Let It Snow 2

"Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap... YES!" I cried out, as I saw an open parking spot. I pulled in, locked the door, and started stomping through the snow towards the nearest entrance.

"Fucking parking lots," I grumbled aloud, dodging mothers, fathers, and annoying kids. My cell phone buzzed in my suit pocket. I stopped in my tracks, almost getting hit by busy shoppers.

I hate cell phones. They're invasive, obnoxious, loud and annoying. And I own one, involuntarily. Part of my position as a communications specialist meant that if some branch manager found his ATM broken at 2am, I would get called to go fix it. And the only way my company could get a hold of me (apparently) was through this little black phone buzzing in my jacket.

I pulled out the phone, my finger twitching to hit the ignore button. I saw that it was my Mike, who worked in the same department as me; Since he knew how much I hated getting called in, I figured that it probably wasn't work related.

"Yeah." I called out.

"Hey. What's up?" He asked.

"At the mall, heading towards the changing room." I responded.

"Oh, you mean the-?"

"Yeah."

"You know, I still can't believe you're doing that," He chuckled.

"Well, I need something.. I dunno..." I paused at the door that led to the mall offices. "It's just... with the job... and the stress... I just need... something."

"I hear ya, man." He said. "It still snowing?"

"Like a motherfucker. Look, I'm here. I gotta do my thing."

"Okay. Drinks later?"

"Yeah. I'll call you after I'm done."

"You've got my new cell number?"

"Yup. Talk to ya later." I hung up the phone, as I waved to the security officer.

I walked quickly down the hall, and opened the door to the changing room, running into Kate.

"You're late, hon." The 32-yr old vixen said with a twinkle in her eye. I forced myself to not look at Kate's cleavage, which always seemed on the verge of popping out of her outfit.

"Yeah, Yeah... I know, sorry. Parking's a bitch and all."

"Well, go get undressed." She said with a grin. I smirked right back at her

"I'll go get

changed

, thanks."

"Your loss," She sighed, pushed her boobs up and walked away, her curvy body swaying from side-to-side. My eyes followed her down the hall, entranced by the sultry Elf.

"Fuck," I muttered. "It's going to be a long night."

I ran in to the small changing room we used, and pulled off my suit; I grabbed my costume out of the locker, and started putting it on.

10 minutes later, I walked out of the room, took a deep breath, adjusted my beard, and made my way down the hallway, smiling at all the employees. I got to the center courtside entrance, did a once-over to make sure I was all-set and paused, entering the middle of the mall.

I pulled the door open and opened my mouth.

"Ho Ho Ho!!!" I called out.

A line of children had already formed, and as one, they turned to me and screamed "It's Santa". I was immediately mobbed, as I made my way towards my throne. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kate grinning at me as the kids attacked me, each wanting to tell me what they wanted for Christmas.

I "Ho, ho, ho'd" and pushed my way through the throng, and up to my chair, where Kate was waiting for me.

"I think I got hit in the balls." I muttered through a smile.

Kate laughed out loud.

"Well, St. Nick, I'm sure you'll survive. You ready?" She smiled at me.

I sat back in the chair and relaxed.

"Yeah. Time for some X-mas cheer," I sighed.

She patted my shoulder affectionately.

"That's my boy."

I looked down at the first child in line, a little boy who was holding his mom's hand, in total and abject fear.

"If I get puked on again, you're cleaning it up this time," I told Kate. She laughed again and leaned over, giving me a great view of her chest.

"Well, if they do puke, I hope it's right on you; I'd be more than happy to run my hands all over your body." She whispered slyly, giving me a not-so-innocent peck on the lips. I felt my face turn red, and I tried to stammer out a response, but she walked away, her ass still swaying from side-to-side. She opened the gate, and let the little tyke in.

He looked at his mother, who was trying to push him up the steps, and then at me, and then back again. I leaned forward and out of the chair, and gestured to him. He walked up to me, and I lifted him onto my lap.

"So, young man..." I called out in my 'Santa' voice. "What would you like for X-mas?"

--

"The mall will be closing in 5 minutes," the speaker droned, echoing through the almost-empty plaza.

I pinched my eyes in fatigue, looking around to see if any more little kids were going to come up and have their picture taken with Santa. It looked like the mall was pretty much cleared out, so I stood up, stretching for the first time in hours, and started to help Kate close up the display for the night.

"Excuse me," a voice called out. "Is Santa still available?"

Without turning around, I responded.

"Ho ho ho, of course He is. And how may Santa..." my voice died as I saw the person who had called out. Standing in front of me was this blonde-haired bombshell, wearing a dark black business suit, and high heels. She grinned at me, and walked up to Santa's Chair, and patted it.

"Well? Can't I tell Santa what I want for Xmas?" She called out with a smile.

"Uhm.... Yeah.." I stuttered. I walked over to the chair, and brushed past her, noticing that she wasn't wearing a shirt underneath her jacket, only a forest-green colored bra. I sat down in the chair and looked expectantly at the woman. She tossed her hair to the side and promptly sat down on my lap.

"So, uhm..." I started slowly. She laughed.

"Is this how you treat all the kids who sit on your lap?"

"Well, I'd hardly call you a 'kid', ma'am."

"That's very true. I'm all woman, as you can tell." She glanced down at her chest. I cleared my throat, feeling my face turn beat-red.

"So what would you like for Christmas?" I asked, bringing the conversation back to "safer" topics.

"Well, I'm a little torn." She said. "I have this thing I'm supposed to want, but I don't know if it's appropriate."

I blinked in surprise. The way this woman was staring at me was making me feel less "naughty" than "nice".

"Okay, well why don't you tell me, and let me be the judge?" I asked

Her emerald eyes twinkled at me.

"Well, what I really want is you, Scott." she whispered, leaning in, and giving me a peck on the cheek.

I sat there for a second in shock, trying to figure out how she had guessed my name

"Hey, look. Is this some jok-?

My voice was cut off as the mall speakers kicked in again.

"Attention, shoppers. The mall is now closed, and we ask that all patrons please exit the mall at the nearest entrance. Thank you for shopping..."

The voice droned on for a few more moments, as I concentrated on the situation at hand.

"I'll see you later." She said, getting off my lap, and walking away. The woman waved good-bye at me, as she moved away from the Santa display. I got up to follow, but Kate's voice caught my attention.

"Hey,

Santa

, I need your help over here." I looked over to see that she was trying to move one of the big displays by herself. I glanced back in the direction of the mystery woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

I cursed in a most un-santa-like fashion. She had disappeared

--

"So then what happened?" Mike asked.

"We closed up the Santa booth, I changed, and poof, here we are," I said, finishing off my beer.

"No idea who she is?"

"Nope."

"Never saw her before?"

"Nope."

"And she knew your name?" Mike exclaimed.

"Yeah. Beats the hell out of me how that happened. Only thing I can come up with is that you and the guys from work are screwing with me."

"Sorry, man. Nobody else even knows you're doing this. Hell, I don't know why you're really doing this."

"I told you earlier. The job makes me miserable. Being Santa... It's just different. Good feeling in my chest, and all that, y'know? I'm tired of being a grouchy bitch."

Mike guffawed.

"Yeah, you're pretty miserable."

"No shit. I asked Kate if she had ever seen her, but she said she had no idea who the woman was."

"Was she hot?"

"Oh hell, yeah."

I poured a new beer, and sighed.

"I don't want to go to work tomorrow." I said.

"I know, but the money..." he trailed off

"Fuck the money. I've got enough saved. I should just quit."

"You won't quit."

"... I know."

We were both quiet for a bit.

"I've been thinking about going back to school." I said calmly.

"What for?"

"Masters in Education."

Mike almost spit his beer out.

"You? TEACH?" Mike laughed out loud. "The hours suck, the kids are bastards, and the pay is shit."

"Yeah, but I won't get called up at 2 am in the morning to go fix an ATM now, will I?"

"Ahh.... no, probably not."

I sipped my beer. "It's gotta be better than this, right?"

"...Yeah, probably." Mike agreed. He grabbed his jacket. "I hate to drink and run, but I've got to be up early tomorrow."

"Yeah, me, too."

We paid the tab, and walked outside, where there was already an inch of snow on the ground.

I stared up into the cloudy sky, watching the snowfall.

"You okay to drive?" Mike called out, walking towards his car.

"Yeah, I'm good." I replied. "I think I'm going to stand here and just watch the snow for a bit."

"It's supposed to stop during the night."

I pointed upwards. "Does that look like it's going to stop?"

"Why don't you make it stop, Santa?" He laughed

I good-naturedly flipped him the bird, while he drove away. I stood there for a moment, feeling the snow hit my face; out of the blue, I stuck my tongue out, trying to catch a snowflake on my tongue.

I felt like a fool, a 27-yr old man, standing there, trying to catch a snowflake, but I didn't care. It just felt good to pause for a moment and relax.

As I stood there, the snow falling on the parking lot full of cars, while glistening in the orange streetlights, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last time I was happy.

Some drunken revelers coming out of the bar interrupted my private interlude. I opened my eyes, and cursed the lack of privacy. Which was ironic, considering I was standing in the middle of a parking lot of a shopping mall.

"Screw this," I said to myself. "I'm going home."

--

My cell phone almost came to a disastrous end at 6:30 am the next morning. It vibrated against my bed stand, waking me up. I looked at the screen, and saw that it was from my day job. Someone probably needed me to go on-site to reboot their computer or some other inane problem. For a brief moment, I almost smashed the device against the wall, but decided against it.

I hit the "on" button and croaked out, "Hello?"

"Hey. It's Mike.. I wake you up?"

"Uh... yeah, kinda."

"Oh, sorry about that."

"Yeah, no problem." I got out of bed, walked over to the closet, and grabbed a pair of pants, and started to change while talking to my co-worker. "Where do I need to go, and what do I need to fix today?"

"Well, that's the thing," I sighed at his comment and my mind immediately started to reel. Whatever it was, it was probably big.

"Well," he started. "The storm knocked out all the power on this side of town, and the basement got flooded, so all our servers are down. "

"Shit." I swore. "So where do I need to go? You guys need me to come in and try and help get things running?"

"Well, that's the funny part," he said. "The power's out everywhere, so we haven't really gotten that many calls from the clients looking for help, and the power company's saying it's going to be a good 12 hours or so before everything's back up and running; As a result, Ron asked me to call you and a couple of the other guys to let you know we're not going to need you to come in today."

I sat down on my bed in surprise.

"You're not going to need me."

"No."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. You can go back to sleep, for all I care."

I looked at the phone in disbelief.

"But, what if-?"

"Dude, I don't know what Ron had for breakfast, but I can't remember him

ever

letting people take a day off like this before. You really want to keep talking about this, and wait for him to change his mind?"

I was quiet for a moment.

"I think you've got a point there. " I chuckled, and crawled back under the covers.

"Of course I do." He laughed. "That's why I get paid more than you do, remember?"

"Fuck off." I grumbled.

"BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA." he laughed.

"Bah." I mumbled, my eyes closing.

"Later, man." He laughed, and hung up.

I hit the 'off' button on my cell phone, dropped it on the floor, and sunk into the bed, falling back asleep.

--

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. 10:30 am. I got out of bed and stretched. I hadn't had a day off in months, and it felt good, knowing I wasn't going to get called for anything work-related.

I still smelled like beer, so I jumped in the shower, taking my time as the hot water ran over my body. I got out of the shower, shaved, threw a towel around my waist, and walked to the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

I poured a bowl of cereal, sat down in front of the TV, and hit the power button when my regular phone rang.

I glared at the cordless phone, trying to decide if I should answer it, or just throw it out the window. I reached over and picked it up.

"Hello." I snapped, irritated and worried that work may have changed their mind.

"Hey there, tall dark & handsome." A feminine voice purred.

I blinked in surprise.

"Uhm, who is this?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm hurt." The female said mockingly. "You can't even remember my name the morning after?"

I was quiet for a second, then grinned.

"Hello, Kate." I said. My Elvin "assistant" chuckled.

"You should never forget a lady's name, mister." She warned.

I sighed.

"Yes, ma'am, it won't happen again."

"Good answer. Got a question for you."

"Shoot."

"They've decided to open the mall, on the off-chance that someone might actually be able to make it out of their driveways. All the other guys can't make it in, but you only live ten minutes from the mall, and we were wondering if..."

"Oh, Kate.. I dunno."

"Look, it'd only be for a couple hours." she begged.

"Kate, I got the day off from my job and I really could use the time off and-"

"If you come in, I promise I'll wear one of my 'trampy' elf outfits, just for you."

I sighed. "I appreciate the offer, but all your elf costumes are 'trampy', at least the way you wear them."

"Hey!" she hollered at me. "What're you trying to say?"

I quickly back-pedaled. "Well, I just meant that you always look-"

"Uh huh"

"You know that I was just trying to say that-"

"Uh huh."

I rolled my eyes back and laid my head against the back of my couch.

"I give up. How long do you need me for?"

"Uhm... 4 hours?"

"How about 2?" I countered.

"3?"

"2."

"2.5."

I paused for a moment and then spoke slowly.

"2. Hours."

She sighed and gave in.

"2 hours."

I smiled. "What time do you need me?"

"Can you be here around 1?"

"Sure. But you better look trampy."

"I thought you said I always look trampy."

"Don't try that with me, you know what I meant."

"Uh huh." she laughed. "I'll see you at one."

--

I pulled into the mall parking lot around 12:30pm. I managed to avoid the plows, which were pushing snow all over the place. There weren't a lot of cars, so that meant not a lot of shoppers. Which meant, there wouldn't be a lot of kids. And that meant, not a lot for "Santa" to do.

I walked down the hall, heading towards the changing room. I got to the door, and attempted to push my way in, only to find the door locked.

Which is funny, because the door doesn't have a lock on it.

I pounded on the door and hollered, "Hey. Who's in there?"

Through the plasti-glass, I saw a shape move towards the door, and the sound of a latch being un-done. The door opened, and Kate's head peeked out from inside.

"Hey, Irish!" she smirked. "They just put a lock on the door, so us elves can have a chance to change without the Santa's watching us."

"How long you going to be?" I asked.

"Oh, you can come in. It's just some of the other St. Nick's have a tendency to stare. But we like you, so you can come in."

She opened the door, and let me in. Her red hair was wet and matted, from using the shower, and the blond highlights on her long bangs stood out against the rest of her straight hair. She was wearing a white cotton robe, her body glistening with water.

She locked the door back up and turned around to me, pointing her finger at me.

"Now, I'm going to trust you, so stay on this side of the lockers, and I'm going to change on the other. No peeking, okay?"

"Sure." I said, heading over to my locker. I waited until Kate had moved out of eyesight, and started changing into my costume

"Uhm, Scott?" Kate asked in an odd voice. "I think I might need your help here."

I threw my Santa hat on and stood up.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Well, one of the other girls borrowed my usual outfit, so I'm using someone else's, and well... the zipper's stuck."

I sat there for a second.

"Well, I guess that means the little boys and girls will be getting quite a show, right?" I grinned.

There was silence for a moment, when all of a sudden, a shoe came flying over the locker wall that separated us, missing me by a couple feet.

"Irish!" She yelled at me. "That's not funny. Now get your ass over here, and help me with this damn thing."

I walked around the lockers, and stuck my head around the wall, my eyes closed.

"You decent?" I asked.

"I'm never decent." She declared in a sultry voice. "Now see what you can do with this."

The elf outfits the girls wore were all pretty much the same, but had some variants, due to the dimensions of the women who wore them. They were a combination leotard/mini-skirt. In some cases "mini" was an understatement, which is why some of the elves would wear dark stockings, so the outfits didn't look so sexy. All of the outfits zipped up in the back, and Kate's apparently had snagged a loose thread, causing the zipper to jam.

Her back was to me, her arms holding her chest and her outfit at the same time. The zipper was caught about 1/3 of the way up her back. Her red hair cascaded down her back, so I didn't see too much skin.

"Okay.." I muttered, playing with the zipper for a moment. "Jesus. What did you do to this thing?"

"It's not my fault." she pouted. "Caroline took my outfit, so now I have to use this one." She turned her head to look at me. "If you don't mind me asking, how is it that you woke up on the right side of the bed this morning?"

I blinked in surprise. "What?" I asked.

Staring at me, without turning her body to face me, she said, "Well, I've spent the last two weeks trying to get you to smile, and today you seem more relaxed than normal."

Her eyes opened wide. "Did you get laid last night, Irish?"

My face turned a dark shade of crimson, as I spat out, "No, I did NOT get laid, thank you very much. I just.. I guess not working my other job made a difference, that's all."

She grinned at my discomfort, and then looked away.

"Well, you should be like this more often. You've been so unhappy lately."

"I know." I said calmly. "Just the way things go, I guess."

"Hmm." she said noncommittally. "Well, try to keep smiling. You fixed the zipper, yet?"

I stared at the outfit, having forgotten what I was supposed to be doing. I bent my knees and squatted behind her, trying to figure out how to un-jam the zipper without ripping the costume.

"Uhm, hold on." I said. "Let me try this."

I grabbed her costume tight, and pulled the two sides of her costume closer together.