Christmas with the Devil

The Krampus went to the hearth and started a great, rousing fire that soon had the entire house as snug as a dove. The girl played hostess and poured them mulled wine, slipping her fingers briefly into the boy's hand when she gave him the mug. He blushed, and hoped that it was too dark to tell.

All three of them sat by the fire, chatting and laughing like old friends. The boy stared at the girl, his glances becoming more and more bold as he drank. She returned his gaze often but never for more than a few seconds before turning back to the Krampus, who entertained them both with songs, bawdy jokes, and stories of Yuletides past.

"And what about you," the girl said, turning to the boy once the Krampus had finished speaking. "To what do I owe the honor of your visit?"

"Um," was all the boy could think to say. Through an alcoholic haze he felt his blood simmer, but the sight of the girl in her nightclothes seemed to take away his power to speak. Eventually the girl finished her wine and, very deliberately, licked the last of it from her lips.

"You're a shy one," she said, standing and stretching. "I understand. Is it your first time?"

The boy choked.

"Now, now," said the Krampus. "The question is fair: She wants you to answer, not squirm in your chair."

"I don't mind," the girl added, looking him up and down again. "It's all the same to me, as long as you pay."

"Quite right," said the Krampus, "how rude to forget. A present for you, darling, to settle the debt."

From the pocket of his suit the Krampus produced a fat purse, overflowing with coins. When the girl judged that it was enough she took off her clothes, standing as naked as Venus in front of them both. Speechless, the boy swallowed again.

The Krampus nudged him in the ribs. "She's all woman, my lad, as you see with your eyes. She'll fill all your needs, as each ones arise. A wink of her eye and a turn of her head will let you know now that you've nothing to dread.

"I've been here myself, and I know all her tricks; all her ways and her means, all her quicks and her picks. Satisfaction's guaranteed, that's a promise, dear boy. As your friend, I share only what I know you'll enjoy."

"I think there's been a mistake," the boy said, putting his wine down and starting to stand. "I'm not interested in...um, that is to say, I don't want to pay for it." And at this the girl stood up straight and gave him a contempt-filled look that made him blush.

"Tut, tut," said the Krampus. "For the first of our facts, I'm paying, not you, so you're all square on that. More importantly boy, what have you in your head? Are you ill? Are you feeble? Are you closer to dead? This is your chance; carpe diem, I say! A girl like this doesn't come around every day."

And the Krampus refilled the boy's mug, despite his objections.

"Life's sweet, my dear lad, if only you taste it; too many sad folks taste not life, but waste it. If you're not living, you might as well die. Death comes ever sooner, if life's treats you deny. Why not live now, this moment, this hour? No one will know, except we in this bower."

"But I want love," the boy said.

"Then love her, you dear fool. Love everyone and all one, that's my go-to rule. Love her tonight, all you like, as you wish. Come back in a week, or a month, or a tish. She'll love you all days, when all or whenever, as often as you like or as often as never. And her love is true! No less true than silver. An honest love, honest as penny and guilder."

The Krampus picked the boy up by the scruff of his neck and pushed him forward. The girl watched with an amused expression.

"Try it once," said the Krampus. "That's my motto in life. If you find you don't like it, then away to some wife. You've nothing to lose, neither money nor skin. No one even need know what you've done, or where been."

The girl put out her hand out. She looked as though she had lost her patience long ago, and the boy realized it was because she'd known all along what he was going to do anyway.

He let her lead him upstairs, her footsteps light and easy on the stairs, his stumbling and awkward. Her bedroom was small, but the lacy cloud of her bed curtains shut everything out, making it easy to imagine that the entire world or nothing at all were around them.

She undressed him one bit at a time, batting his hands down whenever he tried to assist or jump ahead of her, teasing him about every little button and catch and cooing over his soft, skinny, boyish frame. Though he was older than her she seemed mature, confident, at ease.

When she was finished she laid him back against the pile of cushions at the headboard and climbed on top, kissing him while her hand crept down and, suddenly, unbelievably, encircled him down below, wrapping a finger and a thumb in a ring around his balls and giving a firm, encouraging squeeze.

He gasped, but she swallowed it into another kiss and eased him along, fondling him some more and then wrapping her quick, light fingers around the base of his shaft and stroking him sweetly until he was hot and ready.

"Now," the girl said, "tell me you love me."

The boy paused. "I—"

"Not like that, silly," she said, putting a finger from her free hand to his lips. "Tell me the real way. Like this."

She guided his hands to her naked breasts, where his fingers touched pale white skin and trembled as they explored the softness and smoothness of her from neck to hips. Her tiny, cherry-red nipples stood out firm as he rolled his palms over them, and she favored him with a thin smile.

"You see?" she said. "The body is everything. The whole wide world is here, in your flesh and mine. Do you understand?"

"No..." he said, although at that moment he found he didn't particularly care whether he knew what she was talking about or not). She chided him with a tap on the side of the head.

"Can you feel my body?" she asked him, pulling him up to kiss the side of her neck and bury his face in the long tresses of her hair, all while her body melted against his until their lines and curves responded to every move of the other. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes..." he said, kissing the delicate turn of her earlobe and feeling her shiver as he did.

"And you feel it with your own body, don't you?" she said, spreading her legs around him and shimmying down to the point that the hot, tight, delicate space between her thighs hovered just a few inches above his cock.

"And that's how you feel the sheets, and the bed. And if you were to go outside right now that's how you would feel and see and hear and know the snow and the wind and the sky and the world. The whole world is flesh, because without the flesh you'd never know the world exists. Do you see?"

"I...think so?" the boy said. His drunken brain turned her words around and around, trying to make sense of them. Only when she slid further down him and he felt the tip of his clock slide into the warm wet entrance to her did what she'd said—and everything else—come into focus.

He cupped her smooth behind in both hands as she rode up and down on top of him, gliding against one another and rocking the frame of the old bed. "That's right," the girl said, leaning back and enjoying him as his young body squirmed underneath hers. "You see everything now, don't you?"

"I do..." the boy said, kissing her breasts and tasting the smooth, soft, white skin. The girl's legs squeezed him tight and she moaned as she thrust up and into her again and again.

"Nothing's sacred," she said, "except for the world and the flesh, and all of that is one."

He saw everything and felt everything, and by the time morning came he knew all there was to know.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the vicar sat by a modest and dwindling fire, still trying to write his Christmas sermon. He'd been trying all week, but the words wouldn't come and his pen was dry.

Now he'd sat all night, scribbling by the hearth and hoping for inspiration. What he got instead was the Krampus, who dropped down his chimney with a bang and a thump and then emerged, unburnt and only slightly sooty, from the fireplace, with a grin that threatened to split his face in two.

The vicar rubbed his eyes and wondered, blearily, just how much brandy he'd put into his tea.

"Good morning," said the Krampus. "It is good, I trust? I hate to intrude, but I sense you're nonplussed. Perhaps you heard me, up there on your roof; the prancing and pawing of each of my hoofs?

"Because I heard you, vicar friend. I heard all your worries. I heard all your troubles, your doubts, and your flurries. But it's Christmas, my vicar, and worries are through. Here's Krampus to settle all troubles for you."

The vicar's hands shook as he put his spectacles on. His knees shook too, as he stood. "I haven't slept," he said. "Yes, that's what's the matter. I'll nap before the service, and this will all be a dream..."

"Dreams!" said the Krampus. "A word I adore. What's your dream, my vicar, what's your sleeping mind's store? Do you dream of hosannas and miracles on high? Or does this world your choicest of dream stuff supply?"

The Krampus pulled the vicar away of his chair and whirled him around the room like a dance partner, and then the horned beast kicked up the pages of the vicar's sermons until the cottage was a virtual blizzard of parchment.

The vicar harrumphed. "Now see here!"

"But I do see!" said the Krampus. "I see all, and I know. Your problem, my vicar, is here in your stow; he stow of your heart, as I mean to say. You've grown bored of Christmas, yes, bored of the day.

"Because you've preached it on high and you've preached it on low, you've preached far and preached wide, preached in sun and in snow. You've preached to the good and you've preached to the damned; you've preached to the true and you've preached to the shammed. You're all preached-out, vicar, you've not one word left. What you need is a break—before YOU break, bereft."

"Well, uh, that may be so..." said the vicar, stammering. "But what about my flock? I can't leave them on Christmas without heavenly guidenace?"

Snapping his fingers to show inspiration, the Krampus said, "Leave them to me. Take me to your church. I'll see that your folks don't end up all in a lurch. Vicar Krampus is here, full of gospels and truth, as good for the aged as I am for the youth."

The vicar wasn't so sure this sounded like a good idea. He also wasn't sure that he hadn't just suffered some kind of stroke.

The Krampus, though, is nothing if not persuasive. So with a bit more cajoling (and a bottle of very good French cognac from the pocket of his coat), he convinced the vicar to put on his boots and his scarf go to the little steepled church together.

There, the Krampus covered the crucifix with a sheet, and put up curtains over the stained glass windows so that none of the old prophets and forefathers could play Peeping Tom today. The Krampus was old enough to remember a time when churches chained their Bibles to the pulpit, so he did that too—chained it shut, that is, and then shut the whole pulpit away.

Then he sent the vicar away to enjoy a day off while the Krampus set to ringing the bells, hanging on the ropes with all his might. It's a myth that devilish spirits hate church bells; bells have been around much longer than churches, and the Krampus had always been fond of them.

When the townsfolk arrived in their best attire to answer the ringing they found not a vicar up on a platform but just the Krampus, sitting right on their level and grinning his monsterly grin. And they froze in their tracks, stunned and horrified, except for the children, some of whom smiled at the sight of the Krampus, while their playmates regarded him with fascination.

Once the elders regained their senses some tried to leave, but whenever their boots turned toward the door inevitably they felt themselves drawn back. One by one they took their seats in the pews, muttering to each other and giving the Krampus anxious looks. Some tried to pray but found suddenly that they couldn't remember the words; others realized that they'd never actually known any words to begin with.

As soon as everyone was assembled and the doors closed, the first thing the Krampus did was round up all of the children and all the teens and send them right back out of the meetinghouse.

"Go play," said the Krampus, "in the fields and the towns. You'll know to come home when the sun's going down. Form up a troupe where you're all in command, and be comrades and partners to each in your band.

"For rations filch bonbons and sweet cakes and tarts, and divvy them up so that all get compart. The fruit that's forbidden is sweetest, you'll see, so for Christmas let ALL hours be cake and high tea."

The children hesitated for a moment, but the Krampus gave them candies from his pockets, and to some of the older ones he gave golden branches too, and off they went to turn the whole town into their kingdom for a day, and none of their parents made a move to stop them.

That left only the Krampus and the grown folk of the town, the youngest couples and the long-married pairs and the widowers and widows whose beds and heads were both old and gray. Everyone shifted in their seats. It was clear this was not going to be any normal Christmas sermon.

The Krampus put them at ease with kind words, big smiles, and gifts. He told jokes, flirted, made friends with all, and soon the meetinghouse felt warmer and livelier than any of them could remember. When the Krampus struck up a song, everyone sang with him. Soon, they forgot anything was unusual.

Eventually, people noticed that one of the village girls, a young thing set to be married in the New Year, was sitting on the Krampus' lap, and even kissing the cheerful beast. She held mistletoe over his horned head as she did. And here and there and everywhere, couples (and sometimes more than couples) kissed and touched, overcome with a sudden and in some cases uncharacteristic admiration for one another. Blood that had been cool for too long now heated, and the rebel flesh began to stir.

When the betrothed of the young woman on the Krampus' knee realized what was happening he jumped up in alarm and tried to haul her away, but the girl herself proved stubborn about keeping her seat.

"Don't look at me that way," she said. "I just want to be kissed, that's all. You can kiss me too. Come on."

The young man backed away. "We're not married yet..."

"So what?" said the Krampus. "Who cares? What's the gag? Is your liver all empty, is your tent pole all sag?"

Here there came some grumblings from the pews and those who felt this wasn't necessarily appropriate talk for a church. The Krampus spoke louder:

"And who here can judge you, from amongst this cabal? Who here has rights to scorn you at all? For I see in all hearts where the embers still burn; I see those who lust, and who ache, and who yearn.

"And it's good that you yearn, and it's good that you lust. It's good that you're flesh and you're blood and not dust. For I swear to you now, lust's as old as mankind. Take one from the other, and both would unwind."

"But isn't it a sin?" a voice asked.

"What's a sin?" said the Krampus. "What's a rule? What's taboo? They're nothing but words, and I've got words too. My words are as good as a vicar's, at least. As good as a Bible's, as good as a priest's. And for Christmas, well hell, I'll tell you now folks, the best gift on Christmas is the breaking of yokes.

"For you've yokes on your necks, and chains on your feets, and locks on your hearts, all made of conceits. You don't see them or feel them, but trust me, they're there, and they're fastened with hymnals and rosaries and prayers. You lock yourselves up and you shuffle along and you feel quite unhappy and you don't know what's wrong.

"So this is my Christmas day sermon to you: You've still time to live, 'fore living is through. Heaven can mind its own business for now; it's the job of the angels to scrape and to bow. You're people, not angels, with blessings and flaws. Do what thou wilt should be the whole of the laws.

"Live this one day as the beasts of the field; rejoice in the flesh, and desires unsealed. Look not to heaven and fuss not for souls, cuz the here and the now is when the bell tolls. Love each other, not gods, for love ISN'T divine; it's the language of bodies, like yours and like mine. Gather ye rosebuds while each of you may, for who knows when you'll sniff of life's final bouquet?"

The young couple listened to the Krampus' words while looking at each other. The Krampus stood between them, like the minister at their wedding, joining their hands together.

"On this day I come not to join, but to break. To shatter vain customs, and old lies unmake. For him and for her and for all of you here, all who would have life before life disappears. Today you're all free, with no gods and no kings, to become like a beast, the noblest of things. It's high time by now we put angels away. Henceforch, let Christmas be a beast's holiday."

Somewhere in the middle of all of this the young couple began to kiss. Not small, chaste kisses, but long and passionate ones, twined in each other's arms. And for every person in the church who looked at them disapprovingly, three more saw what they were doing and thought that it was good.

The Krampus' words had agitated the assembly. No one was quite sure how the next part started; it was like the beginning of a dream, or maybe like waking up for the first time. But soon, most of the couples in the pews were lost in long kisses and embraces with each other, until the rows began to become quite heated.

Few people were paying attention, then, when the young woman tore her dress down, exposing her naked breasts to her fiancé's lips and while pulling his shirt up and halfway off to run her nails up his back and listen to the sharp hiss as he drew his breath in and held it.

He fumbled with his belt for a moment while she hiked up her skirts, and then, right there on the altar, they consummated the blessings the Krampus had given them minutes before, her on her back and he on his knees over her, forgetting for a moment where they were and who they were, exchanging the church for a tableau of young, innocent flesh, spotted with perspiration and the persistent rhythm of two bodies thrusting together until one overflowed and filled the other.

When they finished, the young woman uncoupled herself from the man and went to the Krampus again, kneeling while still wearing the half-tattered remains of her Sunday dress. She undid his trousers and took the Christmas beast's large, vulgar cock in her small hands, stroking and teasing it until it stood away from his hairy body, warm and erect, and then she passed it into her mouth, taking it all the way in with a series of swallows.

She felt such an abiding affection for the monster now that it only seemed right to include him in the consummation. Her little mouth slid up and down, a moan trapped in her throat by the swelling of it as she sucked, eager to draw out and savor the first drops of this particular Christmas morning communion.

And her young man looked on this scene amiably, without anger or objection. Possibly his good nature about it had something to do with the fact that he'd attracted extra attention of his own; his bride-to-be's sister, older by a few years and a widow at an early age, had long prayed for relief from the treacherous fantasies about her future brother in law that crept into her dreams.

But now she suddenly joined him on the altar, and in moments he was enjoying all of her curves, the whiteness of her breasts, and the pink, welcoming invitation of her mouth, without any guilt or hesitation on his part. One couple coupling had become two, almost without anyone noticing.