The Christmas Truce Novella by Tiffany Reisz
Updated: Jan 23
The Christmas Truce
by Tiffany Reisz
Published by 8th Circle Press
Prequel Novella to The Siren
“Look, it’s us,” Nora said, holding up a Peanuts-themed Christmas card. On the front was the blond pianist Schroeder, the black-haired muckraker Lucy, and Snoopy.
“I’m the fucking dog?” Kingsley asked.
“You’ve humped your fair share of legs.”
After months of fighting a cold war with Søren, Kingsley and Mistress Nora sneak over to Sacred Heart in hopes of declaring a Christmas truce for one night with their infuriating priest. When the offer is accepted, the UnHoly Trinity celebrates the holiday together as only they can.
The Christmas Truce is a free novella set in Tiffany Reisz's award-winning Original Sinners universe. This story takes place three Christmases before the first book in the series, The Siren.
RATED: 18+ CATEGORY: MOOD:
Steamy #Erotica Feel Good
#Dark Romance Bittersweet
Who knew a Christmas novella could be so wonderful and deliciously sinful all at the same time? Enjoy this Christmas novella by grabbing the free ebook on Tiffany's website. Feel free to check out my reviews on the Original Sinners series to date as well.
Where to Get Free ebook
Nora: "King, I need your finger."
Kingsley: "Only one? I thought three was your finger preference?"
Nora: "This is my finger preference."
She gave her middle finger.
He raised his hands, surrendering the battle of innuendo.
Kingsley: "You're frowning."
Nora: "Am not."
Kingsley: "Green is a Christmas color."
Nora: "I'm not jealous."
Kingsley: "I am."
Nora: "Slut."
Kingsley: "I am an unrepentant whore. You got the better deal, Maitresse. Any man can be romantic. Only an elite few of us have mastered the art of true whoredom."
Kingsley: "You even have one of those stupid Christmas villages set up in your kitchen."
Nora: "They're cookie jars. I like cookies. Everyone likes cookies."
Kingsley: "Is that eggnog in the refrigerator or did Santa come -"
Nora: "Stop it, asshole. We do not talk about Santa's semen on Christmas Eve."
Nora: "I'm never letting Juliette leave you alone again at Christmas. Babysitting your cock while she's visiting her mother is exhausting. I better get a good present."
Nora: "Did you get Søren anything for Christmas?"
Kingsley: "Socks."
Nora: "You got a sadist ... socks?"
Kingsley: "When you spend forty grand on your lover at Christmas, someone else is going to get socks. I bought you some, too."
Nora: "He beat me and it was lovely. He fucked me and it was lovely. We were in his bed and it was lovely. I said something about how sometimes - not often, for the record - I miss being the one on the receiving end of the flogging. Søren said he was surprised I didn't let you top me anymore. I said I was your domme now, we didn't switch very often. He asked me if I fucked you."
Kingsley: "Which you do."
Nora: "Which he knows. But I said that was between your asshole and my strap-on. And he said something like, 'You know, he's only using you to hurt me.'"
Kingsley: "Not at all true. I'm using you for pain and sex. And to hurt him."
Nora: "Which we all know. But instead of saying that to him, I said .... something not nice."
Kingsley: "What did you say...?"
Nora: "I said "At least I know how to fuck King without putting him in the hospital for three days after I'm done with him."
Kingsley blinked, slowly, twice.
Nora: "I know. That w as bad."
Kingsley: "Do you have a death wish? You really said that to him?"
Nora: "Yeah. And it's true. I do know hoe to fuck your ass really well."
Kingsley: "You're the goddess of sodomy, but that is not the issue. You threw my past with him in his face. That's my job."
Nora: "He pissed me off. First of all, it's none of his business what you and I do in private together. Second, it's none of his business why I top you and you let me. And third ..."
Kingsley: "Yes...?"
Nora: "He pissed me off!"
Memory:
Søren: "I'm glad you came to church."
Eleanor: "I'm here."
Søren: "I was worried you wouldn't come. Whatever happens with us ... our difficulties should never come between you and God."
Eleanor: "God's not really talking to me either these days so don't worry about that."
Memory:
Søren: "I'm so sorry, Little One. I wish I could make that better for you."
Eleanor: "You make everything better for me. Except when you make it worse."
Søren: "It's Christmas. You aren't allowed to tell me you hate me today. Truce, remember?"
Eleanor: "Right. Truce."
Memory:
Søren: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee ..."
Eleanor: "Was that a Psalm?"
Søren: "Psalm 42, verse one."
Eleanor: "So, there it is. I give you my heart."
Slowly Søren closed his fingers around the tiny hart and pressed his fisted hand to his chest.
Søren: "Thank you, Little One."
Eleanor: "Merry Christmas, Søren"
She heard him take another deep breath through his nose as if he was preparing to say something important, maybe even forgive her and end their separation. But no.
Søren: "Merry Christmas, Eleanor."
...
Present Time:
Kingsley: "Strawberries."
Nora: "What? You want strawberries or is that your new safe word?"
Kingsley: "Your hair. It smelled like strawberries that night. When Søren breathed in right before he wished you Merry Christmas, he was smelling your hair. He told me the next day he was ashamed of himself for how weak he was at that moment, that he sniffed your hair while you weren't looking. I remember him telling me your hair smelled like strawberries."
Nora: "That was my shampoo. Suave, strawberry-scented. Only ninety-nine cents a bottle. He told you about that night?"
Kingsley: "He told me he saw you after Mass and talked to you and that he was having a very hard time with the separation from you. He said you looked so beautiful he couldn't stop himself from smelling your hair."
Nora laughed. Better to laugh than to cry.
Nora: "That whole year we were 'separated' or whatever ... I thought he hated me. Or worse, that he'd forgotten about me. I'd rather him hate me than forget me."
Kingsley: "Forget you? Sometimes he'd show up at my house at two or three in the morning, and I wouldn't even have to ask why he was there. I'd hear his Ducati in the alley. I'd get up, let him in, and find him whatever pretty masochist was lying around the house for him to 'vent' his frustrations on. All because of you."
Nora: "Are you serious? He never told me that."
Kingsley: "He wouldn't want you to know how weak you made him feel."
Kingsley: "I could tell you many stories about that year. The time I chained his ankle to my bed is a very good one. It was either that or he was going to murder a boy t your church he overheard talking about your tits in glowing terms."
Nora: "I feel like I should tell you I'm sorry."
Kingsley: "Don't. It was a terrible year for him. For me? I was having the time of my life."
Nora: "I had no idea he was feeling so much during that year. He always acting like he had it all under control, meanwhile I was the one falling apart."
Kingsley: "pfft."
Nora: "pfft?"
Kingsley: "pfft. Grown men who have their shit together don't go around sniffing the hair of teenaged girls. He'd probably sniff your hair again if he got near you."
Nora: "Fuck, I'd sniff his hair right now if I could. I love the way he smells."
Kingsley: "Frost on pine trees."
Nora: "Fireplace smoke in the distance."
Kingsley: "New-fallen snow."
Nora: "The way peppermint hits your nose. We're insane."
Kingsley: "All his fault. We were normal until him."
Nora: "Damn straight we were. Both of us, little angels."
Kingsley: "You know, we could be fucking right now. Church verses fucking and we picked church?"
Nora: "Well, too late. We're here."
Søren: "The more I think about the Christmas Truce of 1914, the more baffled I am by it. How did it happen? I've counseled people who haven't seen close blood relatives in years because of a fight over politics or religion - a war merely of words - at some long-ago Thanksgiving dinner. But these men in the trenches had been killing each other - literally shooting at each other for months - when the truce broke out. How did it happen? Why? I may have a theory. Winter is cold and it is nowhere colder than in a trench in Europe in winter. The soldiers were as cold as they'd ever been and ever would be. But Christmas is warm. It's hot cider and candles and the Yule log burning and too many people packed into a church."
More soft laughter
Søren: "The soldiers were blocks of ice by the time Christmas came around. And we know what happens when you drop ice into a hot drink? The ice cracks. This phenomenon is known as the 'differential expansion.' The inner core of the ice cube stays cold and solid, but the outside of it that comes in contact with the heat, expands. And just like that, it cracks apart. Christmas came to those ice-cold soldiers, poured over them, and they cracked wide open. Maybe that's why Christmas hurts so many of us. We feel that fissure, that broken place where Christmas has cracked us apart. I think that's why at Christmas we feel so much of the cold, dark things inside us coming out - the anger at another year gone already, so much time wasted with so little to show for it, the loneliness of wanting to spend Christmas with someone who doesn't want to spend Christmas with you. Or worse, the feeling we've simply been forgotten."
Out of the corner of his eye, Kingsley saw Nora surreptitiously wipe a tear away.
Søren: "But ... perhaps there's some good that comes out of that crack Christmas knocks in our hearts. It makes a place where the good things can slip inside, the bright, warm things. The candlelight. The music. Old friends dropping by unannounced. And more ... love? Hope? Forgiveness? It makes sense that Christmas makes us want to forgive each other, if only for a day. For Christmas, you see, is ultimately an act of forgiveness. In the beginning, God gave us all a gift - the world. And the world was pristine and beautiful and pure, and we broke it five minutes after he gave it to us. We were children in a China shop, and we broke the world without realizing we were breaking ourselves along with it. And yet instead of striking us all off His Christmas shopping list for eternity - as I would have done - God gave us another gift. In fact, God gave us the most precious thing in the universe to Him - his newborn infant son. And that gift, the gift of His child, couldn't be broken. Although we tried, didn't we? We did try."
Søren glanced meaningfully at the large crucifix on the wall.
Søren: "However ... There is good news. God gave us His Son in an act of extravagant forgiveness. And we did try to break Him, and it looked like we had succeeded for a few days. Oh, but we didn't break Him. Because Jesus is love and love, real love, can be dropped and kicked and knocked around, whipped and beaten and nailed to a cross. And yet, it lives. True love lives and it lives forever. So as I wish you all a Merry Christmas, I also wish our Lord a Happy Birthday, for He is reborn every year in our hearts. And that is the meaning of Emmanuel - God is with us. Christmas is with us as it the forgiveness it carries in its open hands."
Nora: "Oh my God, Claire. I love that girls. She always sends Søren two-dozen of the best frosted sugar cookies every Christmas."
Kingsley: "You're eating his cookies? He didn't say you could have any."
Nora: "If you've sucked a man's cock, you get to eat his cookies. In perpetuity. That's the law."
Kingsley: "Is it?"
Nora: "It is."
Kingsley: "In that case, give me one."
Nora: "Look, it's us."
Holding up a Peanuts-themed Christmas Card. On the front was the blond pianist Schroeder, the black-haired muckraker Lucy, and Snoopy.
Kingsley: "I'm the fucking dog?"
Nora: "You've humped your hair share of legs."
Søren: "The only way you could ruin my Christmas is by leaving now. Burn the tree down, burn the house down, I don't care. But don't leave."
Kingsley: "I won't. I might eat all your cookies though."
Søren: "Get out."
Nora: "Ah ... insults and threats of arson. Now it really feels like Christmas."
Søren: "Dare I ask what brings you two to my humble abode tonight?"
Nora: "It's Christmas. We though we'd stop by, see if you wanted to hang out? Drink wine? Watch Rudolph?"
Kingsley: "Fuck?"
Nora glared at him.
Nora: "You'll have to excuse my man-whore. He's gone thirty-six whole hours without getting laid. Hugh, Kingsley, or Momma will take all your Christmas presents back to the store."
Kingsley: "You certain you want me there?"
Søren: "Eleanor's quite fond of you for reasons that escape me."
Kingsley: "You know, if someone just like you ... if you from the past, age nineteen, age twenty, came to me tomorrow in need, I would say to you, 'I know who can help you - Mistress Nora.'"
Søren: "You're trying to make a point. Don't."
Søren: "For a man so easy, you are being incredibly difficult. You've never required an engraved invitation to come to bed with us before."
Kingsley: "C'est vrai. Mais ... it is Christmas. You want me at your threesome? Ask nicely. Gift-wrap it a little for me. Decorate it."
Søren plucked an ornament off the tree and hung it on Kingsley's shirt collar, pressing the silver hook into his skin.
Kingsley: "Son of a bitch! Why did you do that?"
Pulling the ornament - a tiny snowflake with a nasty hook - off his shirt. He touched his collarbone and a smear of blood remained on his fingers.
Søren: "Because that is how I decorate."
Kingsley: "Stop flirting when I'm playing hard to get."
Kingsley: "Our lady probably fell asleep waiting on us to make up our cocks."
Søren: "Our lady is probably at the top of the stairs eavesdropping on us."
Nora: "Am not!"
Søren: "She is in so much trouble."
Kingsley: "If Mrs. Claus looks anything like her, it would explain why there are so many songs about Santa coming at Christmas."
Søren: "It really is the most wonderful time of the year."
Nora: "Hello, Mr. King. Do you like my socks?"
Kingsley: "They'll look very good on my back."
Søren: "She's not very well behaved. We'll have to do something about that."
Nora: "You two are going to kill me."
Søren: "And that, is why the French call 'orgasm' the little death."
Kingsley: "Fuck the little death. That was almost a big death. Warn a man next time before you're going to force him to come his brains out of his cock."
Søren: "My name is all the warning you should need."
Nora: "He has a point there, Mr. King."
Søren: "Eleanor?"
Nora: "Yes, sir?"
He touched his finger to her lips to quiet her.
Søren: "Hush. Men are speaking."
Nora's mouth fell open in shock. She obeyed and remained silent, but her eyes spoke volumes and all those volumes had MURDER written on the front cover.
Kingsley: "She's going to kill you for that later, mon ami."
Søren: "Perhaps, but there is nothing she can do about it now."
Nora: "Either kill me or let me come. Please, sir?"
Søren: "Which shall it be?"
Kingsley: "Better let her come. It is Christmas."
Søren: "Shhh ... Sleep, Little One."
Kingsley: "Is it all right if we stay?"
Søren: "I wouldn't have turned out the lights if it wasn't. And even if it wasn't, she's out already."
Kingsley: "Are we sure she's asleep this time?"
Søren took a strand of her hair in his fingers and tickled her nose with it. She slept on. As Nora was on Søren's chest, Kingsley took his usual place on Søren's stomach. That lasted all of about one minute before Søren sighed heavily.
Søren: "This is profoundly uncomfortable."
Nora: "For you, maybe. I'm nice and toasty."
Søren: "I am a person, not a heating pad. Eleanor, get off of me, please. You too, Kingsley."
Nora: "I'd rather get off for you."
Søren rewarded that cheek with a hard slap to her ass.
Kingsley: "What? You've never had your cock sucked by a man in a red suit with a white beard?"
Søren: "As a matter of fact, I have not."
Kingsley: "You and I lived very different lives in the late eighties, mon ami."
Søren: "Thank God."
Søren: "It's still there, I promise."
Kingsley: "I thought she might have sucked it off."
Nora: "I tried."
Søren: "Eleanor, sleep or death? You decide."
She quickly feigned snoring.
She started to stand but Søren grabbed her and dragged her into his lap.
Søren: "Merry Christmas, Little One."
Nora: "Merry Christmas."
They kissed, a quick gentle kiss, all tenderness, no passion.
Nora: "See you soon?"
Søren: "Soon."
He kissed her forehead. Kingsley held out his hand for Søren to shake. When Søren took it, Kingsley leaned in and kissed Søren right on the lips.
Kingsley: "Mistletoe drill."
Nora: "My Christmas present."
Kingsley: "A private family photo. A very sadistic Christmas gift."
Nora: "A punch in the stomach would have hurt less. What did he give you?"
Kingsley: "Very fitting. I gave him socks. He gave me insoles."
Nora: "You don't get it? It's a pun. Like when I gave him the little hart, the deer toy? I gave him my heart for Christmas. Søren gave you his soul."
Kingsley: "You're overthinking it."
Nora: "Søren wouldn't give you insoles just to give you insoles. You hate jogging."
Kingsley: "He wouldn't give me his 'soul' either. That belongs to God."
Nora: "Supposedly so does his body."
Kingsley: "Touche."