An Erotic Christmas Carol

Eben nodded.

"I guess I have to give you a real warning about what's on this side."

"You're not doing a very good job."

"Can you see how much I hurt every now and then."

"Yeah."

"How do you remember me, Eben?"

Eben froze.

"Yes, Eben. It's that bad. Worse even." Jason lifted his right arm exposing his wrist, encircling it was a rusty bracelet. "It's the only thing I can feel physically. The weight of my life and how worthless it was to other people. Supposedly when it gets lighter my penance is being relieved bit by bit."

"Has it gotten lighter?"

A tear seemed to form and move down Jason's cheek as he replied, "I don't know. I can't remember how much it weighed. I don't even know if it's true, maybe it's not. Maybe it's a hope they dangle in front of you like everything else. You wait and wait, hoping for something that's never going to come."

Eben looked away.

"You have to change, son. They gave you this opportunity because there are people that will be here like this if you aren't what they need. The power that have are more than happy to punish you, but not if it means taking down everyone that needs you."

"So how does one change? Give a little more to charity?" Eben smirked.

Jason stared at him until Eben looked away again.

"You'll be visited by three spirits."

"You gotta be fucking kidding me! What is this? A remake of The Christmas Carol starring Eben? Does this have something to do with your name? I always thought Marle the way you said it should have been spelled Marley."

Jason surged up from the chair.

Eben stood up to face the challenge but Jason just watched him.

"Three spirits, Eben. You know the deal: one at midnight, one at the stroke of two, and one at four. Change or live wanting to touch. Change or watch the people whom you hid your soul from live like this with you."

Jason waved for Eben to follow. Eben shook his head, but his legs were moving. Jason walked to the window and opened it.

He stepped up to the sill and stepped into air. As he did this, the window was hit with a wave of painful sound. It struck Eben full on, and he fell to his knees as the sound washed through him. It was a chorus of uncounted millions, crying incoherent sounds of inexpressible sorrow, self-accusation, lamentation, and regret. It was mindless! Millions of souls driven to insanity and beyond by viewing everything they could have had and denied themselves.

Eben covered his ears and the sound lessened, but not because of his hands. The sound lessened of its own volition. He could still hear the loss, but it did not attack him. He looked up at Jason who was watching him.

"Three spirits, Eben. Joke about it if you want, but each is a lesson about the path back. Learn each one well! You're not the only one you have to bring back from this."

Jason screamed his own pain at Eben. The voices rose again assaulting Eben. His mind tried to rebel against the sound, but the emotions battered at the place where he hid his own. He covered his ears again, but they continued mercilessly driving every ounce of sorrow and pain into him, digging for the core of his soul.

He blacked out as the chorus reached a natural crescendo as it touched the living wound on his soul.

==========
Stave 2 -- The Boy That Was
==========

Eben woke up on the floor; an echo of pain floated through his brain. He sat up slowly, looking around. The window was open; the cold of the evening was taking advantage and entering the penthouse.

He stood up carefully and walked the three steps to the window.

"No fucking way!" he whispered as he looked outside for something he refused to accept he might see.

A heavy bell from somewhere in the night struck eleven times; he wondered why he had never heard it before. He turned around to stare at his own clock. The thought that he would know the truth of his experience in an hour flashed through his mind.

Struggling with his disbelief, he reached out to close the window. He thought, and thought, and thought. He fought with his rational mind as the echo of sorrow danced in his soul. The more he thought the more the confusion built, as the echo became more noticeable and the headache more pronounced.

He sat down on the edge of the bed holding his head in his hands. He screamed inside himself hoping rage would drown out the sorrow.

Rage won, shouting down the accusation in the chorus of voices.

He lay back determined to win a thorough victory. He resolved to wait for whatever demons his mind cared to throw at him. He was sure none of it was real anyway.

The alarm clock woke him up. He smiled relieved. He opened his eyes to a dark room. He slept with the shades open so morning light should have been streaming inside. He looked at the alarm clock next his bed.

12:00 AM.

He did not remember setting the alarm for that time. He got out of bed to check the rest of the penthouse, but the door to his bedroom slammed opened. His eyes snapped to see who could have opened it.

Another demon had come!

A nymph with chin length curly hair stood in the doorway. Her face shone with innocence; certain visible body parts declared her pleasantly female. Her light brown hair seemed to glow as she looked at Eben. Her eyes were a cloudy blue that spoke of a sadness for the things that had come and gone. She stared at Eben before she stepped into his bedroom.

"I expected a little more light," Eben said as he stepped away from the bed.

The nymph smiled, which suffused her entire body with a soft light.

"Like that?" she asked.

Eben sat down on the bed, and shook his head.

"I think I would prefer the non-nightlight version of the Ghost of Christmas Past," Eben said her.

The Spirit laughed as the light around her died.

Eben stared at the nymph for a second. She was dressed in tight red shorts with bright green trimmings, an escaped elf from Santa's workshop. Her lips drew his eyes. He had thought he had outgrown the nubile phase of his attraction to female, but there was an age in her eyes that belied the innocence that surrounded her. Her eyes spoke of age beyond age, or maybe it was experience beyond age.

The nymph smiled again as if she could read Eben's mind.

"So you are the Spirit of Christmas Past?" asked Eben.

"None other," the Spirit answered. She made a leap across the room, over Eben's head, and onto the bed. The Spirit started a lively bed-bouncing episode, looking at the pillows out of the corner of her and at Eben.

Eben got off the bed quickly and turned to face the Spirit. She laughed freely as she sat down hard on the bed and allowed the bounce in the mattress to spring her standing again.

Eben watched her for a moment before speaking.

"I forgot my next line," he said.

"Long Past?" the nymph giggled.

"Huh?" Eben said confused.

"You're supposed to ask me if I'm the Spirit of Christmas Long Past, or is it the Long Spirit of Christmas Past."

The Spirit bounced powerfully and jumped towards Eben. He reached out to catch her. She looked with those sad blue eyes into Eben's. She wriggled and Eben let her go.

Eben watched as the Spirit walked around picking up different things in the bedroom and tossed them aside when she saw they were things no self-respecting nymph would be interested in.

"So are you?"

"Am I what?" the Spirit asked not looking at Eben but with mischief lacing her voice.

"Are you the Spirit of Christmas Long Past, or is it the Long Spirit of Christmas Past?"

The Spirit turned around, pulled her shorts from her waist, and looked inside.

"Well, I'm a girl so definitely not the Long Spirit..." she replied. She reached into her shorts and looked for all things like she had stuck fingers inside herself. "Deep enough though."

Eben broke into a second's worth of laughter; the nymph smiled peacefully. Eben stopped his laugh, and tried to look down at her.

"Your Christmas past."

Blue eyes turned sadder as she approached Eben.

"What?" Eben asked.

"I'm here to try to help you, Eben. Not everything that can help you, but a small part."

"What part do you serve?"

"Memory."

Eben nodded trying to understand the cryptic remark. The nymph jumped again, but this time she crashed into Eben. He thought it would hurt but found himself flying slowly backwards onto the bed. His robe flew open as he landed with her on top of his thighs.

He looked up to find her staring at his crotch with a raised eyebrow.

"Yummy!" she said and scrambled down his legs so that her face was in his crotch. She licked him and his dick reacted by hardening even though Asa had done her best to drain him of potency.

"Hey!" Eben yelled reaching down to pull her away from his crotch. He grabbed two fistfuls of hair but a moan escaped him when she wrapped her too full lips around his dickhead.

It felt like her lips looked: thick, wet, and warm.

Incredibly warm.

She pulled him out of her mouth and smiled. She gestured, and Eben's hands shot away from her hair as his arms extended outward from his sides. She stood up and pushed his thighs apart with her feet. He tried to fight the pressure but could not resist. His dick demanded he do what was necessary to get it between her wonderful lips again.

She knelt between his legs and looked at him. She reached down to grab his dick. She stroked up and down as the sadness in her eyes turned to desire.

"You know Eben," she said. She leaned down and licked around his crown before speaking again, "That pretty sister of yours would have happily done this many, many times."

She took him into her mouth deeply and stroked him with the love another would have if he had allowed it. He thrust upward and found that motion was allowed.

She pulled up from his dick and smiled as she met his eyes.

"She dreamed of it," she said sexily. "She practiced with everything she thought was your size. She caught a lot of peeks at you, and her favorite was watching you masturbate."

She took him completely down her throat and hummed a merry Christmas jingle. Eben thought that 'Jingle Bells' had always been one of his favorites.

She pulled up again and kissed the tip of his dick.

"Do you know how she prayed for you to come to her: how she still prays?" she whispered. "You've been the one all of her life, and to drink your cum would have been love to her."

She took him in her mouth and stroked with her hands until he was at the edge. She pulled off him and took the side of his dick in her lips. She ran her lips up and down that side, and then moved to give the other side the same treatment.

"Do you know how long she's been wanting you?" she asked before sucking just the tip. "How long she's known you're the one, the only one, for her?"

She took him in her mouth and down her throat. She did not hum this time but instead her tongue did things only a Spirit could have. Her throat massaged the head of his penis drawing his seed to the surface.

"Brenda!" Eben yelled imagining what it would have felt to be with her all the time he had denied himself. It was too much and he came hard; all loss of control and a blinding attempt to empty his body inside the nymph's mouth. She drank him as if through her another woman would be able to taste him.

The Spirit continued her gentle loving, but Eben's body was too empty from the power of his orgasm to feel anything more than pleasure from her touch.

Finally, the Spirit got up from the bed and walked to the open window. She reached a hand back to Eben.

"Do we really have to do the whole flying-through-the-night thing? I'm not really all that into heights without parachutes," he said getting up and tying his robe. His knees felt weak, but it felt as if having lived even a shadow of his desires had lifted a part of the burden he had been carrying for years.

The Spirit laughed, walked back to Eben and took him by the arm. Eben felt warmth and energy spread to his extremities as her hand touched him.

"You are going to hold me up, right? No letting go, and then flying down to catch me. 'Cause that's definitely not a thing to do."

"Brenda isn't that type of woman," she replied.

The Spirit stepped up to and over the sill. Eben followed absentmindedly, trying to figure out what the Spirit meant by her last remark.

They were soaring through the night air, which got Eben's attention. They flew into a low level cloud and when they came out of it everything below had changed. There were fewer lights and none had the harshness of city lights.

They came down onto a porch.

"I haven't been here in a while," Eben said quietly.

The Spirit nodded. She pulled Eben toward the door, and passed with him through it. They should have entered into the front hallway, with the steps to upstairs directly in front of them. Instead, they entered the kitchen.

"Mom!" Eben exclaimed as soon as he saw the couple standing in the kitchen of his old home.

"They can't hear you Eben, or see you."

Eben stared at the woman leaning against the sink. He turned to look at the man sitting down at the table looking up at the woman.

"You never called her mom before," the Spirit said coming to stand by Eben.

"Did you tell him?" the woman said walking to the oven. She opened the oven door and looked at a sheet of Christmas cookies.

"Yes, I did," the man replied standing up and pacing around the kitchen.

She closed the oven door slowly, straightened up, but kept her back to him. Eben smiled as he recognized her reaction to having to ask questions that she did not want to.

"What did he say?"

The man sat down and looked at her back before he replied, "He asked if he would be moving out now."

Her head dropped. She reached around behind her; her hand touched one of the kitchen chairs, and she collapsed into it crying softly.

The man shot to her side, and stroked her hair.

"It's not us, baby. You know it's not us. Eben's parents died a year ago. He doesn't understand. He's barely five years old."

Eben turned toward the door to the living room. He knew it would be open; enough for a five-year old face to watch the man and woman that had taken him in crying over his loss. He knelt down so he could look at the face. He remembered every emotion and watched them color his young face. The shock that these people cried over him when their own child was going to come into the world, the guilt of feeling for someone when he desperately missed his parents, and the final acceptance that his parents were really gone forever.

Eben watched emotion fight emotion.

The door closed.

Eben knew the child would go to his room, and cry a last time for dead parents before burying them deep in his heart.

"Come," the Spirit said to Eben taking his hands.

"Wait!" Eben said staring at his foster mother.

"No! Come!" the girl insisted dragging Eben to the door.

They walked into a spacious living room. Eben knew they were in a different time of his past. Memories flooded him, threatening to overwhelm.

"No!" he exclaimed angrily. He ripped his arm from the nymph's grip. He turned to walk back into the kitchen but the door swung open, and he was beaten.

A teenage girl walked through the door carrying a small tray of cups smiling at someone in the room. Eben's heart skipped beats as he saw the excitement shining in her eyes.

Brenda had just turned eighteen; in her eyes was the decision that tonight was the first night of the life she wanted.

He turned to see himself at twenty-three sitting on the floor in front of the couch. The younger version of Eben was staring at the tree, unsuspecting what his foster sister planned for him.

Brenda sat down next to the younger Eben putting the tray on the couch. She handed Eben a cup. The older Eben smiled as he remembered the first taste of alcohol in the eggnog.

The younger Eben reacted as he remembered.

"Bren, what the hell did you put in this stuff?" he asked, a hint of laughter was in his voice as he took another more careful sip.

"I thought you needed to relax. I mean all studying and stuff," she whispered. The older Eben saw everything he should have noticed at the time; how she watched him drink carefully, how she only used her cup to warm her hands, how her breathing had nervous hitches in it, and the shining in her eyes as her decision solidified the more the alcohol hit the younger Eben.

The scene blurred, and he knew that time had passed. He took a step back not wanting to relive what was coming, but he felt a wall behind him. He turned to look but there was nothing behind him. He scanned the room and saw the Spirit sitting on the back of the couch avidly watching the two people on the floor.

Eben looked down at himself and Brenda. She had taken off the sweater and was dressed in only jeans and a t-shirt. He remembered his own surprise when he noticed she was not wearing a bra. His hands itched as the old blast of pure lust hit him again.

Brenda reached up and started running her hands along the younger Eben's face. Eben knew what the younger version was thinking. The alcohol had fuzzed the thinking process though. He had known what was happening but rationalized that it was just a sisterly touch, holding onto that thought until it was too late.

She tickled him, starting a wrestling match. He knew how much she did not like to be tickled so it was a fight to make her stop without retaliating. She ended up on top of him, their faces inches away.

Too late!

The first kiss was a tentative touch of lips, a suggestion, a hope they both held deeply. The second deepened the hope into prayer, as long built up pressure came out. Eben had wanted her; she had been his in a special way from the day of her birth. He had protected her, cared more for her than himself. He never really loved her as just a sister; what happened between them that Christmas Eve was what he had felt for her every day since her birth.

He had always believed she was his, only and forever.

The kiss deepened as tongues fought to say more than they could with words. The younger Eben's hands came around to caress her ass. The hands touched, cupped, and became more insistent as the clothing kept them away from skin. Eben pulled the t-shirt from her jeans and let his hands run along her lower back. She ground her hips into him.

The older Eben saw what he had not wanted to see afterwards; he had not taken advantage of his sister. She wanted it as much as he had but more openly. He felt his knees buckle, his eyes frozen on the couple.

She disconnected their lips long enough to take the t-shirt off. She was coming back down but was stopped as Eben brought his hands from her ass to hold her breasts. His thumbs lightly passed over nipples. She groaned at the initial contact, and her breathing deepened as he continued the passes. She gasped as Eben reached up to capture one nipple in his mouth and applied gentle suction. She grabbed his head lending him support, needing him to continue. He switched breasts and she gasped at the assault of sensation from a different place.

Eben knew what was about to come; maybe it would have been better if he had been more careful. He shook his head; no nothing would have dimmed the guilt he had felt at betraying his foster...

No! His parents!

The younger Eben sat up holding Brenda in place and turned so she was on her back. He reached to her jeans undoing the belt and buttons of her jeans in frantic motions.

Eben shuddered as he saw the loss of control the younger man was going through, but he also saw why he had been so successful. She was as frantic to remove her clothing. It was her who pushed her jeans and panties down her thighs. He helped, but she led in her disrobing.

The younger man hesitated when she lay naked beneath him. It was only the older Eben that saw the victory in her eyes. The younger man dove to the juncture of her thighs, as the older man remembered how badly he had wanted to taste her.