Chapter 2

Carter came to my rescue, though. "Uh, Dustin, I don't think you should be talking that way to the very elves who are making your Christmas presents. You might end up with some coal in your stocking."

"But I don't got a stocking and we don't got a chimney in our apartment."

"Dustin, Honey," said the frazzled-looking woman with him, "We'll get you a stocking or do like they did in the old days when boys and girls would take one of their socks and use that."

"And I don't need a chimney. Lot's of places don't have a chimney and kids around the world still get their presents. So, what would you like for Christmas?" asked Santa.

"My dad! I want my dad to come home."

It was clear from reading the room that his mom and dad had split. Sounded like she was barely eking by and lived in an apartment. Carter handled the issue pretty well, I thought.

"Yeah, that's unfortunately something we can't do. We make toys and can't get your dad to come home."

"Then what good are you?" he pouted before breaking into tears.

I saw Elise sneak out the door, and seconds later, she returned with a nurse. She was a delightful gal who did not talk down to the boy while she took his vital signs. I guessed she was doing it just to get in the room and smooth things out.

"Hey, Dustin, your heart is beating kinda fast. You hurt?"

"No, I'm mad. They can't get me what I really want for Christmas."

"Maybe you should give them a couple of ideas and you'll get at least one."

Somehow, it seemed to calm him down. After he gave a half-hearted list of a few toys, we all excused ourselves, wishing him a Merry Christmas.

—–

ELISE

I could tell Nisha was upset at what Dustin had said. I don't know if it was budding racism or simply a physically and emotionally hurting boy who lashed out, but whatever the cause, she looked shaken. I took her hand and led her into the nurses' lounge, leaving Carter out on the ward.

"Nisha, you OK?" I asked as I gave her a hug.

"Yeah, yeah, I am, I guess. I just didn't expect to be hit with that from a six-year-old."

"Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Who are you talking about?" asked another nurse who was sipping on a coffee and scrolling through her phone.

"Dustin in Seventeen."

"Oh, yeah, he's a piece of work. Broken home, mom was abused and finally got away from the dad, but the boy doesn't understand any of it. No money, she's got no job and he smashed his leg playing on a jungle gym in the park. One shitty thing after another."

"Oh, we had no idea," I said.

The nurse went on, "Carter is a great guy, you couldn't ask for a better Santa. I bet he's already planned on getting one of the toys himself and giving it to the mom. He does that a lot."

"Oh, cool," I responded before Nisha spoke up.

"Would it be possible to get a twenty-second summary of the kids and their overall home situation before we go in to see them?"

'What a great idea,' I thought.

"Sure. Let me run it by our head nurse, but I'm sure she'd be OK with it. I'll be glad to hang around with you guys to help make it happen."

"Aren't you responsible for some of the patients?" asked Nisha.

"I'm off shift. Just finished a four-hour mini-shift to help with the busiest hours of the day. Be glad to help out."

Nisha's idea turned out to be a great one. Monique, the nurse who volunteered to help out, would give a thirty second summary of the kids' situations and even went in the rooms with us. She took on the role of introducing us to the kids, usually with the little spiel, "Look who I found walking down the hall!" Her build-up seemed to get the kids even more excited and the remainder of the kids were thrilled to see us.

I could practically see Nisha's mind churning as she talked to the children. Her questions were simple and direct, but it was remarkable at how much info she got from them with two or three quick ones. I was nowhere near as efficient, but we continued our alternating plan until we were done.

Later in the nurses' lounge, we thanked Monique for her help and chatted briefly with Carter. When he talked about his own loss, I could see tears well up in his eyes. Somehow, Nisha knew what to do; she gave him a warm, supportive hug and told him she was so proud that he was giving back to the community in his daughter's memory. He did admit he was planning on giving Dustin a couple of presents in hopes it might make a tiny bit of difference in the boy's life.

Before we left, we changed into our civies so Santa and his elves wouldn't be seen getting into cars and driving away. I happened to see Nisha in the mirror when she was down to her undies and I was again struck at how beautiful she was; tall, thin yet curvy, modest boobs which fit her frame perfectly. Cute tush.

'Some guy's gonna get lucky with that one,' I thought.

—–

NISHA

As we were getting dressed, I had this weird sense Elise was looking at me in the mirror, you know, almost like checking me out. I've had plenty of experiences being around nude and nearly nude girls over the years, particularly in high school, where I was a bench-warmer on the school's basketball team. Those encounters were no big deal, I mean, most of the girls were more embarrassed and scurried from the shower and got dressed facing away from others. None of the girls wanted to be called lezbos and avoided doing anything that might suggest they were into other girls. But here, I got the idea I was being checked out.

Without even thinking about it, I spontaneously blurted out, "Liking what you see?" and turned to face her.

She dropped her head immediately and responded, "No! Nothing like that."

"Oh, and here I thought I might get a date to a New Year's Eve party," I laughed.

"What?" she asked almost indignantly, "Just because I'm an electrician, you think I'm gay?"

"Hey, Elise, easy there. I was just making a little joke and no, I don't think you're gay. I don't think you're anything because it's none of my business."

"Oh," she said, "I guess I'm hyperaware of the lesbian question since a lot of people assume I'm gay because of the field I'm in."

After this little interaction, I realized she had been facing me, as I was facing her, wearing nothing but her panties and a cute little bra. Elise was seriously cute; short, curvy with an undertone of muscles, nice boobs and ass which guys would certainly go after far sooner than they would mine.

I could feel myself blush from the thought and was grateful for my dark skin, which usually can hide any reddening. My mom used to tease me about my tendency to blush and she, knowing me as well as anybody, could see it when others couldn't. I only hoped Elise was unaware of it.

After we got dressed, I wanted to change the tone of how we ended our day together and decided to ask her out for a drink. "How about another Irish Coffee?"

"Yeah, I could go for that. Meet you there?"

"Sure."

—–

ELISE

I know, I know that I'm a little hyper about the lesbian thing. I mean, I can't tell you how many times people assume I'm gay because I pull wire for a living. But it's a good job, I enjoy it and it fits my need to work with my hands.

And I'm not gay. OK, OK, I have to confess that I've kinda thought about women at times, but all of my sexual activity has been either with guys or with my battery-powered boyfriend. And I've never fantasized about being with a woman. So, I'm not gay, alright?

But on the way to meet Nisha, I found my brain unable to focus on anything else but what I had seen in the nurses' lounge: a tall, sexy Nisha wearing dark lavender undies which seemed designed to draw attention to her boobs and bits. I don't know what it was about her, but I found her to be seriously attractive. I know I've got more up top, but her boobs fit her physique perfectly, as did her ass. And there was something else about her that I liked. Her personality was top-notch. And she wasn't some airhead going to college just to get her Mrs. degree. No, she loved kids and wanted to help them.

When I walked into the restaurant, which was fortunately still quiet in the pre-dinner rush, I saw Nisha standing over by the concierge's station. For a split second, I felt a little jolt, not of lust but of happy energy, as I call it, run through me. I was happy to see her and I felt energized to be with her.

Once we had our drinks, we settled into a booth and simultaneously exhaled a long sigh.

"Wow, that was weird," Nisha laughed.

"Yeah, it's almost like we had the same psychic thing going on. I didn't realize how tiring it could be doing the elf thing."

"Me, either. Uh, how many hours do you have to put in, anyway?"

"Total of one hundred, but I'll never get that before Christmas, so I guess the court will give me some other things to do later."

"I know it must suck to be forced to do this, but I'm kinda glad, in a way."

"How so?"

"I got to meet you and you're a fun elf."

"You're not so bad yourself. So, anything we want to do different tomorrow?"

We ended up talking about all kinds of things besides Christmas and elves. We told stories on ourselves, shared our hopes and dreams and laughed ourselves silly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress giving us the hairy eyeball and knew we had probably overstayed our welcome. Instead of leaving, I wanted to extend our time together. "Hey, interested in dinner? We could order a bunch of happy-hour appys and call it a meal."

"Sure, good idea," Nisha said before developing an evil grin and wiggling her eyebrows, "This mean you're asking me out on a date?"

"You rat! I can't believe you said that," I shrieked as I playfully swatted her arm.

"And you're into S and M, I see."

"Jesus, Nisha, what's got into you, anyway?"

"Nothing lately. Maybe that's why I'm, uh, acting the way I am, you know, with you."

"For the last time, I'm not," I said in a loud voice before barely whispering the last word, "Gay."

"I know, but you're fun to tease. Anyway, let's order some food."

That was the last we spoke of the topic, but it kept popping up in my mind. I knew I wasn't gay but I was having a fantastic time with her. We were laughing, joking, spilling our souls to each other like BFFs yet we had only recently met. And it felt so natural, so good.

Maybe if I wasn't a lesbian, was I a Nishian?

—–

NISHA

I had fun teasing Elise about her sexual orientation and I believed her when she denied being gay. But somehow the idea of lesbianism kept stewing in the back of my mind as we talked over our dinner. I never had been with a girl nor had I ever fantasized about it. I liked looking at women, though, and could appreciate an attractive face or figure. And Elise had both in spades.

'What would she be like in the sack?' The thought hit me in the middle of her telling me about some technical aspect of her job and I was floored. Where had that come from? Was I just horny because it had been too long since my last boyfriend dumped me? Should I be spending more time dialing the rotary phone, you know, rubbin' my nubbin?

The more I dwelled on it, the more I knew I needed to get some relief. And it began to affect my conversation with her though, fortunately, we were done with our meal, the place was filling up and it was time to go.

In the parking lot, we quickly made plans for the next day's elf work before we went to say our good-byes.

"Don't get the wrong idea about me," Elise giggled, "But I could go with a hug."

"Sure."

And the hug felt great. Her softer curves melted into me, her face was at my neck level and I could feel her warm breath teasing my skin below my ear. I broke away maybe a little too quickly because I found myself getting turned on!

"See ya tomorrow."

"You, too."

When I got home, Mom and Dad were busy finishing the tree. They still had a couple of ornaments I had made when I was in grade school and they insisted I hang them on the tree. We chatted a little more before I excused myself, claiming fatigue. The real reason, of course, was my need to get busy with my pearl.

—–

ELISE

The next day was awful. I admit I didn't sleep too well, mainly because I couldn't relax after the hug with Nisha. I don't know what it was about the hug, but it seemed to set off some pretty risqué thoughts as I drove home.

But what was it about Nisha? She was sexy in an exotic way, yet I'd seen many, many sexy women in the past and none of them seemed to burrow into my brain like Nisha had. My request for a hug was spontaneous, similar to requests I had made in the past with other girls and women. It wasn't a sexual thing, it was a 'girl' thing, you know how girls tend to hug each other when they greet or part. But midway during the hug, it was like a circuit breaker switch flipped on. Every light in the house, no, every nerve in my body suddenly turned on. I'm shorter than she is and my nose was below her collar bone, but I could still smell her perfume, her soap and, most importantly, I could smell her.

When I got home, I tried to occupy my brain with a silly rom-com, but I simply couldn't. The characters in the movie were so superficial and goofy that I wondered for the millionth time how any director could stoop so low to put out such crap. I mean, the heroine was a ditz and why the tall, dark and handsome hero even looked at her was an unanswerable question. I finally turned it off and let my mind wander.

What they needed to do was film a movie featuring real life people, kinda like me…and Nisha. Now, where had that thought come from? Why Nisha? Why not some handsome guy like that asswipe Chuck had been, only without his bad personality? But my mind wouldn't let the idea of me and Nisha go.

I went to bed, tossed and turned, tried a little me-time, tossed and turned some more before I eventually fell asleep around three or four.

Like I said, the day was awful. We ended up on the cancer ward of the hospital. Now, I've been pretty healthy my entire life as have my parents. The grandparents are showing their age but there have been no major scares or big hospitalizations with any of them. I guess naïve little Elise was totally unprepared to see sick kids. Really, really sick kids.

I know this had to have been hard for Carter, I mean, he lost his daughter to leukemia, which, as I understand, is a cancer of the blood cells. But at least he was used to the hospital and seeing sick little kids. Our first kid was a little girl named Taylor. It was so sad! She was bald, I guess from the treatments, and was nothing but skin and bones. And her face was like those pictures you see of third-world kids who have lost all hope and all joy in their lives.

Monique couldn't go with us, but we were able to get the head nurse to give us a quick run-down on all the kids we would be seeing that day. She had told us Taylor was losing her battle against the cancer, but her parents wouldn't, couldn't say 'quit,' so the medical team kept trying new treatments, which weren't working. Now, I'm no doctor or psychologist or anything like that, but when I saw little Taylor, I saw a girl who knew, absolutely knew, what was coming.

We tried, honestly we tried to bring her a little Christmas cheer, but I'm sure she knew if she managed to make it to Christmas, she'd never see the next one. Carter did his best and Nisha was a trooper right there with him, while I tried to give the parents some positive vibes. Only once did I see her crack a tiny smile when Carter told her Rudolph was allergic to hospitals, but other than that, she simply stared at him and us with the dead, wise eyes of a terminally ill child.

I ducked out early and ran to the restroom, where I sobbed and cursed at the gods who would let such a tiny little thing die way, way before her time. I didn't even hear Nisha come in behind me, I just felt her arms wrap around me as she hiccupped and swallowed her own tears. Her hug gave me strength to swallow my tears, wash my face and head back out there.

When we got to the nurses' lounge, Carter was sitting there with a sad face, no doubt thinking about his own little girl, who must have been about that age when she died. As both Nisha and I gave him a supportive hug, an ironically funny thought occurred to me.

"You know, we're supposed to be cheering them up and look at us."

Nisha nodded while Carter croaked out, "This is why I do this. I want to keep my daughter's memory alive and this is the best way that I can, but it's still painful as hell."

After a few more minutes, we gathered our wits, stood tall and went back out there. Some of the other kids were pretty sick, but most looked like they were going to beat the odds, and fortunately, none had the wise, pained look of the dying little Taylor. We muddled through somehow and wrapped up our work in about three hours.

—–