My Five Santas: A Christmas Reverse Harem

Chapter One: Sexy Stranger

WARNING: This story contains explicit sexual content, strong language, and mentions of body shaming that may be upsetting to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Three Decembers Ago

I really want to ignore this call.

My phone is buzzing on the smooth cocobolo surface of my desk, and on the screen flashes the face that, even after twenty-seven years, manages to still make me feel like a lumpy three-year-old.

I really want to ignore this call.

But unfortunately, I've already ignored it ten times this week. Time to pay my dues.

"Hey Mom," I say, leaning back in my chair.

"Are orchids even festive?" My mom is doing her "performative" drawl. "Did Annie approve this order? Send them back. Now."

She learned it from watching too many interviews of Jackie Kennedy. It sounds great when she's patting her coif and fluttering her eyes at you, but, trust me, scuff your Sunday shoes on the pavement, and you'll get an earful of her native, rapid, raw New Jersey rage.

"Mom," I say, barely tethering my impatience. I still have thirty pages of paperwork to pick apart letter by letter, and it's 8:00 p.m.

"Ah, Margaret, there you are. Forgive me, I didn't expect you to pick up! No, Christopher, no. Not there, never there."

"I see that prepping for the party is going well," I say dryly. The topic of the Wilson Annual Christmas Party is one that is already squeezing my stomach with an anxious fist.

"As always, it's a disaster," she says scathingly. I'm assuming she's pinning poor Christopher, my parents' head groundskeeper, with her cold glare as she says it. "Thank gawd that I am here to direct these cretins on where to put the poinsettia statement pieces."

I open my emergency drawer and yank out a small chocolate bar. With slow, delicate pulls, I open the wrapper.

But Mom still hears it.

"That better be the sound of a water bottle seal breaking," she says.

"You know it's not," I say with a mouthful of chocolate.

"Darling, don't talk with your mouth full, you sound ugly. And sugar? At this hour? Might as well drink lard milkshakes. Then good luck finding a man."

I'm mouthing along to the words I've heard my whole life as I unwrap another.

"Mom, I'm still at work, I'm really busy—"

"Of course, of course, my little Margaret—always busy, busy, busy. I really am so sorry to bother you—" Ha, right. "—but I just wanted to know if you would be bringing a plus one to the Christmas party?"

I sit forward in my chair, my muscles suddenly tense. She's gonna kill me.

"Mom," I wince, "I'm so sorry—"

An angry, disappointed sigh filters through the phone. "Let me guess."

"—I've got a huge deadline on Christmas Eve, so I won't be able to make it."

There's a terrible, black silence.

"Is he ugly?" my mom whispers. "It's okay, you can tell me."

"Mom."

"Send me a picture, I'll have my skin-care girl take a look, nothing a good facial can't fix."

"Mom!" I look down. I've snapped a pen in half. I take a deep breath. "I can't come. I don't have a plus one anyway, ugly or not."