Joidale, Massachusetts - 1987 - Three Weeks Before Christmas

“You’ve got to be kidding me Deirdre, is this really the best you can do?” Nikki sat before his casting agent’s desk feeling dejected.

“The studios are shutting down for the holidays, every theatre production is fully cast and the advertising agencies aren’t looking for talent until the new year,” Deirdre sucked on her menthol light.

The strip mall in which Deirdre’s casting agency was located was a non smoking building but the tenants ignored the edict and the landlord didn’t care so long as his tenants paid their rent on time. Deirdre’s Talent Promotions was shoehorned between a nail salon and a payday loan business in a less salubrious part of Joidale Massachusetts close to the notorious ‘red-light district’, which said a lot about the efficacy of the agency.

Nicholas Cooper, who everybody, including himself referred to as Nikki, had been a theatre major at college with dreams of bright lights and stardom but so far stardom, or even a steady paying job had eluded him. He eked out a living taking whatever role was offered and had so far done little more than being cast as a background actor (he refused to use the term Extra) on a couple of television shows, some television commercials and few theatre gigs. He was trying to save enough money to move to LA but was barely making rent.

“It’s all I’ve got babe. It’s three weeks steady employment at industry rates,” Deirdre tried her best to talk up the job offer.

“But it’s demeaning and it’s hardly acting is it?” Nikki countered.

“It’s a paying job! You haven’t worked for weeks now and looking at your bank balance you can hardly afford not to take it. It’s this or go and tend bar and wait tables until next year,” Deirdre announced around a plume of smoke.

“But it’s not even being advertised as a male role,” Nikki whined.

Deirde thought that calling the job a ‘role’ was like putting lipstick on a pig but she would never say it out loud.

“You’ve played femme before and you were good at it,” Deirdre countered, trying to sound upbeat.

“Yeah; sure,” Nikki huffed.

Nikki had played feminine roles before. She was ’jailed tranny hooker’ in one of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order spinoffs, one of Lola’s drag queen Angels in a local theatre production of Kinky Boots and scored a one-off cameo role as a gender confused teen in a low-budget Lifetime TV series.

“Why aren’t there any women applying for the job?” Nikki asked the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

Deirdre cleared her throat while she thought about her response. She knew that if she told the truth that Nikki would never take the job so she gilded the lily.

“All I can say is that the girls I sent to work there left after their first day on the job due to artistic differences with the main character,” Deirdre was barely able to supress a guffaw.

“Artistic differences! Main character! The job title is Santa’s Little Helper and the description reads: ‘Assist Kennedy’s Department Store Santa to ensure that shoppers experience the joy of Christmas. Entertain the children and their parents while they wait to have their picture taken with Santa. Assist children when their turn comes to sit with Santa. Provide store location advice to help parents find the perfect Christmas gift reflecting their child’s Christmas wishes,” Nikki read the blurb on the employment description that Dierdre had printed from her fax machine.

“I’d basically be a child wrangler and store tout,” Nikki huffed.

“Look Nikki, I can’t make the job sound any better than it is. It’s paid employment for every day from tomorrow until Christmas Day at a reasonable rate, with reasonable benefits. The costume is provided. All you have to do is show up, be nice and festive, keep the kids and parents in line, help Santa, schmooze those who need schmoozing and promote saleable goods. If that’s not acting, I don’t know what is,” Deirdre stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray on her cluttered desk and reached for another.

The fact was, Nikki was broke and the thought of waiting tables or hawking drinks in a seedy bar to Christmas revellers was depressing.

“Ok, I’ll take it,” Nikki finally relented.

Deirdre stifled a grin and reached behind her for a garment bag.

“Here are the costumes. I checked the size and the costumes will fit you as will the shoes. Here is the contract, the store details and some pictures of last year’s Santa’s helper so you get an idea of the vibe they’re looking for,” Deridre passed the garment bag across the desk and handed Nikki a thick envelope.

Nikki lay the garment bag aside and opened the envelope and took out a glossy picture.

A skanky looking buxom blonde wearing a short-skirted, low-cut, red satin Santa outfit smiled for the camera. The bodice and skirt were lined with faux white fur. Her legs were sheathed in opaque white hose and her feet shod in red pumps. A Santa hat was set a jaunty angle atop of her bouffant.

“Jesus! Are you sure they didn’t advertise for Santa’s little prostitute?” Nikki stared at the picture and could only imagine what was inside the garment bag.

“Hey, sex sells, Nikki. You know that most of the kids in that store are going to be coming from broken homes and just as many dads as there are moms are going to be taking their kids to see Santa. Kennedy’s Department Store caters to, shall we say, a certain demographic. It’s right down the street, on the other side of the red-light district,” Deirdre did her best to settle Nikki’s nerves.

“I bet half the women you put forward for the job turned it down as soon as they saw the costume,” Nikki looked closely at the picture.

“Look Nikki ... you want the job or not?” Deirdre had other things to do.

“I don’t really have a choice do I?” Nikki stuffed the photograph back into the envelope and snatched up the garment bag.

Just before Nikki got to the door Derdre cleared her throat again and spoke.

“One more thing. They don’t know that you’re a man but with your acting chops I’m sure you can pull it off,” Deirde waved Nikki away dismissively.

Nikki was a fully immersive performance artist, sometimes referred to as a method actor. Regardless of the role being undertaken, no matter how small, no matter how demeaning, Nikki believed that an actor should fully embrace their character. A perfunctory performance was unworthy of the craft.

With that ethos in mind, on the morning Nikki was due to start his new job, Nikki had taken a deep breath and became the girl she needed to be. Nikki stood in front of the full-length mirror and gazed at herself critically. Nikki had tried to imitate the girl in the photograph as exactly as possible and in Nikki’s head she had become the blonde bimbo in the picture. With the transformation complete Nikki thought about herself only using feminine pronouns.

The transformation hadn’t really been that difficult because of Nikki’s experience playing femme roles in the past and she had the body, hair and face for it. The theatre world was full of gays and she knew that she was often referred to as a ‘twink’ with her slim body, long legs, bubble-butt, shoulder length sun-bleached hair and effeminate features. In fact Nikki had been advised to take up take up a career in dance rather go into acting because of her small stature and lithe physical features. She had very little body hair and could mimic a breathy Marilyn Monroe-esque voice pattern quite easily.

There was very little shaving to be done and the only padding required was a pair of silicone breastforms. Nikki had kept the breastforms that she wore when she had played one of Lola’s Angels on stage. She had forgotten how delightful nylon felt against her skin as she rolled the opaque white pantyhose up her legs and smoothed them around her privates and wondered why cis women bitched about wearing them. The pantyhose felt marvellously sheer considering they were opaques and Nikki read the packaging and was surprised to find that they were fifteen denier. The costume came with only one pair and she made a mental note to buy more at the department store because surely they were going to get snagged at some point.

She knew how to tuck and when she stepped into the panties and pulled them tight they gave her pubis a pleasing aesthetic, presenting the perfect female Vee. The undergarments supplied with the costume were spandex boyleg panties similar to Spanx. They were the same red as her costume and featured a low-rise waistband and broad fabric on the sides that offered full buttock coverage and longer leg panels, providing a flattering silhouette and some modesty when worn under short skirts. That was just as well because the tiny Santa skirt left little to the imagination. The white fur-trimmed hem rested very high on her thighs and the low-cut bodice displayed a lot of cleavage and she’d had to adjust the breastforms in the matching red brassiere to ensure said ‘cleavage’ looked authentic, the fur trimming helped with the deception.

The hair and makeup was easy, in fact very similar to that worn by Nikki in her role as ‘jailed tranny hooker’: smoky eyeliner, big #301 false eyelashes (favoured by all the best drag queens), gaudy glitter eyeshadow, rouged cheeks and bright red lipstick. She teased her hair into a bouffant and slipped into the bright red pumps and they fitted her as if they were her very own.

She pinned the Santa hat to her hair and surveyed the result.

Yes, she did look like Santa’s little helper but she could also be mistaken for Santa’s little prostitute.

She slung a red handbag over her shoulder and walked the six blocks to Kennedy’s Department Store. Although it was early there were people out and about in the street in the red-light district and quite a few of the men gave her appreciative glances or just gawped openly at her. The indecent catcalls and misogynist wolf whistles hurled her way when she walked past a construction site would have been offensive to most women but Nikki took them as a complement. It meant that she was playing her role perfectly, deceiving people into thinking she was a real woman. In her subconscious she was also a little excited that men found her sexually attractive.

Nikki was in fact still unsure about her sexuality. She’d had a fling or two with some of the actresses that she had worked with but found them to be needy and self-absorbed and Nikki had once taken something one night at a wrap party that lowered her inhibitions and had experimented with one of the theatre gays. Nothing penetrative occurred but there had been some kissing, fondling and mutual masturbation. Whenever she played femme as well as becoming fully-immersive in the character she often felt herself being attracted to men. She shook her head to clear it. She would be far too busy wrangling kids in the department store to even think about sex.

Kennedy’s Department Store loomed over a whole city block. It was an imposing old brick building, a dinosaur amongst the glass and steel modern buildings that surrounded it. It had been an institution for years and had seen better days. Nowadays it sold cheap knock-off furniture, appliances, clothing, sundries, toys, knickknacks and gewgaws to the lower classes; people who lived on welfare or had low paying jobs or in some cases people who were just cheap.

The store had been gaudily decorated: the windows frosted with fake snow, every window display included plastic reindeer, mannequin elves or fake presents stacked around fake Christmas trees. Gaudy decorations, tinsel and twinkling Christmas lights hung from every available fitting. The weary-looking staff were forced to wear Santa hats or reindeer antlers. Nikki received a few appreciative glances from some of the male employees but most were too occupied getting ready for a busy day’s trading. One of them directed her to the human resources office where an overworked and disinterested flunky gave her some paperwork to complete. Nikki had no hesitation ticking the box that read female under the gender description of the employee.

“Brent Kaulkman has been our instore Santa for the last five years and he thinks he owns the place. He’s scared off more ‘little helpers’ than I’ve had hot dinners, some of whom have come right here to lodge complaints about him before they left but the store owners love him. I would be very careful around him if I were you or he will eat you alive. Sending a pretty little thing like you to work with him is like sending a rabbit into a loin’s den. I’ll be surprised if you last a week,” the functionary sniffed and snatched the paperwork and pointed to the elevator.

“Second floor. When you leave the elevator turn right and look for a door that says ‘Santa’s Lair’. It’s actually an old storeroom but Brent Kaulkman insists on having his own office during the festive season. Good luck honey,” the flunky turned away and went back to shuffling paper.

Nikki found the faded and scarred door that had a hand written sign that read ‘Santa’s Lair’ taped over a traffolite sign that read ‘Store Room #2’. Nikki thought it strange that Santa would have a ‘lair’. Didn’t Santa live in a house at The North Pole or some such nonsense? Regardless she knocked and entered.

Brent Kaulkman was an imposing man who looked to be six feet and change. He had a thick thatch of black hair set atop a handsome rugged face. The Santa suit undoubtedly made him look bigger but he looked to be well-built. He was sitting on an old draftsman’s stool in front of a flyspecked mirror that rested on a workbench set against the wall. His Santa hat, with the shock of white Santa hair attached to it, and his Santa beard sat on the bench. He had been busy gluing bushy white eyebrows over his own black brows when Nikki entered.

She saw his face light up in the mirror like a crocodile that had just seen something tasty and easy to catch.

“Hello princess. Don’t be shy. Come on in and close the door. I won’t bite,” he grinned at her in the mirror.

Brent spun around on the rickety old stool and openly ogled Nikki from head to toe.

“You will do just fine honey. So long as you do exactly as I say, we will get along famously. The job ain’t that hard. Just keep the little snots under control while they wait in line, lead them to Santa when their turn comes and help sit them on my knee and I’ll do my thing and Steffie will take their picture. If the brat asks for anything for Christmas that we sell in the store, direct the parent or a carer to the toy department or whatever,” Bent explained what Nikki already knew from the job description.

“You want a little nip to take the edge off? It’s going to be a long day,” Brent pulled open a drawer under the bench and took out a pint of cheap vodka, took a gulp and waved the bottle at Nikki.