Christmas on Crack (4 page)

Simon
gulped. “You mean
St. Petersburg
?”

“Yeah,”
Aleph said. “If that happens again, we’re all fucked. You’ll be fired and I’ll
be licking the pecker snot off the floor of the Yuletide whorehouses. I’m not
doing that.” Aleph turned and started to the door. “Never again.”

IX.

Santa
woke up and realized that he had been moved out of the taffy bed.

He
was now lying on his back, his head enclosed in a wooden box. There was a round
hole on top covered with black silk. The whole thing sort of looked familiar to
him. What did it remind him of?

Oh
yeah. A toilet.

He
tried moving his arms and legs but found them dead.
I’m trapped in a fucking toilet.

Through
the wooden box, he heard the clip-clop of Kay’s high heels. Here she comes
again, coming to continue her sexy torture.

Clip-Clop.
Clip-Clop.

She
was getting closer.

CLIP-clop.

She
was only a few feet of way.

CLIP-CLOP.
CLIP-CLOP.

Then
another sound: Kay clearing her throat.

Santa
squinted when the black silk was moved. Through the squinting, Kay’s face
appeared above the hole, like an angel framed by a halo. His eyes moved to her
stunning cleavage.

Then
Kay smirked, cleared her throat a little more, and then spat on his face. The
gob of phlegm splattered against his nose, clogging his nostrils.

“Rise
and shine, honey bunch,” she said. “I hope you appreciate my morning
throat-jelly.” Kay cleared her throat again and spat onto Santa’s lips. “Taste
good?”

Santa
tried moving his face to get the mess off him but to no avail.

Kay
said, “I know you’re probably worried about not being able to move your arms
and legs and I’m real sorry I had to do that. It’s temporary or at least it
should be. I used some venom I took out of the black belly of a tarantula and
it’s usually pretty harmless in the long run. Usually.”

Santa
felt weird talking to her while his head was trapped in the wooden box but he
said, “Where am I? What are you doing to me?” Her loogie dripped from his lips
into his mouth and Santa swallowed reluctantly. It tasted like gooey
mint-flavored jam.

“The
answer to your first question, well, you’re in my bitch-box. I suppose your
next question would be ‘what’s a bitch-box?’ so I guess I’ll answer that one,
too. A bitch- box is a box where I keep my bitches. And you’re my bitch now.
And to answer your other question, about what I’m going to do to you.. .I’ll
let you figure that one out. I’ll just have a seat while you think about it.”

And
with that, Kay moved her face away from the hole and stood up. She pulled up
her skirt, pulled down her pantyhose, and placed her pale, plump ass onto the
hole, blocking out the light and giving Santa an intimate view of her anus.

Goddamn,
you’re kidding me, right?

He
stared at her brown pucker, hoping to somehow get her off the box using only
his willpower.

But
then her anus winked at him.

“Time’s
up,” Kay said.

Santa’s
throat constricted. He closed his eyes.

Oh no.
No. No. No.

X.

It only
took Aleph a half hour to give Mrs. Claus the paperwork. She had been
surprised how fast they worked but then she remembered the elves had the
ability to teleport or something.

After
only five minutes of reading through the details, Diana decided to go through
with having her husband killed. If the proposed timeline Aleph gave her was to
be believed, Santa Claus would be dead within the hour.

“You’re
sure?” Aleph said.

“Yes.”

“If
you look at page thirteen, you’ll see the choices of termination.”

Diana
flipped to the page and saw the list of ways Santa could be killed. Poisoning.
Strangulation. Stabbing. Shooting. Dismemberment. Drowning. Electrocution. Fake
suicide. Car accident. Pushed off roof. Bludgeoning. Suffocation. Slow
torture. Killer bees. Rabid raccoon. Throat cutting. Heart attack. Death by
tiger.

Then
there were the disclosure details. Did she want her husband to know why he was
being killed? If so, did she want it recorded in any way? Did she want to be
there? Also, what did she want done with the body? There were myriad choices
for her to choose from but it didn’t take her long to decide.

“I
want you to tell him that I hired you. Then I want him beaten up a little bit
and then killed somewhat painlessly. I want the woman dead, too. Just dump
their bodies somewhere. In the ocean or something.”

Aleph
said, “The woman, too? Are you sure? We couldn’t find any details on her so I
can’t say for sure if she even knows he’s married.”

“I
don’t care. I’m sick of these stupid sluts fucking anything that moves. They
don’t care if the guy’s married or anything. You’ll be doing the world a
favor.”

“Then
consider it done,” Aleph said. He was a little apprehensive about killing the
woman, not because he had any sort of moral objection to it but because there
was something strange about her, something dangerous, and it could all come
back to bite him in the ass.

XI.

Aleph
watched the woman leave the house.

Through
his team of surveillance experts, he found out the woman’s name was Kay but
that was just about all they found out. There was something about the house
that made their surveillance tactics fail on almost every occasion. To make
matters worse, nowhere could they find a date of birth, employment history, or
anything that any normal human has in terms of a history.

Aleph
was bothered by something else. If Santa was having an affair with the woman,
why didn’t he go with her when she left the house?

Maybe he wasn’t having an affair with her. Maybe
___

She’s holding
Santa Claus against his will. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

It
would make sense why his scouts hadn’t seen the man ever since he had met the
woman. Could he just be hiding out in the house enjoying post-coital bliss?
Maybe. But Aleph’s instincts told him there was something else. It was
important that he find out what that was because if Santa was not being
unfaithful, that would change the business arrangement with Mrs. Claus.

Aleph
spoke telepathically to his partner Dali who was stationed behind the house.
“New plan. Find a way into the house,
identify our target, and verify if the infidelity was consensual. ”

Dali
answered.
“Will
do. You suspect something?”

“Maybe.
Something doesn’t seem right. I’m not sure our target wants to be in that house.
”

“And if
that’s the case?”

“If
that’s the case, you let me know and I’ll make an executive decision to cancel
the hit on our target. I imagine our client will want the woman neutralized but
I’ll have to verify that. ”

“Okay.
I’m proceeding into the house right now. ”

“Be
careful, Dali. ”

“Always
am. ”

XII.

Dali
entered the backdoor of Kay’s house and tripped over a shoebox. Like a cat, he
soundlessly caught himself before he fell.

He
slowly tip-toed across the floor and perused the room in order to gain more
information about the woman who may or may not have kidnapped Santa Claus.

It
looked like the typical living room of a single woman except for one thing. In
the middle of the floor between the couch and the television, there was a giant
snail shell covered in thick, red spirals.

Dali
shuddered when he looked at the snail shell. There was something
wrong
about it and it wasn’t because it was
so out of place. The snail shell started to pulsate and hum.

What
the fuck?

Dali
quickly slid across the floor away from the shell. He wanted to find Santa
Claus and be done with the whole assignment. The humming got louder even though

Dali was
getting farther away from the shell. When he made it to the last room down the
hallway, the hum was nearly deafening.

Though
it was probably not the stealthiest of moves, he barged into the room. He could
sense there was someone else in there with him but he didn’t see anyone because
of the darkness.

Then
a muffled voice said, “Let me outta here!”

XIII.

Smitty
had never seen Diana so angry.

Sure,
he knew that Santa’s past indiscretions had affected her but he had been
hoping that she’d get over it. He’d also been hoping that the whole thing with
the Elves of Fuck was just a coping mechanism, a ritual to help her through the
pain and paranoia before she called the whole thing off.

But
that wasn’t the case.

She
was really going to have her husband killed. He almost felt like he should do
something about it.

It
wasn’t that Smitty cared that much about Santa Claus. The truth was the guy was
a real asshole, especially to Smitty. It was no secret that Santa didn’t like
animals. He hated having to rely on the reindeer and had, on more than one
occasion, been accused of abusing them. So when Smitty arrived in the North
Pole, the big man didn’t take too kindly to a hairy humanoid squid making
friends with Mrs. Claus.

So
now Smitty had to deal with his conflicting emotions. On one hand, he didn’t
want Diana to have to deal with such a bastard of a husband. On the other hand,
the death of Santa Claus would bring about a whole shit storm of trouble for
the entire North Pole.

What
bothered Smitty the most was the kids. Though he himself never celebrated
Christmas, he loved hearing how the holiday brought such happiness to the
children of the world. He wasn’t even jealous about it. He sincerely enjoyed
seeing others happy, especially innocent children.

Smitty
saw Diana in front of the toyshop. She was smoking again, which was a bad sign.
He slowly approached her and said, “Hey.”

Diana
quickly flicked the cigarette into a pile of snow. “Oh, hey Smitty.”

“Back
to smoking, I see.”

She
frowned. “Sorry.”

“You’re
a big girl. You can do what you want but you know those things are no good for
you.”

“Neither
is a shitty husband.”

Smitty
looked her straight in the eyes.

“But
you’re taking care of that, aren’t you?”

“Oh
my god, Smitty, you’re really going to give me a guilt trip now? You know the
shit I’ve been through and you’re going to make me feel guilty about finally
taking a stand?”

Smitty
turned his back to her and was silent for a few seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to be so nasty. I guess it’s just that I disagree with what you decided to
do.”

“You
don’t have to agree, Smitty. It’s not your marriage. Not your life. You can
leave here and it won’t make a difference to you. But me? I have to stay.”

“Do
you want me to leave, Diana?” Smitty said. His tentacles spread out into the
snow like a bridal gown. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know that’s not what I

meant,”
Diana said. “I’m tied down to this place. You’re free to go wherever you
please. I’m not saying I want you to go. I’m just saying that’s how it is.”

Smitty
moved a hairy tentacle up to Diana’s face. “I know. I’m sorry. I just wish
there was some other way to straighten this whole thing out.”

“Me
too. You don’t think I’ve thought about it? I have. I’ve spent months trying to
figure out another solution but that bastard just makes it difficult for me.
What’s done is done. There’s no going back.”

“That’s
what I’m afraid of,” Smitty said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”