Chapter 30 — The Sad & Pathetic Tale of Rurirorera, the Most Unfortunate Reindeer with a Facial Deformity
“No,” said another reindeer girl. “Stay with me. I’ll let you touch my antlers.”
As if breaking through the gossamer web of some wonderful dream, from the darkness of each apartment emerged a reindeer magicked into an arousing half-beast. They stood at the edge of their pens and beckoned to him with outstretched arms and kissing noises. All except for Zazhizuzezo, who looked at Peter side-eyed and said, “Don’t look at me, you coomer.”
Aiueo took hold of Peter’s arm and drew him in towards her. She made bedroom eyes at him in an intense stare. The look told him that there was no mistake in where this night was headed. Suddenly there came the tumultuous motion of his heart. The only thing stopping him from leaping into her pen was a small thought that his first time was going to be with a reindeer and not a human. Surely he should save his first time for a human— or elf— or whatever Santa was— and then maybe move onto a reindeer sidepiece.
“You should get out of that pen before she gives you ticks,” Lalelilolu said.
“Don’t want to catch lyme disease,” Nanenoninu said.
“I do not have ticks!”
Peter turned and saw that Rurirorera, kneeling on the floor of the pen, wrapped and shivering in Peter’s jacket, had turned into a skinny and docile reindeer girl. She hid her face away from Peter as if embarrassed.
“Yeah you do!”
“I do not! Look!” She threw down the jacket and exposed her back so Peter could see it was smooth and clean as fresh butter.
“Okay, I believe you.” Instinctively Peter snapped a creepshot of her. Then he shivered from the cold. “Do you know where your blanket is?”
“The other reindeer tore it up,” Rurirorera said.
“Liar!”
“We did not!”
“You can’t prove it!”
“Why would they tear up your blanket?” Peter asked.
“They hate me...” Rurirorera said. “...because of how ugly I am.”
A snicker came from the corner of the pen.
“You’re not ugly,” Peter said.
“Yes I am. I’m hideously deformed.” She covered her face with her hands and let her hair fall forward and cover the rest of her head. “I was born with a rare and incurable facial deformity. I’m the Elephant Man of reindeer— a freak. I’ve never had a boyfriend my entire life because of it. I’ve never had friends at all because of it. No one could ever love someone as horribly disfigured at me.”
“Well now I have to see your face.” Peter knelt down and brushed her hair aside.
“No! Don’t do it!” a reindeer shouted.
Peter coaxed her hands away from her face. She resisted his touch at first, and turned away. “You’ve got pretty hair,” he said, “and normal reindeer ears… and your forehead is normal… and you’ve got the jawline of a supermodel…”
Rurirorera looked through her fingers at Peter when she heard the word supermodel. Tears had swelled against her doe eyes.
“...and pretty eyes.”
With her bashful face fully exposed in the lantern light, Peter was at a loss of what her deformity could be. She was an adorably freckled girl, waifish and photogenic.
“I don’t see anything wrong here,” Peter said.
“You liar,” she turned away.
“No. Seriously. I’m looking at your bone structure, your skin… What’s the problem?”
“My nose,” she choked back tears. “Look at how disgustingly red it is.”
Peter squinted and looked closely at her nose.
“It’s a little red, I guess. From the cold, probably.”
“It’s disgusting, I know! Horridly grotesque! Unbearably repulsive! Uh...” Rurirorera took out a thesaurus, licked her finger, and thumbed through the pages. “Uh… Terribly unbecoming, awfully repugnant, shockingly… loathsome? Unbeautiful? Is that a word?”
[Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Whypstopher Pippinsticks Scribble Hub Scribble Hub Scribble Hub]
“No.” Peter made her close the thesaurus. “You have a cute nose. It’s small.”
“It’s like a lightbulb!” one of the reindeer shouted.
“Shut up!” Peter shouted. “Shut up! Just— shut up! Are you guys all a bunch of bullies or something?”
The tongue-twister named reindeer giggled at Peter’s accusation. That was the only answer he needed.
“My nose is red too, look.” Peter tilted his head as if to show off his nose. Rurirorera looked at it and then shook her head in disagreement. “Look, if you feel this bad about it, I can get you some makeup,” he said.
“Really?” The hopefulness in Rurirorera’s eyes was enough to set Peter’s heart on fire.
“Yeah. You put a little makeup on and no one will tell.”
“You’re gonna need all the makeup in the North Pole!”
“Shut up!” Peter shouted into a wave of feminine laughter. “Look, Rurirorera, bullies don’t listen to adults. If they did, there would be no bullies. The next time these girls give you shit and it hurts your feelings, I want you to hit them as hard as you can.”
“I can’t!” she whispered. “If I kick them, they’ll kick me back!”
“Come on.” Peter held up a palm. “Throw a punch right here. Really lay into it.”
Rurirorera looked at the target but then looked away. So Peter grabbed her wrist, limp and lifeless like the world’s most pathetic handshake, and then balled her fingers into a fist and puppeteered her hand into his palm. It made a sad slap.
“Yeah! Like that! Now you do it.”
Rurirorera timidly looked back and forth between Peter’s face and his palm. Reluctantly she squared up, sniffed back some tears, and then squeaked out an “Eh!” as she slowly brushed her fingers across Peters palm. The attack was so weak it couldn’t even be considered a push. Giggles flew across the stables at the pathetic punch.
“Okay,” Peter said. “Okay. We’re gonna work on that some more.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “I’ll get in trouble!”
“Sure you do!” Peter said. “Punching people is fun!”
“It’s… fun?”
“Yeah! Punching people is awesome! Here, punch me again.” Peter fashioned his hand into a puppet and voiced it, “Ooh, I’m a stupid reindeer and I like to bully people because I’m a fucking idiot. Hey, I don’t like your nose, so we can’t be friends. Hur-dee-durr-dee-duh!”
Rather than laugh at Peter’s awful impression, or channel her anger into a stronger punch, Rurirorera turned away and cried big wet reindeer tears. Peter realized his words must have hit too close to home.
“That’s… okay… it’s okay.”
Peter hugged Rurirorera, and she rested her chin on his shoulder. If he could make her bullies end their torment, he would. But it was a fight she had to do herself. For a moment, Peter forgot that he was a degenerate coomer, and didn’t care that he was holding a naked girl in his arms, and all the things that usually followed an unclothed embrace. Instead he only held the sad sack of reindeer girl in his arms. Outdoors the snowstorm raged on. The hurricane lanterns swung about the stables, pitching the shadows of antlered bullies left and right. His mind was abuzz with thoughts on how to help Rurirorera, and he wondered if Christmas Eve would be foggy this year.