There. There was that sound again.
Amy slid quietly out of bed, her flannel PJs rustling against the sheets. The wood floor was cold. She reached under the bed and dragged out the baseball bat that she kept for emergencies like this.
It's the cat, she thought. Just like in all of those horror movies. I'll get down there and the cat'll jump out at me.
Amy was halfway down the stairs before she remembered that she didn't have a cat.
She could see colored lights flickering in the living room. Someone had turned on the Christmas lights on the tree. Maybe her phantom cat had done it.
Boy, she hoped her phantom cat had done it.
When she got to the ground floor, she crept forward on the balls of her bare feet. Leaning around the corner of the hall, she could see a shadowy figure standing in the living room. Was it a man or a woman? She couldn't tell without going into the room.
Okay, if that was how it was going to play out, so be it. She hefted the bat and tensed. If she had to pull an Al Capone...
"Freeze!" she shouted, leaping into the room, bat cocked over one shoulder. The figure turned towards her. He -- it was a he -- was smiling. He was... well, he...
Dammit, he looked like Santa Claus! A trim, fit Santa Claus, but Santa Claus nonetheless.
"Amy," he said. His voice was soft and warm. "I'm glad you came down."
Amy stared at the man, dumbstruck. "What...what department store did you wander out of?" she finally said. Then she gripped the bat tighter. "Never mind that, what the hell are you doing in my living room AT THREE IN THE MORNING?!?"
He looked hurt. "It's Christmas, Amy." He held his arms out to her. "I'm doing my job."
"Your job, my ass," she growled. "You here looking for drugs, is that it? Or did you think a this would be a fun house to rob?"
He held up his hands, palms towards Amy. "No, no, no, you've got it all --" He ducked as Amy swung the bat. It swished over his head and slammed into one of the ornaments on the tree. The Hallmark keepsake ornament looked surprised as it sailed across the living room and smashed into the bricks around the fireplace.
"Now, hang on --" He ducked again, then jumped back to avoid Amy's vicious jab with the end of the bat. "If you'd just --" Another ornament went flying across the room. "You know, those ornaments never did anything to -- OW!" the man shouted as Amy brought the end of the bat down on his toe.
"FINE!" he yelled, and promptly vanished up the chimney.
Amy heard something hit the floor. She thought it was her jaw before realizing that it was just the bat she'd dropped. The man had zipped up the chimney like... well...
She sidled over to the chimney and squatted down. Glancing up the flue, she found that she couldn't see a thing. A bit of soot rained down on her face, making her cough.
"Are you up there?" she said into the flue.
"Go 'way."
"How'd you do that?"
There was silence for a second. "Maybe I'm just hopped up on crystal meth," he finally said.
Amy snorted. "Drugs or no drugs, there's still no way you could've gotten up the flue that fast."
"Look, I don't know how I do it. I lay my finger beside my nose and then WHOOSH! up the chimney I go."
A finger beside his nose. Oh, God. Amy backed away from the fireplace and collapsed on the sofa. "You're really him, aren't you? You're Santa."
"I distinctly remember telling you that earlier." The sound of him coughing echoed out of the fireplace. "If I come down, do you promise not to whack me with that bat any more?"
"Huh? Oh, right. Sure."
There was the patter of soot falling from the chimney, and then he was standing in front of Amy. She hadn't seen how he had gotten from there to here, even though she'd been watching.
Now that she wasn't busy swinging the bat, she could take a closer look at him. He certainly fit the stereotype, from his red fur-trimmed clothes that were smudged with soot to his twinkling eyes and red cheeks. Only one thing seemed wrong. "You're too thin," Amy told him.
"You should talk, Ms. Five-Foot-Four One-Hundred-and-Ten Pounds." He patted his stomach, what little there was of it. "Besides, I had to get with the times. These days most of my work is outsourced, and there's not a lot to do at the North Pole besides keeping watch and hiding just in case another idiot like Perry comes by." His eyes lost some of their twinkle. "And the late Mrs. Claus made me buy a cross-training machine."
"I'm so sorry," Amy murmured.
Santa shrugged and smiled crookedly. "It's been years now. Damned FedEx driver should have looked before he backed up."
Amy curled her feet under her. "So why are you here, if all of your work is outsourced?"
"Most of my work." He sat beside her. "You see, there are far too many people in the world now for me to visit them all. I can only handle the really special cases. Cases like yours."
Amy looked up. "Mine?"
"Yours. It's because of what your Christmases were like after your dad died."
Dad had been a cop. Amy remembered his brown hair that was never combed properly, his booming laugh, his big hands that would scoop her up and toss her, squealing and laughing, into the air. She'd been all of six when Dad was shot during what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop.
Christmases hadn't been much fun after that, what with Mom trying to drown her sorrows and all. Amy had been the one to do what little Christmas decorating they did after Dad died. These days Amy only put up a tree out of habit.
"Hey, hey, I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories." Santa awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder.
"It's okay, it's okay," Amy sniffed. "I just never thought Christmas could be good again."
"That's what I'm here for. I'm going to give you good memories to go with the old bad one." He stood and took off his red hat with a flourish, then held it out to her. "And I'll do it with this."
Amy just looked at Santa. "With your hat."
"Right."
"Gee. Just what I always wanted. Thanks, but I already have a nice blue hat I wear when I'm on duty, and I don't think my partner would go for me replacing that one with a Santa hat."
"No, no, you don't understand. This hat will give you what you want."
Amy looked closely at the hat. It smelled vaguely of cinnamon. "And how exactly does that work?"
"You decide what you want, and the hat gives it to you." He saw the look on Amy's face. "Oh, you didn't think I carried all my gifts in a sack any more, did you?" He shook his head. "Too bulky, especially with as many stops as I make. No, the hat's better. If I need something, I can reach inside the hat and find it, no matter what it is. If I'm about to run out of a toy, like I almost did with those blasted Pikachus a while back, I put one in the hat and the hat makes more."
"Oh! So it's like a cornucopia, only with toys instead of fruit."
"It is a cornucopia. It's the original one." Santa crumpled the hat in his hand. "Those bastards who run Thanksgiving stole the idea from me." He shook the hat at Amy. "But I got them back. Boy, did I get them back. I'm the one who made them have to use a turkey as their symbol, you know. A turkey!"
Amy wasn't even paying him any attention. She couldn't take her eyes off of Santa's hat. "So whatever I want, that hat will give me."
Santa stopped crumpling the hat and smiled. "That's right. Any one thing your heart desires."
"Anything?"
Santa's smile became a little strained. "Yes, anything." He handed her the hat. "Just say what you want and reach inside."
"Okay, then. I want happiness and world peace." She reached inside the hat, but there was nothing there.
Santa's smile vanished. "I meant anything material."
"Oh, c'mon, it can't be just anything, right?" She pulled up one side of her flannel top and stuck the mouth of the hat on her small right breast. "It's not like I can stick this thing here and say 'bigger boobs,' right?"
Santa looked uncomfortable. "Well. Um."
It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the hat, leaving a vacuum. Amy felt the skin of her right boob being pulled forward. "Hey!" She tried to pull the hat off of her, but it wouldn't let go.
Something was filling her up. Slowly, slowly, she could feel more mass being added to half of her chest. The feeling of her skin being pulled was being replaced by that of her skin being pushed further and further out.
When she was seventeen, she'd been stung by a bee. She'd never known before that she was allergic to bee stings. Her hand had become feverish and swelled up tremendously. This felt like that, only hundreds of times more intense.
Her right boob was filling more and more of the hat. As her breast grew, it rubbed against the hat's rough fir. Her nipple was dragging along the bottom of the hat as her growth pushed it forward. She felt herself getting moist.
She gave the hat an experimental tug, but it still wouldn't come off. She wasn't really sure she wanted it to. "How big will I get?" Santa shrugged, never taking his eyes off the hat.
The hat was starting to restrict her tit. As she filled it more and more, it started standing out straight. Less of the end of the hat was bent over. Around the edges, the seams gaped a little, trying to hold in her burgeoning sweatermeat.
Finally Amy couldn't feel herself getting any bigger. "I think it's done," she said. Santa reached out, grabbed the fluffy white ball at the end of the hat, and pulled gently. At first the hat didn't budge. Then it slowly slid along her right boob. It felt like thousand of tiny fingers were stroking her breast as the hat came off, her flesh spreading as it came free of the constriction of the hat.
She was GIGANTIC! Her flannel top was wadded up on top of a mound of flesh that reached nearly to her navel. She hefted the breast and ran her hand across the pale white flesh. Her nipple had gotten bigger, too. When she rubbed it, it sprang to attention, the flesh of her areola wrinkling. Her boob probably measured a foot and a half from her chest to her nipple.
Santa cleared his throat. "I think your left one will have to be part of the package too."
"I should hope so! I'm going to have enough problem explaining how I got so big. I'd hate to go through life lop-sided!" She eagerly pulled her top off, exposing her tiny left breast. It was dwarfed by its larger cousin. Amy put the hat to her chest. The pulling and pushing sensations came back, but they were even more erotic this time. She found herself rubbing her right nipple while her left boob grew.
And did it ever grow! Amy felt fuller and Fuller and FULLER. The hat was soon nearly filled, squashing her boob into a cone. Her hat-covered left tit stood out in front of her. It looked like part of a costume Madonna had rejected, assuming Madonna had breasts the size of watermelons.
This time Amy removed the hat instead of letting Santa do it, pulling as slowly as she could. It just about drove her wild.
Then she dropped the hat. She turned slowly, nearly pitching forward. "It'll take me a while to get used to this," Amy said.
Santa was staring at her. "You're beautiful."
Amy giggled. "Really?" She walked over to him, working hard to keep her balance. She rubbed her bare tits against his chest. "You know, I really need to thank you."
"No, no, you don't have to do that." But he didn't back away from her.
"I think I do," she breathed. She knelt, dragging her breasts down Santa's front. He moaned softly through clenched teeth. "And this tells me you think so, too." His pants were bulging outwards. She patted his crotch and felt his dick swell.
"Ooh, Santa," Amy said as she undid his big black belt. Then, "Ooh, Santa!" The cock that sprang forth from his pants was bigger than she'd ever seen, bigger than she'd imagined was possible. "What is this?"
"Ho, ho, ho," he laughed, as his face turned red. His big dick swayed like a sock full of lead.
"You're HUGE!" Indeed, the top of his dick was even with the middle of his chest.
Santa blushed more. "You're not the only one to use the hat, you know."
"So can I thank you?" She turned sideways to reach his shaft and ran her tongue over the head of his penis.
"Mmm, oh. Yes, I think so." He rested one of his hands on her breasts. "Besides, there's no way I'm getting back up the chimney with my dick this way."
"Well, I'll just have to use these," she rubbed his dick between her boobs, "to make sure you can get back on track."
Santa agreed later that he'd never been thanked so well before.