Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- May 7, 2001
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(Toon by Mandell, from TFTA #5. Copyright 1999)
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
A Christmas story by Strelnikov
Copyright 2002
“OK, Lindsey, let’s close up and go home,” said Mrs. Kilpatrick as she locked the front door of the toy store and flipped the sign from YES, WE’RE OPEN to SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED. “Thank God there’s only one more shopping day until Christmas.”
Lindsey Thomas sighed with relief. She was an 18-year-old high school senior, a tiny girl barely 5 feet tall, with fair skin, bright blue eyes and curly shoulder-length blonde hair. Soaking wet, she tipped the scales at 90 pounds. She hadn’t planned on working tonight – she had a date with her new boyfriend - but when Mrs. Kilpatrick’s daughter Tiffany had come down with the flu, Lindsey had broken her date and come straight to the shop. After all, Tiffany was her best friend, and Mrs. Kilpatrick had been good to her over the years.
She was dressed for her broken date in a white short-sleeved pullover top, forest-green skirt and white shoes. A Santa hat perched on her blonde curls. She had been wearing nylons, but they hadn’t even lasted an hour. After the second time she snagged them, she had gone into the stock room and thrown them away. She slipped her right foot out of her shoe and massaged her aching toes, then repeated the process with the left. She could hardly have made a worse choice of footwear than the spike heel shoes – but then, she hadn’t expected to spend the last six hours on her feet.
“Mrs. Kilpatrick, why don’t you take the money to the bank and go home?” said Lindsey. “I’ll finish wrapping the lay-aways and lock up.”
“Bless you,” Mrs. Kilpatrick replied. “I’m exhausted.”
“De nada,” Lindsey replied. Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lindsey walked back to the stock room, gathered the lay-aways from a shelf and carried them to the workbench. She kicked off her shoes. Much better, she thought as she wiggled her bare toes. Tomorrow, I’ll wear jeans and tennis shoes. I can finish this in an hour – maybe less.
She had finished the first and was starting on the second when a blast of cold air chilled the room. There was a jingling sound – bells? Lindsey looked up with alarm – had someone broken in?
Yes – four grinning little men entered the room. Lindsey was small, but the tops of their heads came barely up to her waist. The clothes they wore were medieval looking: tunics with multi-pointed collars, long floppy pointed caps, tights, shoes with curled-up pointed toes. Jingle bells were sewn to all of the points. Each carried an open bottle; one had a stringed instrument – a lute? – in his other hand.
Two of them approached her. The blond one said, “Guten abend, liebchen. Ich heiße Hans.” He gave a short, stiff bow. Lindsey winced at the blast of distillery breath; he had been hitting the Christmas spirit pretty hard. Oddly enough, he wore a black Lone Ranger mask over his eyes. His baritone voice was much deeper than she would have expected from so small a person.
Hans indicated his companion: “ Dieses ist mein Bruder, Fritz.” Dark-haired Fritz tried to bow, overbalanced, and would have fallen if Hans hadn’t steadied him. He belched and took another pull on his bottle. “Und diese sind unsere Kameraden, Max und Moritz,” Hans concluded, indicating the others, one clean-shaven with a mop of red hair, and the other with black hair and goatee. Two more bows, and a rumbling laugh.
“Ach, sie ist sehr schön,” said Max, and hiccuped. Like Fritz, he was very drunk.
“Aber, ist sie kitzlich?” asked Moritz, and took another drink.
Lindsey had backed up against the workbench. They’re speaking German, she thought. Who are they? This can’t be happening.
“I don’t understand you,” said Lindsey. “Do any of you speak English?”
“Ja, ein Bißchen,” replied Max, holding thumb and index finger an inch apart. “A little bit.”
“Who are you guys?”
“We are…elves? Ja, elves, from Santa Klaus,” he replied in a heavy German accent.
“Elves? What are you doing here?”
“We around the world travel, laughter to bring,” replied Max.
Odd sentence structure, thought Lindsey. He must be translating from the German word-for-word. His words were not slurred, but he had reached that stage of drunkenness where he enunciated each word with great care and precision.
Hans took a drink and nudged his brother. “Was denkst du, Fritz – ist sie kitzlich?”
Fritz looked down at Lindsey’s bare feet. “Das ist möglich,” he replied, and both grinned wolfishly.
“Laughter?” asked Lindsey. “What do you mean? And what are those two saying? Why are they looking at my feet?”
“Laßt es uns versuchen,” said Hans, grinning, and the four swarmed over her and bore her down to the floor.
“Hey! Stop! LET ME GO!” Lindsey yelled. But they ignored her protest. Hans and Fritz neatly hog-tied her with red ribbon. Moritz tied her big toes together. Max added the finishing touch – pretty red bows at shoulders, wrists and ankles. The evolution was executed flawlessly, without waste motion. They had obviously done this many times before.
Hans and Fritz positioned themselves to the left and right of Lindsey’s bound feet. “No kidding, guys! Let me GO!” shouted Lindsey. In response, Fritz traced a fingernail the length of one perfect upturned foot, toes to heel. “Hehehehe,” she giggled.
Horrified realization came to her. “NO! Not my FEET!”
“Kille, kille!” said Hans. He began drawing tiny figure-eight’s on Lindsey’s sensitive heel. “Hahahaha! Sta-haha-ha-ap!” Lindsey begged. “Eep! Ple-hehehe-ease!”
Then Hans and Fritz both went to work, scrabbling their fingers all over the bottoms of her feet. It was too much for Lindsey. Wild uncontrollable ticklish laughter burst out of her: “HAHAHA-hehe-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHA!”
They were both highly skilled ticklers – they’d obviously had lots of practice. They traced circles, squares and other tickling shapes on Lindsey’s feet. They held back her toes and tickled under them, then held the toes apart and tickled the soft skin in between. Their fingernails flicked across the soles, the arches, the heels, and back again. Through it all, Lindsey laughed helplessly.
They reduced Lindsey to gasping silent laughter, eased up, then did it again, over and over. Lindsey howled with laughter. It didn’t last forever, but it seemed that way. She lapsed into ticklish delirium, laughing wildly.
”Fünf Minuten Verschnaufpause,” said Hans, and the tickling stopped. ”Reich mir die Flasche, Moritz.” Moritz wordlessly handed him a bottle; Hans tilted it back and drank, lowering the level considerably.
Lindsey blinked away tears and gasped for breath. She ignored the German chatter as the others drank and laughed – couldn’t understand it anyway. This was horrible! Her ticklish feet were her greatest weakness. Her boyfriend hadn’t discovered that fact yet – Lindsey hoped (without much confidence) that he never would. But her brother Danny, now mercifully away at college, had taken full advantage. Probably would again over Christmas break – he had averaged about twice a week while he was at home. Even Tiffany had once trapped Lindsey in her sleeping bag during a sleepover and tickled her senseless.
But always before, Mom had made them quit before too long. Mom knew all about tickling – she’d gotten plenty of it herself from her own brother. Lindsey had an early memory of a backyard barbecue when Uncle Ray had tickled Mom’s feet until she begged for mercy. She had gotten none, of course.
These guys, though… Lindsey struggled against her bonds. The ribbons weren’t very substantial, but unfortunately they were strong enough.
Hans picked up the lute and strummed it. He began to sing:
“Heute wollen wir ein Liedlein singen,
Trinken wollen wir den kühlen Wein
Und die Gläser sollen dazu klingen,
Denn es muß, es muß geschieden sein-“
“Nein! Kein Soldatenlieder!” shouted Max. “Bist du wahnsinnig?”
“Wir sind schon einmal gegen Engeland gefahren,” observed Fritz.
“Ja, Frankreich und Italien auch,” added Moritz, and they all laughed, great rumbling belly laughs.
Hans, an angelic look on his face, changed to:
“Lachen, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!”
Max snorted. “Ach, du Schwein,” he said, grinning, and clapped Moritz on the shoulder. “Komm, Moritz. Jetzt sind wir an der Reihe.”
Max and Moritz took the positions that Hans and Fritz had vacated. Lindsey, in a panicky voice, cried “Please! No more! I can’t take any more!”
They ignored her. Max said, “Jetzt alle zusammen – drei, zwei, eins…”
“HAHAHAHAHA! Hehehe! HAHAHAHAHA!” Her clear soprano laugh filled the room. It rang like music, perfect counterpoint to Hans’s baritone singing.
It was worse than before – much worse. These two weren’t as drunk, so they did a better job. Moritz had found two long plumes; he began dragging them slowly between her toes. They tickled maddeningly. Meanwhile, Max spider-walked his fingernails all over the bottoms of both feet. He started at the heels, scratching in circles and figure-eight’s, then danced his nails lightly up the arches to the balls of the feet, and scrabbled up and down the wrinkles in the middle. He held back her toes and scratched the tender skin under them, spread them apart to tickle between them. Finally, back to the soles, flickering his fingers along the exact middle, around and across the balls, and back to the middle again. Lindsey laughed, helplessly, hopelessly, face red, tears streaming.
Another blast of freezing air, and the tickling stopped abruptly. Lindsey blinked away tears and looked up as Santa Claus stormed into the room. He was furiously angry.
“What the HELL is going on here?” he roared. Lindsey saw that her tormentors had backed away, and were standing as far from her as it was possible to be in the same room. They looked embarrassed, but said nothing.
Santa rolled his eyes upward. “Sweet Jesus, they’re drunk again! So drunk that they’ve lost their English.” He repeated the question: “Was machen sie hier?”
“Gar nichts,” they chorused, innocent looks on their faces.
Lindsey gasped out, “HELP! Santa! They’re TICKLING me!”
Santa scowled. “Nothing, eh? Diese Sache hängt mir zum Hals heraus! ES KOTZT MICH AN!” he shouted.
The four miscreants shuffled their feet, eyes downcast.
“Jetzt aber augenblicklich zurück zur Werkstatt!” Santa ordered. ”Mit euch rede ich später.”
“Jawohl, mein Herr!” they chorused and scrambled for the door. Hans paused to retrieve a half-full bottle. Santa helped him on his way with a kick in the butt and bellowed “MACH’ SCHNELL!”
Another blast of cold air, and the door slammed. Santa shook his head ruefully. “I’ve got the Katzenjammer Kids on my payroll. You just can’t get good help these days.”
He started picking up empty bottles and other incriminating trash and putting it in his bag. As he worked, he said “I owe you an apology, young lady. I’ve had startup troubles at my maquiladora in Juarez, and had to send all of my regular elves down there to straighten them out. I hired these Nibelungen through a temp service to fill in. They’re good workers, but there have been…incidents. In fact, you’re the fourth one tonight.” He pulled the drawstring tight. “Well, no real harm done.”
“No harm?” asked Lindsey indignantly. “They nearly tickled me to death! And aren’t you going to untie me?”
“We-e-ell, there’s a problem with that,” Santa replied. “You know, it’s true what they say – I really do know who’s been naughty and nice.” He hooked the rolling step stool with the toe of his boot and positioned it near her bound feet. “I knew all about Danny and how often he tickled you silly. Never could bring myself to leave coal for him, though.”
Santa tugged off his gloves and thrust them under his belt. His fingernails were those of an old man: thick, yellowed, with heavy lengthwise ridges.
“But you, on the other hand…” Santa seated himself on the stool and cracked his knuckles. “You have a new boyfriend. You’ve been…naughty…haven’t you?”
“OH NO! NOT THAT! HAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Santa wiggled his fingers, his nails skittering over her soles and tickling like crazy.
Through her laughter, she heard him say “Well, I won’t bring coal for you, either. This is better.” He was tickling faster now, fingernails flying over sensitive soles, and Lindsey laughed with wild abandon. “Mrs. Claus doesen’t know I’ve already found my wayward workers. She doesen’t expect me home for hours.”
Santa concentrated his effort on Lindsey’s ticklish heels, tickled his way up her arches to the balls of her feet, under her toes, between them, then tickled back down to her heels again. Lindsey laughed and laughed. She was past the point of resistance, or even coherent thought.
“HO HO HO!” said Santa.
“HAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHA-HEEHEE-HAHAHAHA!” laughed Lindsey.
Because, after all, isn’t laughter part of the spirit of Christmas?
**THE END**
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Excellent story. 
