While she drove home, she called Brad.
“Got any plans for dinner?” she asked.
“None.”
“I’ll stop in town and bring something back. Alright?” she asked.
“You’re the best!”
“I know. Maybe you can thank me later?” she teased.
“Gladly.”
She brought home dinner, and they ate it in the little dining room, but as they dined Christmas looked at the empty chairs and remembered. Seven years, but not one of them passed without that feeling of missing pieces, the others that should have been around that table. It was never so obvious as at this time of year, when so many others were gathering with families, that she and Brad no longer had one. They had each other and two empty seats at a table.
“What is it?” Brad asked, setting his food aside, intuiting her feeling from her expression.
“Can we go visit them tomorrow?” she asked, looking at the chairs.
“Of course,” he said and rounded the table, kissing her head. “Let’s grab a wreath in town and we can go whenever you want.”
She nodded, squeezing his hand.
“I think I’m finished,” she said.
She cleared the remains of the meal away quietly with Brad’s help and, for a while, they lay on the couch together watching the holiday shows. As the evening wore on, she finally broke the silence.
“You know,” she said, “I had this really awesome gift for you tonight. If it’s okay with you, though, I think I’d just like you to hold me a while longer.”
He held her tighter and said, “All you want. If you want to stay like this until we’re old and gray, that’s just fine with me.”
In silence, they lay by the light of the fire, but the silence was not an awkward thing, she thought. It was perfect.
***
December 16th: Visitation
The drive out to the town cemetery was not a long one, and Hank’s plows had kept the road free of snow. That was just like Hank, she thought, as Brad drove. Even though the road was rarely used, he considered the fact that people might want to drive out to look at headstones. She considered that, while the city had been a nice adventure, there really was nothing like a small town community. Even if it had a Marcy Gale.
Brad eased the car to the cemetery gates, where the plows had stopped, and the two of them left the heat of the vehicle. The cold seemed appropriate for such a place, Christmas thought, as she held Brad’s hand and tromped through the snow. You wanted your loved ones to be resting in warmth and comfort, somewhere, but when you visited, you wanted it to feel miserable. At least, that was how she felt it should be.
She carried a Christmas wreath in one hand and they walked among the snow-capped tombstones, a hundred and more years of stories, those that had built the town into what it was today. Each of them, like her and Brad, was a piece of that workshop. It was like the barn, only they were giving the world their work and their words, the kind of gifts that would succeed them, like all those here, in the cold ground.
They found their parent’s plots, side-by-side.
“Eileen and Mark Carol,” they read, “Never forgotten and always cherished in Christmas.”
On the top of the shared headstone, not quite as worn as all the rest, sat a poinsettia, fresh, green and red. Their mother’s favorite. Christmas wondered who had put it there. She placed the wreath at the base of the stone and stood with Brad, hands intertwined, silently.
“Merry Christmas dad, mom,” she said to the stillness, “I just got home from school. I wish you could have come down to see it. The south is a lot different from up here. Most of them haven’t even seen snow. Christmas without snow? It wasn’t even Christmas. Not the same, anyway. I got stranded on the road coming back, but Tommy Miller stopped and helped me make it home. I know that you’re probably disappointed that I wasn’t prepared, but Hank made sure I have a new spare and a jack in the trunk now. Brad’s still taking good care of me. I’m really grateful for him.”
Brad put his arm around her shoulder and held her as she sniffled, wiped at her eyes.
“It’s never quite the same without you guys. You know, Christmas. I just hope that they have a huge tree in heaven, like the one here, and that it’s…” she struggled, choked, “and that it’s like Christmas all the time.”
The tears broke, cooling quickly in the wind’s whip. She buried her face in Brad’s chest and her heart swelled at the rush of gratitude for his arms around her, holding her like safety. He didn’t say a word, which is exactly what she needed.
December 17th: Tree Festival
Though her passions had been cool throughout the day, after visiting their parents’ graves, Christmas was running hot again by the next morning. She awoke before Brad, reluctant to leave the warmth of the blankets. The clock on the bedside table showed just after eight. With no urgent need to get up and around, she let herself enjoy Brad’s arms around her and the soft sigh of his breath against her neck.
Not for the first time, she wanted nothing about this to be taboo. If two people were consenting, happy in their relationship, what was the harm in it? Alternative lifestyles were gaining support and acceptance all over the world. Familial relations, though? That was still a dirty thing.
Herself, she found nothing all that dirty about the feel of his bare chest against her, or anything wrong with his arm around her, holding her close and making her feel safe and loved. It was beautiful, and it was sweet. Had he been anyone else, no one observing the two of them in this moment would have given it a second thought. Instead, it was a secret that could ruin their lives.
That same secret, the nature of it, also made it hot and sexy. It was a weird dichotomy. The thing she wanted to be seen as normal would lose some of what made it erotic, if it had been normal. That was her life, though. Nothing about it was normal. They did not hold normal people up as the living embodiment of a town’s spirit, just because of their name. Normal people didn’t fall for their brother. Normal people didn’t write erotic fantasies about it to sell to strangers while masquerading under an assumed name.
She shifted, turning over and dislodging Brad’s hand, waking him in the process. Sleepily, he gave her a tired smile, which she kissed and snuggled closer. His hand went back around her and she enjoyed the moment, softly kissing him in the silence of the morning. Eventually, though, they had to go out and pretend.
“I’m going to shower,” she whispered, as though a normal voice would somehow break the magic.
“You want some company?” Brad asked, sliding his hand down her back.
“I do, but I won’t have it. If you get in there with me, we’re going to end up late. Tonight,” she said, “I owe you some gifts, since I was kind of a bummer the last few nights.”
“You’re never a bummer,” Brad said. “You have a heart, and it’s only part of what makes you beautiful.”
She kissed him again and flung back the blanket, groaning at the chill. While the cold was just part of being home, she thought that living in the south certainly had its perks.
***
Christmas Tree Grove was a cleared plot of land in the town’s heart, nearby Christmas Green. Anyone who wanted to participate in the annual tree festival was welcome, paying a fee to the town, and then being provided with a tree to decorate. Tomorrow night, all those trees would be lit up and on display, like a forest of light and cheer.
The St. Mary’s choir would sing, and visitors would cast their votes for a winner. That winner would have their photo taken with their tree, which would then be added to the town’s records. The photos, going back a hundred years, were displayed in the Hall of Records, which sat next to City Hall. It was a point of local pride, one which was slowly being digitized and added to the town’s website to share with the world. On New Year’s Eve, they would burn the trees in yet another annual tradition, just one of those many days that made the town of Christmas what it was.
Brad pulled a sled, stacked with boxes of decorations and lights, along the snow toward their plot. Sasha, Leah, and Christmas all carried a box. After parking the sled by their bare tree, Brad went for a ladder, leaving the girls to unpack boxes and lay things out on a nearby tarp.
A few plots away, Christmas spied Marcy and her friends, who were already busy with their own. Mainly, their efforts comprised Jason decorating their tree, while the three girls gossiped, and occasionally handed him something. Christmas shook her head and wondered at Jason’s fealty to the bitchy girls. She hoped he was at least getting laid by one of them for all the effort he put into them.
Naturally, Marcy’s tree was topped with a gorgeous (and likely expensive) ivory angel that would certainly put her own trusty, weathered, golden star to shame. Of course, Marcy’s tree was also the tallest.
“Probably had Jason go out and chop that big fucker down all by himself,” Leah said, following her gaze as she looked up at the ivory angel.
“I imagine they tied a harness to him and made him drag it back, while Marcy whipped him like a reindeer,” Sasha added.
Marcy noticed them staring and flashed them a superior smirk, leaned down, made a snowball, and then tossed it. It fell a little short. Christmas quickly made her own, launched it, and Marcy had to duck out of the way. A third struck Sasha on the shoulder, thrown by Julia. Leah gave Carry one that hit her square in the chest.
Within seconds, they were embroiled in a snowball fight that had them all ducking behind trees and shouting. Christmas dodged, ducked, and threw, pelting Julia in the back, but caught one from Carry on the shoulder, while she was distracted. She shrieked as the attention of all three opponents turned on her. Dodging skillfully, she heard Brad cry out in surprise as Marcy’s snowball hit him in the face.
The flurry of snow stopped at once and Marcy looked embarrassed, shouting, “Sorry, Brad!” from across the distance. Brad set the ladder down and wiped at his face but waved back without a reply.
“Damn it,” he said, laughing, “I leave you three alone for ten minutes and you start a war.”
“Marcy started it,” Leah whined, “We were just defending our castle.”
Brad opened the ladder and said, “Let’s get started!”
Leah held the ladder for him as he climbed, and Sasha passed the first string of lights upward. He fastened the end on the top of the tree. Christmas looped it around the tree until the string ran out. She clipped the end, and then Brad moved the ladder around, attached a second string to the first, and continued the process.
The entire process took a couple of hours to complete, but Brad was finally satisfied that all the lighting was spaced correctly and secure. While the girls went to work on the lower part of the tree, hanging decorations, Brad worked on the top, while each of them took turns holding the ladder steady for him. At last, he topped it with the old, golden star. This little piece went back to the first years their family had moved into the town, and it was just as much a tradition as the rest of them.
Once it was finished, Brad plugged the lights into the outlet stand on their plot and watched it all come to life. He stood back, holding hands with Christmas and Sasha, while Leah held Sasha’s other. In silence, they took in the finished project, pleased. Of course, Marcy’s gorgeous tree seemed to outshine all the others. Christmas couldn’t help but think their own looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas special next to it.
***
Brad’s cock jumped at the sight of his sister in a set of Christmas red lingerie, crawling across the living room floor like a cat, while the fire danced behind her. After the whole day outside, decorating their tree and taking in the town with Sasha and Leah, that heat was more than welcome. Hotter still was the girl in red, who was now sliding her hands up his legs toward the waistband of his lounge pants.
“Now, that is a gift I’d like to unwrap every day,” he remarked.
Christmas tugged at the pants and got them down. Brad stepped out of them and watched her as she stroked his cock with wide eyes. The lingerie had been a purchase before leaving school, and it made Christmas feel ridiculously sexy. By the reaction from her brother’s cock, she could tell he felt the same.
“Do you have your phone?” she asked.
He leaned over to the couch and picked it up.
“I want you to record this,” she said.
“You sure? That’s… dangerous ground,” he said.
“How many naked pictures of me do you have on it?” she asked, grinning.
“None. I keep those on a drive on the computer. You know, for… posterity.”
“I sincerely doubt that our ancestors will be interested in naked photos of me,” she laughed. “Just admit that you jerk off to them. That’s way hotter.”
“Okay,” he said, “I jerked off to them. A lot.”
“Record it,” she said again.
He nodded and started. Christmas licked the length of his cock, staring up at the camera. She planted small kisses on it, toying with every inch with her lips. Brad held the phone steady, angled down at her, while she slowly licked and kissed it. Before long, she was sucking on the head, and then swallowing it, slowly swirling her tongue around it as she looked into the camera.
With only her mouth, she worshipped it like it was her God, making love to his erection with everything she had. Her half-lidded eyes showed pure joy at the action, as well as a barely concealed lust for him. She took him deep, held him there, massaged his cockhead with her throat, making his penis jerk. She wasn’t counting the time, just enjoying pleasing him, the feel of his hot, hard length sexy. His growls and groans were like a dirty music, somehow hypnotic, tapping into that primal urge to satisfy him.
Her skillful sucking went on for a long while, while Brad recorded it, until she could feel him holding back his need. She increased her effort, sucking him faster, moaning around it like a hungry slut. The wet sound of her mouth around his cock seemed loud in the otherwise quiet room. Finally, he couldn’t hold it back. Christmas pulled his cock from her mouth and stroked it wetly, and then he gasped as the first explosion of cum streaked across her face. She flinched at the blast and moaned hotly, then took the second on her tongue. A third coated her lips.
“So sexy,” Brad sighed, “Fuck, you’re so hot, Chris!”
She let him empty himself onto her face, flushed and hot at taking her first incestuous facial. She sealed her lips around his cock again and drained him, polishing it clean as she looked into the camera with ropes of cum decorating her face.
Once she had him drained, she scooped the cum from her face with her fingers and sucked them noisily for the camera, saying, breathily, between sucks, “I love my brother’s cum. I want to suck my brother’s cock for him every day.”
December 18th: Pick-a-Pet
For a town with a population just over 5,000, Christmas had a surprising number of homeless animals. Christmas, Sasha, and Leah were wet and dirty in the back of the shelter, helping to wash and dry dogs. It was like an assembly line. While Christmas and Leah bathed the dogs, Sasha dried off a finished one with a towel, then passed it along to Mrs. Winslow who went at the excited animals with a hair dryer. That done, they moved along to Mr. Winslow, who gave them each a bow.
As she washed the dogs, Christmas got a small twinge of satisfaction at watching Marcy struggle with putting bows on the cats. The rich girl, obviously disgusted at having to do this year after year, fortunately had little say in the matter. Mr. Gale wouldn’t hear of her skipping out on it. Christmas knew Marcy had also gone away to school in Northern Michigan, and she wondered why she didn’t just come after all the jobs she hated doing were over. Likely, this too had something to do with her father.
Right now, Marcy was having particular trouble with a feisty cat, who was not at all happy about the bow and was hissing his displeasure at Marcy for her repeated attempts to put it around his neck. Christmas finished rinsing her current dog, a friendly little thing, and passed him along to Sasha. The cheerful dog wagged his tail as she toweled him off, then sent him on to the hair dryer, which he was not as fond of.
The entire process took up the morning, after which the four girls finished decorating the shelter for the coming visitors. Christmas set a stack of animal gifts next to the front door, through which people would file, and then take the gifts to give to the animals. It was silly, and it was cute, just as most things were in Christmas at Christmas.
The pick-a-pet was another well-known tradition and was just as popular in the area. For a month before the event, Mrs. Winslow was advertising it on the town’s website, and even traveling to nearby towns and cities to post flyers. The woman’s dedication to placing pets in homes was admirable,...
