The Krampus

I had made a mistake. It was not a difficult mistake to make, but the consequences of mistakes are, unfortunately, not measured by something like that. The easiest mistakes you could make often came paired with the most severe kinds of punishment. Even a gentle-hearted mistake...even one that came coupled with the most noble of intentions. Ultimately, I realize, my mistake was made from a simple combination of a bleeding heart and a faultless lack of knowing.

That was it. I didn't know. I didn't know why everyone was running. I didn't know why no one was helping the strange girl with the fuzzy legs who had suddenly wandered into town. She was soaked with blood. Red gushed and oozed from a wound atop her head, nestled just in between her nubby little horns. Her face was scrunched and her voice was raspy from the severity of her sobbing. She stumbled about and fell several times, dizzy and afraid and bawling. No one helped. Women dragged their children indoors. Grown men scrambled away in fear. Most people hid, closed their ears, waited for the girl-thing to go away. She only continued sobbing, tears mingling in with the blood still pouring out of her. She called at anyone she could see like a desperate fruit-seller in need of sales.

"Heeeeelp! Help, I hurt my heaaaaad! Somebody -hic-, somebody help! It hurts! It hurts, I hurt my head!"

I didn't know. How could I? We never had one before. I was too young. I didn't people were simply hoping the girl would go away or even die from what happened.

I didn't know why old Adrian Ackermann had, in a panic, tugged me away to hide in an alley with his hand over my mouth while the little girl sought help. "Shh, just stay quiet, you hear me? Just let it do what it wants. Don't go near it. Don't talk to it. I can't explain why, but just trust me."

I didn't know why I should have listened to the old man. I didn't care. I just saw someone who was hurt and scared and needed help and it made my heart hurt. So I tore from his grasp and foolishly, kindly, compassionately ran to her. And I held her and asked her what had happened, only to hear more of the same. I heard more of the same raspy, pleading calls for help and mercy that I had heard before. "I hurt! I hurt my heaaaaaaaaad!"

So I went and pilfered a scrap of a rag from a nearby merchant's stand (abandoned out of fear) and wet it in a clean-looking water bucket and showed off the amateur medical skills I'd picked up the last time my father had taken me into the wildness. My novice bandaging made the girl look like some kind of one-eyed burn victim. But it helped. She calmed down and it helped to stop the bleeding.

I didn't know. I didn't know what she was. I didn't know the injury, which I had assumed had been the result of an unfortunate fall or a cruelly thrown stone, had been caused by the swing of a ten-pound hammer, swung mercilessly and full-force by Wilhelm Baumann. Wilhelm was a local scoundrel, a thug and even an occasional highwayman. A do-no-gooder, he knew the problem as soon as he saw it and sought to snuff it out in its youth. He failed to do so.

After the incident, people avoided me. They stayed away. I didn't tell my parents but there were times when I suspected that they knew as well and treated me sorely because of it. Maybe it was in my head. Maybe someone told them about the events and they were reluctant to believe. Who knows? I surely didn't.

Regardless, for months afterwards I'd slip away at times to the riverside and into the woods to join her. Her, the girl with the fuzzy legs and the yellow eyes with the rectangular pupils and the nubby horns and the odd demeanor. And we'd play. We'd catch bugs, we'd climb trees, we'd skip stones, we'd trade frightening or fantastic stories, and I'd lend her books or whatever else she liked. It was at that point that I was just starting to discover the differences between boys and girls...that I found her a bit more magnetic and charming then my other friends. And we'd try some things out. We'd touch each other. Or trade brief, five-second lip kisses. Or hug each other without really knowing what we were meant to do afterwards as a boy and a girl.

It was around that, time, however, that I began to notice things about her. Strange things. Things like pinching me for seemingly no reason. Or pushing me down with no excuse for doing so. Or asking me to wrestle only to completely dominate me, and hold me down for minutes at a time as I squirmed, only to let me go and say she was sorry but 'I just had to. I needed to.' I tried to pay her back as best I could. I made fun of her odd, rectangular eyes even though I found them pretty. I mocked her nubby lil' horns even though I always wanted to touch them. Her legs? Yes, them too. Her fuzzy, strange little legs.

I didn't know. I didn't know. All I knew was that I liked her, despite the occasional abuse, and I wanted to be friends with her. Then she was gone. She stopped showing up. She stopped appearing at the riverside or the entrance to the wild, untamed woods. I was crush. I was crushed because I loved her, despite not even knowing what love even was at the time.

She came back and I regretted it. I regretted ever showing her my love and kindness.

---

She'd been visiting me. I was an adult, on my own by then. She'd been visiting me and ONLY me. Even if the local grocer had been shortchanging people, even if the old lady in the house on the corner had been spreading rumors. No, she only came for me and no one else. No one helped. As long as she came for me? They would not come after them. So they ignored me. They shunned me. I was a pariah.

I laid in bed though I didn't sleep, clad in my worn, cotton pajamas. She was coming so I couldn't sleep. I couldn't be late. If I was late? She'd know. She'd punish me. So I stayed awake.

A knock came at the door. Not a series of knocks, no no. One solitary knock. A hard, loud 'THUMP!' of a noise that resonated throughout my home and vibrated my windows. I was out of bed immediately and I scurried to the door, opened it obediently. I bowed my head, I gestured for her entrance while clearly speaking, "Please, come in."

I had to. It was rude not to. Not inviting a loving guest you were familiar with in? That was a bad thing. Not opening the door for them? A bad thing. Not bowing? A bad thing. I learned this very early. There were rules. She wasn't allowed to touch me. Not unless I did something bad.

She strode confidently into my home, seemingly aloof. Smoke rolled from her lips as she inhaled from her long, wooden pipe. She smoked something foreign to me, something strong that smelled of dark liquorice. She had been smaller than me in her mouth, now she was tall and imposing. She crouched in order to not hit against my doorframe. I am not a short man.

"Would you like anything, Miss? A cup of tea? Cake? I have both freshly prepared." Always call her miss. Never 'ma'am'. That's rude because it makes her feel old. Always have food and drink prepared. Something appropriate for the winter weather. It would be rude otherwise. Don't be bad. Don't be a bad boy or she'll punish you.

My home was immaculate. Spotless. I had cleaned every inch and positioned bowls of potpourri appropriately (but not too much, that'd be overpowering). Even my bed was barely soiled by my presence. She inspected my home like a military commander. Her eyes...those big, bright, oddly shaped yellow eyes gleamed ferociously. Her clothing was scant but I didn't gawk or ogle. No, that would be bad. Don't be bad...even though her figure was feminine and her top barely concealed her torso and her taut, rippling midriff was exposed and her leggings clung dangerously to her hips. Don't be a pervert. Perverts were bad. They got punished. She'd grown so much. Her short, furry legs were long and powerful and her thighs were so thick and dense that they made my waist appear small. Her short, nubby horns had grown gracefully into big, curling monuments upon her head. Her body was taut with muscle. The little girl that had survived a hammer to the head? She could probably withstand a cannonball now. Without budging an inch.

Her bag swung menacingly over her shoulder, that special sack of discipline. It contained bundles of birch twigs and candles and whips and paddles and clamps and bundles of rope and who knows what else that I had never seen. Suddenly, my body ached. The marks of my earlier whippings burned. The marks where hot wax had touched me? They throbbed. My throat was sore from her choking hands and long, dexterous tongue. Somewhere within me my malehood seeked to harden but I wouldn't allow it. Not simply for the sake of not being a bad boy, but for the pride of not having finally identified these things with some kind of masochistic pleasure.

She smoked heavily while appraising my abode. Finally speaking, her voice was like a dark, deep velvet. It was low for a woman's but attractive, rumbling and satiny. "Do you...dislike my visits?"

"No! No, not at all, Miss! Why, you're the highlight of my night!"

Be complimentary. Flatter her. That's good. Not what a bad person would do. She can't touch me. Can't touch me if I'm a good boy.

"Then...why, if I may ask..." She paused, puffed in contemplation upon her pipe. It was so cruel, so slow and drawn-out and vaguely erotic. She sucked on the tip of her pipe and inhaled deeply, her chest puffed outward and obscenely displayed her breasts. She filled her lungs with smoke until she could stand it no longer and exhaled, a stream of pitch-black smoke erupting from her lush lips and nostrils. "...are you so nervous?"

"Eheh...I'm afraid I don't underst-"

"You're sweating. You're shaking. Your voice is high-pitched and jittery. Are you lying to me?"

>"Wh-? No, of course not! I am nervous, very nervous! I just...didn't understand what you meant exactly! Am I not expected to be nervous? What with good company and all?"

She tsk'd under her breath. A trap. She tried to trap me. Tried to catch me in a lie. Over-extended herself. Tried to set the trap off early. I got away. She wanted to hurt me. So badly did she want to HURT me. Not playfully, not lovingly...she wanted to make me scream and cry and beg for forgiveness.

My body ached and it throbbed and I was sick. Sick of it and sick of her and I wanted out. She had been a friend once...maybe even a young lover. As she inspected my obsessively cleaned home for anything out of place I, foolishly, attempted a plea. Foolish. I didn't know. I didn't know.

"Listen...do you remember when I...when I helped you, remember?"

"Mmhmm."

"I guess this is why this is all happening, right? Because...well, I don't know why. Because I got close? When I saw you like that, I was so heartbroken. And worried. And I wanted to help you so bad. And love you."

"..."

"I mean...why do you have to do this? Was I wrong? Did I do wrong?"

"..."

"I don't...I don't want you to stop coming. I still like you...like I did back then. I liked you so much, remember? Even when Mr. Ackermann told me not to, I knew I needed to help. I needed to-"

I stopped. My heart froze. She had been so composed and so aloof. It changed in an instant. It changed like a flash of lightning. Her lips peeled and her teeth ignited in the most devious, toothy kind of grin. Her eyes flashes something malicious and her grip tightened on her bag of punishments. "Oh...ohohohoho, I had forgotten! I didn't punish you for that!"

"Wh-...for wh-..."

"Dis. Obeying. Your. Elders."

Smoke oozed from her nostrils and she took me by the throat. Great strength, inhuman strength. She, at once, looked both violently angry and lovestruck. I saw my terrified reflection in her bright yellow eyes. Her chest heaved, she breathed more heavily as she admired me with violent, admiring love and affection. She wanted this so badly...wanted me so badly to be a bad boy so she can punish me. It was the only way she knew how to show her love.

In time, I suppose, I'll come to enjoy this. I already become aroused in her presence, swayed by her monstrous, feminine charms into a kind of primitive, submissive lust. I solemnly hope that masochism could be more thoroughly learned so that I may take pleasure in her affections.

Things could always be worse. I could be Wilhelm Baumann.

They still haven't found him.