New Story: Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 3)

The final part of the Christmas Special.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 3)

(Christmas 2010)

The party was hitting full force. Little radiated more energy than a large group of college students past their final what-not—exams, projects, papers—and needing to unwind after a stressful session. The music was harsh and loud and assaulted the senses even more than the lighting and the crush of bodies as one walked through the dance area. Alcohol flowed freely.

Daniel Malcolm was nursing a dark beer he had pilfered from a table set up for that purpose at one end of the large basement room the party organizers had commandeered, somewhere in a half-abandoned building on campus. It was not a rave but it had been orchestrated as one, with its location advertised by word of mouth. Daniel suspected that the University knew about the party; while they could not officially sanction it for all the obvious reasons, it was better to have such an event occur under quasi-supervision rather than having it take place completely outside its jurisdiction. The two dead giveaways were the near total lack of freshmen, and the absence of drugs.

“I find it somewhat unexpected that there is a preponderance of alcoholic beverages over hallucinogenic and mind-altering substances at this event,” said Radhu Krishnamurthy quizzically, not for the first time voicing exactly what had been going through Daniel’s mind. Then again, perhaps I’m not very good at hiding what I think, he reflected. Jenn certainly seems to think so.

The though of his brand new girlfriend—Jennifer Hansen, smart, sexy, beautiful, wholly undeserved, and conspicuously absent from this Holiday party, the last before everyone split off to their respective family homes for Winter Break—made his heart ache. Which surprised him. He itched to call her again, the fourth time this evening, but was fighting hard not to. Appearing too needy was never a smart way to go. Calling a few times to tell her he missed her already was cute and romantic—sentimental, he could almost hear her correct him, a smile in her voice—but more than that was pathetic.

He turned instead to his Indian friend, tall and lanky and holding a glass of punch whose neon color gave no clue as to its ingredients but suggested nothing healthy. Radhu did not take well to alcohol. It made his already idiosyncratic behavior even more… idiosyncratic.

“Perhaps I should venture to dance tonight,” Radhu said, and Daniel feared that his friend was serious. Daniel had seen Radhu dance before. He was actually a good dancer, unexpectedly so given his gangly body. He had learned to dance watching Bollywood movies, Radhu had told him early in their freshman year when they lived on the same dormitory floor. But Bollywood-style choreography did not mesh well with the mosh-pit slamming that passed for dancing at this point of the party.

“Maybe you can do that later, Rad.”

“Very well. You look absent, Daniel. Are you thinking of Jennifer again?”

Daniel sighed. Radhu was perceptive, in his own way. “Yeah. Guilty. I miss her. Weird, I know. But there it is. She’s off to her mother for the break, and wanted to leave early to beat the storm.”

“Snopocalypse. It does sound pleasantly apocalyptic.”

“I’d argue your use of pleasant when my girlfriend’s on a Greyhound heading north.”

“I was referring to the lexical entity, not the denotation of said lexical entity, but fair point.”

Two month. He and Jenn had been dating two months now, and he already had her under his skin. He was hooked, and hooked bad, his stepbrother would have called it. And Daniel could not deny it. While they did not spend every minute of every day together, she was never far from his mind. They talked several hours every day, either in person or on the phone or via chat. It scared him a bit, too, this longing he felt that he had not know could be triggered in him. She seemed to feel the same—that by itself Daniel found astonishing—but she also took it in stride, as if she had always expected to feel that way and was merely glad it happened with him.

“Jeez, are you already pinning for her? It’s been what, an hour?” came the mocking voice from his left. “You’re pussy-whipped but good, boy!”

Daniel grinned. Only one person could wield that combination of come-hither and mocking in a single voice. Serena Banks strode toward him in a pair of jeans that looked like their were sprayed on and a tank top that left little of what it was meant to cover to the imagination. The top was white and stood out delightfully against her dark skin. With her long hair, full lips, and more curves than anyone would know how to handle, she was sexy, she knew it, and took full advantage.

She was studying journalism, and worked at the University paper. And she was good at it. Although how much investigative reporting one could do in a small town lost in the middle of nowhere New England remained up for debate.

“Hey Serena. How are you?” he greeted her, raising his bottle to bang it against what looked like an oversized cocktail glass. How did she manage to find a cocktail here?

“Fucking elated,” she said. “Term paper for Media During Reagan submitted and out of my face forever. Can’t help but wonder how things would have gone if we had the Internet back then. What do you think, Rad?” She asked the lanky Indian.

Radhu had still not said a word. He was gaping like a lost puppy, not an atypical reaction of his to Serena’s presence. That Radhu had a crush on the black journalism student was the worst kept secret, although everyone acted as though they did not know, Serena first. But she liked teasing the poor boy.

Daniel had asked her point blank once whether she would ever date Radhu. She had merely shrugged. “If he ever gets the balls to ask me out, we’ll see. I am curious whether he’s long and thin all over.”

And so Daniel had been pushing Radhu to ask Serena out. But he resisted—Daniel suspected that Radhu not only feared rejection but also acceptance. He worried what he would have to do on a date with her. Somehow, pining for Serena felt safer than dating her.

“Rad,” said Daniel, subtly kicking his friend whose gaze was threatening to dip down to the generous cleavage of Serena’s tank top. “Hypothetical: how would the 1980’s presidential elections have differed had the Internet been around?”

The direct question snapped Radhu out of his reverie.

“Oh. Well, I would submit that the results would have been sensibly similar. Ronald Reagan had a strong following, that is undeniable, and the Internet would have undoubtedly exacerbated the outpouring of support. The main impediment to the Reagan campaign I would surmise would have been his behavior during his Hollywood years, from which secrets might have emerged. I am basing this on the assumption that the Internet would have fostered the release of information from those years, not unlike what happened to Rock Hudson whose secrets came to light once there was a vector on which to promulgate them. I posit that these two conflicting directions would have annihilated each other.”

Serena made a face. “I wonder if the added scrutiny would have picked up on the fact that he had Alzheimer’s?”

Radhu arched an eyebrow in a way that Daniel could not help but find highly amusing. “There is no proof that Reagan was ill during his presidency.”

Serena grunted. “What about falling asleep at meetings?”

“I will offer the evidence of your own falling asleep in class as the first exhibit in a counter-argument. Do you believe you have Alzheimer’s disease?”

Before the conversation could degenerate further, Serena squealed as a pair of large hands grabbed her breasts from behind. “Guess who?” came a drunken voice.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Serena grinned, wrapping her hands over the man’s, and pressing them more firmly over her large breasts. “You got here before my boyfriend, so you get the spoils. Wanna fuck?”

“Wait, what?” came the man’s confused voice. Serena turned around and kissed the man, who was about the same height as her but twice her width—a mountain of muscles, and not much else. Serena’s current boyfriend.

Daniel shook his head and smiled. Serena liked sex, and liked it with a particular class of men: big and strong. And dumb as doorknobs, Jenn would have added.

Radhu, meanwhile, watched with longing in his eyes Serena kiss her boyfriend—all of a week old, and with probably a week or so to go—and watched the man’s hands dip down to Serena’s ass to squeeze it.

“I’m gonna go dance with my man,” Serena said over her shoulder. “You boys behave. And you,” she said to Daniel, “quit sulking. You’ll see your little sexpot soon enough. Ta!”

Daniel and Radhu watched her sashay her way through the crowd, her boyfriend trailing behind her.

“Special, isn’t she?” Daniel said to Radhu. It was a rhetorical question.

“That she is,” Radhu replied, wonder in his voice.


* * *


Daniel did not last more than twenty more minutes before calling it a night. His melancholy mood was not helped by the people and the music and the thrumming of the bass in his bones, and the last thing he wanted was to be a downer to his friends.

Radhu had run into a fellow student from one of his Computer Science classes, and they soon became engrossed in what Daniel guessed was the redesign of a popular online role-playing game. Serena had gone off in a corner to make out with her boyfriend, and while she had always made it clear that he would be welcome in a threesome, not only did Daniel not particularly want to join in, but he surmised that Serena’s new boyfriend would consider such an intrusion as the perfect opportunity to see if it was possible to rip a body in two like a telephone book.

It was a half-hour walk back to his dormitory, and while the night was not especially cold for December, the snow fell thick and heavy, the wind sending it twirling around the trees. He walked and listened to the silence all around him, that special silence that only a snow-blanketed night could provide. He wondered whether Jenn was okay, whether the snow would make the bus drive treacherous, familiar as he was with New England winters—but then, so was she. He fought back the urge to call her. He even shut off his phone to avoid the temptation.

The lobby of his dormitory was empty, most of the students having already left for the Holidays. Daniel was scheduled to depart in two days himself, but he felt less drive than usual. His mother and his stepfather Gerald had left for the Bahamas to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. He had been invited, as had his stepbrother Sam. The sixteen year old Sam had jumped at the opportunity to go off and hang out on the beach and ogle beautiful bodies.

Daniel understood that impulse, of course—though his own preferences ran to female bodies as opposed to male bodies, unlike Sam—but he had no desire to spend Christmas in the Caribbean. There was too much for him to do over the break—he was doing some undergraduate research work for one of his Foreign Policy teachers that he hoped would help him land an internship in DC come summer—and the thought of being out in the sun while he missed Jenn felt strangely like a betrayal. And so he was heading down to spend the Holidays with his aunt Selma and her family.

He opened the door to the rooms he shared with Jimmy, a quiet and shy sophomore. Daniel had lucked out: Jimmy was the perfect roommate. Daniel wandered whether the feeling was shared. He thought he was pretty easy-going as a roommate, but it was difficult to be objective about such a thing.

There was a light coming from Jimmy’s room, and Daniel expected him to be playing a video game, as he was wont to do most nights.

“Hey Jimmy,” he said. No response. He poked his head through the door, and saw Jimmy at his desk, his oversized headphones dwarfing his head, his eyes closed, his arm pumping up and down in a characteristic fashion with a hand in his lap.

He was masturbating.

Daniel grinned and silently stepped away from Jimmy’s door and headed to his room.

His room was small, but he had grown to like it. A bed against the wall, a working desk with his laptop at its foot, a small nightstand. A small bookshelf, a dresser. It was small but cozy, and he had decorated it in a way that reminded him of home.

He eschewed the harsh overhead light for the small lamp on his desk that gave the soothing warm glow he preferred, and wondered what he would do for the rest of the night. He was not sleepy. Watch television? Read a book? Stare at the walls? Maybe Jimmy had the right idea and he should masturbate.

He turned on the radio, and selected a soft rock channel. Soul music. Romantic. Mellow. Exactly his mood.

“Hello lover.”

Daniel jumped at the sound of the voice, nearly smashing his head against a hanging shelf by his desk.

He spun around, his heart in his throat.

Jenn was there, leaning against the door, dressed in a way that cause his breath to catch. If one imagined a sexy Christmas-themed costume, it would come close to what she wore: a short red tunic with a large black belt, fur-trimmed, zipped up but leaving a cleavage that rivaled the one that Serena was sporting earlier that evening. Her perfect legs looked like they were bare at first, but close attention hinted at the presence of a thin pair of nude stockings. The outfit was topped off by a pair of black boots with a stiletto heel. In a word, she was stunning. And more importantly, she was there.

“What… what are you doing here? I thought…”

She grinned, and shrugged. She had a red Santa Claus hat on her head. “Weather sucked. They canceled all bus routes for the night, and we may not even be able to leave tomorrow if the snow’s too bad. I figured you wouldn’t mind me dropping by and surprising you.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“And miss that expression on your face? Let me tell you, you do know how to make a girl feel pretty.”

“Trust me, it’s no hardship. You look… you look beautiful!”

“You are so sweet. And that deserves a reward.”

“Does it now?”

“Oh yes.” She pushed back from the door and walked towards him, slowly, making sure to swing her hip like a model on a catwalk.

The radio played its part. It was playing an old ballad, one that Daniel had always liked, that he had first heard on that sitcom that first introduced Michael J. Fox to the world, before Back to the Future.

What did you think

I would do at this moment

When you’re standing before me

With tears in your eyes

“Care to dance?” Jenn asked, a step away from him. He wanted to kiss so badly that it was almost enticing for him to postpone that pleasure.

“I’d love to.”

She slipped into his arms as if it was the most natural place in the world for her to be, and as far as Daniel was concerned, at this moment, in this place, it was. He took her in his arms, and there she was, tight and smooth and perfect. She put her head on his shoulder, and molded herself against him.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Your roommate won’t bother us. I slipped my panties on your doorknob.”

“You did what?”

“I slipped my panties over your doorknob. You know, to tell him that we’re busy and not to come in? Isn’t that what you boys do?”

“Generally, we use socks.”

“Ah. Well, I didn’t have any socks.”

Visions of Jenn naked beneath her tunic swirled in his mind. He wanted to grab her and throw her onto the bed and mount her like an animal. But he controlled himself.

Instead, they danced.

It was foreplay.

“I love this song,” she whispered against him. “Always have.”

He did not expect that. “So do I. You know it?”

“Of course. Family Ties.”

“The episode where Alex gets his first girlfriend—wait, what was her name?”

“Ellen. They danced to this song, and they kissed.”

“I remember. Mushy.”

Jenn lifted her head from his shoulder, and looked him in the eyes. The doused light from his lamp cast a shadow on her face, which he could not read. “Yeah. My mom always thought it was romantic. I thought it was sentimental.”

“Lovey-dovey.”

“Schmaltzy.”

“Who does that anyway?”

“Losers, clearly.”

He leaned toward her, and they kissed, a slow kiss that did not keep them from dancing, body against body. Daniel did not want to break the mood, but also wanted to run his hands down his girlfriend’s body and go explore for himself her lack of underwear. He was getting hard. And Jenn felt it.

“Someone’s happy,” she grinned, breaking the kiss, but remaining pressed against him. She shifted her hips against his erection.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I sort of didn’t think I’d see you for a while.”

“And you were thinking of sporting this monster for the whole vacation? Sounds painful.”

“No, but it did cross my mind to…” he almost blushed.

“Oh. I see. Want some help?” The way she said it made his cock even harder. “Mrs. Claus is feeling naughty tonight, what with Santa out on his trek around the world. She needs some attention.”

He kissed her again, and ran his hand down to her ass, under her tunic, luxuriating in the feeling of her naked cheeks, and confirming the absence of any underwear. Stretching he managed to run a finger down between her thighs and just tickle her slit from behind. He was not surprised to find her wet—Jenn got aroused easily.

“Someone’s being naughty,” she said with a shiver in her voice.

“Look who’s talking, Mrs. Claus. You’re drenched.”

“It gets so lonely at the North Pole when Santa’s gone. What’s a sex-starved woman to do?”

“I guess she’d have to find a man…”

“That’s why she dresses like a slut. It makes men hard. And when men are hard, they want to fuck her.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. She can tell when she looks in their eyes. They want to spread her legs as wide as they go and pound her into submission. And you know what?”

“What?”

She finished off whispering in his ear. “Mrs. Claus loves being pounded into submission.”

Daniel groaned, and Jenn laughed as she pushed both of them onto the bed. Daniel landed on his back, and Jenn straddled him, surprisingly nimble in her stiletto boots.

She kissed him hard, pressing her ass against his crotch, and he responded by putting one hand behind her head to keep her in place and using his free hand to flip her short tunic onto her back, baring her ass.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she moaned.

“Just providing better access.”

“You perv!”

“I’m not the one who showed up here like a wanton Mrs. Claus, am I?”

“I don’t see you—or feel you—complaining.” She punctuated her statement by pressing her crotch against his cock. Before Daniel could react, she slipped by his side and unfastened his trousers. “Your roommate didn’t seem to complain either.”

“So he’s the one that let you in then? I’ll bet he didn’t complain. I’ll have to have a little talk with him about rules. Oh fuck!”

Jenn had pulled his cock out and grasped it with a cold hand before running that hand up and down, slowly. Daniel closed his eyes and sank into the feeling.

“Don’t be mad at him,” she smiled as she stroked him, one of her legs draped over his. She was gently humping him, and that movement by itself was enough to drive Daniel wild. “He didn’t have much choice. I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

“I’m sure,” Daniel moaned. He could just imagine Jimmy opening the door to the vision of loveliness that was Jenn. Jimmy had met her before, of course—but never when she was dressed like she was out looking for a wild time

He also had a pretty good idea what Jimmy had been jerking off to now, and Daniel did not quite know how to feel about that. On the one hand, there was pride kicking hard, that he had landed such a hot girl that his roommate masturbated to her memory. On the other, it was disconcerting that he was, and Daniel almost felt dirty because of it.

Jenn was jacking him off slowly, her eyes closed, unaware of what he was thinking. Or maybe she did.

“He was so cute. He couldn’t help staring at my legs, his mouth hanging open almost the whole time. Just adorable.”

She might as well have been talking about a puppy rather than a man ogling her, though Jimmy was admittedly inoffensive.

Jenn’s hand on Daniel’s cock danced up and down. “He let me come into your room and wait for you. But I feel bad now. Perhaps I should have waited out there, with him. I don’t know, maybe given him a little bit of Christmas cheer too. After all, that’s what Mrs. Claus does, no?”

“What do you mean?” He was having difficulty thinking, and Jenn had a way with words, and her voice was soothing and her hand was maddening. He wanted to flip her back onto the bed and fuck her, and at the same time wanted nothing more than just lie back and let her take him wherever she wanted him to go.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should have sat down on the couch with him? He’d have offered me tea, or something to drink—I don’t think he’d have tried to get me drunk, but maybe. And while drinking that tea, making sure I wasn’t burning myself, my tunic probably would have ridden up, and maybe just maybe I would have been distracted enough to not notice how I was spreading my legs and he would have gotten a peek of the pretty little G-string I wore for you tonight.” Her hand was stroking him faster now—did she pull out some lubricating gel without him noticing? Her hand felt wet.

“Except I didn’t get to see it.”

“It’s on the doorknob if you want to look.”

“Right—I’m pretty sure it’s gone by now.”

“What do you mean? Oh. Oh!” She looked up at him while jacking him off, his cock a steel bar in her hand, clamoring for release. She had a naughty smile on her face, and her voice dropped low. “You think he took it?” She sounded almost shocked, but her hand was a blur on his cock.

“Fuck, love, don’t stop! Yes, I’m pretty sure he took it. I would have!”

“But you’re a perv, we established that already. Jimmy is sweet and innocent.”

“Right. Sweet and innocent and probably jerking off into your panties as we speak.” He did not mention what Jimmy was doing earlier. He did not even know if what he was saying was true or not, and he did not care. He was in a particular headspace with Jenn, and he needed to come.

“Oh my God! He’s jerking off into my pretty little G-string? But it’s so tiny. I mean, it’s barely there, just a few strings and a bit of silk that covered my pussy! And he’s jacking off with them?”

“Urgh…” The pressure in his balls was starting to become unbearable. His hips were starting to move of their own volition. “Jenn…”

“That’s so weird—to think he’s jerking off in my panties. It’s like he’s fucking a little part of me. I feel so… violated.” She made eye contact with Daniel, and winked at him before giggling, never letting his cock go.

“Jenn, I’m gonna come…”

“Do it, lover. Come for me.”

Her hand was a blur. And then she did something that she had never done before—she leaned over and took the head of his cock in her mouth, and sucked.

He had no idea what she was doing with her tongue or her teeth or anything else, but what he felt was an overload of sensations, centered on his cock. And then he grunted out loud and grasped his sheets with clenched fists as he exploded, and Jenn never stopped stroking him and never let his cock slip out of her mouth as she swallowed everything he discharged.

He collapsed back on the bed, realizing that he had been crunching up in a painful spasm throughout his orgasm.

“Yum,” she said, licking her lips and gently caressing his sensitive glans.

Daniel merely groaned in response.

Jenn laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She slipped up to lie beside him, wiping her lips with the edge of his sheet.

“That was… that was incredible,” he sighed. He took a few breaths, then frowned. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“Oh, I did,” she said. “Laura was right.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she laughed, and hugged him tight. He knew she wanted to kiss him, but probably feared how he might react, and so he leaned over and kissed her. She stiffened for a second and then relaxed into the kiss.

“Can you spend the night?” he asked her. It was against the rules, but at this point, he did not care much. He did not want to let her go.

“I certainly hope so,” she replied. “In case you didn’t notice, I have a very wet pussy here that will require a lot of attention.”

“Would some of that attention take the form of me sinking between your thighs and licking you into oblivion.”

Jenn shivered. “Definitely.”

And Daniel did. And Jenn came. And they fucked. And they both came once more.

And the next day, when the weather cleared and bus service was resumed, Daniel followed Jenn to Maine and spent Christmas with her and her mother.

And they had a most wonderful time.