“Surely you jest,” I scoffed, looking at my sunshine boy as if he’d consumed one too many of Emmett’s rum balls. (Each of said rum balls contained so much alcohol they should’ve carried some kind of warning about flammability). “C’mon, pl-l-l-lease?” Justin wheedled, batting his eyelashes at me from under the brim of his green felt elf hat. “It would make me r-e-e-eally happy…you know it’s one of my favourite Christmas traditions.” The only reasons I’d agreed to come to Deb’s Christmas Eve ‘Festivities and Games night’ was because a) Justin had promised to go as Santa’s elf (I could never pass up an opportunity to see him in tights) and b) the ‘Novotny Recipe for Holiday Cheer’ required a 10:1 ratio of rum to eggnog. I still wasn’t all too clear on how Justin had managed to convince me to come as a reindeer… At this late stage of inebriation, I could almost forget that I was wearing the furry reindeer head ornamentation. That was, until I tried turning around and floppy fucking ears whapped me across the face. Or when the goddamn antlers got caught in the mistletoe. At least I had refused the face paint, insisting that this was going to be one fucking pink-nosed reindeer. “I hate board games,” I retorted stubbornly to Justin. I reached around behind him, squeezed his woollen-stocking-clad ass, and whispered seductively into this pointy elf-ear. “Why don’t we go home and make some new Christmas traditions?” “Easy there, Rudolph” Justin admonished, slapping my hand away. “You’re not going to get anything for Christmas unless you behave yourself. And if you still have that weird kink for fucking me in the elf costume…” “Alright, fine,” I huffed, yielding to him only because I was so tippsy I couldn’t come up with any kind of satisfying rebuttal. I thought of trying to make some witty quip that combined the words ‘humbug’ and ‘fucking’, but all I could come up with ‘humbuggering’ which didn’t quite sound right… This year, the board game of choice was ‘Scattagories’; a game that involved having to come up with words that began with a particular letter in a number of categories. At least it was better than the dreaded ‘Scrabble’ or ‘Monopoly’…both of which I sucked at (and not in a positive, life-affirming way). I was propelled over to the kitchen table where Mikey, Ben, Hunter, Ted, Emmett, Deb and Carl were already seated, and allowed Justin to force me down into the chair beside him. I wonder vaguely why the lines on the sheet of paper I was given were dancing all over the place…may be we were having an earthquake… The first letter chosen was a ‘D’, and I looked down at the list of categories I was required to provide words for. Let’s see… ~ ‘#1. Something found in the bedroom’. That was easy. ‘D-I-L-D-O’. ‘#2. A toiletry.’ Hmmm…I thought for a few seconds before I carefully penned the word ‘DRAINO’ into the appropriate spot. DrainO was a toiletry, right? I mean, you used it to clean the toilet… ‘#3. A life necessity’. Well, at least I didn’t have to think about that one. D-I-C-K. ‘#4. Something you receive from a guest’. Uhhh…After pondering the point for a few moments, I wrote down ‘DAMAGE DEPOSIT’. You can never trust some people. May be I’d get an extra score for using two ‘D’s’ in a row. ‘#5. An animal’. I really had intended to write down ‘DUCK’, but when the letters somehow came out as ‘DYKE’, I decided the latter was probably just as accurate. ~ The timer buzzed and I looked up, disappointed. I had just begun to enjoy myself. This game wasn’t so hard after all. Then followed a round of zealous dispute worthy of the International Debate Club Championships as we each tried to defend our responses. Justin, of course, got the highest score, with his ‘down-filled duvet’, ‘Degree deodorant’, and his fucking ‘Dawn Dropwing Dragonfly’. I was deeply put out to find that my ‘drainO’, ‘damage deposit’ and ‘dyke’ were not deemed acceptable by the general masses. Some people just didn’t recognize creative talent when they saw it. But Justin (bless his heart) insisted that I be rewarded points for ‘dick’ and ‘dildo’. The boy knew where his priorities lay. When the mayhem had died down, there was a moment of general shuffling of papers as we selected the next set of categories. The next letter, by some weird coincidence, was an “E”, and I looked down at my sheet, determined to churn up some points this time. ~ ‘#1. A famous Queen, Empress or Tsarina’. E-M-M-E-T-T. ‘#2. A profession’. Hmm…was drug dealing a profession? Sure, why not? ‘ECSTATCY-SELLING’. ‘#3. A kitchen utensil’. Fuck. My knowledge of kitchen utensils was decidedly limited. After a moment’s thought, I carefully wrote down ‘EGGNOG MAKER’- because, hey, eggnog had to come from somewhere. It’s not like chickens lay eggnog. ‘#4. Something you put on display’. Deciding this statement concerned me personally, I wrote down ‘ERECTION’. Then, feeling as if I needed a few extra points, I squeezed in ‘ENORMOUS’ before the word. ‘#5. A reptile.’ Fuck me. A reptile? I put down ‘EGUANA’ in the hopes that no one would actually remember that ‘iguana’ started with a different letter. I could always argue that it was a ‘cyber iguana’- you know, e-mail, e-guana? ~ The timer dinged, and we began the whole process of evaluating our responses again. I wondered how everyone seemed to know so much about things like reptiles and obscure occupations. Since when had my friends become so educated on ‘emerald tree boas’ and ‘emperor monitor lizards’ and ‘ecological entomologists’? Had I missed the ‘useless information boat’? When my turn to share came around, I’d gotten as far as ‘eggnog maker’ (which for the record, got shot down despite my fervent arguments), before Justin started giggling like a giddy school girl beside me. “What’s so fucking funny, elf boy?” I asked him, giving him a playful poke in the ribs. Justin gave another snort of laughter that sounded like a motorcycle starting up and shook his head, making a valiant effort at self-control. “I’m just,” he gasped, looking up and wiping the tears of mirth from his face, “just admiring your astonishingly creative literary skills.” Hmph. I’d show him. I’d show them all….dammit. ~ But, as it turned out, the next few rounds weren’t exactly spectacular either. I couldn’t think of an ‘insect or arthropod’ that started with ‘T’, so I put down ‘TH-PIDERS’, and tried to argue that it was what someone with a lisp would call those eight-legged creepy things. I tried to argue the lisp thing again for ‘TH-LIPPERS’ as ‘a type of footwear’, which also didn’t go down well. Then I tried to use ‘ORSEPOWER’ for ‘a unit or measurement’ that started with ‘O’. And the rotten spoil sports wouldn’t even give me ‘getting ‘ORNY’ as ‘a leisure activity’. (But I did get double points on that round for ‘OPIUM OVERDOSE’ as ‘a malady or injury’.) Needless to say that by the end of the game, dragging several hundred points behind Justin, I was fed up and more than ready to collect my reward for being so good all night. Justin, however, was well into his stride and insisted that we stay for just one more round. Grumbling, I shifted my paper around and watched for the next letter. It was an ‘F’. Perfect. ~ ‘#1. Athletic activity’ ‘FUCKING JUSTIN’ ‘#2. A Classic Movie’ ‘That one I saw while FUCKING JUSTIN’. ‘#3. Something found on a dining room table.’ ‘Justin. While I’m FUCKING him’ ‘#4. An excuse for being late’ ‘I was FUCKING JUSTIN’ ‘#5. A crime’ ‘Having to play this god-awful game when I should be FUCKING JUSTIN.” ~ The timer dinged. I picked up my answer sheet and passed it, stony-faced, to Justin. He read my pointed responses and immediately dissolved into giggles again, but he’d obviously gotten the point because he climbed off his chair and into my lap. He petted my reindeer head-piece which was now slightly lop-sided, as if Rudolph had had a bad run-in with a low-flying aircraft. I wasn’t really sure what noise reindeer made, but I’m sure it must have been something like the cross between purring and whinnying that I responded to his petting with. “You know what I love that starts with ‘J’” I asked him, wrapping my arms around his waist and nuzzling into his neck, totally obvious to the Deb’s protests of ‘no sex until the game is over’. “Umm…Jack Daniels?” Justin guessed. “Jumping rope? Jupiter?” “It’s a person,” I told him, thinking that we could be here a long time if we had to go through everything in the universe that started with ‘J’. ‘A person? Well it can’t be Jack or Joan Kinney, or John The-spawn-of-your-sister-and-Satan. And I hope it’s not Jennifer Taylor, because that would be weird…” (Fuck. Why did I know so many people whose names started with ‘J’? May be it was a curse.). “Is it James Dean?” “No…” I told him, my hand moving upwards towards his crotch. ‘Something I love even more than that…” “OK, stop, before Santa finds you making out under the Christmas tree,” Michael interrupted. He picked up the dice and turned it so the ‘H’ was facing upwards. “Justin, How ‘bout you Haul your Horny Husband’s Hinney Home so you can Have Hot Happy Holiday Hokey…and leave us to finish the fucking game?” I looked at Justin, who had a smirk the size of Texas plastered across his face, and then back at Michael. That sounded like an ‘hexcellent’ plan to me. THE END A/N: Not a stunning piece of literary fiction, I know, but sometimes I just need a laugh :) Happy holidays, all!