Mwynwen - Christmas Carol part 3
By Diana the Valkyrie
There's not many look as good as the Witch in her birthday suit


The Duchess:

My brain reeled as I tried to imagine a Christmas without chocolate. Actually,
it wasn't so much a reel, more of a stagger combined with a boggle. I thought
of all the Christmas stockings without chocolate buttons, all the luxury boxes
of bitter black that would not be available to romance the distaff, all the
ladies denied the opportunity to love Milk Tray. This was set to be the worst
Christmas since the invention of stuffing, and the only thing that stood
between an innocent, carefree world and this disaster, was the Camel Corps of
the Dog Patrol. "Min," I said. "Yes?" "We will succeed, or die trying," I
vowed. "Uh, Fluff?" "Ahem." "Sorry, I mean Duchess. Duchess?" "Yes?" "Uh. I
don't actually like chocolate." I glared at her. "Not the point, Constable.
Our duty has been clearly laid out for us, we must terminate this threat to
Western Civilisation. The chocolate must get through!"

I could see that five minutes into the Carol Christmas Chocolate Case I
already had a morale problem on my hands. A boss who was plainly ready to deny
any involvement if it all went pear-shaped, and a constable lacking in
commitment. But The Duchess comes from that Bulldog Breed that refuses to
admit defeat, and fortified by the memories of Dunkirk, Singapore and Bunker's
Hill I was determine to see this through.

"Come on, Fluff, enough of the melodramatic hyperbole." "Duchess," I reminded.
"This is a job for ... The Camel!" and she flew out of the window. "Hey, wait
for me," I called, "your faithful sidekick The Duchess," as I waited for the
lift, which, of course, was on the floor above me going up, like they always
are.

Eventually, I caught up with her outside the building. She was still trying to
hail a cab, there being a distinct shortage of the buggers as Christmas
approaches and with it the annual shopping frenzy. And if you think it's bad
at Christmas, try Christmas when it's raining. Like it was now, bucketing
down. The cabs all rush off to take shelter somewhere, or maybe it's that
everyone else is trying to grab a cab from a limited fleet. Drastic measures
were called for.

I jumped out into the middle of the road, flaunting my Union Jack cloak at the
passing traffic like a matador at a bull. And the effect was roughly the same,
the cars roared past without stopping, and then one of them splashed though a
puddle and ten gallons of water drenched my cloak, and a couple of pints found
its way into one of my Wellington boots.

I squished back to the pavement, and glared at Witch who was giggling fit to
bust. "Har de har har. All right, Camel, see if you can call me a cab."
"You're a cab," she said, and broke up totally. I groaned, as one does at such
puerile antediluvian humour, and said "What we need, me old Camel, is an
umbrella." She was laughing so hard she was having trouble breathing, so I
turned on my heel, and darted into the nearest shop, a Woolworths. Once I was
inside, I took a moment to empty the water out of my boot, then I looked
around. Sure enough, they sold umbrellas. And, wonder of wonders, they had one
in an attractive Union Jack design at a very reasonable price.

For a moment, I wondered if this might be over-egging the pudding, but then I
remembered Captain America. He's absolutely coated in flags, and he carries
this shield that he chucks at the bad guys, and guess what's on the shield!
Right - another flag. And an umbrella has two functions; apart from being a
rain repellent, you can also use it as a hockey stick. And, as we learned at
skool, and as any fule kno, a hockey stick is ideal for whacking people over
the head with.

So I went back to the street, and erected my brolly. Witch took one look at
the colours on it and screamed "No way!", so we set off down the street
together, with only one of us under the umbrella. She was fairly dry, but
getting wetter all the time because she shunned my brolly; I wasn't getting
any wetter on account of the umbrella, but on the other hand I'd already
shipped so much water, the brolly wasn't actually doing much for me. "Min, I
know you don't like flying in London, but, well, this is kind of an emergency,
don't you think?" She looked up and down the street, by now it was pissing
down cats and dogs, so it was practically deserted, apart from the constant
stream of occupied cabs. "OK, then, climb aboard."

I got up on her, piggy back style, my thighs gripping round her waist. She
pointed her arms up into the air, and we followed her pointing fingers, up, up
and away. For a moment. Then she stalled, and nose-dived into a puddle. Crump.
Fortunately, it was a deep puddle. We salvaged whatever arms and legs were
unbroken, and sat up to count the damage. Then she said to me, "Fluff?" "Yes?"
"Did you have your umbrella up when we took off?" "Yes, of course, I didn't
want to get wet ... oh." "Well, thanks to you and your stupid Mary Poppins act
creating a huge amount of drag and causing me to fall out of the air, we are
now as wet as it's possible to get without actually being a left-wing Tory,
more than somewhat bruised, and I feel like a right dipstick. Now furl that
fucking brolly, and let's try again."

Pretty soon, we were a couple of hundred feet up, above the level of most
rooftops, but below the forest of skyscrapers that infests London these days.
And we were still getting wet, since the rain was coming down from way above
us, although by now we were both so sodden it was not so much a case of
getting wet, more a case of staying wet. I flourished my umbrella (furled, of
course) like a sword as I sat astride the horizontal Witch flying through the
rainstorm, and started to sing the aria "The Ride of the Valkyries", a most
suitable vocal for the situation. And then Min asked me, "Where are we going?"
"I thought you knew, I was just following you." "No, I was following you, I
though you knew ..." "Uh. Well, we need to visit CarCorp." "Obviously. And
their address is?" "How should I know?" "Me too. So, that's another fine mess,
what do we do now?" "Home, Witch. Fly us back to my pad, we can get out of
these sopping duds, have some cocoa, dry up, thaw out a bit, and Google the
address of CarCorp."

Two drowned rats crept into my flat. I lit up the gas fire in my living room,
and we stripped down in front of it. I loaned the Witch a towel, and we dried
each other off, helped by the glowing warmth of the gas fire, and braced by
the thought of imminent cocoa.

Then Simon walked in to the room.

It's not that I really mind being starkers in front of a guy. And I have no
particular reason to mind the Witch being en deshabille, either. The problem
was that we were both bollock naked, and that made it pretty easy to make
comparisons. Stand on me, you do not want to be in a comparison with Mwynwen,
especially naked. She's some inches more than two yards high, and all the
flying she does makes her lean, shapely and fit as a fiddle. Next to her, I
looked like a double bass, or at least a cello. I mean, I work with porn stars
all the time, that's what a fluffer does, and there's not many look as good as
the Witch in her birthday suit. Simon stood there, trying to catch flies in
his mouth.

Mwynwen broke the tableau by squealing, wrapping the towel round her like a
sarong, and rushing off to see to the cocoa. But Simon still stood there, and
it suddenly dawned on me that it wasn't her that he'd been staring at, it was
me!

Now I'm not deformed, don't get me wrong. I have the usual number of arms,
legs, noses and stuff, and they're all in roughly the right place. But when
I'm helping to make a pornepic, I'm not the one that gets in front of the
camera. I'm in the background, as it were, scarfing up any surplus yoghurt,
with fingers poised, oiled and ready for action should a limp butterstick need
to be coaxed back into rampant glory. 'Cos that's what us fluffers do. I'm not
what you'd call pretty. Never mind about a thousand ships, I could barely
manage a rubber duck. So I was not used to the kind of worshipful adoration I
was suddenly getting. I mean, sure I'd given him a quick fluffing earlier, but
that was just a superficial thank-you fluff for helping the Witch with her
computer network installation.

"Cor blimey," he said. "Linda Daventry in her birthday suit! You know, I've
got all your vids." Pretty unlikely, I thought, I've fluffed my way through
more vids than you've had hot dinners, me lad. Still, it was a nice thought.
And I'd never had a fan before. They don't even put me on the vidbox, best I
get is a mention just after "Deputy Key Grip's Helper" and before "Second
Gaffer's Assistant" With something like "Fluffed by Linda Daventry." Thing is,
the porno industry doesn't really want the punters to know about fluffers. The
myth is that the men are so virile and the women so sexually alluring that
they can handle a bonking rate of eight per hour or more. The dreadful reality
is that after an hour of watching the female lead chewing gum, the poor little
butterstick is about as limp as last week's lettuce, and without a vigorous
and skillful fluffing, there wouldn't be a vid at all.

"In the flesh," I admitted, "but after the fluffing I gave you a couple of
hours ago, there's not much you can do about it." I smirked at him, he was
utterly devoid of yoghurt. "But there's something you can do for me," I
continued, "find out the address of CarCorp, we have some unfinished business
there." "Ooh, can I help," he begged.

I looked at him. "This isn't a game for little boys," I told him, sternly.
"I'm not so little," he said, "look." Feh. They all think that. He was all of
three inches if he was downhill with the wind in his favour. I gave him a
withering look, and he shrunk another inch. "Aw, please," he pleaded, "I won't
be a nuisance. Look, Batman has Robin, Holmes has Watson, Sexton Blake has
Tinker, can I, huh?" "Oh, all right. But we haven't got any men's costumes."
"Oh. Er. I'm not sure that I want to dress up as a, um." "What?" "Girl. People
would laugh at me." "You think they don't laugh at my get-up? No, I wasn't
thinking of putting you in tights and a skirt. You'll have to wear my old
Llama costume." "No way! I'm not going to be the back end of a pantomime
llama. Anyway, there's no-one to be the front end, it won't work." Good point.

"Witch," I yelled. "Umff," came the reply from the kitchen, where she was
busily refuelling by stuffing bread into her face. I swear, that girl eats
like a, like a. Um. Horse? No, a Camel. Yeah. Well. I suppose. "Witch, we need
a costume for Simon, got anything suitable?" She came out into the living
room, still munching, and looked at him. "Take off your shoes and socks," she
said. He did. "Eeeewwww," I said, "when did you last wash those?" "That's his
super-power, Fluff. The Putrid Power of Pong, Super Steaming Smelliness, the
Foul Foetid Feet. Meet ... The Footman! Dum dum dum!"

I gestured feebly in his direction, "Put them back on, quick." He covered up
the odoriferous offending objects. "Let's get dressed and go, team," I said.
"I can't bear the niff in here, time we paid a little visit to CarCorp."