1

The day after I learned that the woman blackmailing me was my Aunt Billie, and after Aunt Billie and I had wild and thrilling sex in a hotel room, and after Aunt Billie told me that I had to stop having sex with her and with my Aunt Jess...wow, that was a pretty busy day. Anyway, the NEXT day I called Aunt Jess and told her I needed to see her right away. "Why?" she said, suspicious.

"Because I need to see you."

"Why?"

Women, they just can't do what you ask. Although I'd promised to end the affair, Aunt Billie told me to give Aunt Jess a last, good-bye fuck. So I told the sexy woman on the line, "Because Santa Claus is very HARD."

She was knocking on my door twenty minutes later, and a minute later I had Aunt Jess in my living room, lying on the sofa in front of the Christmas tree, and Santa was sucking her nipples. "Mmm...ooh, Santa, what brought this on?" she sighed.

"Your tits," I said. "Your big, yummy tits." I spent a long time licking, sucking and nibbling at my aunt's teats, knowing that this would be the last time I would enjoy them. I spent maybe a little too long on them, because Aunt Jess moaned, "Santa, honey, my nipples are sore! Please, lick me lower!"

"Lower?"

"Lower!"

For the second time in 16 hours I performed cunnilingus on one of my aunts. My beard, my beard...my beard was going to need dry cleaning. I caressed her thighs with my gloved hands as I tongued and, uh, bearded my aunt's pussy. "Santa..." Aunt Jess moaned. "I want you to fuck me!"

"Well, it's almost Christmas..." I said, sitting up. I rolled Aunt Jess on her stomach and she rose up on her hands and knees. I handed her an extra pillow and she rested her arms on it. "Ooh, I like it this way, Santa," she said as I fumbled with my fly and pulled my erection through the hole.

"I want to look at that pretty tree while I enjoy this pretty lady!" I said.

"Which do you like better?" Aunt Jess barked.

"Santa likes a pretty tree," I said as I slowly penetrated her from behind, "but I think this pretty lady knows that Santa likes her much more!"

She arched her back as I slipped every inch of myself into her pussy. "Oh, yes," she hissed. "Grab my ass and FUCK me."

Santa was more than happy to oblige. I pistoned my cock in and out of her moist sheath, her cushy buttocks rippling as I screwed her from behind. Her big, heavy breasts swayed back and forth as I did her doggy-style, and I reached under her to fill my velvet-gloved hands with her globes.

She looked over her shoulder, her dark blue eyes blazing with lust. "Santa, you're the best, you're the best fuck I've ever had!" Under my beard my sexy aunt couldn't see the sadness on my face. This was going to be the last time, it HAD to be the last time, and I was going to miss making love with this sexy, crazy lady. As I fucked her I kneaded her big tits, tits I'd stared at and lusted for since I was in junior high, and I realized one last thing I wanted to do before I ended this most dangerous affair.

"Oh...oh...oh..." Aunt Jess panted. "Fuck me, fuck me with that big cock, fuck me Santa, fuck me!"

"Do you want to do something naughty, little girl?" I asked.

"What? Uh, ohh, this isn't naughty enough?"

"Noooo," I rumbled. "Santa has a very naughty idea indeed!"

"Not my ass, Santa!" Aunt Jess squealed. "You're too big!"

"Not your ass, young lady!" I kept fucking her fast and hard, wanting to satisfy her lusting for my thrusting before I indulged myself.

"Then whhhhhaaaaatttt?" she cried as my cock pounded her like a jackhammer.

I waited until she buried her face in the pillow, nearing exhaustion. I pulled my penis out of her pussy and she screamed, "What the fuck are you doing! Get back here!"

I ran to the bathroom, and it's hard to run in a Santa suit with Santa boots. I pulled open the cabinet and found what I was looking for. I returned with a bottle of aloe vera lotion and found a very irritated Aunt Jess waiting for me. "What the hell did you do that for, I..." she saw the bottle of lotion. "What's that for?"

I handed it to her as I pulled off my pants. "First, Santa wants to watch you give him a little handjob."

Aunt Jess liked that. "Oh, I get it. Santa wants to remember what it was like when he was a teenager and the most a girl would do was give him a little tug." I sat down on the couch and Aunt Jess sprayed a generous amount of lotion in her palm, and then she held the dispenser over my cock and dribbled lotion over the big, purple helmet.

"Ooh, that's cold," I said as the lotion oozed down my shaft.

"Well, let me warm you up." She put her palm on my cock and wrapped each long-nailed finger one-by-one around my cock. And then she started pumping. She started pumping my cock slowly, smiling mischievously at me as I started to groan with pleasure. "Doesn't that feel good, Santa?"

"Mmm, yes it does, little girl."

She laughed. "I guess I am a bad little girl, because giving a handjob doesn't seem so naughty to me. I've been giving handjobs to boys since I was in high school."

"Oh, that's very naughty."

"When my parents would be out I would invite two boys over that I liked and have them take their pants off and sit on the couch, and then I would jerk them off just like I'm doing right now. The boy who came first had to go home, and the other boy could stay and fuck me." She put both her hands on me. "Isn't that BAD?"

"Oh, oh, very bad, very bad indeed!"

"I've always been a bad little girl." She had both her hands wrapped around my cock and she caressed me from base to crown with every stroke. "Go ahead and come, Santa, I want to watch it spurt all over my hands."

"No..." I groaned.

"No?" she said.

"No, I...uh...UHH!" Her hands felt so good, I loved watching her nails, covered with fruity-smelling goo, slide up and down my dick. "I...I..."

She slowed a bit. "Out with it, Santa baby."

"I want to come...between your tits."

Aunt Jess smiled from ear to ear. "Oh, I like that. I totally LOVE that! I haven't been titty-fucked in years!" She lay back on the floor and fondled her huge breasts. "Come on, Santa, show me how naughty YOU are."

I tucked my knees in her armpits and squeezed lotion into her wide cleavage. She grabbed my cock and stroked me until my erection was hard enough to hammer nails with. She put her tits together and I slowly fed my cock inside that mighty cleft as though I was penetrating her pussy. She eased the tension just enough to let my penis slide allow the way inside her big loaves, and her lips formed a big, dark red O. "Santa, fuck me, fuck my titties."

Again I enjoyed this most unusual and exciting act, squatting over my aunt's chest and thrusting my cock in and out of her canyon. Lotion squished and squirted as I slid my length through her gully, and I loved how her big, slightly saggy juggs wiggled as I fucked them, as opposed to Aunt Billie's impossibly firm tits. It was this loose, wanton jiggling that excited me beyond belief, that made me snap my hips faster and faster in the lascivious grip of her breasts. "Oh, yes, yes!" I groaned as the time of my climax grew nigh. "Aunt Jess, Aunt Jess! I'm gonna come...you're gonna make me come with your tits!"

I buried my cock deep in those slick mounds and my ejaculation was so powerful that come sprayed all over her face, thick, white ropes of semen splattered over her forehead, cheeks, chin and lips, and she beamed with ecstasy and licked up as much as she could with her tongue. She was laughing even as I was moaning in a combination of rapture and despair. Rapture, because of the pleasure this woman gave me, and despair, because I would never enjoy her again.

I pulled my cock out of her cleavage, and found inside the same slimy trail I'd left behind with Aunt Billie. "Oh, baby, that was about the best ever," she said, smiling at me, her eyes glowing. "You are so delicious!"

It was hard to meet her eyes. "Wait here, I'll get a towel so you can clean up." I came back and she lay back and let me wipe up the fragrant mess between her breasts. She wiped the excess semen off her face and sat back on the couch with a huge smile. "We'll have to do that again!"

I left to throw the towel in the laundry, and while I was there I stripped out of the Santa suit. I came back wearing just a pair of grey shorts and found Aunt Jess lounging on my couch, puffing away at a cigarette. I sat next to her and she tickled my thigh with her nails. "Do you know what really excited me?" she said. "When you called out my name when you came. You've never lost control like that when you're playing Santa. That was nice."

Well, here we go. "Well, I did get excited, more so than normal, because...that was the last time we're going to make love."

At first it was as though she hadn't heard me, she just sat there with a smile on her face. She sat there a long time, and then she noticed that the ash on her cigarette was about to fall on the sofa. She tapped it on the dish she was using as an ashtray and took a long drag. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

I told her that I'd actually met the blackmailer the night before, and that she threatened to tell my mother if I didn't end the affair with her. Aunt Jess sat there smoking as I told her the story, and when she stubbed out the cigarette she said, "Who was it?"

"I can't say, I was ordered not to."

"Did you fuck this woman?"

I decided not to lie. "Yes, she insisted. Afterwards is when she told me not to see you anymore."

"It was that bitch Billie, wasn't it!" Aunt Jess screamed. "She wants you for herself, she can't stand that I have something she doesn't! That fucking cunt bitch...that's why you wanted to fuck my tits, isn't it! Because you did it with her last night and it turned you on, fucking those big plastic balloons!"

I thought she was going to hit me. "I'm not going to deny or confirm who it is..." I said.

"You don't have to! I know who it is!"

I continued, "...but I'm not going to have sex with that person ever again, either. I promise you that."

"Oh, and I can trust you?" she sneered. "And trust that bitch too?"

"You can," I said. "Look, it was her, OK?" Rage filled my aunt's pretty face. "I think one of the reasons she had sex with me was so you would have something on her too, it would mean she couldn't tell on you without you telling on her."

"Yeah, so what?"

"This way everything is even, neither of you has an advantage. Neither would have any reason to tell on the other...unless my affair with one of you continued. So, I'm not going to see either of you any more." I looked her in the eye. "And as much as I adore you, and as fantastic as sex with you is every time we're together, I want to end it. It's just too big a risk, and I'm tired of being afraid of hurting my mother." I put my hand on her knee. "Please, for me, don't make this harder than it already is."

A few tears fell down her cheek. "I'll never forgive her for what she did," Aunt Jess said. "She called me fat, and ugly."

"You aren't either of those things, and you know it. I told her I was very angry with her about that, and she apologized. I'll make her apologize to you personally." She still looked furious and I said, "Can I tell you one thing?" She shrugged. "Aunt Billie told me to have sex with you one more time, because she would feel guilty if we didn't have one last fling after she and I did it. She doesn't want you and her to be arch-enemies. She just doesn't want us having sex anymore. And, I think she's right."

"It was none of her fucking business," Aunt Jess said, and got to her feet. She dressed in silence, but she let me walk her to the door. "Will I see you Christmas Day?" I asked.

"Of course," my aunt said. She kissed me on the cheek. "Good bye, Timmy."

I watched her drive away, the relief like a drug to my over-stimulated nervous system. I hoped she would be OK, and I was pretty sure she would be. I hoped I would be OK, and I was less sure. A long, hot shower would help, I thought, and I headed off for the bathroom.

*****

Somehow I survived to Christmas. My thighs were black and blue from having thousands of kids dropped on my lap, and my patience was worn to a thread by too many traffic jams and long lines at the mall. But Christmas Eve I had a nice time with the relative on my father's side of the family, and then Christmas Day all my mother's relatives came to the house for dinner.

I was dreading it. Aunt Jess and Aunt Billie in the same room, with cutlery nearby...the mind boggled. I kept imagining the last act of "Hamlet", bodies lying everywhere, blood on the walls. I got to my parents house early and I had two glasses of wine in me before anyone else showed up.

Aunt Billie and Uncle Carl came first, Billie in a dark green blouse and black miniskirt, looking so luscious I wanted to crack my head against the wall. And then Aunt Jess and Uncle Don arrived, Jess wearing a white turtleneck that showed off the breasts I had enjoyed so completely. I poured another glass of wine, took a big sip, and went to greet my aunts.

"Hi, Timmy," Aunt Billie said, and kissed me on the cheek, and when I said hello to Aunt Jess I got the same treatment. So did their other nieces and nephews, I saw, and I felt a little pang of jealousy. Shouldn't I have gotten a greeting with a bit more, um, oomph? Then again, what did I expect, a quick blowjob on the kitchen table?

Everyone had a good time, the food was great, the wine liberally dispensed. My aunts seemed to get along very well, chatting away and laughing quite a bit. But I did notice a bit of a chill between my aunts and their husbands, nothing overt, but I certainly picked up on it. It made me nervous. What was the problem, and was the problem sitting in my chair.

We exchanged grab bag gifts. My father got Aunt Billie a gift certificate for a trip to a local spa, a gift she totally loved, and I watched my father blush with embarrassment, not arousal, as she gave him a big hug and a kiss. Uncle Carl liked the round of golf I got him, excited about playing at the new course that had just opened in our area. And then it was time to open the gift Aunt Billie got me. It came in an envelope, and I tore it open and looked inside. All I found was a piece of paper, and when I pulled it out I froze. The printing was sloppy and childish, and written in red crayon.

It said, "I gave you your gift in the hotel room, remember? I thought you'd enjoy fucking me more than a Borders gift certificate."

I shoved the paper back in the envelope and looked around. Fortunately everyone was opening their gifts too, and no one saw me examining the paper. Except for Aunt Billie...and Aunt Jess, who were both looking at me with barely-contained smirks.

"What did Aunt Billie give you, honey?" Mom asked.

The fuck of a lifetime? "Um, ah, um, a gift certificate to Borders," I stuttered.

"Oh, that's always a great gift for you!" Mom said, doing her best to add to the Christmas cheer, and Aunt Billie mouthed the words, "Nice job". Aunt Jess was grinning too.

I found a quiet moment to thank Aunt Billie for her "gift". "I thought you wanted to make sure my mom didn't find out about, um, what I've been up to."

"Well, we don't, but we couldn't resist fooling with you a little bit."

"We?"

"Your Aunt Jess and me."

"Wait, the two of you aren't plotting on how to kill each other?"

"Of course not. We've been spending a lot of time together lately."

"You have? Wait, I'm confused, I..."

"Oh, it's not about you! It's something else...I really don't want to get into it." For the first time I saw her look unhappy, and I said, "If there's anything I can do to help."

"Thanks, honey. But I'll be fine."

I talked to Aunt Jess a bit later in the evening, and heard much the same story. "Billie was right, and so were you," she said. "We had lots of fun, but it was too crazy, even for me."

"I'm glad you two are getting along so well."

"Well, we have a lot to talk about these days," she said mysteriously, but when I asked what she meant, she just laughed and said it was nothing. I got the impression it was SOMETHING, but perhaps I had to concede it was none of my business.

The party ended, I said my goodbyes, and headed home. I got a big box out of my closet and put the Santa suit away for another year. "And maybe forever," I said aloud. "I've done my duty, maybe it's time for someone else to pick up the torch." I put the box away, and headed off to bed.

*****

A week before Valentine's Day I came home seriously dragging my heels. Valentine's Day stresses me in a different way than Christmas. Christmas I have to go out and buy gifts, Valentine's Day I WANT to go out and buy gifts, for that special girl who fills my life with sweetness and music. Trouble was, I didn't have a girl in my life like that. I was girlfriendless, and with my seductive aunts strictly forbidden I was intercourseless as well. So I got a beer out of the fridge, took a long pull, and only then saw the flashing light on my answering machine.

It was Mom. "Honey, give me a call, I have some...bad news." She didn't sound despondent, like someone had died, but it sounded pretty bad. I called and ten seconds later my mother was saying, "Well, honey, Uncle Don and Aunt Jess are getting divorced."

It was like a right cross to the jaw. "Whoa, wha...what happened?" I had an idea of what happened-Uncle Don had somehow found out that I was boning his wife.

And then Mom said. "That's not all. Uncle Carl and Aunt Billie are splitting up too."

Left hook to the breadbasket. "Whoooooa. Both of them? Why? Why?"

"I really don't know, honey, it's not really any of our business." Which was bull, Mom knew what had happened. None of the four people involved were especially close-lipped. But I didn't push Mom, I told her how sorry I was, how bad I felt, and I said my goodbyes. Twenty minutes later I called the same number I did before, but this time it was my Dad who answered.

"So what the hell happened with the two happy couples?" I asked.

Dad, who pretty much can't stand his brothers-in-law, was more than happy to spill the beans. "They were cheating on them."

If my father had been sitting in front of me I would've put my hands on his throat. "Pronouns, Dad, pronouns! Who was cheating on who?"

Dad spoke as if it was a stupid question. "Don and Carl were cheating, what did you think?"

It felt like an elephant wearing golf spikes had just stepped off my chest. "What happened?"

"Don was sleeping with his secretary and Jess found out."

"Ouch," I winced. I could well imagine Aunt Jess in a jealous fury-it would not be a pretty sight. "What about Uncle Carl?"

"He was sleeping with Don's secretary too."

"I...wait, he was what?"

"You heard me. They were both fooling around with her, and apparently with one of her friends. Billie found out, and she and Jess tracked them all down to some hotel they were staying at, and, well, they got busted."

I imagined the scene, Aunt Jess and Aunt Billie together, in full fury. I shuddered. "I'm surprised they're still alive."

"When the lawyers get through with them they'll wish they weren't."

I thanked Dad for the info, took a satisfying swig, and I called a number I used to know well. "Hello," said a sharp, angry voice.

"Aunt Jess? It's Tim."

"Oh, Timmy," she sighed. "I guess you've heard."

"I did. I'm sorry."

"I'm not. That lying, cheating, skirt-chasing bastard, shacking up with some 21-year-old slut. As if I don't know how to please a man in bed...well, YOU know that as well as anyone."

I conceded that I did. I found it interesting that for two years my aunt had been cheating on her husband with his own nephew, but not so interesting that I wanted to bring it up. I like breathing. "I'm guess I'm a bit surprised you and Aunt Billie worked together to catch them.""Why are you surprised?"

"Well, after all that happened, um, with me, I thought..."

"That was AGES ago," Aunt Jess said. "She's my best friend in the whole wide world! We hired the same lawyer, we might even take a condo together, two swinging single females jumping back into the dating scene...maybe you can take us out, show us all the hot spots."

"That might be a bit...dangerous."

"Until after the divorce is final, I think I see your point." There was a pause. "Honey, you won't tell on us, will you? Don and Carl are your direct relations, Billie and I are just the fools who married them. I hope you won't..."

"Tell the truth about you and me and Aunt Billie?"

Another pause. "Yes."

"I absolutely adore you and Aunt Billie, and I'll never do anything to hurt either of you. Plus there's the little fact that spilling the beans about us would pretty much destroy my life, so, yes, you're secret is safe with me. Short of torture, my lips are sealed."

"And what soft, kissable lips they are," she purred.

"Indeed," I said. " I think we probably don't want to start down that road."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd like to, but you know better, don't you, sexy?"

I finally managed to get off the phone without banging my head on the counter. I called Aunt Billie, received her thanks for my concern, and heard much the same story that Aunt Jess had told. She said, "I guess we're not going to be your aunts anymore."

"Nope," I said.

"That means we could have all sorts of fun together and it would be totally OK."

"I think if anyone found out we were sleeping together it would never, ever, be OK."

"I guess not," she sighed.

"I love you," I said, "and I love Aunt Jess, and if there's anything I can do for you, just ask."

"Come over here and fuck me."

"Except that."

When I hung up the phone my beer was warm from waiting in my hand too long. I poured it down the sink, opened my cupboard, and pulled out a dusty bottle of Jack Daniels. Tonight's news definitely called for whiskey, not beer. I drank nearly a whole highball before I fell sound asleep on the couch.

*****

Why do people get married? For love, sure. The merger of financial assets, yeah. To escape loneliness, perhaps. All of these reasons are perfectly reasonable. Getting married out of spite isn't. I think that's what Uncle Don and Uncle Carl did. Less than six months after getting caught in flagrante delicto, and getting reamed in the divorce settlement, both my uncles got remarried. Uncle Don married his secretary. Uncle Carl married Uncle Don's secretary's friend. I don't know how they figured out who got which girl, and I don't want to know, thank you very much.

The weddings were two weeks apart, enough time for Don and Traci to get back to from their honeymoon. I had too much fun at both weddings, there were lots of very pretty girls getting very drunk who were a bit jealous that their friend had just played Princess for a Day. I got some phone numbers, and, unfortunately, found out pretty soon that these were not the sort of girls I wanted to date. Too many nights bar-hopping and slugging down tequila shooters until 2AM. I mean, I have a job, dammit. I thought about Uncle Carl and Uncle Don keeping up with party girls half their age, and I wondered how long until I went to their funerals. But what the hell did I know? They seemed happy.

So did my sexy, seductive aunts. In the end, they didn't move in together, but they did spend a lot of time together, and neither seemed to be lacking in male companionship. It seemed like every time I saw Aunt Billie downtown she was walking to lunch with yet another handsome, sharply-dressed young man. When I would call Aunt Jess and tentatively ask if maybe she wanted to join me for dinner, nearly every time she couldn't because she had a date. And since her dates always had names like Austin and Tyler and Dylan, I assumed she was dating guys a bit closer to my age than my father's.

So everyone was happy, everyone had what they wanted, everyone was getting laid. A happy ending.

Well, except for me.

*****

You never get a sense for how fast the year is passing until the middle of November. Then, whoosh! You get the first hit on Thanksgiving, and then the mad rush to Christmas, and before you know it you're chug-a-lugging champagne New Year's Eve. The days just flash by.

In the middle of November I drove to my mother's house with a big cardboard box in the backseat. Inside was the Santa suit. "Not this year, no," I told her. "I've been the dutiful son, but I'm done."

"But honey!" she pleaded.

"No." My heart was flint, my answer final. My Santa days were over.

Until...the day before my mother's church group had their evening with Santa. And then she was on the phone, begging at first, and then demanding. What I should have done was bulked up like 30 pounds so the damn suit wouldn't fit anymore. But I hadn't thought that far ahead. There was nothing to do but bite the bullet. I would play Santa one last time, but that would be IT.

It was the worst night of my Santa career.

There were three times as many kids as the previous years. "St. Anne's hall is undergoing renovations, so we have kids from their parish too," Mom said, wincing as she saw the look on my face.

"There'd better be a Lexus under my tree this year," I told Mom. I walked through the hall, which was already half-filled with parents and kiddies waiting for Santa. I noticed a pretty young woman in a tan turtleneck sweater dandling a baby on her knee, she smiled at me and it eased my panicky heart. But then I turned the corner and there was Aunt Jess, looking hot and sexy as ever. And standing behind HER was Aunt Billie, absolutely radiant. I still called them "Aunt", at my mother's insistence. It also helped keep me focused on the fact that these gorgeous women were still totally out-of-bounds.

"You are an angel," Aunt Jess said, kissing my cheek.

"A saint," Aunt Billie said, kissing my other cheek.

"Bah, humbug!" I snarled. They let me get dressed in private, but when I was ready they both stood in the doorway, blocking me in.

"Are you as turned on as I am?" Aunt Jess said.

"Oh, yeah," Aunt Billie replied. "Maybe we could both give Santa a little present afterwards."

"Maybe," Aunt Jess agreed.

"You've gotta be kidding," I told them, hoping inside that they weren't kidding.

"We'll see, honey," Aunt Billie said. "Go do your thing."

My thing. I entered with a jolly, "Merrrrry Christmas!" and the kids went nuts. I mean, a wave of children surged toward me, and I was swamped by clutching, grabbing hands. And as I am very tall, and the kids are very small, those tiny hands and fists all seemed to be directed at my crotch.

"Ow! I, oof!" I grunted as my groin was pummeled. I tried to turn my hips to wade through the throng but all that did was expose myself to a new group of thrashing tykes. When I finally got to my chair there were tears in my eyes.

Before coming in the hall all the kids had gotten together and filled their pockets with rocks. They must have, because they fucking weighed more than ever. I had six-year-olds big enough to play junior-high football. I was in bad pain before I got halfway through the line. Add to that all the babies who, upon seeing a huge bearded man bellowing "HOHOHO", inevitably start screaming in terror, and you can understand why I was looking forward to a big glass of water and four Advil at night's end.

And then I saw him. The big, heavy kid who had nearly ruptured me the year before. "Wait," I stuttered. "He's too old, too old for Santa!" I guess he was seven now, with three chins and suet dripping off his chubby arms. I mean, if this kid wanted to dress up as Jabba the Hutt for Halloween the only costume he'd need would be a T-shirt that had "I am Jabba the Hutt" written across it. His parents were glutinous themselves, and as they approached they each took one of his hands and lifted him a few inches off the ground. They swung him, back and forth, back and forth, and then with a tremendous effort they hoisted him into the air. "No!" I squealed, but it was too late. They released him at the apex of the swing and the pudgebucket landed in my lap with all the finesse of a car pushed off the roof of a building. And, it seemed to my tender parts, all of the weight.

"Squeal!" I squealed as I was crushed like a grape. "I wanna Game Boy, and Spiderman action figures, and..." the greedy brat spouted, totally oblivious to the fact that I was writhing in pain. When he finished with his endless list he flopped off my lap and landed on my foot, and I swear I heard the cracking of my metatarsals.

I gasped for breath, tried not to vomit into my beard, tried not to burst into tears. And then I heard a gentle voice say, "Santa, are you OK?"

I looked up, and it was the pretty young woman I'd seen on the way in. Her light brown hair fell just short of her shoulders, and she had the kindest blue eyes in the world. She smiled at me and the world came back into focus.

I said, "The first thing they teach you at Santa school is never show fear."

She laughed. "The second one is probably wear body armor."

"I don't know, I dropped out after the first class." We all laughed, and that included the baby in the woman's arms. She gurgled happily and reached out to me. "My, my, a baby who isn't terrified of Santa!" I said.

"This is Lauren," the woman said, handing me her baby. "This is her first visit to Santa. She was too little last year."

"And what does Lauren want for Christmas? Diamonds? Furs? You look like the kind of baby who's into luxury goods."

"I think a teddy bear would be good enough," the woman said. "Can I take a picture?"

"Oh, sure." I held the baby as I'd held hundreds of babies over the years, but this one actually seemed to LIKE me. No screaming, no spitting up. She even laughed. I was totally charmed.

"Thank you, Santa," the woman said, and I handed Lauren back to her. We stood there looking at each other for a few seconds, it was like she wanted to say something. I wanted to say something too, like "I think you're the most beautiful woman I've seen in my entire life," but I've learned that getting involved with married women is bad news. So she thanked me, and I hohohoed, and I wistfully watched her and her daughter walk away.

The assembly line cranked on, and a half-hour later it was over. I looked over the hall and saw my Aunt Billie talking to my mother, the two of them filling a trash can with napkins and paper plates. And then look looked left and saw Aunt Jess talking to a girl wearing a tan turtleneck sweater. I nearly jumped out of my chair. She was still here! Aunt Jess was smiling at the baby, they were laughing, and then I watched my aunt and the young woman walk over to where my mom and Aunt Billie stood. They all started talking, about what I didn't know, but what I wanted desperately to find out.

I rushed to the anteroom and started shedding my suit. I didn't bother boxing it up, I wanted to change fast and see what was going on. But before I was done Mom came in. "I'm going home, honey. Your aunts said they were going to take you out to dinner for being so helpful."

Right, dinner. "Hey, I saw you talking to a girl out there, she had a baby, what were you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know, I just said hello and came to see you. And now that I've seen you," she said, and hugged me, "I'll say goodnight. And, thank you very, very much."

"You owe me. Bigtime."

"Christmas is coming," she sang, and she left.

To be replaced five seconds later by Aunt Jess and Aunt Billie. "Hi Santa baby," they said in unison. Before I could speak Aunt Jess said, "The hall is almost cleared out. Why don't you wait here for about fifteen minutes..."

"And we'll have a big surprise waiting for you..." Aunt Billie finished.

"No, wait, I just want to go home!" But they were gone. I had to say no to them, I had to resist them. But the chisel in my pants told me that I wouldn't be able to. I sighed, somewhat disgusted with myself. I was a bit surprised that my ex-aunts hadn't told me to get back into costume. Maybe they forgot.

I waited fifteen minutes, and then I went out to meet my fate. I carried the box with the Santa suit under my arm, just in case I had to do a quick-change. The hall was dark and quiet, as it had the times Aunt Jess and I did our dirty business. "Hello?" I sighed.

A quiet voice said, "Hi." I whirled and sitting by the door was the pretty girl with the baby.

I was flabbergasted. "Hi." I didn't know what to say. What the hell was she doing here? Where were my aunts? It didn't look like she knew what to say either. She stood up and the baby saved us both. Lauren saw me and squealed with delight.

"Yes, it's me, Santa, in disguise!" I said, and her mother laughed.

"I was talking to your mother, and your aunts," she said. "Well, they were talking to me."

"I bet they were. What about?"

"I said how good you were with Lauren, and your aunt pretty much dragged me over to meet your mother. They all said some very nice things about you."

"Some of them even true." I was confused and thrilled at the same time. She was so pretty, my heart was going a mile a minute, but what could come of it?

"I saw you when you came in, and..."

"I saw you too," I said quietly.

"Yes, you did."

We were flirting with each other, and my confusion grew. Unless..."Lauren's daddy couldn't come with you tonight?" I asked.

She smiled and seemed relieved that I'd brought the subject up. "No. Lauren's daddy really isn't in the picture." She blushed, embarrassed that she put it that bluntly.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not."

We moved closer to each other, just a bit. "Well, then I feel a lot better about asking you out on a date."

Her blue eyes hypnotized me. "I'd like that."

"Oh," I said, remembering an important point of etiquette. "I'm Tim."

She took my extended hand and the world tilted and whirled around me. "I'm Holly."

"Well, that's Santa's favorite name!" I rumbled in my St. Nick voice. Lauren perked up and giggled, and I shook her tiny hand. "You, I've already met."

I walked her to her car, which was the only on left in the lot besides mine. "Did my aunts tell you to wait for me?"

"They did," she said with a guilty smile. "I guess I mentioned that I thought you were cute, and I wanted to talk to you without all those people around."

My scheming aunts, teasing me with the specter of seduction so they could play matchmaker. "I should warn you, those two are trouble."

"They seemed very nice to me."

"Don't believe it for a second." I felt the butterflies pick up the pace in my belly. "Are you doing anything tomorrow night? Maybe go to dinner, heckle the Santa at the mall?"

She finished buckling Lauren into her car seat and turned around and suddenly we were standing right next to each other. "Call me, I think my parents can watch Lauren."

"Bring her along, we get along pretty good."

She smiled. "I don't think so."

"Probably a bad idea." I got her phone number, she took mine, and I held the door open as she got into the car. I watched her taillights vanish into the distance and felt like I could fly home. But I didn't want to leave my car behind, so I drove. At home I found two messages waiting for me, one from Aunt Jess, one from Aunt Billie, both desperate for news about Holly. I erased both messages and took the phone off the hook. Let me drive them crazy for a change. I popped open a beer, put on some carols, and wallowed in my Christmas cheer.

*****

I should have apologized to my Uncle Carl and Uncle Don for the seating arrangements at my wedding, but I never got around to it. I invited my uncles and their new wives, of course, but I also invited Aunt Jess and Aunt Billie. I knew the potential for fireworks was high having them all in the same room, so I put my aunts at table 3 and my uncles at table 15, figuring that would keep them far apart. No such luck. Somehow their tables abutted each other, and from my place of honor up on the dais I could see myriad aunts and uncles staring daggers at each other.

"When the fighting starts, you don't get involved," my wife said. "That's what your groomsmen are for."

It didn't come down to that, thankfully. Once dinner was served the warring factions adjourned to different corners of the ballroom. I couldn't be bothered with such petty familial in-fighting. I just wanted to have some fun, get the hell out of there, and spend the week alone with my wife. Lauren was playing with my niece and nephew, everyone was drinking and having fun, and once the party reached a certain critical mass, I'd told my wife, "We're outta there."

"Deal," she said.

But of course it didn't turn out that way, we had too much fun to walk out. I watched as my two sexy aunts took turns dancing with my tuxedoed friends, obviously enjoying the attention of so many handsome young men. But during one slow song there was a tap on my shoulder and it was Aunt Jess. "I think I get one dance," she said, and Holly sighed and said, "Be careful, he has two left feet."

"I do not," I said, indignant. "I dance divinely." I took Aunt Jess in my arms and she said, "Aren't you going to thank me?"

"For what?"

"For introducing you to Holly."

"I think Holly deserves most of the credit, but I guess you deserve an assist. Thank you."

She kissed my cheek. "You're welcome." We danced a bit more and she said. "You never told her about us, did you?"

"Hell no, of course not!"

Aunt Jess laughed. "Keeping secrets from your wife, not a good sign." I let it slide. Then she said, "You're friend Peter, he's a nice guy?"

"Yeah..."

"Does he have a girlfriend?"

This sounded ominous. "No...why?"

"Because I'm going to seduce him and fuck him tonight, and I want to make sure he's worth the trouble." She kissed me and left me sputtering. Before I could pursue her Aunt Billie stepped into my arms. "You still haven't thanked me for introducing you to Holly."

"Um, well...thank you. " No use splitting hairs again.

"You didn't tell Holly that you and I slept together, right?"

"Funny, she never asked me if I've ever committed incest with my aunts," I whispered.

She laughed. "Hey, you never know what husbands tell their wives. I just wanted to make sure." I spun her left and she looked over my shoulder. "Your friend David is a very good dancer. I can't believe such a good-looking guy doesn't have a girlfriend."

Uh-oh. "He did, but they split up awhile ago."

"Oh, that's too bad." We danced a few seconds more before she said, "I should tell you, I'm going to be spending the night with David tonight."

"Why would you want to tell me that?" I whined.

"Because I'm going to fuck one of your friends, and I'm sure he'll tell you, and I don't want to be shocked when you find out."

"I'm shocked now!"

"But it's me telling you, honey." She kissed my cheek. "Go find your wife."

I found Holly and never left her side the rest of the night. I tried to ignore my aunts slow-dancing all night with their selected victims, but it was hard. At the end of the night, when Holly and I said our good-byes, I had two brief conversations with Pete and Dave.

"Your Aunt Jess is nice," Pete said. "She's pretty hot, too."

"Your Aunt Billie is hot," Dave said. "She's pretty nice, too."

Guys, you have no idea, I thought. But you will, you will. "Have a good night, guys," I told my friends, hugged my parents, and we got the hell out of there.

In the elevator Holly said, "Finally, we can consummate this marriage."

My brows rose. "Now, that sounds nice."

"I just want to get out of this dress and get naked!"

"That sounds even nicer."

"I just hate wearing something this heavy. I can understand why wearing that Santa costume used to bug you so much.""Yeah," I said. We kissed, passionately. "I want you to make love to me," my wife said.

"We will," I promised, and we kissed again. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No. We're married now. No more questions."

"Smartass. No, did seeing me in the Santa suit...did that ever turn you on?"

"What? You mean, like did I ever fantasize about Santa Claus?"

"Yeah. You know, sitting in his lap, doing something fun to make sure he brought you everything you wanted..."

She laughed. "You kinky little boy. I hate to disappoint you, but I was always terrified of Santa Claus. So, sorry, I don't think we'll be playing any games with you in your Santa suit."

The elevator dinged, and I kissed her one last time. No doubt about it, I definitely married the right girl.

*****

We got back from our honeymoon tan, relaxed and, as it turned out, pregnant. We dumped our suitcases before going to pick up Lauren. Holly wanted to use the bathroom, and while she did that I checked our answering machine. Four messages, one confirming a dental appointment I had on Tuesday, one asking if we wanted to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. The other two were virtually identical in tone and wording.

"Uh, Tim, it's Pete/Dave. Look, um, I need to talk to you, uh, something happened the night of your wedding, um, uh, I should probably talk to you about it. It's not bad, nothing bad, really, everything's fine, but, uh, call me when you get in."

Holly came in to find me deleting the messages. "Who called?"

"No one. Just junk." I followed my wife to the car and we headed to her mother's house to pick up our daughter. As I drove I thought about my two naughty aunts, my two sexy, lusty aunts who still found ways to complicate my life. Then again, they also helped me find the girl sitting next to me. Well, call it even, I thought to myself.

"You look so serious," Holly said. "Penny for your thoughts?"

I laughed and took her hand in mine. "Not for a million bucks, baby."