XIX.

Tortured by an angel. If I ever get out of here and have a chance to make a TV show, that’s what it’s going to be called.

Santa was mentally numb to the sugarplums and to the drool clogging nearly every facial orifice. He just wanted out of there.

Santa heard Kay’s footsteps. There was the usual clip- clopping and then something different. A slapping sound on the hardwood floor.

Her face appeared above him. “Guess what? I have a surprise for you.”

“Errrrrrrrrrrrrr,” was all Santa could say.

“You see, honey bunch, if you have been paying attention you know I’ve been wearing my high heels this whole time. They look great on me, don’t you agree?” She slapped him in the face. “Right?”

“Errrrrrrrrrrr!”

Kay bent down, picked up her shoes and held them up so Santa could see. “These here glittery beauties have been on my feet for six days. And when I say six days I mean twenty-four hours a day. You see, Santa my dear, I don’t sleep. Never had to, never wanted to. So I have worn these shoes all day for six days.” She brought a shoe to her nose and smelled the inside. “Ewww, what a god-awful smell! Really, really rank. Does that turn you on? A woman with smelly feet?”

“Errrrrrrrrrr!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter because I’m giving them to

you. Such sweet, sweet gifts … from me,” She brought

one of the shoes closer to Santa. “To you.”

Santa had recalled Kay’s shoes being gorgeous and glittery like Dorothy’s shoes in The Wizard of Oz. But now, with a clear view of the insides of the shoes, they were anything but gorgeous and glittery. Instead, they looked dark and moist, stained with days and days of foot sweat. Then he wondered if perhaps Dorothy’s shoes looked the same after all those hours of filming the movie.

Why am I thinking about The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy wasn’t a sadistic angel. She never locked anyone in a bitch- box. Or maybe she did. I don’t know.

Kay moved the shoes to his face in slow motion, prolonging the torture and letting the stench waft to his nostrils. Despite being clogged with drool, Santa’s nose didn’t block the smell.

“Yum, I bet you can really smell that shit, right?” Kay said. “You should be honored, too. Oh, not only because they are my shoes in your face, even though that should be enough. No sir, you should also be honored that you have an authentic pair of vintage Babs Cloantas in your face. You just cannot find shoes like these anymore.”

Santa said, “Errrrrrrrr.” He thought about his wife and how she never once talked about what kind of shoes she wore. Diana wasn’t into that sort of thing, never put value on something as insignificant as shoes.

The reek of Kay’s foot sweat bore through Santa’s nose, up to his brain, and down to his throat. The odor made its home in his mouth so that now the taste of her drool mingled with the warm stink from her shoes.

“Hope you’re enjoying this shit, honey bunch. There’s a lot more where this came from. I have nearly five-thousand pairs of shoes and you’ll get to smell each and every one. Not just heels, though. I have clogs and sneakers and slippers and mules and flip-flops...”

Kay’s voice became heavy syrup on Santa’s ears. It became sticky syrup that seeped into his ear canals and covered his brain, erasing all memory of his wife and his position as Santa Claus, deliverer of gifts. Combined with her foot stink, her voice made him a masochistic automaton.

“You’re mine now, honey bunch,” Kay said, dropping the shoes and leaving them next to Santa’s head. “All mine.”