Elf on a Shelf: Part 1

Her stalker wasn't who she thought he was;

Based on a post by LingeringAfterthought, in 3 parts. Listen to
the Podcast at Steamy
Stories.

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Honey smiled at the long line of children waiting to see
Santa, flipping her phone from Google Translate back to see the information of
the next little girl in line, who was looking up at her somberly with large
liquid brown eyes. In her small face was a familiar mixture of fear and hope.
Wonder; it was wonder in her eyes, Honey thought. Unlike the tired and jaded
adults, dutifully shifting their weight from foot to foot, holding overstuffed
shopping bags and all the coats of their kids as they distracted themselves on
their phones, the children got more and more excited as they drew near the man
in the furry red suit with white trim. Honey loved working with the children;
because like them, she sometimes could still see the magic.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Norman shift
uncomfortably in the painted plywood throne made for him to sit with the
children and discuss their good behavior and of the wishes that they hoped
would come true. Even at age 62, Norman still saw the magic with his merry
bright blue eyes, but it faded when his prostate pained him.

When the photographer got the shot the parent wanted, Honey
walked to where most of the long line could see her as Norman flashed her a
look of worshipful gratitude. The adults' faces immediately fell, knowing what
was coming. "I'm afraid Santa needs to take a quick break because
apparently the reindeer have begun arguing again!" Norman put his gloved
hands up to his real beard, pulled a comically dismayed face, jumped up from
his throne, and ran off toward the restrooms. Honey shook her head mournfully
and continued, "The reindeer were all practicing their Christmas carols
when Comet and Cupid couldn't decide how many times Santa checks his list in
Santa Claus is Coming to Town! Does anyone here remember how it goes?" she
asked, scanning the line for people game enough to help.

Honey scampered back and forth along the line trying to
choose among the eager volunteers, her white-trimmed, pink fur skirt flaring
out around her thighs, her long legs clad in sparkly curly-toed ruby slippers
and candy cane swirl stockings catching the eyes of several fathers. Suddenly,
she gasped listening carefully to her headset, "Nina?" she called
out. "Comet and Cupid say they will only stop arguing if 'Nina' gives the
answer. Is there a 'Nina' here today? Nina?" Honey looked around at the
crowd carefully until the little girl with the big brown eyes, who had been
quietly waiting 57 minutes in line, gathered the courage to raise her hand.

"Oh! Are you Nina?" she asked, running over and
crouching down near the girl.

"We just adopted her; she only speaks Portuguese,"
the weary woman holding her hand said quietly.

Honey gasped and smiled widely, "Voc fala portugu s
Nina? Maravilhosa!" she said, watching the little girl's eyes brighten
excitedly. "Voc pode me dizer quantas vezes o Papai Noel verifica sua
lista?" she asked, holding her microphone out to the little girl.

"Duas vezes!" Nina said confidently into the mic.

Honey listened carefully to her headset, concentrating,
"'Duas vezes' it is! They've stopped arguing!" she announced.
"But now, they want us all to sing the song in Portuguese! Nina, voc vai
me ajudar a ensin -los a m sica?" she asked. Nina nodded and slowly she
and Honey taught the familiar song to the crowd in a new language.

As always, a hush came on the crowd when Honey began to
sing. Heads raised up from forgotten phones. Vague smiles drifted onto the
turning heads of passers-by in the mall as they paused in their frenetic search
for gifts. It wasn't so much that Honey's voice was beautiful, though it
certainly was. It was more that when Honey sang, it seemed to make the things
that didn't really matter melt away. To those that believed in such things,
Honey's voice was magic. When she sang, people held their breath and didn't
even miss the air.

Honey closed her eyes as she sang next to Nina. It was a
newly acquired habit. Though she had been taught to let her eyes slowly drift
over the audience, letting them make a connection with each person as she sang,
she didn't do that anymore. She knew he was out there. She felt his presence
frequently as she worked, but it was only when she sang that he came out into
the open. She couldn't hold her voice steady when she saw him watching her, so
she closed her eyes and let the magic continue for the crowd.

When the song ended, Honey opened her eyes as the crowd
cheered, finding his powerful form immediately as if she had been commanded to
look at him. Zach. He had changed a lot in the year since he brought his
sister's children through the long Santa line, drawing her almost too-large
dark blue eyes to him then, as easily as he did now. After bringing his nieces
and nephews through the line, he'd gone home and brought all his neighbors'
kids to see Santa in five more trips, watching her the entire time. He looked
at her as if he'd never seen anything like her in the world, like he couldn't
believe she was real. She had loved feeling his eyes on her then, hearing his
voice. She had wanted to climb up in his lap, feel his large arms curled around
her, whisper to him about how good she had been that year, and of how much she
hoped he would make her wishes come true. Of course, all that was before he'd
told her he wanted to kill her.

Zach's face looked leaner now, though his body seemed even
larger, if such a thing was possible. His brooding, deep-set eyes were not
merry, as they had been when children climbed his tree-like body in her line
last year. They weren't nervously soft and adoring of every part of her, as
they had been at their candle-lit dinner. His eyes weren't rageful or insane as
you might expect from someone visiting their object of murderous hate, but
rather; they were tortured, trapped. Pain and quiet desperation had taken up
restless residence in the windows to his soul. Honey knew she shouldn't look at
him so much, but she just wished she could understand what she had done wrong.

Once the line of children and parents had cleared, it was
long past the official closing time. Honey cleaned up the display and prepared
it for the next day while Norman took one last lingering trip to the restroom.
Her phone showed numerous messages from work friends from her other job asking
where she was. The firm had planned a Christmas party at Gatsby's, a gorgeous
club worthy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's glamorous hero. It was also the place
where Zach had taken her on their first and last date. The Gatsby's waiter had
looked stunned and confused when she shakily ordered herself an "angel
shot," the code-phrase used to quietly ask bartenders or wait staff for
help when you felt threatened, but after his initial shock, the waiter
immediately escorted her secretly to a taxi waiting outside before Zach
returned to the table. Gatsby's had saved her life; but she didn't want to go
back there.

After avoiding call after call from Zach, she finally
answered and politely asked him never to call her again. To her surprise, he
didn't. He never spoke to her again. Unless she sang, she never even saw him,
but she felt his presence almost everywhere. It felt like she was haunted by
him; haunted by something wonderful and magical that, inexplicably, went
horribly wrong.

Her phone buzzed again, the display showing that the firm's
senior partner wanted to FaceTime her. Steeling herself, she answered.
"Honey Lane where in the hell; oh my god lookit you!" Aaron Timberman
held the phone high above his head with his long ex-basketball-player arms and
Honey saw a crowd of her co-workers crowd into the picture behind him.

"Um, hi sir. Sorry I'm late to;"

"You're an elf!"

"Um, yeah. It's a volunteer thing;"

"Wait, wait, wait; you have the shoes? You know, with
the; toes?" he slurred, motioning his finger in a spiral motion.

Honey bit her lips and tilted the camera down her body,
showing her entire costume, tilting her foot to show off the curled toe.
"I'm sorry it got late tonight, but I'll be there as soon as I can get
home and get changed;"

Timberman looked around at the crowd surrounding him,
"Guys, do we wanna see Honey Lane here at the party in some boring old
Anne Klein shit, or do we want the elf?" he yelled, pointing at the
screen.

Behind him, almost a dozen of her co-workers began chanting
"Elf, Elf, Elf, Elf!"

"Get yer ass over here, Elf," Timberman ordered,
poking at his screen several times before effectively ending the call.

A few minutes later, Norman finally came back from the
restroom and gave Honey a ride over to Gatsby's in his red SUV bedecked with a
bumper sticker that read,