“Put your money away.”
“No, seriously, take it,” she says with a pleading look. “I don’t want to owe you more than I already do. I feel terrible about how your real date ended tonight.”
My real date…
She holds the money out again. And I stare at her, realizing she’s not just doing this for show. That she seriously doesn’t wish for me to cover her expensive dinner, even though we’re both aware I’m a billionaire.
“How did you know?” I ask her, still not taking the money. “How did you know I’d like your People magazine stories?”
She shrugs as if it’s obvious. “You’re a billionaire, right? So I figured you must be like me. Kind of obsessed with the real world because it’s something you can’t touch.”
Again, she’s correct, but then my mind turns to the next part of our date, the part that has my body still humming with anticipation, and I have to ask, “Why can’t you touch the real world?”
“Oh, you know…” she says with a chagrinned grimace. “Because I’m an elf, and I only get to live in this dimension for twelve days a year.”
5
Bacchanoeling
KRISTAL
I wait for him to respond with a heavy heart. Tonight’s dinner date has been so much fun. Real human, as us elves sometimes say, and I’d hoped to leave it on that note. With him, thinking I was just weirdly obsessed with People magazine—which I totally am. Other than manga and gourmet meals, it’s the thing I miss the most the other fifty weeks of the human year.
I wish he hadn’t asked me a direct question. I might have gotten out of here with a halfway sane impression left behind if he hadn’t. But Santa’s elves are incapable of lying. If someone asks me a question, I have to answer it truthfully. Just like I can’t not draw and then give someone a picture of a future departed loved one. But now, my honesty means this lovely real human feeling has to go away.
I already know how he’ll respond. It happened so many times when I decided to try out a dating app at the last twelve-day break that I’ve pretty much memorized this sudden end-of-date script.
Dates would be going okay. Then inevitably, they’d ask what I do for a living. And I’d have to tell them I’m an elf. And they’d laugh because they’d think I was joking…then they’d realize after asking for several clarifications that I’m dead serious.
The thing is, I’m not cutesy like my cousin Krista, who still manages to attract plenty of guys, even after she enthusiastically admits to being an elf, often without even being asked. She looks and comes off like a living, breathing anime character. In contrast, I look like somebody who just watches a lot of anime at home. None of my dates have seen me as zany but loveable. To them, I appear to be a grown woman who not only still believes that Santa is real, but that he employs her.
But I believe Santa is real because I know he is. For a fact. And I know that fact because I’m one of his elves. It’s as simple as that for me.
Not so much for my human dates.
Another reason I should probably take Jae-Hyun up on his offer. How nice would it be to answer the “what do you do” question with a reply that wouldn’t make someone decide I’m crazy before quickly asking for the check.
Speaking of which…I once again hold out the cash to Hayato. “Now, will you let me pay for my own meal?”
A beat ticks by, and then he takes the money from me.
My heart sinks with both relief and sadness. I won’t owe him anything, but I also won’t—
My thoughts halt when instead of pulling out his wallet to tuck the money in, he places the messy stack of bills back into my purse.
Then he raises his dark gaze to meet mine as he says, “You’re aware that I also contracted Eloa for sex tonight?”
My mind…I can’t exactly say for sure what it does. It’s like it blinks out for a few seconds. Then comes back online, only to stumble over quite a few of this dimension’s static time units while I try to translate the words that just came out of his mouth. I’m pretty sure he spoke to me in English, but it feels like I’m speaking another language as I realize out loud, “You…want…me…to…have…sex…with…you…”
“Yes,” he says, his answer as instant as my realization was slow.
Oh, dear Christmas…
My eyes drop again as I try to figure out how to respond. Like I said, Grandpa Claus doesn’t raise his adopted elves with any sexual hang-ups whatsoever. In fact, since us elves consider ourselves family, we’re often encouraged to engage in what we all call “bacchanoeling” over the twelve days of Christmas when eligible humans are available. Basically, eating, drinking, and being merry in whatever way our hearts desire before returning to the North Pole.
I’d tried bacchanoeling the year I turned twenty-one just to see how I’d like it. I hadn’t. Fumbling one night stands fueled by too many drinks paled in comparison to an evening curled up in my own bed, with a bunch of People magazines and the stack of new mangas that Jae-Hyun always has waiting for me on December 26th.
But guys like Hayato Nakamura never happened to elves like me.
And though we’ve shared a few pots of sake, I get the feeling he won’t fumble around in the dark.
This might very well be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Should I take it?
6
I Should…But I Don’t
HAYATO
She’s here with me, but she could run at any minute.
This uncertainty is another feeling I’m not accustomed to, and it makes this new song that much more intriguing. I loosen my tux tie as Kristal explores my hotel’s penthouse suite in the financial district. I watch her take in the view of San Francisco and its sparkling bay, the large receiving room big enough to host a holiday party or a business meeting, and the rest of the suite, which takes up an entire floor of the Tourmaline San Francisco. Her eyes remain wide with astonishment. Looking the same now as they did when we walked out of the restaurant together, after her quiet, “Okay.” Then took a technically short but emotionally long ride in my hire car back to the hotel.
Again, I’m not used to nervous women. I pay for dates who can not only hold a conversation in at least two or three languages but also take explicit instructions while they’re fucking me. I think of that crazy elf story she told me to get out of answering my question about why she didn’t connect with the world. Of course, it wasn’t true, but there’s an innocence about her, like, maybe those People magazines truly are her only connection to the real world.
I keep on thinking I should release her—in the car, walking through the lobby, going up in the elevator, and even now as I watch her looking around the suite. I should tell her she shouldn’t feel obligated to sleep with me as Eloa would have, that she can go home.
But I don’t.
Instead of letting her go, I wave an open hand toward the audio system below the television. “This suite has an AV system that plugs into your phone. If you like, you may put on music. Anything you wish. Meanwhile, may I make you something to drink?”