Chapter 3

Liselotte

His kiss was everything I dreamed it would be and more. I can see myself becoming addicted to a kiss like his. Our attraction and friendship eclipse what I could have with any of the male Krampuses within my caste. I must win this hand. How else will I have the nerve to ask him to come to Christmas Island? Asking someone to give up their realm—with everyone they know inside it—is unreasonable for a poker hand, but the bet will open the door to a conversation. Tonight is all I have to make my case…I can’t let my nerves seal my mouth shut. For once, I shouldn’t be seen and not heard.

The problem is my cards are rubbish. Why didn’t I deal myself a winning hand? A six of clubs and an ace of diamonds rest between my fingers as a three of hearts, jack of spades, and jack of hearts mock me from the river.

I’ve got nothing.

His lips twist into a smirk that tells me he holds more than I am—probably not the brilliant hand he would lead me to believe he has, but anything is more than nothing. What do I do? Bluff on the biggest gamble of my life or admit defeat in some graceful way? With enough humor and poise, I can lose, cheer his victory, fulfill his request, and still ask him to marry me.

Wait, what does he wish to win? He never said…

“Do you fold?”

“Huh, what?” His question pulls me to the present. He’s munching on a fist of popcorn I don’t remember him grabbing. How long have I been staring into space? Get it together!

“I’m settled, and you taught me the dealer shows last. It’s rude to hurry along your opponent, or I would ask why you haven’t spilled into your hand—spilled your hand. Oh, dear…”

He chokes on his popcorn at my faux pas. With a napkin over his mouth in one hand and dropping his uneaten kernels from the other, he struggles to contain his coughing fit. My cards crease in my fist as I jump from my seat to assist him with his drink. He smiles gratefully as I touch his mug to his lips…forgetting it’s full of throat-burning liquor. His coughs turn to grunts and throat-clearing growls.

“Sorry, sorry,” I whisper with tears lodged in my throat in sympathetic response. “I should let you handle it.”

His arm wraps around my waist as I turn away. My feet are kicked out from under me. I collapse onto his lap. He steals the air from my lungs when he runs his nose along the sensitive skin in front of my ear. His napkin tumbles onto the table. My weight shifts as he settles me on his thighs. His proud erection presses into my hip.

Why do my nervous giggles sound so stupid? I never make that noise in Christmas Town—a potential hazard of him moving there with me. However, the happy families of Krampus Village giggle all the time, so we would blend in.

“With the jacks on the table and the three queens in my hand—four if you count my lovely companion—” he gestures to me before laying his cards on the table before us “—I end up with a full house. Your call m’lady,” he whispers in my ear.

“I lost.” My hollow voice freezes the hands rubbing my elbows.

Awkwardness showers over us like sleet. I won’t cry. Not all is lost. I just need another way to ask him…which may require me to be vulnerable. Why am I sitting so straight in his lap? My cards flutter to the table. This is where I want to be. He seems to like me too. So why am I so uptight?

Because I was trained to be perfectly professional, frosty, and detached from others. Well, if I’m retiring tonight, I can retire my domestication too. No more climbing the caste ladders when you live in the top tier, Krampus Village. Slowly, I force my shoulders to roll forward. My spine curls until I meet his chest.

There. I’ve—

“Good girl,” he says, kissing my hair. I shiver at the words I’ve never heard him use. It’s like I’ve read the abridged version of him, but tonight, I get the full novel of the lover within the man. “I’ve won fair and square, and I want a night with you as my prize. Now, I know you must return to your realm by sunrise, so I won’t press you for more time than you have to give.”

“What does a night with me entail?” The insistent rubbing of his cock against my hip as his knee bounces tells me how this night will end, but how will we get there? Drat, now I’ve got performance anxiety. Double drat, I’m wearing white cotton granny panties. I thought we would seal the deal in Christmas Town, so I didn’t dress for seduction. I dressed for the frigid Ohio winter.

“Let me show you,” he says as he stands with me in his arms. I grab his shoulder and cling to him at the sudden elevation change, but I shouldn’t have worried. He places me gently on my hooves as if I’m a delicate vase—not a Krampus.

With a clasp of our hands, he’s off.

Excitement bubbles inside me like Christmas champagne as he pulls me to a part of the house I haven’t visited since I burst into his bedroom to alert him of Dirk’s two-story jump out the window on the night we met. Oh my, his ex-wife’s absence is as fresh as the day she left. Where an ornate bed set stood now lies a mattress. The matching oak dressers are gone. In their place is a tower of plastic stacking crates stuffed with folded items competing with balled socks for space. Nineteen…twenty…that’s a lot of socks for one man.

“I’m not the mild-mannered family man I claim to be…all the time,” he says in slow, measured syllables. Is he opening his secret door? For me? Buttons beep as he presses them on a keypad obscured behind a framed landscape. A section of the wall pops toward us before sliding to our left via a motorized track.

I haven’t confessed to spying on him in the scrying bowls. Play cool. No! Act surprised…yes, surprised, but not so much that he thinks I’m judging him. His playroom is scandalous, but not a deal breaker…quite the opposite. But what if he’s disappointed in my lack of experience with kink? He quit playing years before my spying began, so I have no idea what half the equipment does. Every time I’ve spied on him in here, he’s sat on a bench and stared into space. Am I the first woman to enter this room since his wife left him?

“After you, my dear,” he says with a bow and kiss on my knuckles. I’m temporarily blinded when he flicks on the light switch.

“So, you want to be spanked too,” flies out of my mouth before I can catch my tongue. Way to play it cool and make him feel accepted, Lisel! The stress of my night chasing children, weighing my decision to visit Gerhard, our poker games, and all the booze sags my eyelids with exhaustion. Maybe I chose wrong. Is he a human fascinated with the thrill of a romp with a mystical Domme of Krampus lore? Did he play the long game to con me into this room so I’ll use my birch cane on his backside?

As tempting as his rounded ass is, I’m tired of playing the aggressor.

“I’m a switch, so it depends if spanking me excites you, Liselotte. No matter which role I play—service Dom or sub—my focus is you. Even if it’s a few minutes, hours, or all night, pleasing my partner is what gives me pleasure.”

The raw flavor of his words unsettles me, so I wander around the room, pretending to see the equipment for the first time. Facing a wardrobe of floggers, whips, and canes is less intimidating than his open honesty. I was taught that candidly discussing sex was dirty, sinful, and what puts people on my Christmas Eve punishment list.

There’s open acceptance of pain for pleasure among Krampuses…but we don’t talk about it! Crimes of passion aren’t judged as much as pre-meditated, negotiated debauchery. Oh, how I’d be judged if another Krampus heard me ask him for what I really want! Gerhard’s offering something completely different…something I crave…something I could lose my reputation, caste, and future over if a Krampus found out my true nature before we’re tucked safely into Krampus Village.

My fingertips trace along the top of his red leather spanking bench as I continue my circuit around the room. I’ve heard my caste mates talk about indulging in the Krampus fantasy with some of the mothers of their charges. They’ve spanked the mothers’ asses pink and taken their fill of carnal pleasure, but what about the other way around?

Can’t say I’ve ever been tempted…the risk is too great. The penalty for showing weakness to a human is denial from Krampus Village in retirement. I couldn’t bear to serve my former peers as they create happy families, but the third retirement alternative is hard labor—cleaning, harvesting food, and backbreaking work until you collapse. The only other option would be not to retire and be stuck chasing human children for eternity…alone. I’d lose everything I’ve worked to achieve in the last hundred years if someone saw him spanking me through a scrying bowl tonight.

“Say something,” Gerhard pleas from his place by the door. “It’s fair that I give you time to process this…but I’d like to know where your head is at.”

“I love that you are in the lifestyle. The offer of all this—with you—is a fantasy come to life—” I pause to wave my arm in a giant arc “—but you know what excited me the most?”

I grab his upturned palm as he shrugs in the doorway and tug him to the wrought iron bed in the corner. Clouds of dust defend the ancient mattress when I plop onto it. I leave a white line in the residue as I drag him across the surface. He coughs from the particles surrounding us, irritating his earlier throat injury. As I roll onto my side, facing the wall, his arm is wrapped around my waist. He shuffles to press against me from the crest of my horns tucked under his chin to my feet tucked between his ankles.

“I want to hide in your arms, Gerhard,” I whisper. “Can I surrender to you in secret? I’m tired of the hustle. I’m not retiring after thirty-five years of comradery and community appreciation like you did in June. I’m retiring from one hundred years of fighting ruthless peers, punishing combative humans, and chasing the promise of a happily ever after.”

“Do you need a master to take care of you tonight, Liselotte?” His lips brush the base of my horn with each syllable. I’ve soaked my panties when he utters my name.

“Not here, not tonight,” I snap with fear, forcing the words through my lips. He tenses behind me. “I can’t let another Krampus see you dominate me, Gerhard. My peers are searching for a reason to keep me from Krampus Village. They resent my choosing a human over them. I can’t let you swallow whole the Krampus lady I built piece by piece.”

He doesn’t reply. My blood pressure skyrockets. The swishing of my pulse fills my ears.

“I don’t understand. I need you to start from the beginning.”

No sweet whispers this time. He jerks his arm away, but I’ve got a death grip on his wrist with both my hands. I won’t let him go until my offer is on the table. My voice shakes as I explain the Krampus caste system, my parent’s sacrifices to force me into the best schools, my struggle to climb the rungs, and my victorious milestone of being the only female to lord over a territory alone. I’ve kept the believing children of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana in line for over fifty years by myself.

“So you see, what I need to be happy and what I need to survive are at odds with one another. Help me, Gerhard,” I whisper until a sob chokes off my words. Thank goodness there’s no sound through the scrying bowls. “I’m so tired, but I can’t let my guard down to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

“Such a strong, independent, fierce kitten, you don’t understand my offer. Your surrender to me is all the sweeter because of who you are outside the bedroom. Our scene will be playing, Liselotte, not our life. I don’t want a woman who looks to me to rule her life, making every decision—that’s controlling and abusive. Let me show you tonight with no strings attached.”

“I can’t,” I say with a deep breath. Peppering kisses over the tears I’ve shed on his hand, I lace my fingers between his. “I want forever. If we can be partners in public, but I can rest in your care in private, I don’t want one night of frenzied sex. I chose you to breed me, Gerhard. I want to take you to Christmas Island. You can convert into a Krampus and sire the next generation in Krampus Village. Our children won’t live a life of struggles like I did. We will raise them in the ultimate luxury to be good citizens.”

“What about my life on earth? Dirk? He hates me…but I can’t just vanish without signing over his inheritance. The authorities will assume I’m dead, and he won’t have money for his winter trimester tuition. College is his key to everything—”

“I can give you three days to arrange your affairs. Pack light. I wouldn’t take more than two outfits because your body will change—”

“When I become a Krampus…” Why does his voice sound like a judge’s gavel?

“When you start over with a new wife and a chance at a happier family.”

“Turn to me,” he commands.

I roll instantly at the sudden change in his tone. My fingers grip his sweater as if I’m holding on for dear life. Who’s heart pounds louder, his or mine? He cups my jaw, thumbs stroking my tear tracks. Oh, to feel so protected forever! I’m pinned between his elbows and ankles. My eyelids flutter closed with contentment.

“I want to kiss my fiancée goodbye. I won’t get to hold her for three days, and the anticipation may kill me.”

“Anything for you.”

“That’s right, my good girl, let me take care of you.”