Spam! It's What's for Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

own.” The leer in Gavin’s voice sent a tingle all down Ben’s spine. Gavin cleared his throat. “I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I?”
    Ben had a guilty thought of Kai. He should hang up now. He really should. Instead, he changed the subject. “So, um, you must do other kinds of photography?”
    “Oh, yeah. I do,” Gavin said. “Male nudes are my specialty. Not like… not porn. Pictures that show what an honest-to-God marvel the human body is. I could show you sometime.”
    “Yeah. Sure. I’d like that.”
    They could have coffee, look at the pictures. It didn’t have to be a big deal. It didn’t have to involve cheating. Ben just… he liked Gavin. The idea of never seeing him again sucked.
    “Of course, I’d love for you to keep modeling for me,” Gavin continued.
    Ben sucked in a breath, so loudly Gavin probably heard it.
    “But I think we both know how that would go,” Gavin said, his voice low and throaty.
    A part of Ben—a loud, insistent part—wanted to say fuck it and ask Gavin what he was doing right now. And, because he couldn’t help being just a teensy tiny bit of a cliché, what he was wearing. Kai did break up with me . He spent a happy two seconds imagining studio shenanigans with Gavin before the tenacious, never-say-die part of him kicked back in, the part that had gone through seven surgeries on his knee before finally, grudgingly accepting that his days playing baseball were over. You were with Kai for two years, that part of him insisted. You owe it to yourself and him to see if there’s any way you can get back together.
    He let out his breath. “Yeah, we do know how that would go. So, um, I guess I’ll see you around?”
    He hung up feeling dissatisfied. The gift still sat there on the kitchen table, a silent indictment in red foil.
    The phone rang again, startling him. It had to be Gavin calling back, and Ben’s heart started to race. Fuck it , flashed through his head. He snatched up the phone and babbled, “Okay, okay, I changed my mind!”
    “Good to know,” a sardonic voice said in his ear.
    He frowned. “Marge?”
    “I was calling to book you for another job, but you sound like a mess.” Her voice sharpened with suspicion. “Are you high?”
    He sighed. “ No . I’m not high. What’s the job?”
    Marge went silent a moment, probably calculating the odds that he was telling the truth, and then she said, “So you’ve heard of edible underwear, right?”
     
    *  *  *
    The job went okay, Ben guessed. It was no more humiliating than the Santa gig anyway. The important thing was: he had money coming in. His crappy apartment had started to look almost good when he was contemplating the possibility of living on the street. Fortunately, that wasn’t going to happen. Marge was on a roll lining up gigs for him.
    “There’s always a feeding frenzy for fresh meat,” she told him, leaving Ben feeling like the star of a tragically bad prison film.
    He called Kai when he remembered to, although he never actually managed to speak with him. Taking off his clothes for a living proved surprisingly time-consuming, and he lost track of the days. Before he knew it, weeks had gone by, and Christmas was the very next damned day. He thought about waiting until after the holidays to give Kai his gift, less pressure maybe, but then he began to picture it, the way that big red-foil-wrapped box would start to look pathetic come January, like little more than an after-thought.
    “Fuck that shit,” Ben said out loud. He hadn’t spent five hundred dollars on some ugly-ass piece of junk to let it gather dust in his kitchen. He dug his bus pass out of the jeans he’d worn the day before, hefted the box, and set off. Christmas Eve morning wasn’t really Christmas yet, he told himself. He could drop by without it being totally awkward.
    Well, hopefully.
     
    *  *  *
    At the condo, Ben jogged up the stairs to the second floor, knocked on Kai’s door and waited. It opened, and Kai