Speakeasy Holiday Stash

“Charlie!” his mother cried, pulling the young man in for a kiss.

Meyer stared, slack-jawed on the verge of a smile. His friend stood bashfully on the threshold, a small box in his hands.

“Buccellati,” he said, reading Meyer’s mind. “I, uh, wasn’t sure what to bring. We always have these at my house on Christmas, so I thought…”

His mother had exclaimed cheerily in Yiddish and ushered him into the apartment. Meyer simply stood, shaking his head, floored by the gesture. When his friend approached with a sly smile, he could barely eek out a greeting. He hadn’t asked how Charlie had known he would be here; he didn’t care. It was enough that he was.

“Sir?”

"Don’t ever call me Luciano again. It doesn’t suit you." It was a whisper, almost. But it sounded loud in the small room. 

"Doesn’t it? What is it that suits me then?" As soon as the words had left his mouth, Meyer knew that this could either go very good or very bad. 

"You know what suits you." Charlie started to walk towards Meyer until his back was against the wall. "Kissing me suits you. Getting on your knees suits you. Begging me to fuck you suits you."

With every sentence he undid one button. And thank God they were short sentences, because Meyer knew that would go very good and was anxious to feel Charlie’s skin against him. He knew what suited him. 

“From his sister!” Tommy chimed in, saving Richard from the labor of responding. “She lives in Wisconstin.”

“Wisconsin, dear,” she corrected, but here attention barely strayed from the man before her. “I wasn’t aware you had family.”

His throat clicked as he swallowed in response. She found the reflex both endearing and repulsive, though at the moment it erred towards the former.

After dinner, she decided to retreat to the parlour to bask in the glow of her beloved tree, only to find it  not the pristine confection she’d envisioned but a storm of mismatched ornaments grouped in odd bunches on the lower branches. She needn’t ask to know it was Tommy’s doing, his tiny hands struggling with the prickly branches. Perhaps it was the spirit of the season, but she suddenly felt a rush of guilt at her recent spats with her son’s partner; she made her way to the stack of boxes that held the surplus of decorations and let her hand hover over a fancy one before scooping up a rough-hewn angel instead, fingering its fat little wings tenderly. She raised it to the tree and let it droop from a high bough, then stepped back to admire her work with a bashful smile.

A hum from behind made her turn to find the boys watching her. She blushed. “I see we’ve had a little elf sneaking around,” she said with a mischievous smile, bending down to her grandson. “Come. Why don’t we give him a hand?”