Author’s Note: This story didn’t develop as I had planned. The Chix characters, especially Dana, diverted the plot from a romp through the ‘Twelve Lays of Christmas’, to one of more depth and intimacy, finding inspiration from the classic tale, ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens: replete with a ghost. I wasn’t expecting a ghost when I began writing this one. I thank Dana for taking over the plot and making this a better story.
The good friends of the newly widowed Dana, decide to not only exchange holiday cookies with Dana, but also their husbands. Dana is thrilled to be the focus of slow building intimate attention as part of the Hubby Exchange. Dana finds tender qualities in each of her gift-exchange lovers and choses the message from ‘A Christmas Carol’ to challenge her good friends to examine their lives and rekindles the romance in their marriages.
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The Chix Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange
McNally topped off each of the four glasses, then tipped the bottle to her lips to make sure she’d drained the last sweet drop of Gewürztraminer. McNally smacked her lips before inserting her tongue into the brown wine bottle’s narrow orifice. “Umm, a sweet little rim job before I recycle this dead soldier,” she announced to a kitchen packed with a few of her long-time friends. “This dark guy is so sweet, I just love him,” she said as she continued her fellatio pantomime by wrapping her lips around the narrow neck as she encircled her fingers and made a couple of strokes up and down the bottle like she was finishing a masterful blow job.
Her friends watched her risqué display and giggled, except for Patricia. Patricia picked through the array of Christmas cookie cutter shapes laid out at the edge of the counter, dropping her eyes as she scolded, “McNally, you should be more thoughtful of Dana. Your tipsy little joke is in poor taste in front of our hostess, especially at this time of year.” Patricia meant it as a sobering rebuke, as if any of the girls present needed to be reminded of Dana’s recently widowed status, especially around Christmas.
McNally pulled the wine bottle’s phallic dimensions from her lips, setting it down and turning to Dana, “Oh crap, I’m sorry. You know I had no intention of opening painful memories; I was only trying to lift the holiday spirits with a little bawdy humor… I was just thinking…”
Dana turned to McNally, “I know. I know you McNally — boy do I know you. You’re always thinking we Chix should loosen up our inhibitions and take a walk on the steamier side of life; and boy are you always ready with a risqué joke, a steamy story or a naughty pun.”
Dana broke into a smile, and then spoke to her closest friends, “Hey Chix, you guys are so great! You’re the only reason I’m able to get through this time of year. Without y’all, I’d be nothing but a blubbering mess this Christmas. Facing the painful first anniversary of Sander’s passing is really hard. It’d be unbearable if I had to go through it alone. The support of my Chix means everything to me right now.”
Dana forced a cheery voice and continued speaking after dusting the flour off her hands. “I insisted y’all come into my kitchen this year and fill it with holiday cheer, so it’d be like the good times we had before. I want everyone to make a big sugary mess for me to clean up and keep me busy. Our annual Chix Christmas cookie exchange is our tradition; it’s now more meaningful to me than ever. I’m dreading the holidays…” Dana paused to collect her emotions before continuing, “… as the holiday season approaches, I fear being all alone, left to deal with the memory of Sander’s skiing accident by myself. I need my Chix more than ever right now. I need something to keep my mind from dwelling on the anniversary of the accident.”
Dana gave a congenial but forced looking smile to the women in her kitchen. “McNally, you go right on giving your Gewurztraminer boyfriend’s long, brown glass cock a good sucking, it’s fine with me and the rest of these kitchen voyeurs. Keep it up, all of you, be merry and I’ll find a way to get by.”
Annie wiped a tear off her cheek as she stepped to Dana, wrapping her arms and her baggy, ugly Christmas sweater around Dana, managing to get cookie dough crumbs in Dana’s hair in the process. Annie hugged Dana tight, embracing her in a prolonged hold to convey her sympathy and shared grief at the loss of Dana’s husband last year. Annie teared up again as she remembered gathering with McNally and Patricia to take down the tree and put away all the festive Christmas decorations in Dana’s house as Dana planned Sander’s funeral.
It was all so sad, so hard to deal with. Annie admired McNally’s flair to disregard the implicit sadness hanging over their annual Chix Christmas cookie exchange; but didn’t want to get between McNally and Patricia as they scuffled over the proper decorum in Dana’s kitchen under the circumstances.
Annie let go and pulled away from her embrace, and as she did, she gasped, “Oh Dana, escort izmir I’m sorry. Look what I’ve done, my dirty apron made a mess on your top. I’m sorry.”
Dana laughed, “I should’ve expected this would happen, wearing black when I’m in the middle of a hen party with flour flying all over my kitchen. I thought I’d feel and look slimmer wearing black, a self-deluding effect to counteract my debauched cookie sampling today. I might as well just drop these little Santa cookies down my pants and let ’em stick right there on my hips,” smacking her hands on her ass for emphasis.
Annie, trying to make up for the accidental flour dusting, began to brush her fingers across Dana’s boobs, fussing and worrying she’d ruined Dana’s pullover. Dana laughed it off, “Annie, stop fretting, it’ll wash out, no problem. Relax. Let’s all have a good time making a mess as we bake and decorate our cookies. There’s something festive about a busy and messy kitchen. I just love it.”
McNally watched from the other side of the counter as Annie dabbed and wiped the front of Dana’s chest, “I know what you’re getting for Christmas – one of those cordless hand vacuums; they market it as a bust duster.” Everyone cracked up at McNally’s pun, even Patricia.
The timer went off; Patricia stepped to the oven to check on the first batch of cookies. She pulled out the cookie sheet and put it on the cooling rack.
“Those look perfect,” Annie announced.
“They’re not perfect until they’re decorated,” responded Dana. “They’re just plain-Jane naked right now. It’s our job to get them all dressed up in their Christmas fancy-pants.”
“Oh, Patricia, can you grab the box of sprinkles and glittery decorating doo-dahs from the cupboard next to the oven?” asked Dana. Patricia set the full box of decorating doo-dahs on the kitchen table.
McNally burst into song, “Doo-dah, doo-dah, Camptown ladies sing this song, all the doo-dah day!” McNally’s three friends joined in a final chorus, “Doo-dah, doo-dah, all the doo-dah day!”
“Now things are starting to sound festive,” declared Dana as she mixed bowls of red and green frosting. “McNally, there’s a bottle of Riesling in the garage fridge — I know I don’t have to ask twice to get you to bring that one in and pour another round.”
Annie said, “This is sounding and feeling like old times; like back in the beginning when we worked at Dix Chix. Who remembers which of us four started waitressing first at Dix?”
“Wasn’t me,” was McNally’s contribution from the hallway, “I’m the youngest of the Chix.”
“It could’ve been you; you’ve always had a reputation for starting early McNally,” was Patricia’s retort.
McNally laughed at the ribbing. “I seem to recall that Annie got hired a few days ahead of me.”
“So, when did we become collectively known as ‘The Chix?'” was Dana’s follow up question.
Annie answered, “It was Patricia. She advertised to all the boys that there were some interesting Chix to be found in the backroom of Dix Chix Family Restaurant after closing. If a boy had the right stuff, he could find his way into the place and get a few drinks, no ID required.”
“That may be true, but I got the idea from that new girl,” said Patricia in a defensive tone. “The new girl suggested it was a crying shame that us four Chix had to close up on Friday and Saturday nights without having any dicks around to make it fun,” was Patricia’s recollection. “Being the studious college girl, Mrs. Dix trusted me with the keys and the liquor inventory.”
“And who might have been the corrupting ‘new girl’ who put that idea of letting some dicks into the back room with those chicks?” asked Dana with a smirk.
“I hear she’s still tending bar somewhere, perhaps more corrupting than ever,” Patricia offered in an offhand guess.
McNally, a seasoned barmaid, filled the wine glasses scattered around the kitchen, “I just thought it was false advertising to have a big neon sign that flashed Dix Chix, yet only the Chix half of the attraction was available. I merely suggested to the old timer running the show that if we were working to close the place on Friday and Saturday nights, we owed it to ourselves to have a crew of Dix to go with the Chix. Like the sign said.”
Annie asked, “Patricia, I’ve always wondered, how did you choose which boys got an after-hours invitation to the backroom?”
“I delegate,” was Patricia’s reply. “That’s why I’m management material. I consulted a trusted source.”
McNally gave a curtsey acknowledging her role, and then filled in the story line, “Guys are pretty simple. I’d give the cute ones a line; ‘Winner, winner, chicken dinner – Would you prefer a breast or a thigh?’ I then slipped ’em an offer, ‘Come on by Dix Chix late some night this weekend for a chicken tender special — tell ’em McNally sent you.'” The three ladies exploded into hearty whoops at McNally’s explanation.
Dana took a sip out of her glass, thinking for a moment, “McNally are you responsible then izmir escort bayan for introducing each of us to our future husbands? I’d never thought of it like that.”
“Ultimately the Chix chooses the Dix. At least, that’s how I’d look at it. In collusion with Patricia, I merely helped sow some wild oats in that Dix Chix backroom. But I only sowed the seeds. It was the others who reaped the harvest. I must admit, I did have to run a lot of lame-dick also-rans through that backroom before some of them ended up sticking around for a while.”
“Well, however you did it, Sander and I hit it off – after Patricia passed on him and I scooped him up, as I seem to recall. I guess I never thanked you for your fine work.” Dana raised her glass in a salute to McNally.
“I’m happy it worked for you Dana,” said Patricia, “I had my eye out for one of those solid, basic models, a kind of nerdy, engineering type. My philosophy was that those low-key kinds of guys wear well. I seem to recall McNally telling me that she didn’t usually fish in those kinds of nerdy-fish ponds, but she promised she’d expand her repertoire to see if she could toss such a specimen my way.”
“I remember when Will showed up at the backroom, he looked a little dazed and confused. McNally had to act fast to ease Will into the situation and then gently hand him off to Patricia,” recalled Annie. “So, how’d McNally’s low-key, nerdish fish land in your lap then Patricia?”
Patricia made a wistful smile as she rolled out a sheet of dough, “I guess I got what I wanted. Though, I’ve wondered some days if I should have dropped my line into a different pond. There’ve been some days when I wonder what life would’ve been like with a spicier, adventurous man… but that’s normal, right? Don’t we all have some days where we wish things were different?”
Annie, Dana and McNally were quick to assure Patricia that they all had their moments when they had a twinge of doubt about their choices in husbands. “Yeah, that’s pretty normal I think,” added Annie.
Annie went back to the mixing bowl where she was making rounded, nut-filled Mexican Wedding Cake cookies and dusting them with flour. “Nelson has always been supportive of me, I have to think that our marriage is better than some that I know of, but over the years some of the spark has dimmed. Maybe it’s me, but honestly, if he wanted more sex, I’d consider letting the ol’ boy find a fling with another woman, as long as she agreed to clean my house in exchange for Nelson’s services.”
Dana gave up a small squeak, “Serious?”
“Oh, just a quirky idea. It’s not like we’d be on the brink of a divorce, we’re perfectly compatible. It would merely be a convenient arrangement, Nelson the ol’ goat, would get more action and stop pestering me and I’d get a clean house and more time. I think it’d be a fair exchange.” Annie shrugged as she spooned out a lump of dough and patted it into a little ball.
Dana sighed, “Oh Annie. Annie, you should enjoy the little things from Nelson. You know what I miss most from Sander? It’s little things like tangling our feet together in bed, I really miss the feeling of when Sander would reach across the bed and pull me over close to him. It didn’t have to be sex, sometimes it was so good just to have him spoon into my backside and reach over to caress my breasts.” Dana took a deep breath, “I’m just here to remind The Chix, like they say, ‘You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.'”
Annie’s eyes moistened again, “I’m sorry Dana, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m so sorry.”
“They’re good memories Annie, I don’t feel bad. Just sad at Christmas now. Get back to making cookies and a mess; it’s the only thing that’ll save me, girl.”
Patricia began pressing the cookie cutter into her sheet of dough while pressing this girl-talk topic a little further, “McNally, I’m kind of surprised you and Orlando have made it work so well all of these years. It has always seemed to me that you two traveled in different orbits.”
McNally laughed as she put down her half-empty wine glass, concentrating on mixing up some chocolate frosting. “It’s a beautiful cosmic dance between me and Orlando. We’re a pair of heavenly bodies sharing our orbits when the gravitational attraction pulls us close. Otherwise, we each have our own interests as y’all know perfectly well. Orlando has his poetry, music and writing projects. I love lending my graphic and artistic vision to Orlando’s projects when it fits. When we collaborate, we make beautiful art. When we’re not collaborating on something, that’s when I fill my orbit with my animals and other pets.”
Patricia raised an eyebrow, “Do you care for your ‘pets’ as much as you do your animals?”
“Me and my pets share a sensual bond and an understanding. I will never abandon one of my animals. But my pets come and then my pets go, every pet in his own season. I enjoy a wide orbit in this life Patricia.”
McNally took another sip, becoming introspective, “Hey izmir escortlar you know what? I’d have to say that The Chix is my longest held orbit. It’s so good to have you gals around for me for all of these years.” McNally raised her glass in a toast, “To The Chix. To the long and strong bond of three great gals who have kept me in their orbit as the rest of this crazy world spins out of control. Merry fucking Christmas, to one and to all!” McNally gave a swift motion with her hand, directing her three friends to join her in her toast.
Everyone stepped to McNally’s end of the counter, touching their glasses, creating a resounding chime as the glassware clinked. “Here! Here!” said Dana, “Let’s make this a Merry fucking Christmas for one and for all!”
“I’ll drink to that,” offered McNally.
“Of course, you will,” noted Patricia.
Annie gave her signature tipsy laugh, “I’ll drink to that Patricia!” and took a gulp.
“May I join you?” asked McNally.
Dana laughed, “Wait for me! I’ll drink to that too!”
McNally turned and walked away from the circled Chix. “Where are you off to McNally?”
“Time for the Pinot Noir – any arguments?”
“Yeah. What about the Pinot Grigio?” asked Dana in a mock argumentative voice.
“No blow back from me. I’ll get both.” With that McNally disappeared into the garage.
The cookie production line clicked into gear as The Chix rolled out a pile of baked cookie shapes and an assortment of buttery spritz cookies, chocolate drops, nut bars to go with the gooey lemon bars and shortbread. “My favorite thing in this whole kitchen, other than maybe the wine, is doing the detailed decorations with colored frosting and sprinkles,” announced Dana.
“Here you go then Dana,” said Patricia as she set two hot cookie sheets on the cooling racks, “you’ve got your work cut out for you with all of these shapes.” Patricia brandished a pair of cookie cutters, “You have me to thank for ‘cutting your work out for you’; you’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Claus, Christmas trees, wreathes, ornaments, stockings, snowmen, reindeer and candy canes galore.”
“‘Work cut out for you’, I see what you did there,” observed Annie. “You’ve been hanging around McNally too much.”
McNally grabbed a couple of the round Mexican Wedding Cakes from Annie’s station and then a candy cane shaped cookie off the pile of undecorated cookies.
“What are you working on McNally?” was Dana’s question.
“I’ve been inspired by Annie’s earlier comments and her idea of exchanging Nelson’s candy cane for housework.”
Annie chortled, “What? Something creative for me? My, my, what could it be McNally?”
“Avert your eyes; I’m making you a little surprise.” Annie laughed and pretended to look away, but she and the others watched to see what culinary form McNally’s inspiration took. McNally coated both sides of the candy cane in pink frosting and then covered the straight end of the candy cane with a thin white glaze. She grabbed two pecan halves from the bowl, placing them on top of the round Mexican Wedding Cakes and then wedged the decorated pink candy cane between the two, projecting upward. McNally handed the 3D cookie sculpture to Annie on a small paper plate. “Here you go girl, a little something sweet to enjoy stuffing into your stocking while Nelson is out with your domestic help.”
The Chix all laughed, applauding McNally’s skill at coming up with a naughty little cookie. “See, he comes with a pair of real nuts, and I’ve given his sweet candy cane a condom coating of sugar glaze. And if you’ve been feeling pressure to put out Annie, be assured that he only wants to cum in your chimney once a year.”
Annie was laughing pretty hard, “You’re so thoughtful McNally. But I’ve been a good girl all year; I think I deserve to get a bigger candy cane.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” chuckled McNally, “What you’re asking for is reserved for the naughty girls on my list.” With that, McNally grabbed a fistful of dough and rolled out a fourteen-inch cylinder, molded the tip to look like a cock and attached it to a tiny Santa cookie. The Chix screamed and giggled with perverse delight at the bawdy levity being infused into their traditional cookie exchange and baking extravaganza.
It was open season, every one of The Chix was striving to out-do one another, Rudolph’s bright red nose was repurposed into a pair of glowing nipples on Mrs. Clause’s boobs. The reindeer grew large erections and Christmas wreaths were transformed into edible pussies. Their fired-up imaginations formed many an outlandish and erotic cookie decoration as they polished off both bottles of Pinot.
“Whoa girls, we’ve outdone ourselves this year. That’s a lot of cookies,” said Dana as she surveyed the plates piled high with sweets and many obscene holiday cookies.
“That was a lot of wine, I believe we outdid ourselves this year too,” was Annie’s observation as she untied her apron and took a seat at the kitchen table.
Dana agreed, “I’ll brew some coffee while the rest of you Chix take a seat and put your feet up.”
“I’ll take an Irish coffee,” said McNally.
“Sorry, the bar’s closed,” said Dana, shaking her head. “At least until the next time – which I hope will be soon.”