She was obviously waiting and hoping we would both deny it, but it wasn’t much use. We were busted, caught in the act, exposed, basically ass-out.

  Needless to say, Matthew and Natalie never made it to their honeymoon, because the marriage was quickly annulled. Two months later he and I did go on our honeymoon, though. We went to Montego Bay and had the time of our lives. Matthew left Memorial Hospital and went into private practice. Clifton got to be the head of the cardiology department, and I got my man. All in all, as embarrassing as the whole situation was, it was well worth the aggravation and then some.

  The Santa Claus

  * * *

  “Absolutely not! I won’t do it!” Those were the words I spewed at my boss, aka Broomhilda, when she asked me to throw on a ridiculous outfit and pretend to be Mrs. Santa Claus for the benefit of a bunch of spoiled brats.

  “Charissa, there’s no one else that can do it,” she replied, glaring at me with her beady eyes. “Everyone else is already tied up for the holiday season, and besides, this is a part of your job.”

  “How do you figure?” Was she for real? “I’m the assistant manager of Hollyville Mall. Not Mrs. Santa Claus.”

  “Remember when you dressed up as the Easter Bunny last spring?”

  “How could I forget? It was one of the most demeaning experiences in my entire life.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, the heffa. “Well, you didn’t complain back then.”

  “I’ll be perfectly honest with you,” I replied with disdain. “Back then I was trying to impress you and the rest of the upper management. Now that I realize that raises and promotions are few and far between, Christmas bonuses are always crappy gift certificates, and flexible hours really means double shifts, I’m not as enthusiastic as I once was.”

  She threw a garment bag over the desk at me and headed for the door of the mall office. “You start tomorrow. Two P.M. sharp.”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I screamed out to no one in particular, since I was completely alone, opening and slamming my desk drawer each time the expletive left my mouth.

  I was so sick of my job that I didn’t know what to do. I’d procrastinated about putting my résumé in someplace else for months, and the holiday season was the worst time to look for a good job. Sure, seasonal cheap wage jobs were plentiful, but I had bills to pay, and I just couldn’t leave until I had something else lined up.

  I went home that night about ten, after staying to close up the mall as always. Every muscle in my body was sore—not because I had been working out, but because I hadn’t. Stress was seeping through my pores, and my head was freakin’ killing me. I wrapped an ice pack in a washcloth, climbed into bed without even bothering to eat dinner, and fell asleep to a Luther Vandross CD.

  The next morning, my head was hurting twice as bad as it was before I fell asleep. I debated about calling in sick, and it would have been legitimate. However, Broomhilda would have assumed that I was just “trying” her, as she always put it.

  I didn’t move an inch until noon, not even to answer the phone that was ringing off the hook. No doubt it was just the usual suspects: my bank calling to harass me about a bill that I’d already paid, the local firefighters selling the same basket of summer sausage, cheese cubes, and crackers they sell every year as a fund-raiser, and my ex-boyfriend Kelly calling to beg me to take him back. Not a chance.

  Kelly’s cool, but he’s not for me. Mainly because he gives new meaning to the word sweating. Kelly, I’m going to the store to buy a new teakettle. Wait, Charissa. I’ll go with you. Kelly, I’m going to fill up my car. Wait, Charissa. I’ll go with you. Kelly, I’m going to the Laundromat to wash my funky drawers. Wait, Charissa. I’ll go with you.

  That was the life I led for three years, and that was two years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days too long. He just couldn’t get it through his thick head that we were over.

  I dreaded putting on the silly-ass outfit and going to work, but I had no options. I put on the red dress, white bib apron, white tights, black patent-leather granny shoes, and gray wig. When I glanced in the mirror, I couldn’t hold back my laughter. I was a clone of my grandmother—but she has more style.

  Hollyville Mall was packed, even though it is by far the most rinky-dink mall within the city limits. Still, people thrive on old familiar places, and they get that at Hollyville, which has been open for more than thirty years. It hit me when I was getting out of my car in the employee parking lot that Broomhilda had never mentioned who she’d bamboozled into being Santa Claus himself. I prayed that it wasn’t Cleavest, one of the sales assistants who swore up and down that he was the finest thing on two legs. Whoever told him that nonsense lied to him because he was straight-up ugly, and for someone who worked in a mall, his taste in clothing was sad.

  I went into the south entrance of the mall and slowly made my way to the makeshift stage in the middle, where a tiny house, about ten by fifteen feet, was located. That was Santa’s crib. I approached from the rear and couldn’t see who was seated in Santa’s chair, but I knew that someone was, because more than ten kids and their doting parents were lined up to take pictures.

  Gerald, the midget who usually works over at the Orange Julius, was dressed as an elf and taking the pictures. He even had on elf shoes with little bells on the tips of the toes. How cute! When I saw Gerald grinning from ear to ear, I couldn’t help but think that I had been doing a ghettoized rendition of Scrooge. After all, it was Christmastime. Time to celebrate. Time to be thankful.

  When I was still about twenty yards away, I waved at Gerald. “Hey, Gerald! Having fun?”

  “Hey, Charissa! I’m having a ball!” He lowered the camera while the next kid climbed onto the stage to climb on Santa’s lap. “You look great!”

  “Thanks, Gerald! So do you!”

  By that time, I was close enough to hear a deep, masculine voice asking the child what he wanted for Christmas. Damn! That definitely wasn’t Cleavest! Cleavest had a high-pitched, irritating voice. So who the hell was it then?

  His name turned out to be Felix. Simply put, Felix was fine as all hell, and I forgot all about my gripes and grievances pertaining to portraying Mrs. Santa Claus. Hell, I wanted to marry the man for real, even if that meant moving my ass to the North Pole.

  Felix was tall—damn near gigantic, once I saw him stand up. He had to be at least six-eight. He was light-skinned, with hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and a fantastic smile.

  Felix and I hit it off well, and Gerald’s antics made the time pass quickly. There must have been at least three hundred kids who made their way through the line to ask for Christmas presents. I felt sorry for the parents, because some of those little suckers had lists as long as my arm.

  During the fifteen-minute break granted to us by Broomhilda, Felix and I got to know each other a little. He’d just moved to town and was doing the Santa gig until he could find a real job. He’d been offered a job at the mall in the security department, and while he wasn’t really feeling it, he was going to give it a try.

  That kind of made my day, because if I had to deal with the bullshit, looking at him was definitely an added bonus. My interests still dictated that I get the hell out of Dodge, though. Enough was enough.

  The mall finally closed, thank goodness. I was worn out, and my poor feet were killing me. Gerald had taken off an hour before, and all the merchants were busying themselves counting out registers and locking up. I was ready to make a beeline for the exit when Felix suddenly grabbed me and pulled me down on his lap. I didn’t know whether to resist or give him a lap dance. The reasonable me thought it was a bit too forward, but my freaky side was aroused in a major way.

  “So what do you want for Christmas?” Felix asked with a grin.

  “I don’t know,” I replied bashfully.

  “Oh, come on. Everyone wants something for Christmas.”

  Since he was so insistent, I decided to come clean. “Between me and you, I’d like a new job.”

  ??
?Not happy here?”

  “Not at all.”

  He patted my thigh and said, “Please don’t go. I just got here.”

  Our eyes made contact, and there was a spark. “Well, maybe you can persuade me to stay.”

  “Maybe I can.”

  That was how it all began. The flirting.

  We went back and forth with the flirting for three days. The lust was apparent, but neither one of us initiated contact outside of the workplace. It was inappropriate to date a coworker. Then again, I didn’t give a shit about my job, so getting fired wasn’t exactly a concern.

  Felix and I ate lunch together every day. This was after I schooled Broomhilda about that fifteen-minute shit and reminded her that there are federal regulations that guarantee employees a lunch hour. She didn’t like or appreciate my abrasiveness, but that was too damn bad.

  I finally came to terms with the fact that I wanted Felix to fuck the living daylights out of me. Hell, it had been a while since I had some dick, and it was nothing short of insane to be around a fine-ass man day in and day out and not try to tap that ass. I know that statement is usually attributed to men, but women have needs also.

  “Felix, what are you doing after work?” I asked once the last youngster had trotted off smiling, thinking he was getting all the shit on his list for real.

  “Just going on home, I suppose,” he replied.

  “Oh.” I contemplated asking him over but had a last-second concern. What if he rejected me? I would be totally embarrassed, and we still had to work together.

  “Did you have something in mind?” he prodded. “I’m up for whatever.”

  Hmm, maybe we could do a little sumptin’ sumptin’ after all, I thought to myself.

  “Would you like to come over for a little while?”

  “Your place?”

  “Yes, my place.” I laughed. “It would be awfully trifling of me to invite you over someone else’s place.”

  He chuckled. “That it would be. I’d love to come over.”

  “Cool.”

  We arrived at my place, and I could have screamed. My nextdoor neighbor’s dog had pooted all over my doorstep again. I was going to do something about that damn mutt if it meant doing some hard time.

  Felix thought it was funny, though, and told me to calm down when I started shouting at the top of my lungs toward the other house.

  “Calm down, Charissa. It’s just a damn dog.”

  “Yeah, but I’m willing to bet that bastard next door brings his dog over here on purpose to do that.”

  “Why on earth would anyone do something so nasty?”

  “Because we have this little feud going over parking space. He doesn’t want people parking in front of his house, and my friends often do. He doesn’t own the damn curb. No one does.”

  We went inside, and I poured us some glasses of wine. I wanted to get a bit tipsy, because when I’m tipsy, I can get freaky without guilt-tripping over what my parents told me good girls never do when I was younger. Don’t let me get straight-up drunk, because I will blow a fool’s back out.

  Needless to say, by glass four I was tore up from the floor up and getting aggressive. Not to mention kinky.

  “Want to listen to some music, Felix?” I asked, already flipping through CDs.

  “Sure, what you got?”

  “I have just about everything. Music is my love, and I have a great collection. I keep a limited amount out here and the majority in my bedroom. As much as I love my peeps, things can walk up out of here like crazy if I’m not careful.”

  “I know how that is. People think you have so much of something that you won’t miss anything if it’s gone.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have anything slow?”

  “Sure, but if I put on something slow, you have to dance with me. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  I put on some Stevie Wonder, and it was on. Somewhere between “Ribbon in the Sky” and “Overjoyed,” we started feeling each other down. His height was a bit of a challenge because his dick was in my chest, but it felt different to be damn near tittyfucked with my clothes on.

  “Wait here,” I told him, pulling away and heading toward my bedroom.

  I rumbled through my drawers, looking for something I’d always wanted to try out. When I found it, I yelled out into the living room and instructed Felix to turn off all the lights.

  “All of them?” he yelled back.

  “Yes, make it completely dark.”

  I could hear him chuckling. “Okay, if you insist.”

  I stripped down to my underwear. Why waste time? I broke open the package, cut the lights in my bedroom, and opened the door. It was pitch-black, with the exception of the dim lighting on my CD player.

  I inched my way toward the sofa, shook up the item in my hand, and then snapped it. Instantly, a neon green light appeared from the glow stick I was holding.

  “Now this could get interesting,” Felix said from the couch. “A half-naked glowing woman. This must be my lucky night.”

  “If you only knew,” I said seductively. “This is your lucky night and mine, too. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.”

  I didn’t know I had it in me. That night I found out that I was one hell of a dancer. I put on a strip show that would make any pro envious. In fact, Felix asked me if I had ever been a stripper and smirked when I denied it. Since he was impressed, I knew that I could always fall back on the profession if Broomhilda and I ever got into the knock-down, drag-out fight I had been itching for over time.

  As I danced to the music, I rubbed the glow stick all over my body, giving Felix glimpses of my white lacy thong and bra. I worked my way over to him, turned around, and bent down slightly until I was grinding my ass on his dick in the dark. I placed the glow stick behind me and rubbed it up and down my crack to entice him even further.

  He grabbed my hips and whispered, “Damn, baby,” in my ear.

  I got down on my knees and started undoing his pants. His dick had gotten rock hard, and I couldn’t wait another second to get my hands on it.

  “Hold this for me, will you?” I asked, handing him the glow stick.

  “Certainly.”

  Felix held it over my head while I retrieved my prize. In the neon lighting, it looked like a shiny, golden, thick stick.

  “Umm, can I taste it?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I licked the head first and was immediately hooked. While I’ve never been big on sucking dick, something about this man made me want to indulge. I wanted him to know that it wasn’t a tradition, so I told him, “I don’t normally do this. Especially not during the first sexual encounter. So you better appreciate this.”

  “Trust me, I do appreciate it,” he responded, pushing gently on the back of my head.

  I placed warm, soft kisses all over his dick, teasing him until he started moaning loudly. Then I took the head into my mouth and held it there, squeezing and releasing it to a rhythm with my lips. I reached down and caressed his balls gently while I used my other hand to rub his shaft up and down.

  I let go of him and sat down beside him on the couch.

  “What’s wrong, Charissa?”

  “Nothing.” I took his dick and my hand and rubbed my thumb over the head, spreading my saliva around. “I just want you to stand up and dick-feed me so I can get to it at a better angle.”

  He laughed. “Dick-feed you? That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “Well, that’s basically what it is. Right?”

  “I guess.”

  He complied with my wishes and stood up, holding the glow stick beside him so I could see what I was working with.

  I relaxed my throat and pulled as much of his dick in as I could in one motion. I held it there for about fifteen seconds until he flinched, and then I started moving my head back and forth as I gripped the bottom of his dick to hold it steady.

  I’m not quite sure how long I sucked him off, but it was for a long-ass time.
Stevie went off, and the next CD in the changer came on. I was a bit perturbed because it was a gospel CD, and I had never imagined getting busy to religious music. However, I was “occupied” and wasn’t about to disrupt my flow to get up and change the music.

  Felix came in my mouth three times, but the fourth time, I let him come all over my breasts. Something about that shit just turns me on. The fact that he seemed to have no issues rising to the occasion time after time was even better.

  “I want to fuck you now,” he announced after his fourth nut.

  I didn’t respond. I just got up and walked toward my bedroom. He grabbed for me in the dark.

  “No, come here.”

  “What?” I asked giddily.

  “Just come here.”

  Felix swept me off my feet, and I straddled my legs around his waist. It felt strange to be so high up in the air. Normally, when a man picks me up, I am barely a few inches more elevated than I am standing up.

  He stood in the doorway to my dining room and slid his dick up into my pulsating pussy. I grabbed hold of the doorframe and tried my best to lay a whipping on his ass. The dick was so good that I wanted to scream. He filled me up entirely and then some.

  He ran his fingers up and down my spine with one hand and palmed an ass cheek with the other, digging those fingers into my skin. “That’s it! Work it, momma!”

  “Umm, work it out on me, daddy!”

  We both chuckled at the corniness of our dialogue.

  I couldn’t hold onto the frame any longer and almost toppled when I let go. Felix carried me over to the table, let me down, and then bent me over. The cool wood on my chest and stomach excited me as he entered me from the rear. He was so tall that my feet were dangling a foot above the floor, so I hooked my heels around the back of his thighs and jiggled my pussy up and down on his dick. It was the shit!