Santa Claus: The addict

CH 4

SANTA'S SLOW DESCENT INTO DEPRAVITY

My world has always been one of wonder and joy, music, snow, the laughter of children and good will to men. But all good things must come to an end, they say.

My slow descent into depravity all began with the sex toys.

They weren't my idea. They were Mary's. That's Mrs. Claus to you. I met my wife so long ago, I could hardly remember what made me fall in love with her in the first place, although it was probably her beauty. We were happy in those golden days of yore, but for the last fifty years or so, we'd been sort of going through the motions. We barely had anything to say to each other anymore. People change, I guess, even immortals.

We weren't intimate anymore. Hell, we hadn't had sex since 1985. And that was only because we'd just gone to see 'Santa Claus, the Movie', and she was happy about how good she came off in the film. After drinking a bit too much hot toddy that evening, she started getting frisky. Well, that was fine with me. I'd always thought she was a beautiful woman. She doesn't look like they always depict her, you know. She hasn't aged a day since the moment I fell in love with her on that Bavarian mountainside in 1702. She still looked twenty-two, with red hair and a shapely figure, long legs, beautiful ass and large breasts. Absolutely 'smokin' hot', as they say these days. She was a tall girl, almost six foot three. In heels, she towered over me. A true Bavarian beauty! So when she started getting feisty after the movie, I looked forward to a good old-fashioned roll in the snow, but it was just as disappointing as ever. She quickly lost interest, and I couldn't maintain an erection. It was a dud all around. To tell you the truth, Mary had always been a bit of a cold fish. For the first hundred years or so she'd indulged my passions, but she'd never seemed all that interested in sex. Or at least not that interested in having sex with me. Why else would we have been childless after two centuries together, the only two humans at the North Pole? We stopped having sex entirely after that sad encounter.

So when, just over a year ago, Mary came to me with the sex toy idea, well... I was just flat out flabbergasted.

She called me into her plush office on the third floor. She was sitting at her computer, her red hair pulled up into the enormous bun she liked to wear. I so much preferred when she let her hair down, but it had been in a bun since the mid seventies. She was looking particularly fetching that day in a tight red dress with white fur lining. It was low cut. She hadn't dressed that way for ages. My eyes twinkled at the almost forgotten sight of her cleavage. But I knew she'd dressed up for a reason. The last time she did this she'd talked me into building her this office, which was three times larger than my own. She was a very persuasive woman!

"Kris, we need to expand. We're reaching the kids, yes, but as soon as some idiot tells them you don't exist, well, they stop writing."

"I know, Mary, but the world population is growing every year. I'm not sure it's a good idea to expand. I'm not sure it's even possible to find more believers."

"Kris, just hear me out." She pushed a button on her computer, and a group of female elves scampered out of a tiny little door. They began to turn a series of cranks, lowering an enormous projection screen over the crystal windows that lined one wall of her office. Then a PowerPoint presentation came on. The first slide was a complicated flowchart. Mary flashed me her best smile and said, "As you can see from this chart here, the age of disbelief is getting younger and younger, outpacing the increasing population. Manufacturing facility four and five have gone unused for almost ten years! You don't want to even know how many elves have been living off the dole, waiting for work to pick up. It's not a good situation."

This wasn't news to me. "Well, what do you have in mind? We've tried everything to keep kids believing. Cartoon shows, video games, promotional toys at fast food joints... but it's just not working."