Christmas Tales Blogfest

This is my 700 worder for Ellie's Christmas Blogfest

A Devil Of A Time

By Margo Benson

“Now that is what I call a real red! You devilish minx!” Eliza marvelled at her friend’s full scarlet-coated lips. Shelly pouted, applying the final layer of rich colour, standing back from the mirror, turning her head this way, then that.
“Want some?” Shelly held out the crimson bullet. “It’ll go perfectly with your costume.”
“Ooh, no, I couldn’t, not with these stringy things!” Eliza sighed, and slicked on a lipgloss, just a hint of red. Enough, she thought for her pale, thin lips.
“Taxi’s here, lovelies!” Eliza’s husband, Neil, shouted up the stairs. “Let’s see you, you Hell’s temptresses!”
‘Sshh! You’ll wake Harry!” She turned to Shelly, “My poppet’s out like a light, it’s a miracle!
The two women clopped unsteadily down the stairs on vertiginous heels bought just for the occasion, their outfits squeaking with tightness.
“ Whoa!” Neil choked. “This is the company Christmas party, right? Not a men’s mag orgy?”
“Angels and Demons, darling, not a children’s nativity play, what do you think?”
“I think you’d better go now before I change my mind about baby-sitting and chain you to the kitchen sink!”
The two friends laughed, squeezed into the taxi and sped away to Diablo’s, the nightclub chosen for the office revelries.

Two hours, two ghastly, interminable, hours! Eliza sipped her ‘Deviliquer’ the punch laid on by her employers. A fruity nothingness that coated her teeth with a gritty, sandy texture that she couldn’t wait to get rid of.
“Sooo, he’s a handsome devil! Get it? Handsome devil… “ Shelly lurched, her breath smelling of more than ‘Deviliquer’.
Eliza’s shoulders slumped. She had been looking forward to this evening so much, too much. She had returned to the accounts office of Milans within months of having Harry and worked three days a week. She and Neil needed the income and both sets of parents shared Harry for the other two days. Her hours were long and stressful and her nights were still broken by an energetic little boy. Laundry and housework were never completed and cooking, well, feast or famine in the Bruce household.
Shelly had disappeared and Eliza sulked.
“Want to dance with the Devil?” the deep smoky voice made her start and she swivelled round to face a rather cute young man. The huskiness in his voice was at odds with his appearance. He looked barely out of his teens, but his wide smile and proffered hand cheered Eliza out of her gloom instantly.
“Do I know you?” Eliza asked. “Which department are you in?”
“Oh, I’m just a boy Friday, I’m around.”
He pulled her cheekily close and they started to dance. Eliza saw that he was older than she first thought. Fine lines radiated from his eyes and his skin had a weathered, leathery texture, not the youthful bloom she had first seen. He was a wonderful dancer, though and so was she when he twirled and spun her. She trusted him not to let her fall from a deep back bend and she felt invigorated and alive in his arms.
“What is your Christmas wish?” he rasped. “I shall grant it!”
Eliza laughed. “So you’re Father Christmas? I thought you were, er, Pan or something.”
“Ha! I’m called many things. Go on, everyone has a wish. Money, love, youth. What’s yours?”
“More time! Time!” she cried. “More hours in the day, time for myself!”
“Good one!” he sprang back. “It’s yours!”
“Sure it is, and must I promise Santa to be good little girl?”
He stopped and looked suddenly serious, suddenly older.
“You?” a long pause. “No, maybe others.”

Eliza never saw ‘boy Friday’ again but she thought of him as she filed all of the accounts. She thought of him when she awoke, dressed and applied her make up. There was no rush. She worked, came home, fed, bathed and read to Harry. Christmas Day eased from fresh croissants in the morning to roasted goose with all the trimmings in the afternoon. Her unread book pile shrank.
At work she bumped into Shelly.
“ Shell! It’s been ages, let’s catch up over coffee!”
“I’ll try Lize. I never seem to have enough time.”