I love Christmas shopping! Okay, I know most of you think I'm nuts, and will bring up the traffic, the rude or inexperienced sales clerks, and the overly aggressive shoppers looking for bargains, but to me that's all part of the challenge. Of course, these days I do most of my shopping on line, but I still make time for at least one trip to the mall during the seasonal rush, not just because it makes it feel like Christmas, but also out of nostalgia for something amazing that happened to me years ago when I was a handsome, confident (and modest) young man of twenty-two.

In those days, I wasn't very organized, so I often ended up spending the last few days before Christmas running around, my panic increasing by the day as I tried to finish my list. 1988 was no exception. On the last Saturday before Christmas, I found myself at the biggest mall in the area at nine a.m., list in hand, determined to make everyone of my friends and relatives happy, or at least not think of me as a total jerk (talking about you, Uncle Lenny).

I got off to a good start. By eleven, I had made one trip back out to the parking lot to drop several bags of goodies into my sleigh (okay, my rusty but trusty 1980 Toyota). I headed back into the fray, still needing something for my bratty sixteen-year-old sister. We weren't getting along all that well in those days. Kelly was not at all happy that I had moved back home after college while I looked for a job, a process that was taking much longer than I had anticipated. Still, I wanted to at least try to get her something she would like. My rapidly maturing sister had become a real clothes horse, so I headed for a shop that specialized in the kind of stuff that I hoped teenage girls liked.

As soon as I walked into 'The Fuzzy Monkey' I knew it was the right place. It was full of teeners and 'tweeners, all chattering away like hyperactive chipmunks. Now don't get me wrong, I like young girls as much as the next guy, but when they get together in packs like that, swarming around clothes racks like ants devouring the carcass of an unfortunate beetle, it can be a little intimidating, even for a guy as cool and sophisticated as me.

I soon found myself overwhelmed by all the jeans and sweaters and blouses on the racks around me, and a little rattled by the frenzied atmosphere of teenage exuberance around me. I decided I needed a break. Beating a hasty retreat, I found one of those places that sells hot pretzels and got in line. As I was waiting I looked around and saw the mall Santa's Workshop wasn't far away. There was a line of giggly kids waiting for their turn to show the old faker how selfish they could be. I didn't pay much attention to Saint Nick, fat old men not being my type, but I was intrigued by his helpers, two teenage girls who were taking pictures of the kids in his lap and trying to convince their parents to buy them. The pictures that is, not the kids. The parents weren't given an option – they had to take the kids back.

Santa's helpers were wearing cute little elves costumes, red caps, while blouses with red vests, short green skirts, and red and white striped knee-high stockings that looked good enough to eat. The stockings that is, not the girls. That's a lie, I was a horny young man in my early-twenties with no current girlfriend, so it really wasn't the candy cane stockings I was drooling over. My sites were set a little higher, landing mainly on the tempting glimpse of girlish thigh exposed between the stockings and the hem of their skirts.

While the temporary help at the kiosk continued coping with the intricacies of taking pretzels off the rotating rack and wrapping them up, I had plenty of time to admire the view. I knew they were too young for me to be thinking about, but my inner letch reminded me that there was no law against looking. Unfortunately I was staring so openly that I got caught. One of the girls, a short, well-rounded elf with curly blond hair, saw me checking her out. Somewhat to my surprise, she winked and smiled. Cool it, buster, my conscience scolded, but I couldn't resist returning her smile with one of my own. I saw her lean over and whisper something to her fellow elf, a tall dark-haired beauty with a pixie-like grin. They both looked at me, and damned if they didn't both wink in unison, as if they had rehearsed it.

After I got my pretzel I found an empty bench nearby and started ingesting twice my recommended daily quota of salt. I was watching the crowds surging back and forth in front of me, and momentarily forgot about the tempting teens. Halfway through my snack, I decided that I really didn't need that much hot dough. Almost as if someone were reading my mind, I heard a voice asking, "Are you gonna eat all that?"

I looked up and saw the two elves standing in front of me. They still had the short, green skirts on, but had taken off the peppermint-stick leggings. The vests and official Santa's Helpers red caps were gone also.

"Would you like some?" I held out the remaining part of the pretzel. The blond snatched it out of my hand like a starving waif. She quickly tore it in half and shared it with her partner.

"Thanks," she said just before stuffing her mouth.

"Uh, aren't you going to save some for Santa?" I teased.

"Nah, let that dirty old man find his own angel," she mumbled.

"Oh, is that what I am, an angel?"

"Yeah," the dark-haired, somewhat exotic looking one answered. "Just when we go on break and are starving, here you are. So you must be a Christmas angel, right?"

"Nobody has ever called me that before, but..."

"Actually," the blond added, having swallowed her first bite, "you do look a little more like a devil than an angel."

"And we really like devils," the brunette added.

"So, do you girls have names?"

"I'm Candy," the blond answered first.

"And I'm Sandy."

"Sure you are. You really expect me to believe that Santa's elves are named Candy and Sandy?"

"Well," Candy drawled, "let's just say that..."

" ... those are our Christmas names," Sandy finished. "So, what's your name?"

"Just call me Rudolph," I laughed, playing along with their anonymity game.

"Hmm," Sandy said, "does your nose glows in the dark."

"Maybe," Candy teased, "he's called that because he's hung like a reindeer."

"Ooo, I'd like to see that," Sandy said. She smiled and looked down at my lap as if she expected me to display the evidence right there in the mall.

I was enjoying chatting with them, but wanted to move the conversation in a more innocent direction. "Are you guys done for the day?"

"Nah, we're just on a break," Sandy explained. "We have to be back in..."

" ... two hours," Candy said. "Usually we run home and get a bite to eat, but..."

Sandy finished the sentence, " ... parking is such a hassle today that we just decided to stay here."

Their habit of finishing each others' thoughts was beginning to freak me out a little. I wasn't sure they even realized they were doing it. "Since you have some time, maybe you could help me," I said. "I need to get something for my sister. She's about your age, I think. You girls are about sixteen or seventeen, right?"

"We're both sixteen," Candy replied. High school girls, like I thought, and definitely not the age group I should have been fooling around with. Of course, all we were doing was talking, and there was no harm in that, was there?

"What are you looking for?" Sandy had a habit of playing with her hair and looking off into space when she talked, so sometimes I wasn't even sure she was talking to me.

"Clothes. She spends almost all her babysitting money on clothes. But I have no idea what sixteen-year-olds wear anymore."

"Geez, how old are you, like thirty or something?" Sandy asked.

"Nope, I'm twenty-two, but I swear my sister seems like she is from a different generation, or maybe a different planet. So, do you guys have a few minutes to help a poor Christmas angel?"

"Okay, it might be fun," Candy declared. She had a more direct way of looking at the person she was talking to. My guess was her IQ was at least twenty points higher than her blond-inside-and-out buddy. "Come on," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet.

We headed through the crowds, and if I had been a few years younger I would have felt like quite the stud, with cute teenage girls on either side of me, holding my hands. They took me right back to 'The Fuzzy Monkey', so I knew had been on the right track. This time, with my new escorts, I felt a lot more comfortable about plunging into that frenzied environment. After we entered, my helpers left me alone while they began searching through all the merchandise on display. They meandered from one clothes rack to another, grabbing a shirt here and a skirt there, trading comments as they grazed. I followed along behind, content to stay in the background and watch them shop for me.

That went on for about ten minutes, then they ran into two other girls they knew. The four of them began chatting, and I began to feel like a fifth wheel. I dropped back a little more, so the girls wouldn't feel embarrassed about their friends seeing them hanging around with an older guy, but I was still close enough to eavesdrop. I heard one of the other girls call my new friends Terri and Amanda, but I decided to stick with Candy and Sandy. It seemed more Christmassy.

In addition to their real names, I picked up one other interesting tidbit. Candy and Sandy weren't just high school girls, they were cheerleaders! That is a magic word that in those days worked on me like a command given by a stage hypnotist. When I heard it, the Jiminy Cricket part of my common sense was put away in the trunk, and Mr. Libido settled into the driver's seat. A little side trip into my history may help explain my reaction.

The handsome, sexy, suave young man standing behind Candy and Sandy that day was totally unlike the person who had graduated from high school four years earlier. In high school I was a lovable, slovenly, lonely loser, without the lovable part. For four years I had suffered through one acne attack after another. It was never bad enough to leave scars or anything, but it always seemed like my pimples had a knack for picking the worst time, and most obvious place, to make their appearance. Combine that with the fact that I was more that a little overweight, had Coke-bottle lens glasses, and let my mother pick my clothes ... I think you get the picture. I was as horny as any teenage boy, but the only high school sex I had was in my senior year when I hooked up with a girl who was just as desperate as I was. We were two pathetic creatures determined not to graduate as virgins. The first time we had sex, it was a messy, bloody act of physical coupling performed more out of need than true desire. I think we both kept our eyes tightly shut during the act. I know I did. We did it two more times before graduation, but only to satisfy our own personal needs. It was almost like mutual masturbation. There was never any romantic boy-girl connection between us.

As bad as that sex was, it was still better than jacking off in my bedroom. When I went off to college I wanted a real sex life along with a higher education. I knew I had to get my act together to make that happen. Toward the end of my senior year, my acne finally began to clear up. That helped push me into remaking my image. For a graduation present, I asked my parents for contact lenses, which they readily agreed to. I let my hair grow out from the fifth-grade brush cut my mom had always insisted on, and began buying my own clothes. I also ran my ass off during the summer. I lost twenty-five pounds between high school graduation and leaving for college.

All of those physical changes led to a personality makeover too. Knowing that I looked a lot better made me feel a lot better about myself, and helped me overcome my fear of talking to women. I went off to college determined to make up for my lack of sexual experience by scoring as much fresh meat as I could. Yeah, I was one of those jerks. I even joined a fraternity, even though I despised frat boys, just because I thought it would help me get laid. By my sophomore year I had dropped out of the Greek life and began meeting a better class of women than the slutty, desperate skanks who showed up when the beer was free and the condoms were on the coffee tables.

But as good as my college sex life had been, there was still a bit of regret inside me. I had waited so late to begin my sex life that there were certain things that are normally a part of high school life that I had totally missed out on. One of those was having a chance to score with a cheerleader. Like any red-blooded American male, cheerleaders had always been a sex symbol for me, but they had remained an unfulfilled fantasy. Now, I was hanging out with not just one, but a pair of short-skirted, dimple-cheeked, sexually adventurous examples of the breed. And that is why my inhibitions and good judgment seemed to disappear when I heard that mesmerizing word: cheerleaders.

I zoned out for a few moments, my mind filled with naughty fantasies from my high school days featuring me and the girls in the blue-and-gold uniforms who had been such an unachievable goal for me. When I recovered from my brief reverie, Sandy and Candy and their friends were still talking, but now I had somehow become part of the conversation. Every few seconds, one of them would look over at me, and whisper something to the other girls which made them all giggle. I felt all of my high school insecurities returning, which was silly, since I was a college graduate and several years older than they were.

When the other two girls finally left, my shopping guides put their heads together and whispered something that made both of them laugh openly. I went over to see if I could get them back on track.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Candy declared, trying to keep a straight face.

"We have a bet," Sandy blurted out. Candy glared at her as if she were about to disclose a state secret.

"A bet? About what?" I asked.

"About you," Sandy said with another giggle.

"Okay," I said, "let me settle it quick. Yes, I am wearing underwear, briefs to be exact."

That caused Sandy to blush, which was my first hint that their bet was a little more daring than a simple matter of my underclothes. 'That's not the bet," she said, now finding it hard to look me in the eye.

"Well, should I ask what it is? I really would like to finish shopping before Christmas."

"Come on," Candy said, grabbing my hand again.

"Where?"

"We're gonna try on some of these clothes so you can decide if you think they would look good on your sister," she explained.

"Hey guys," I protested, "I really don't care that much if she likes what I buy. She can always return them. And what about this bet?"

They didn't answer me as they continued dragging me through the store. When we got to the row of dressing rooms in the back, Sandy found a vacant one. She opened the door and Candy pushed me into it. The girls piled in behind me. It was a typical changing room, fine for one person, tight for two, but the three of us made a real crowd.

"Now, about that bet," Candy said, her face so close to me now that I could smell not just her perfume, but also something that resembled peaches. Her shampoo, I wondered? If so, it gave her long brunette tresses a nice shine. "I bet the other girls that I could convince you to let me give you a handjob right here in the store..."

" ... and I'm here as her witness," Sandy purred. Her favorite shampoo had a hint of strawberry. " So..."

" ... that's why we pulled you in here." Candy finished. Her hands were already attempting to unzip my fly.

"Hey," I protested. "Stop. I think the other girls win. I'm not going to let some underage girl perform a sex act on me in a public place."

Candy was very determined. It was going to take more than a weak protest to deter her. Before I even finished my argument, she had my cock out and was on her knees in front of me. I'm ashamed to say that it was already at half-staff, just from the idea of being in such a tight space with two pretty teenage girls. I did mention that they were cheerleaders, right?

The next few minutes were surreal. I could hear the conversations and giggling going on in the adjoining changing rooms, which made it difficult to focus on the young girl kneeling in front of me, determinedly stroking my dick with her warm hands. Her fingernails had little holiday decorations on them. It's strange what kinds of details your mind can pick up in a moment of panic. At one point she leaned forward, and for a second I thought she was going to replace her fingers with her lips, but all she did was dribble a little saliva off the tip of her tongue onto the head of my stiff cock to act as a lubricant. I guess oral sex wasn't part of the bet.

By now I was way beyond the point of resisting, but I can't say I was just relaxing and enjoying the ride either. Candy was proving something that I had always assumed was true in my addled, sex-crazed teenage years – cheerleaders really know how to give good hand jobs. I hadn't been jealous of high school jocks much before, but now I regretted missing out on some of the bus rides home from road games.

Despite Candy's skillful and energetic efforts, it didn't feel like my orgasm was building very quickly. I knew we should get out of that tiny room as soon as we could, but as any guy can tell you, you can't make yourself cum just because it's convenient, and pressure to perform only makes it worse. Sandy, who had been carefully observing her fellow elf's efforts, decided to take matters into her own hands, literally. "Move over," she told Candy. "Let me try."

Candy, being a nice girl, shared with her friend. She slid a little to the side, allowing Sandy to take her place on her knees in front of me. While Sandy began her version of the high school hand jive, Candy busied herself by pulling my pants halfway down my thighs. I wondered why she had felt the need to do that. That question was answered a few seconds later when Elf #1 began massaging my balls. It appeared that my scrotum wasn't the first one she had manipulated; her touch was stimulating but gentle.

Apparently Sandy had learned her manual skills from a different set of boys than her partner. Candy's approach had been quick, short strokes, concentrated mostly around the head of my penis. A sensible approach, since that is the most sensitive part. Sandy was more into an appreciation of the whole instrument, not just the part that drips and spurts. She ran her hands, alternating between left and right, from the base to the tip, adding a teasing twist at the end of each trip. I had never had a hand job quite like that, and although at first I missed Candy's rapid-fire action, I soon learned to equally enjoy the way Sandy's hands seemed to be milking my very essence. Combined with Candy's intriguing handling of my own person Christmas plums, Sandy's long, steady approach soon had me nearing the climax that had seemed so elusive a few minutes earlier.

Candy was the first one to sense the impending explosion. "His balls are getting tight," she warned her cohort. "Be careful, don't mess up your skirt. We've still got another shift to work."

Sandy didn't change her style, but did increase the speed of her bottom-to-top strokes. At the same time, she heeded her friends warning, and moved a little to the right, while Candy continued her explorations from my left.

Just as I was about to reach a peak of enjoyment, someone knocked on the door and yelled, "Hurry it up in there, girls. There's a line out here."

That interruption was enough to suppress my imminent crisis, and I began to fear that I was going to have to finish my shopping with blue balls. That was when Candy got creative. Before I even realized what she was doing, I felt one slender finger sliding up inside my butt. With knowledge and skill I would never have thought a high school girl could possess, even a cheerleader, her inquisitive digit unerringly found my prostrate and began rubbing.

That was all it took. My interest revived almost instantly, and a few seconds later I felt a wonderful rush of seminal fluid moving up my fleshy delivery pipe. The girls watched, somewhat in amazement I like to think, as my semen plastered the mirror on the back of the door. I have to say that even I was impressed by the size of the load that was slowly sliding down the glass, even though I must give some credit to my new friends. All those years of cheerleader fantasies probably helped too.

Sandy grabbed one of the blouses we had brought in with us and used it to clean up the portion of ejaculate still dripping from my now drooping tool. I made a mental note not to buy that one as the girls cooperated to pull my pants up and raise the zipper. I was wondering how we were going to get out of there with a store full of shoppers and clerks watching, but Sandy and Candy didn't seem to be worried. Subtlety was not part of their behavior.

Sandy opened the door, and the three of us exited, like clowns piling out of a tiny car, leaving several young ladies waiting for the room with their jaws on the floor. We left all the clothes the girls had selected in the dressing room, and made a quick exit out of the store. As we were leaving, I remembered that none of us had bothered to clean up the mirror. The thought of what the next person to use that room would think brought a smile to my face as we paraded through the store and out the front door. Once we were outside the store, we stopped and stood there in a little triangle while dozens of shoppers streamed past us. Nobody said anything, all of us seeming to be in a state of shock. It was Sandy who broke the silence. "I'm starving," she declared. "How about you guys?"

"Yeah, me too," Candy agreed. "Part of a pretzel isn't exactly lunch."

"Come on girls," I said, "let's hit the food court. I'm buying." I felt like I at least owed them lunch.

The food court was packed. We split up and after searching for a few minutes Sandy signaled that she had located a table. She agreed to guard it with her life while Candy and I got in line at the Subway booth. When we returned, the other girls from the clothing store, the losers of the bet, were just leaving. One of them turned and gave me a full head-to-toe scan, then winked at me. Whatever had happened to me during my college years had seemed to evoke within me the power to cast a spell over teenyboppers. I sighed, wishing that had been true a few years earlier when I really needed it.