Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups by Robert Devereaux Page A
Authors: Robert Devereaux
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the elf's tooth, replaced it with one thousand newly-shat shiny copper pfennigs, drifted across the commons, passed through the door of Santa's cottage, hovered over her lover's bed, glared at the dozing Anya, kissed Santa out of slumber and into magic time, lured him across the snow to his workshop, and fucked out his lights amid pinwheels and piccolos, race cars and rockets, gizmos and gadgets galore. The glazed eyes of countless stuffed dolls and animals looked down upon their maker as he brought adultery most foul to the North Pole.
Truth be told, Santa grew uneasy there in the near-darkness with all those unblinking eyes staring at him. But where else could they go? Up here, in this tight little community, no ideal place existed for them to have at each other with complete abandon.
So when the Tooth Fairy drank him spermless one last time and slipped away, Santa remained in magic time and built them a cozy hut way off in the woods where no one had ventured before.
It was the perfect locus for love. Concealed in a copse of ash trees, its stones rose from snow, solid and inviting. Inside, a great stone fireplace roared its paean to love. Blazing Yule logs splashed into every crevice and corner waves of liquid light. Down across surfaces of fur and quilting they went and up over a huge four-poster built of ashwood, its large mattress awash with pillows and stuffed with swan's down. At each side of the bed, wide windows looked out on moonlit snowdrifts and the silhouettes of trees.
Despite his pride in its workmanship, Santa knew that this hut represented a sharp departure from his old ways. Pure selfishness. An absolute concealment from those he had always been open with. Yet the trees themselves seemed to conspire with him, to remind him of some former life he had forgotten utterly, a life his sly intruder had played a leading role in. Names came to him from their swaying limbs: Syce, Crania; Ptelea, Morea, Carya; Ampelus, Balanus, Aeiginus; and repeatedly and with peculiar urgency, Pitys. Names meaningless to him, yet freighted with meaning.
The next night Santa couldn't sleep. He lay awake beside Anya, staring into the darkness, imagining the Tooth Fairy's return, how he would take her to their new-minted hideaway and have her there.
But she didn't come that night.
Nor the following night.
The third night, Santa got smart. First he went to the stables and, one by one, woke the reindeer. No, each of them shook his antlered head, blearing up at him. None of my teeth are loose, none need pulling. Nine times he asked the question. Nine times he took denial, kissed the soft tufted fur between the reindeer's eyes, and let him lapse into sleep.
Next, cloaked in magic time, he visited each of his multitude of dozing elves. His fingers probed their tiny mouths, testing the seating of every molar, every cuspid and bicuspid, every incisor both central and lateral. For hour upon hour, he searched in vain for that one loose tooth which, wrenched free and placed twixt sheet and pillow, would summon his paramour to his side.
Then the lightbulb went on.
To his workshop he went, cursing himself for a fool all the way. Feverishly he snapped on his worklights, gathered materials and tools. His seasoned hands flew among them. Out of the chaos scattered across his workbench, he whipped together a child's bed. Simple, functional, inviting. The sort of bed an eight-year-old would dream wonders in after a trying day battling giants and ogres at school.
Another swatch of chaos, another miracle: a doll so lifelike that in the dimness of a room lit by fire, one would swear she was a real little girl, eyes gently closed, lips parted in sleep. Inside the lips? Teeth. Just a few, made of soft wood with a thick coating of ivory from a store of cast-off piano keys. Teeth that snapped firmly into place in the girl's plastic gums, teeth that snapped out just as easily.
Santa prayed it would do.
To the hut he carried her, bed balanced on his
Truth be told, Santa grew uneasy there in the near-darkness with all those unblinking eyes staring at him. But where else could they go? Up here, in this tight little community, no ideal place existed for them to have at each other with complete abandon.
So when the Tooth Fairy drank him spermless one last time and slipped away, Santa remained in magic time and built them a cozy hut way off in the woods where no one had ventured before.
It was the perfect locus for love. Concealed in a copse of ash trees, its stones rose from snow, solid and inviting. Inside, a great stone fireplace roared its paean to love. Blazing Yule logs splashed into every crevice and corner waves of liquid light. Down across surfaces of fur and quilting they went and up over a huge four-poster built of ashwood, its large mattress awash with pillows and stuffed with swan's down. At each side of the bed, wide windows looked out on moonlit snowdrifts and the silhouettes of trees.
Despite his pride in its workmanship, Santa knew that this hut represented a sharp departure from his old ways. Pure selfishness. An absolute concealment from those he had always been open with. Yet the trees themselves seemed to conspire with him, to remind him of some former life he had forgotten utterly, a life his sly intruder had played a leading role in. Names came to him from their swaying limbs: Syce, Crania; Ptelea, Morea, Carya; Ampelus, Balanus, Aeiginus; and repeatedly and with peculiar urgency, Pitys. Names meaningless to him, yet freighted with meaning.
The next night Santa couldn't sleep. He lay awake beside Anya, staring into the darkness, imagining the Tooth Fairy's return, how he would take her to their new-minted hideaway and have her there.
But she didn't come that night.
Nor the following night.
The third night, Santa got smart. First he went to the stables and, one by one, woke the reindeer. No, each of them shook his antlered head, blearing up at him. None of my teeth are loose, none need pulling. Nine times he asked the question. Nine times he took denial, kissed the soft tufted fur between the reindeer's eyes, and let him lapse into sleep.
Next, cloaked in magic time, he visited each of his multitude of dozing elves. His fingers probed their tiny mouths, testing the seating of every molar, every cuspid and bicuspid, every incisor both central and lateral. For hour upon hour, he searched in vain for that one loose tooth which, wrenched free and placed twixt sheet and pillow, would summon his paramour to his side.
Then the lightbulb went on.
To his workshop he went, cursing himself for a fool all the way. Feverishly he snapped on his worklights, gathered materials and tools. His seasoned hands flew among them. Out of the chaos scattered across his workbench, he whipped together a child's bed. Simple, functional, inviting. The sort of bed an eight-year-old would dream wonders in after a trying day battling giants and ogres at school.
Another swatch of chaos, another miracle: a doll so lifelike that in the dimness of a room lit by fire, one would swear she was a real little girl, eyes gently closed, lips parted in sleep. Inside the lips? Teeth. Just a few, made of soft wood with a thick coating of ivory from a store of cast-off piano keys. Teeth that snapped firmly into place in the girl's plastic gums, teeth that snapped out just as easily.
Santa prayed it would do.
To the hut he carried her, bed balanced on his
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