Page 145 of Santa Daddies
Wishing with all my might I could somehow use my magic to fix the mess I’d gotten us both into, I opened my mouth and let the story rush out.
Chapter Eight
Yule
My heart dropped further into my stomach with every sentence of her explained confession. When she finished, she was sobbing, and instead of comforting her, I could only manage to stare as I processed the enormity of what she’d done.
Of course the fact that I wasn’t saying anything only made her cry harder.
“I’m so so so s-sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin Christmas. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know. I promise I wasn’t trying to be naughty. I just wanted to help!”
“Oh, little elf.” I finally shook myself out of my shocked trance and tried my best to offer comfort. But comfort wasn’t what came out of my mouth. “Rolling snowballs, baby. That’s quite an avalanche of problems you’ve created.”
“I knoooow,” she wailed. “I’m the worst Mrs. Claus ever! I don’t deserve to wear the apron. Your parents probably hate me. And the elves! The elves are going to be pissed! They’ll never forgive me, ever, and if there’s no Christmas, what will they evendo? Where will they live? I’m going to be solely responsible for hundreds of homeless, jobless elves!”
Oh dear. She was on a whole spiral, and the worst part was, she wasn’t even wrong. If we couldn’t fix it, and get Mrs. Claus’ name off the naughty list, the ramifications would be catastrophic, not just here at the North Pole, but all over the world.
With three days until Christmas, I had enough to do, but this took priority. It needed my full attention. First things first: I needed to stop the spiral and get Crystal calmed down enough to where we could solve the problems at hand.
“Baby.” She kept crying.
“Sweetie.” She cried harder.
“Little elf.” I cupped her face with both hands and made her look in my eyes. “I promise you, we’re gonna fix this.”
“What… if… we… c-can’t?” The words stuttered out on puffs of air.
“We can. Shhh. Shhh. I promise we can. We have the Christmas magic, remember?” I winked at her, and by some miracle, she started to calm down and rested her head against my chest while I stroked her hair.
“I was trying to help,” she explained brokenly. “The list has you so stressed all the time, and you didn’t even have time to try to fix it. So I thought if I could just peek at it, I might be able to figure out a way.” She’d said all this already, but she seemed to need to say it again, so I just let her.
“Mmmmhmm. Your heart was in the right place. But how did your name end up on the naughty list?”
“I put it there.” The admission was a broken whisper. “If I couldn’t solve the problem and give you more free time, I figured I could at least get some time. I miss you.” Her voice pitched into a wail. “It was so stupid and selfish. I don’t know what I was thinking, except I wasn’t really thinking. I was just doing.”
“It’s okay. We got our time together, and you’re right, I have been too stressed out, and I did need a break. I feel mostly better now.” And it was true. I did feel better. Or at least as better as one could feel when one’s wife was on the naughty list.
“But now… now everything is ruined.” It was a husky whisper, not a wail, and tinged with hope. Hope that I was right, and that as I’d been promising, I, as her Santa Daddy, could fix it.
“We can fix it,” I repeated. “But you know I’m going to have to spank you.”
I didn’t expect an argument, and I didn’t get one. “I want you to!” she cried, jumping off my lap and starting to strip. “I need you to. I deserve to be punished for my selfish, thoughtless stupidity.”
Hearing such words out of my pretty wife’s mouth about herself made me cringe. She was right, she deserved to be punished, but more than that, she needed to be. Otherwise, she wasn’t going to forgive herself, or accept my forgiveness, or anyone else's.
And it couldn’t just be any old spanking either, it had to be the granddaddy mother of all spankings. One she would never forget.
I had to use Santa Daddy’s belt. With a sigh, I stood, my hands going to my waist, as I unbuckled the thick strap of leather. Crystal froze, her gaze meeting mine, her whole body shuddering. Then she nodded. “It worked last time. So that means it’ll work this time, too, right?”
“Right.” I nodded too, but I didn’t feel quite as confident as I sounded. There was no precedent for this. Mrs. Claus was not supposed to be on the list at all. But for her to be on the naughty list now that we were married was unheard of.
She’d made some mistakes, but she didn’t deserve it, and I knew that I would do my level best to get her name off, no matter what it took. Her heart truly had been in the right place.
“Okay, little elf. Do you need to use the restroom first? Drink some water? Do anything? We might be here for a while.”
She groaned, then tipped her head to the side, considering. After a moment, she rushed down the hall, only to return a few minutes later. “Okay,” she said, “I’m ready now.”
“Good girl.” I sat back down on the couch, and patted my lap. When she was close enough, I took her hand and guided her over my knees.
