Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 I SAW MOMMY KISSING THE GRINCH by Joris K.  Huysmans

   Two days after Carol broke up with me, our division was shut down.  I
don't think this was coincidence; she was much better connected to things
going on above us in the company than I ever was.  I think she didn't want
to have to deal with a boyfriend who'd just been laid off, especially this
close to the holidays when there's basically nothing you can do about it
besides mope around.

   But there was something I had to do about it; I had to find work, some
kind of work, fast, because with my daughters in college, I was about one
year and eleven months short of the two years' savings the financial
magazines always say you should have.  I didn't have time to try to
sweet-talk my way into another support technician job for a big corporation
at age 45; I needed a paycheck in the next two weeks.  While colleagues of
mine fretted about what they should do and could do and would be willing to
do, I sucked it up and went and did what I had to do.

   And within a day, I had the blue shirt and the name tag.  I was Duane,
welcome to Big Buy, why yes I do know something about installing a home
network, I've been wiring office buildings for twenty years, yes ma'am I
probably can get your laptop to talk to the internet while you're on the
pot.

   Frankly, it was kind of fun.  For one thing, instead of being surrounded
by people my own age with all the cares of my station in life, I was mostly
surrounded by young people.  Some smart and funny, some dumber than a box
of rocks, slack jaws and vacant stares, living public service announcements
for the dangers of a life spent playing video games.  But even the dimmest
bulbs seemed energetic next to the cube dwellers I'd been among for the
past few years.  And my immediate co-worker, a flamboyantly gay black kid
named Reggie ("Because I like it when you chomp on my veggie"), was a hoot
and, needless to say, not the sort of person I'd ever have met in my
previous life.  I think the first couple of days he kept saying outrageous
things to see if he could shock me, but I just laughed or occasionally
rolled my eyes, and he soon decided I was all right.

   I started the week of Thanksgiving; Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were
steady but not overwhelming, although they warned me that the Friday after
Thanksgiving would be busy.  They didn't tell the half of it; it was like I
should have tied myself to a post on Wednesday, to withstand the tsunami
that was about to hit.

   First thing 10 am they were coming through the doors, grabbing
everything from big screen TVs to box sets of "Lost" to iPods, cell phones,
Flip cameras and who knows what.  Nobody was particularly interested in
routers and Ethernet cables, so our department was one of the few slow
ones, but that just meant we had to run around helping out wherever else
they needed us, which was everywhere.

   I mostly stuck to the cameras and cell phones department, and by the
shift's end I felt like I knew my way around there and was more help than
hindrance to the two women who were mainly running it.  They must have felt
so too, because when the shift ended at 6, they invited me, Reggie and some
other folks over to the Pancho O'Hara's at one corner of the mall's parking
lot for drinks.

   They were a mismatched pair, for sure.  One of them, Vicki, was
somewhere around my age, very much the no-nonsense mom type; I thought she
might have been part Puerto Rican or something because she had kind of
dusky skin, but then light green eyes and curly red hair which she had
cropped so short it was almost shaven.  She had a don't-mess-with-me manner
which suggested teenagers at home, but there was something appealingly open
about her face, too, with those bright eyes and her wide, slightly toothy
smile.  I had the feeling that she had probably looked pretty gawky as a
skinny teenager, but having filled out over the years, she was pretty
attractive in middle age.

   I doubted most of the kids who came into Big Buy even noticed, though,
because the other woman who worked that department was such a spectacle. 
Serena was six foot five and statuesque bordering on chunky, a combination
which put an enormous chest right at eye level for most of the Latino guys
who came in here looking for a new cell phone every couple of weeks.  Add
in her general Goth look, pale skin and teased black hair and purplish-grey
lipstick and fingernails, which gave her a sultry, use-me-and-abuse-me air
despite the incongruity of being dressed in blue polo shirt and chinos, and
it was easy to imagine that Serena was responsible for an unusually rapid
turnover in cell phones among the young male segment.

   Anyway, so we headed for Pancho O'Hara's like survivors of a shipwreck
giddy at having made it to dry land, and the first couple of beers went
down real fast.  Besides Reggie, Vicki and Serena, there was Sarhad, a
middle-eastern guy who seemed like he had the hots for Serena and was more
than little uncomfortable with Reggie's constant gay patter; Chris, a
young, lanky stereo speaker expert who had the hots for Serena; and Marty,
an older appliance salesman who had the hots for basketball on Pancho
O'Hara's impressive array of flat screens and not much else.

   "So what brought you to Big Buy, Duane?" Vicki asked me, after the beer
had had a chance to unwind us all a bit from our shopping nerves.

   "I got laid off and I have two girls in college I have to help pay for,"
I said.  "What about you, you have any kids?"

   "One daughter.  She's eight.  The light of my life," she said, then
quickly adding as if anticipating my next question (it wouldn't have been),
"She's with her dad.  He has an office job and gets the day after
Thanksgiving off.  Unlike me," she added ruefully.

   "Eight's a great age for the holidays," I said.  "Does she still believe
in Santa?" I asked.  Reggie immediately replied by singing "I saw Daddy
blowing Santa Claus..."

   "You're going to hell for that one," Vicki said to him, laughing.  "A
little," she answered me.  "Probably not, but she doesn't want to not
believe, either."

   "Okay, I'm ready to dance," Serena announced, a bit sulkily.  "Anybody
want to dance?"

   Sarhad looked like he was trying to get a strangled reply out but before
he could, Serena looked at me.  "Duane.  Want to dance with me?"

   Startled, I looked at Vicki for some guidance.  She shrugged and said,
"Never turn down a pretty girl who asks you to dance, Duane."

   And so I ended the night dancing with a 23-year-old girl.  Definitely
different from my old job.

   * * *

   After that the holiday season went pretty smoothly.  We were always
busy, but barring the occasional promotional item which didn't get shipped
to our store in time, we didn't want to tear our hair out or burn the place
down, at least not too often.

   I got to be pretty close with Vicki and Serena, in fact sometimes a
little too close for comfort.  There was the day Serena couldn't sit down
because it was that time of the month and so her boyfriend had wanted to do
her in the ass, which was fine until an hour later he wanted to do it
again. "Don't get fucked in the ass twice in the same night, that's my
advice," Serena said.

   "Civilians," Reggie sniffed.

   Then there was another day that she kept answering her cell phone every
five minutes.  I asked Vicki what the deal was and she just rolled her
eyes. Fortunately (or not) Serena, with her complete lack of discretion,
was soon spilling her story to me for sympathy...  which I tried to muster
despite the fact that my dad-of-similar-aged-daughters instincts made me
think about strangling her.

   "Okay, so my boyfriend wanted us to have a threesome, he kept pestering
me about it, and so we did it, and it was okay, I'm not going to say it
wasn't fun getting it from both directions, but then he's asking me, what
did I think of Ramon's cock, that's his friend, Ramon, and I said it was
okay, and he said no, what did you really think, you had it in your fucking
mouth bitch you must have some opinion on the subject, and I said what's
with you you're the one who wanted me to suck it, so back off, and he
wouldn't stop, and I said if you want to know how his fucking cock was why
don't you suck it for yourself, and now he's all pissed that I like Ramon's
cock better than his which is totally not true, and that I said he's a
faggot which is also not true although now I'm starting to wonder, and he
doesn't want me to come to his sister Gloria's baby's baptism on Sunday
because he says they don't allow whores in church, so I said they're not
big on faggots either unless they're called Father, and he said I'm
insulting his faith, these fucking Mexicans, I swear, don't talk God or
Mama with them, you ever have a problem like this Duane?"

   No, I allowed, I've never had a problem like that, curiously enough. 
Yes ma'am, can I show you something in a cell phone with built-in
camcorder?

   Serena's love life-- no, scratch that-- sex life just became something
like a reality show that I tuned into, whether I wanted to or not, every
time I walked by their department.  I thanked God that my girls weren't
like that-- or if they were, they were much better at keeping it from me.
And hopefully always would be.

   Meanwhile, however, my own lack of a sex life was starting to drag me
down a little, or at least add an extra dimension of melancholy to my
already lonely holiday season.  And I decided it was time to do something
about it.  Vicki was single, friendly, and over time I'd found her more and
more attractive, not in the blatantly sexual way that Serena was, of
course. But more and more I found her-- her womanly, rounded body, her
bright and open face, the bordering-on-punk touch of her almost-shaved head
("Ch-ch-ch-chia Vicki!" Reggie sang to her one morning), subtly carnal in a
down to earth, earthy, earth-mama way.  (I didn't think I was just being
desperate.)

   So I asked her out.

   She looked at me with concern, tenderness, pity, fear and loathing--
hell, could have been any of those.  "Um, Duane, that's sweet, but I'm not
really in a position to go out on a date," she said.  "When I get off work,
I have to get Danni right away from her grandma.  I can't be going out all
night.  No, sir, printer cartridges would be in computers, over there."

   "Why don't you bring her along?" I said, trying to salvage the
embarassment of my evidently pathetically miscalculated attempt.

   "You serious?"

   "Sure.  It doesn't have to be a big date.  We could go get some pizza
and beer, the three of us.  Just have a good time, that's all." I kicked
myself for having said "that's all" so soon.

   She thought for a minute.  "Why not."

   * * *

   We had a fun night and Danni was a charming 8-year-old, cheerful and
innocent and funny, reminded me of my own girls at that sweet age.  Which
left me all that much more bummed when Vicki brought the evening to an end
with a finality that left no room for, uh, why don't I stick around while
you put her to bed and then we can have a nightcap.

   Back to work and we were all chummy as we could be, so it wasn't that I
had turned her off in some way...  I didn't think.  But I guess it was kind
of obvious that I was chasing her a little, because eventually Reggie
stopped me over by the microwaves and asked me, "So, Duane my man, are you
putting your big white thunderstick to our Vicki?"

   "Uh, that's not really anybody's business, Reggie--"

   "I thought so," he said, then started singing "Blue-oooo balls on a
green Christmas tree--"

   "Jesus Christ, Reggie," I said.  "Could you just stay out of my
business, or at least not sing about it like you're in Dreamgirls?" I
walked away and headed back to our department.

   "Ooh, Miss Thing has claws," he said.  "Listen, my man, I know how it
is. Our Miss Vicki ought to take a liking to you, you're pretty trim for
your age and you're straight, there aren't that many of you left at her
age."

   "Can you tell me which of these vacuum cleaners cleans up cat hair?" a
guy tried to ask us.  We ignored him.

   "Go restock something, Reggie," I said.

   "You are straight, aren't you Duane?" I rolled my eyes.  "Because if
that little problem gets to be too much for you, Reggie could take care of
it for you and you'd still be straight...  technically."

   "Enough, Reggie.  I'm not interested.  In listening to you any more."

   "It's okay, man," he said.  "Just keep in mind what I said.  The
Reg-o-matic can relieve the pressure and make a new man out of you."

   "Which one is the Reg-o-matic?" I heard the guy ask another salesperson
as I walked back to my area.

   * * *

   I asked her out again the weekend before Christmas, but she said things
were just too hectic to even think about it.  Maybe seeing that I looked
disappointed, she patted my hand, which was the first physical touch we'd
had, really.  But I could tell it was the brush-off kind, it was lucky I
didn't get the speech about how I would always be like a brother to her.

   Firmly in desperate-loser mode as I was, I used my lunch break to run
over to the Toys `R' Us and pick up something for Danni-- she liked horses,
so I got her a model horse and steeplechase set.  I gift-bagged it and
stuck it in my trunk, waiting for the right moment to present it to Vicki.
Like that would work.

   My girls were staying with my ex for the first week of Christmas break,
so it was shaping up to be Charlie Brown's Most Depressing Christmas
Special Ever.  I used my discount to buy myself a box set of the first
season of Deadwood, just to have something to do all day on Christmas that
wouldn't remotely remind me of what day it was.

   The 24th was a hectic day, almost as bad as the day after Thanksgiving,
but we finally closed the doors at 4-- too late!  If you haven't gotten it
by now, you're not getting it!-- and a group of us headed over to Pancho
O'Hara's for a drink.  I figured Vicki would need to get home for Danni but
actually she was going to be at her dad's till at least 8:30, so Vicki was
happy to come along for a bit.

   The place was packed and loud as hell, it did a huge office Christmas
party business and I guess tonight it was one of the few places open and
offering you one last chance to have a drunken good time before a night and
day of enforced family time.  At first we squeezed ourselves into one
corner on the first floor, but within a fairly short time we'd all gone our
separate ways into the crowd.  I tried to stick near Vicki but she didn't
seem to be having anything to do with me and in a short time she was gone.

   I wandered around the place, which was enormous.  The main floor was
full of things like hoops games and dartboards and the like, and the second
floor just had a bar and a lot of TVs.  I'd never been to the third floor,
it usually wasn't open, but hearing the disco music booming from it and
seeing the flash of blue lights and strobes, I decided to check it out.

   When I saw it, I understood why they did so much Christmas party
business.  It was a vast cartoon winter wonderland, decorated to within an
inch of its life with trees and snowscenes, strobes and projected snowflake
patterns and thudding disco for the well-lubricated crowd of office workers
already there...  and full of nooks and crannies where two people could
make out in semi-privacy.  And if that didn't suffice, it seemed to have an
unusually high number of restrooms, with lockable doors.  It too was
packed, part of the room marked off with signs for a local realty company's
party, but literally a couple of hundred people milling and dancing in the
middle of the room.  Each time the strobes flashed, it froze a picture of
office workers dancing, writhing, kissing, feeling each other up, leading
each other to another, more private place.

   I was just turning to head back downstairs when I found myself
face-to-chest with Serena.  She was drunk off her ass, I could tell. 
"Duane!" she screamed, though fortunately the hall was so loud that I'm
sure they couldn't have heard her ten feet away.

   "Hey Serena, I was just heading--"

   Drink in hand, she cornered me against a wall, pushing her huge chest
into my face.  "Duane, for an older guy...  you're really HOT." She chugged
the rest of her drink and set it on a table, then wrapped her arms around
me and started kissing me.

   "Jesus Christ, Serena, I think you need to get home--"

   "Oh come on," she said, and reached for the nearest restroom.  It was
locked.  "Fuck!" she yelled.  She tried the next one.  It was locked too.
"Oh just come on," she said, dragging my arm along as she staggered toward
one of the private party rooms.

   "Serena, these are reserved-- oh."

   I expected a little hanky panky to be going on in the rooms but I really
had no idea that it would be so...  open.  There's really only one word for
what was happening in there, and that's "orgy." The room was plainly set up
with that in mind, with various couches and love seats and piles of throw
pillows, and I could see half a dozen couples writhing and humping each
time the strobes lit the room up for an instant.  Without prying too hard I
looked around at all the action around me and...  well how about that. 
Reggie had Sarhad up against the wall and was on his knees, pumping
Sarhad's cock.  He saw me and Serena and gave me a thumbs-up-- way to go,
dude!

   Serena pushed me against the wall and started kissing me again.  This
was pretty much the moment of decision, either I was going to fuck a
drunken, shamefully irresponsible 22-year-old with who knows what emotional
issues, or I was going to go home blue-balled and depressed to the
dreariest Christmas of my 45 years.  I'd like to say it was a decision
reached thoughtfully and carefully, but who would I be kidding.  I kissed
her back and started groping those huge, heavy knockers under her blue polo
shirt.

   As she kissed me, sloppily and slobberingly, she started rubbing my cock
in my pants, so I took that as a cue to reach up under her shirt.  She
responded by just lifting it up and flinging it over her head like the wind
had caught it.  Behind her, each time the strobe flashed in the other room
I could make out a guy who was fucking a woman in a short skirt watching us
as they screwed.  Serena reached behind herself and popped her bra, and her
massive hooters plopped out.  I moved down and started sucking on one of
her pencil-eraser nipples while kneading the other big heavy tit with my
hand.  She tasted of salty sweat and alcohol.

   We kissed for a few minutes, and I felt her all over.  I'd never made
out with anyone who was taller than me, and it was kind of strange feeling
a body on a scale simply larger than my own.  Everything about her was
big-- her long arms, her soft belly, her broad behind, the legs that put
her crotch up higher than mine.  Yet though she was big, she didn't seem
fat, she simply seemed giant.  It was strange and exciting to work my way
around her body, kissing and nibbling and sucking, and have everything
be... so far apart.  Does that make any sense?  I don't know, I'm just
telling it how I experienced it.

   Suddenly the couple who had been on the couch were standing next to us,
shirts open, her breasts hanging out and skirt on sideways, and they were
offering us the couch they had just been fucking on.  Serena grabbed me and
pushed me down onto my back, then unbuckled my pants and pulled them down
to my knees.  She grabbed my cock by the root and then her big mouth was
slobbering all over it, getting it juicy wet.  She pulled down her pants,
reached into her crotch and rubbed it a few times, and then she was on top
of me, her warm wet pussy engulfing me as her heavy body slammed against my
hips and her hair and tits hung down into my face.  A flash from the strobe
showed me Sarhad, glaring at us with indescribable jealousy.  I assumed
Reggie was still where I'd last seen him.

   Serena was fucking me with wild abandon.  I grabbed her big ass and held
on for dear life.  The woman in the couple who'd been on the couch before
us came over to her and put her hand on one of her breasts as she rode up
and down on me; Serena threw her head back in delight.  God, what if I
ended up staying with her?  I wondered.  Could I live this life?  Could I
be with someone who'd be fucking somebody else in a different way every
third night?  How long before she wore me out?  Though even as she rode my
cock, I knew that I was just today's diversion.

   Suddenly I heard Reggie say "Vicki!  I was just looking for--" and I saw
him jump up from blowing Sarhad and move toward the door.  But it was too
late.  Vicki had come in the room and it was obvious, from her face, that
she had put 2 and 2 together.

   "Oh, Duane," she said, with a voice of real disappointment.  "I was
looking for you." And the way she said "for you" said it all-- this would
have been my night, if she hadn't found me like this, right now.

   I started to scramble up and push Serena off but Vicki stopped me.  "Oh
hell, I've already seen it, you might as well keep going." And she turned
and went out, so I did.

   God help me, it seemed to have excited Serena even more.  I had a
feeling that if Vicki had started beating on her, that would have been the
best sex she'd ever had.  She rode me, her big heavy body slamming into my
hips with each hump.  Her huge breasts slapped up and down, and I grabbed
them like greased piglets and put them to my mouth.  I felt something else
down around my cock-- Jesus Christ, the other woman had her hand there,
feeling my cock slide in and out of Serena.  Then the two women were
kissing, I hoped Sarhad was watching this, and what the hell, I was there,
I started stroking the other woman's thigh.  She scooted away-- bitch.  I
banged Serena as hard as I could from below, digging my fingernails deep
into her big ass, biting her nipple, fucking as hard as I could, because so
far as I could see, this was the last piece of ass I was going to get for
the foreseeable future.

   * * *

   By the time I wandered out the front door at closing time I was pretty
goddam tight and pretty goddam morose.  A little proud that I had managed
to have such wild, stupid sex on Christmas Eve of all nights, but at the
same time, ready to kick my own ass that I'd so completely fucked up things
with Vicki.  I knew that the pleasure of the one would fade a lot faster
than the self-loathing of the other.

   Snow was falling, thin dry snow that blew away as soon as it hit the
parking lot.  As I got in the car I remembered the present for Danni in the
back seat.  A sensible man would have figured he could at least get his $19
back at Toys `R' Us.  I drove to Vicki's house.

   My original idea, if it could be called that, was to leave the present
on the porch.  When I reached her house, though, I saw that with the porch
light on, I might as well be putting a sign saying "Hey Christmas Present
Thieves!" over the gift bag.

   Then I remembered something Danni had told me.  Because they didn't have
a fireplace, Santa came in the back porch, and so she left cookies for him
there.  Well, Santa was going to leave an extra surprise out there tonight.

   I went around back and stepped as quietly as I could onto the back porch
and smiled when I saw the plate with cookies.  I set the present down and
prepared to leave when I noticed something-- the sliding back door was
slightly ajar.

   For a moment I thought maybe an intruder had gotten into the house. 
Then I put it together-- no doubt Danni had opened the door to add one
extra cookie or something, and her mom didn't know and hadn't had a chance
to close and lock the door.

   Which meant...  I could leave my present in the house, under the tree,
and really surprise both Danni and her mom.  I slid the door open as
quietly as I could, and carefully stepped into the house.  It was like the
Grinch, putting the presents back after his change of heart.  Well, I had
grinched up Christmas real good for all of us, but here was my chance to do
something right, and maybe be invited back to carve the roast beast,
someday.

   I tiptoed to the front of the house, where the tree sat.  Muffin,
Danni's cat, opened one eye but was otherwise uninterested in me.  I set
the package down and started to head back to the door.

   Someone was standing there, and it wasn't little Cindy Lou Who.  Because
Cindy Lou Who wasn't 5 foot 7, and standing in Modern Isosceles stance in
her pajamas with a .38 pointed at me.

   "Jesus Vicki, don't shoot!  It's Duane!"

   She didn't lower the gun.  "Duane, what the fuck are you doing in my
house."

   I explained as best I could given that I was shaking like Jell-O. 
Halfway through, she lowered the gun, and by the end she had put the safety
back on.  "Jesus, Duane, I could have shot you."

   "I know," I said.

   "Haven't you gotten in enough trouble tonight?"

   "I know, Vicki, I know."

   "What were you thinking, fucking Serena?"

   "What was I thinking?"

   "Yeah, what were you thinking."
 I bit my lip and looked up at
her. "I was thinking that I might as well because I didn't have a chance
with the woman I was really attracted to, maybe even falling in love with.
Because even when I tried to show that I could be a real friend to both her
and her daughter, she seemed to push me away and brush me off.  I was
thinking that the woman I really wanted, the woman I hoped could be mine,
didn't want anything to do with me, that as soon as we got to the party she
disappeared.  I was thinking I was going to be alone for a sad, lousy
Christmas and nobody'd care if I lived or died, so when somebody wanted to
fuck me on my way to being forgotten by this entire goddam planet, I said
hell yes.  That's what I was thinking, Vicki, and if it offends you, I'm
sorry."

   She was quiet for a minute.  Then she went over and locked the back
door. "I really was looking for you, Duane."

   "I know that now, but I didn't know it then."

   We stood and looked at each other for a minute.  "Jesus, it's a hell of
a thing," Vicki said.

   "It is," I said.

   "On Christmas no less."

   "On Christmas," I said.  "Look, I know you don't want to have anything
to do with me now, but please, maybe in a few days, think about it all, and
think about whether I could have a second chance."

   She thought for a moment.  "Well, it is Christmas Eve."

   "Yeah it is," I said.

   "If there's ever a time to forgive, this is it," she said.

   I looked up at her, not daring to hope.  "Do you--"

   "Oh come here, Duane," she said, and held her arms out to me.  I grabbed
her around the waist and kissed her, warmly and gratefully.

   * * *

   We took a minute to drink Santa's milk and take a couple of bites of his
cookies, and then we locked up and went back to her bedroom.  She lowered
the lights and then she slipped out of her pajama top, standing before me
topless, her mature breasts rolling to each side, her love handles and
little belly spilling over her pajama bottom.  She was beautiful.

   We kissed, not hungrily and sloppily like Serena, but slowly, gently,
with all the time in the world.  She unbuttoned my shirt and ran her hands
over my chest.  "You didn't happen to take a shower after, uh, you know
what on your way here, did you?"

   "Uh...  no."

   "In you go," she said, hustling me toward the bathroom.

   When I came out (after the fastest shower I thought I could get away
with), she was laying on the bed, facing me, nude.  And she was more
beautiful and sexy than I had even imagined, her womanly curves, her sturdy
thighs.  I dropped my towel and jumped in next to her, and we ran our hands
over each other.  Her skin wasn't as taut as Serena's, but it was soft and
smooth, invitingly cushy everywhere I touched.

   I kissed her beautiful breasts, burying my face between them, and then
nuzzled my way down her stomach until I reached the little triangle of
curly red hair.  Her legs parted and I flicked my tongue along the folds in
the center; then again, deeper, and she moaned in delight.  The third time
I let my tongue burrow in more deeply, tasting the tang of her juices
inside, as my arms wrapped around her hips and grasped her soft round ass.

   I licked her and she began bucking my face, up and down.  I spread her
cheeks apart and when her hips came up my tongue flicked down to her
asshole, tickling the wrinkled little hole.  She moaned more, and I pushed
her legs up, licking at it and spreading it open with my tongue.  "Oh God,
now, now," she said, and so I climbed up on top of her.  She grabbed my
cock in her hand and guided into her warm, wet pussy, drawing it inside. 
As I thrust into her she wriggled up and down, energetically and
enthusiastically, yet not hurriedly...  because both of us felt that this
was just the first of many, many times.

   * * *

   "Duane?"

   "Yes, Vicki?"

   "Did this turn out to be a good Christmas for you?" she asked me as we
lay there, her head on my chest, in the dark.

   I thought ahead to what the day held-- opening presents with Danni,
fixing dinner, back to bed in another 22 hours or so-- and I hugged her and
held her tighter.

   "The best Christmas ever, my love.  Good night."

   "Good night.  And Merry Christmas."
   "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.  Like mine."