Santa, Actually Read online

“Be my guest,” came a sardonic sneer from the platform above their heads. “If you think I’m sitting here much longer, waiting to see if Santa Geraldo thinks I’m naughty or nice, you’re much mistaken!” Quinn swung his legs over his perch and, swinging from a couple of the poles on the way down, dropped to the floor beside them. With a testy but elegant shrug, he shed his ill-fitting wings.

  Grady needed no second bidding. He hopped up to a foothold on the trunk and started climbing up to the platform, one branch-pole by one. Jack followed closely, ignoring the stream of red ribbon trailing in his wake, the only souvenir of their ‘costume’. The sight of Grady’s wobbling bare buttocks ahead of him was motivation indeed.

  Quinn stared up at them until Jack lost sight of him behind a sheaf of paper leaves. Quinn’s infamous lips were pursed tightly. Jack also thought he caught a glimpse of the camera rolling across in their direction, but he couldn’t be sure.

  There was heavy breathing and a thumping sound ahead of him, and then Grady’s face peeked out from between two lumps of foliage. Jack had told the props department at the time of creation that you couldn’t mix horse-chestnut leaves and oak leaves, and particularly not on a Norwegian spruce, but of course no one had listened to him. And what did it matter right now? Grady was on his hands and knees, scrambling across the platform so that Jack could wriggle on to it behind him. They were so close that they were spooned. Jack thought it the most perfect position in the world. Grady spread his legs and, without a second’s hesitation, and knowing his beloved was always prepared, Jack slid in his cock.

  “Oh, Santa Baby!” Grady crooned. His body shuddered under Jack’s, their movements in tandem. Jack thought the smile of joy on his face was probably permanently etched.

  “Very good,” Grady groaned. “Just that little harder, Jack. Oh. Oh, yes!”

  “And no vertigo at all,” Jack panted proudly, thrusting slowly but deeply. He started to speed up. “What does the script say now, Grady?”

  Grady made a dismissive hrmph that may have been from sexual delight or something to do with the fact he hated mixing work with play. Or anything with play, really. “Can’t read it now,” he grunted. “Too…busy…right now!”

  Jack snickered and increased his pace. Grady whimpered. The tree rattled furiously and several gold hoops and a wooden rocking horse spun off their branches, clattering onto the ground beneath the tree. Jack thought he heard the cameraman give a yelp of pain, but that could only have happened if he was too near the tree and had caught one in the eye. Which he shouldn’t have been, if he was filming Tomasz—if he was following the script.

  Grady yelled and cursed. “Oh, shit, yes, Jack!! Hard, those Horny Angels Sing!” The tree lights on the branch below them jolted, winked once more, then abandoned all hope and shut off.

  Jack laughed loudly and rather boldly for him. As he let go his own climax, he felt a shudder through the whole tree, and the tinkle of what must have been every decoration below them. In the distance, he thought he heard the coffee cups on Pam’s trolley rattle, too.

  Bells certainly rang for him!

  * * * *

  Jack took a few more moments to gather his breath before he thought of peeking his head out from the top of the tree to see if anyone was left on set.

  Everyone was—and they were all looking up at him. The cameraman wiped sweat from his brow. The sound man seemed to remember he had gum in his wide open mouth and started up his chewing again.

  “What’s up?” Jack said. Grady wriggled along the platform to crouch by his side.

  With a beaming smile of satisfaction, Gerry marked off the final sentence on his multi-coloured copy of the script. “Cut!” he called.

  A round of applause rippled around the crew. Pam handed Gerry his mobile phone. He held it to his ear. “Yes. Of course. Very successful. Yes, everything you wanted.” He nodded happily, then ended the call and peered up at Jack and Grady. “He loves it! The client’s seen the rushes so far, and he’s thrilled. This last scene will be the bloody icing on the Christmas cake!”

  “Huh?” Grady pushed his unruly hair back behind his ear. Jack gave him a hopefully reassuring smile. Grady’s cheeks were rather flushed—all four of them.

  “What are you talking about?” Jack called down. He felt rather exposed, with everyone staring and grinning. He’d never wanted a major role in these movies. He’d always been happy just to have a job where he could earn enough to get by, live with a bunch of friends, and get to enjoy Grady at all hours of the day and night without anyone batting an eye. Actually, where it was positively encouraged, even if their fun was usually way beyond the Director’s Cut. “Who’s the client?”

  Quinn had slipped on a brief towelling robe, and now he sidled up next to Gerry. He looked down at the script in Gerry’s hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, peering at the handwritten note and signature scrawled at the bottom of the last page. “S. Claus?”

  Tomasz looked over as well. “It is a joke?”

  “It bay reedy be Santa Claud!” the twink said. His voice had grown rather nasal after keeping the reindeer nose on for too long.

  “Please,” Quinn said with a tone of utmost contempt. “Putting aside the appalling tropes and scurrilous prose of that script, what on earth could Santa himself ask for as a Christmas gift? The man surely has access to everything.”

  “Except his own, personal movie of two young men he’s crushing on.” Gerry smirked, and Jack realised with a sinking heart that he was smirking at him. “Making out…having that uninhibited, noisy sex you two do so well…lots of noise, Christmas cheer, red ribbons. The whole Christmas thing! What more could a guy want to curl up in front of the fire with, after he’s spent his whole holiday season looking after snotty minors, eating too many biscuits, and getting stuck in chimneys?”

  “You said it wasn’t real,” Grady said to Jack, weakly. He looked totally confused. “The chimney, that is.”

  Jack patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. He was sure it was just a joke. It had to be, didn’t it? He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Santa popping a DVD of them in his player and settling down with a beer, some nachos with cheese, and a towel.

  Grady still looked dazed. He rubbed aimlessly at his nipples, making them spring to attention again.

  Jack stared at Grady’s chest, fascinated by the little brown nubs. His cock twitched tiredly, yet happily, in between his legs. “If that’s the case,” he said carefully, “I think there were parts of that performance that need further work.”

  “What did you say?” Gerry called up, frowning. “We’ve got post-production work to do!”

  Jack ran his finger lovingly over Grady’s bottom lip. “Not yet.”

  “Another take?” Grady said, his eyes shining at Jack. “Your turn to bottom?” He bounced back on his heels, shaking the platform again, and setting up a sympathetic wobbling in his groin.

  Jack smiled. That was one of his dearest views. Movie star, be damned!

  Grady crawled over to him, pushed Jack down on to his back, and started kissing his way up the goose bumps of excitement on Jack’s belly. One of the bells on the nearest branch gave a half-hearted chime.

  “Thanks, Santa!” they both said in unison.

  * * * *

  Tomasz stood at the back of the set, looking forlorn, with his reindeer antlers under his arm like some headless ghost of Christmas past. The sprig of holly on his thong looked like it had seen better days, too.

  Quinn stepped up beside him. “We’ve still got twelve rimmers rimming to do,” he murmured, sliding a hand under Tomasz’s right buttock.

  “You doh…” said the blond hesitantly. They both swung around to stare down at him, sitting on the floor at their feet. He flushed. He’d put the red nose back on, maybe in the hope of a further scene for him. “Dose aren’t de real words, you doh.”

  Quinn’s gaze was patronising: Tomasz snickered. They looked back at each other and rolled their eyes simultaneously.

&nb
sp; “Look, Sentinel,” Tomasz said, companionably. “I will pass over to you the phone number of my agent. It is my pleasure. Or perhaps we should think again as we once did, of setting up the movie company of our own.”

  Quinn nodded. “Let’s do lunch and talk this whole thing over.” He linked his arm into Tomasz’s and leaned in for a wet, off-duty kiss.

  The blond pouted, and they turned their attention back to him. They stood either side of him, and Quinn gently teased at the ridiculous, detachable red nose. He turned to smile at Tomasz, who winked back. Then he leaned back down and lifted up the blond’s head to the level of his hips. “So…Rudolph,” he mused. “What script do we have for you?”

  “Then all the reindeer loved him,” Tomasz began, with a smirk on his face.

  “And they shouted out with glee…” Quinn quoted.

  “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,” Tomasz continued, wriggling a finger into the blond’s opening mouth.

  Quinn’s laugh was full of the rediscovered joys of Christmas. “You’ll ‘go down’ in history!” And he tugged the blond’s head into the warm nest of his groin.

  THE END

  ABOUT CLARE LONDON

  Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.

  Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind…she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.

  Find details of her publications and plenty of free fiction at clarelondon.co.uk, including an invitation to her mailing list. Visit her today and say hello!

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

  Founded in 2010, JMS Books LLC is owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. We publish a variety of genres, including gay erotic romance, fantasy, young adult, poetry, and nonfiction. Short stories and novellas are available as e-books and compiled into single-author print anthologies, while stories