When you were sixteen,” Vic reminded him.
Matt slapped his arm playfully. “Shut up. Sixteen isn’t too old.” At the arched look Vic threw his way, Matt slapped him again. “It isn’t!”
“Did you believe in the Tooth Fairy, too?” Vic teased. “The Easter Bunny?”
It wasn’t yet time for dinner—caterers still worked to set up the buffet tables edging the room, and Vic’s coworkers mingled with their families, drinks in hand as they munched on appetizers. Once he’d been spotted, the kids left their parents or the games they’d been playing to crowd around Vic. A little girl closest to him overheard his conversation with Matt and clapped her hands in delight. “You know the Easter Bunny? I knew it!” Turning, she yelled back at her mother, “He knows the Easter Bunny!”
Great, Vic thought, suddenly wading through a sea of children. Then he saw Morrison up ahead, pointing at a hastily constructed stage covered with sparkly white paper that was supposed to look like snow. On the stage towered a decorated Christmas tree, dozens of little gifts wrapped beneath it, and a gaudy gilded high-back chair whose legs and arms were wrapped with fake pine boughs. A rope leading away from the stage indicated where the line was to sit on Santa’s lap. Unfortunately, no one was waiting—they all pressed in around Vic, threatening to topple him in their eagerness to talk to Santa.
“All right, kids, let me through.” Vic tried unsuccessfully to wade through the children crowding him. When he couldn’t move, he tried a different tactic. Raising his voice, he bellowed, “I said line up or I’m going to put you all down as naughty!”
The words were magic. Instantly the children disappeared, scrambling over each other in their haste to line up for a chance to talk with Santa. As Vic headed for the stage, Matt caught his elbow. “Knock ‘em dead, babe. I’m going to grab something to drink.”
Though he wasn’t a drinker, Vic wished he could swig back a shot or two of something strong enough to get him through the dinner. The line of children waiting to speak with him seemed to stretch the length of the room. He allowed himself one low growl in the back of his throat, a pitying sound, then he straightened his shoulders and stepped up on the stage beside Morrison.
When he sank into the chair, his boss leaned down over his shoulder and whispered loudly, “One gift per kid, got that? Any one will do, they’re all the same—toy buses painted in the GRTC colors. The girls get one, too. The caterer tells me it’s going to be another hour or so until the food’s ready so we might as well get started.”
Before Vic could answer, Morrison turned to the first kid in line, a little boy with thick glasses eclipsing his face. “Come on, son, watch your step.”
The boy stu
mbled up onto the stage and stepped on Vic’s toe as he climbed on Vic’s knee. It was going to be a long evening.
* * * *
Under Morrison’s watchful eye, the line moved quickly. One by one, children perched on Vic’s knee and rattled off what they wanted for Christmas. Soon they all began to sound the same. Vic felt his eyes glazing over as he nodded again and again. Yes, they’d each get what they wanted. Yes to the Playstation and the XBox and the computer. Yes to a new bike, a skateboard, roller blades. After a kid named a few coveted items and paused to take a breath, Vic jumped in. “You’ll be pleasantly surprised on Christmas morning,” he promised.
Eyes went wide, mouths spread into wide smiles, and most of the kids gave Vic a hug. Then he handed over one of the gifts amid a supernova of flashes—Morrison had commissioned a photographer stationed at Vic’s side to take a picture of each child, but many parents had brought along their own cameras, as well. Fortunately, the fake moustache and beard hid Vic’s face enough that no one could see if he was smiling or not. Though the photographer was to Vic’s right, Morrison had advised him to stare straight ahead when handing out the gifts so the black facial tattoo arching over his left eyebrow wouldn’t appear in any of the pictures.
Surprisingly, Vic was through more than half the line by the time the food was served. The remaining children moaned in protest when Morrison clapped his hands. “All right, kids. Santa’s got to eat—”
“I didn’t get my chance yet!” someone near the back of the line called out.
The other children waiting began to grumble. Vic looked them over—there were a dozen or so left, and given the line waiting for the buffet, he wouldn’t be eating any time soon, anyway. “I’ll finish this up,” he told his boss.
Morrison frowned. “You sure? The food’s going to get cold…”
“This line moves quicker than that one,” Vic said, nodding at the buffet line. “By the time I’m through here, I won’t have to wait so long over there.”
With a nod of agreement, Morrison motioned the next child forward. The boy was maybe five or six, and when his mother raised his arm to help him onto the stage, she lifted his whole body up over the step. “What about Tammy?” he asked in a high-pitched voice. “She’s missing Santa.”
“Don’t worry about her,” his mother admonished. “Come on, Brucey. Santa’s waiting.”
“Tammy’s not here to see him.” Brucey sounded on the verge of tears. “She’s missing Christmas and everything.”
“She’s fine.” The mother gave Vic a tight smile and hoisted her son onto his lap. “Tell Santa what you want.”
As the mother stepped back to snap a picture, Vic steadied the little boy on his knee. “Brucey, is it?”
The child’s eyes seemed to bug out of his face. “You know my name! You’re the real Santa, I knew it!”
Vic chuckled. “What do you want for Christmas, son?”
“A bicycle,” Brucey said. “One for big boys, not a kiddie one. Make it red, or black, or maybe blue. But it has to be a big boy’s bike.”
“I got it. A big boy’s bike in red.” Vic reached under the tree for a present.
But apparently the child wasn’t finished. “I don’t know what Tammy wants, but she likes horses. Maybe you can get her something with horses on it? But no unicorns. She’s too old for that.”
Vic paused, gift in hand, and peered at Brucey. “Who’s Tammy?”
“My sister.” Brucey stretched out his arms for the present, but Vic kept it beyond his reach. “She’s twelve, which is twice my age. She can’t come tonight because she’s in the hospital.”
Though Vic knew it was none of his business, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Why?”
“She was in a bad accident.” Brucey nodded at Vic even as his mother tried to shush him from the sidelines. “She was riding and fell off the horse. I think it threw her off, at least it looked like that to me. She’s got a metal bar in her leg and can’t walk and won’t be home for Christmas, so don’t forget to take her presents to the hospital instead of to our house.”
The mother approached, reaching for her son. “I’m really sorry,” she told Vic. “Brucey, come on. Other kids are waiting.”
“What hospital is she at?” Vic asked.
With a shake of her head, the mother told him, “It’s fine, really. She’s going to be fine. She’s getting too old for Santa, anyway.”
“She still likes horses,” Brucey was saying. “Even though she got thrown off. She says she can’t wait to ride again. She’s at the hospital past Baskin Robbins. We always stop and get an ice cream cone when we go to see her.”
“Brucey, come on.” The mother reached for her son’s arm just as he leaned across Vic’s lap to grab the gift Vic still held onto. The present slipped from Vic’s fingers and into Brucey’s clutches. Two seconds later, the child slid off Vic’s lap and into his mother’s arms.
She flashed Vic another tight-lipped smile. “Thank you. Say thank you, Brucey.”
He waved the gift at Vic. “Thank you, Santa!”
Another child clambered into his lap, but Vic watched Brucey’s mother as she weaved through the crowd to reach her husband. Vic recognized him—after working for the bus system for so many years, there were few long-term employees he didn’t know by sight. Len Carlson saw Vic and nodded as his wife wrestled their son Brucey into the chair next to his father.
* * * *
When Vic finally got a chance to head to the buffet, he caught sight of Matt at one of the tables and waved. His lover was already eating, and flagged Vic over. As much as Vic wanted to dive into the food, he’d missed Matt’s company while up on stage playing Santa. So he skirted the line lingering at the buffet and headed over to where Matt was sitting.
Good thing, too. A second plate piled high with food waited for him. “Got you a plate,” Matt said as Vic slid into the seat beside his. “Thought you might be hungry after all that.”
“I could kiss you right here,” Vic said, tucking his beard under his chin to dive into the food with a vengeance.
Matt grinned. “You could, but it’d probably scar these kids for life to find out Santa’s gay.”
The food was heavenly—Vic hadn’t realized he’d worked up an appetite until he started to eat. While he was still only halfway through his plate, Matt went back up to the buffet and filled another for him. This one included desserts, a slice of pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream and a generous helping of some sort of fig pudding. Matt watched Vic devour the food, lust shining in his eyes. Vic knew Matt had a strange fetish that set his libido humming—he loved to watch a man eat. Good thing Vic loved food. The sight of him chowing down combined with the couple of beers already racing through Matty’s system almost guaranteed a hot night between the sheets when they got home.
Shoveling the last of the stuffing into his mouth, Vic suggested, “I think someone’s going to finally have his way with Santa after all these years.”
“Do we have to wait?” Matt downed the rest of his beer and leered at Vic. “I’m thinking me and you, in the parking lot, right now. What do you say?”
Vic opened his mouth to reply when a small voice behind him asked, “Santa?”
He turned to find a young girl sliding into the seat beside his. “Hey,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable. She was too little to have understood anything she might have overheard, but her presence was a painful reminder he had to be careful. Most of his coworkers had to know he was gay—hell, how many times had he brought Matty along with him to any function or event that included family or spouses? He knew his menacing appearance kept any of the guys from saying something about it to him directly, and the one way to keep it from bubbling into a confrontation was to keep the specifics of their relationship under wraps. He couldn’t admit Matty was his lover, even if everyone here suspected it.
Being Santa only increased the need for silence. These kids had sat in his lap, boys and girls alike, and Vic knew too many ignorant p
eople falsely believed gay men were predators to be kept from children. The wrong word, the wrong gesture—even something as simple as sharing a kiss—could spark a witch hunt or cost him his job. Sex in the parking lot sounded fun, but Vic didn’t dare chance it.
But the young girl stared at him with wide, adoring eyes, blissfully unaware of the troubled thoughts rolling through Vic’s mind. She leaned on the table and stared at Matt. “Who’s he?”
“I’m his special friend,” Matt said.
His words slurred a little—he’d definitely had a bit to drink. One beer usually gave him a buzz, and two was enough to send him reeling. Vic counted four bottles on the table, including his own, and noticed an empty wine glass that had been used earlier. So Matt had to be pretty sloshed.
“He’s one of my helpers,” Vic explained.
The girl giggled. She probably thought Matt was cute—which he was, Vic had to admit; his guy was gorgeous and he knew he wasn’t the only one who thought so. “You’re too big to be an elf, and only elves help Santa. I know, I saw it on TV.”
“I’m a special kind of elf,” Matt told her. Yes, there was the slur again, speshal. When Matt got drunk, he got horny, and beneath the table, Vic felt a hot hand clamp onto his knee. As Matt leaned past him to speak, that hand rose steadily up Vic’s thigh, heading for his crotch. “I’m Santa’s special elf.”
“Okay, enough,” Vic cautioned, catching Matt’s hand in his before it went any further. “I think it’s time to go.”
“Back to the North Pole?” The girl giggled again, covering her face with both hands and splaying her fingers to peek out at them. To Matt, she said, “You’re too big to make toys. Do you take care of the reindeer?”
Vic was finishing the last of his beer; he snickered and choked on the cool alcohol. “Yeah, he’s my stable boy,” he said, grinning at Matt.
A wounded look crept over Matt’s features. “I am not the stable boy! Honey, I’m practically Mrs. Clause.”
He held out his left hand so the girl could see the ring on his finger, a white gold band that matched the one Vic wore. She glanced at it, unimpressed. “Mrs. Clause is old,” she pointed out. “And she’s a girl, like me. And she makes cookies all day long, which I know guys can’t do. I think you just want to be her but you’re not.”
Santa Vic Page 2
