Read Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes for Free Online Page A

He had sold his soul to the Tooth Fairy, tormented Wendy, attacked Anya, and violated Rachel. Then had God visited his burrow and reached back in time to the moment of his creation to eradicate his sex organs.
    Nowadays, he sought the most loving couples instinct led him to, blessing, by observing them, their intimacies. At the moment, he was sitting on his haunches in a high-fenced backyard where, between two trees, a hammock was stretched. Within it lay an Australian man and woman, upon a temperate afternoon, wiling away the time in marital bliss. As Ray gripped her inner thigh, Penelope pleasured herself. Her face went taut and Ray told her she was beautiful.
    In the Easter Bunny’s opinion, both of them were paragons of beauty—not simply in the skin or limbs or musculature, but in their hearts, which lay exposed to him. Penelope and Ray were recent newlyweds, second marriages both, childless their first, by design in her case, by low sperm count in his. They had spoken of adoption, though they much preferred spawning a child of their own. This, in fact, was the other criterion that influenced the Easter Bunny’s choice of lovers to visit.
    For he was able to observe the liquidity of their letting-go, to guide eggward the jet of sperm, and with a twitch of his nose and a bit of body English to propel one hearty spermatozoa into the great plunge, thereby setting into motion the wondrous process of incubation. Once he had accomplished that task for Penelope and Ray, he leaped for joy, splitting the sky with inaudible yips of delight.
    Then he settled down to bask in the afterglow and listen in on their sweet converse. Penelope said she felt as if some benevolent god had spread a canopy of divine approval over their coupling, and Ray agreed.
    Even so, despite his chittering joy, the Easter Bunny felt a decided lack of something. This lack wasn’t connected to the aforementioned lust or envy, for he no longer suffered under their spell.
    Shame was what he felt, vague but ever present.
    He knew not why. To his knowledge, he had done nothing to be ashamed of. Still, there the shame was. He felt a need to make restitution, to recover something that had been lost.
    Now you are not to suppose that this recoverable something was his penis and testicles, for he missed them not at all. God’s makeover had been thorough, and an envy of mortal organs in no way figured in his sense of loss.
    If pressed to say what precisely he had lost, the Easter Bunny would have paused and pondered and said, “I guess it’s the pastel goodness of Easter, the happiness of the hunt for eggs in tall grass, the contentment of sunny spring days with the air fresh and quiet, and the companionship loving, familial, and free.” For his shame had in some small measure dulled for him the sensory delights of Easter. Scents were a tad muted, colors not quite so intense, textures less distinct.
    The sheen upon the eggshell of life had dimmed.
    He sighed. Even so, it contented him to observe the Rays and Penelopes of the world and to usher along the regeneration of life, womb-whole and poised to drop squalling and perfect into the world.
    Into the sky over Brisbane he bounded, shooting north and east toward a humble home outside of Santa Fe, a few miles along Artist’s Way yet not quite as far as Ten Thousand Waves.
    * * *
    The next day, Santa’s distraught looks were bruited about from workbench to workbench. Something in him had changed, but no one dared ask what. They observed him sighing and pacing in his office, sitting jittery-legged on a tall stool downing Coke after Coke, worrying over a cuckoo clock with wee little screwdrivers beneath an intense pool of light. He seemed older, more frazzled, far less sure of himself than usual.
    Why don’t I just ask him, Fritz wondered. It isn’t as if he isn’t approachable. He’s very approachable.
    But Fritz knew nobody was about to ask him. If Santa had something to tell them, he would choose his own