O' Holy Nite (BL)

1

It's funny how I still expect Christmas to be white, when this will be my 22nd Christmas and I can count the white ones on the fingers of one hand.

It's also funny how I still expect Christmas to be about chestnuts roasting on the open fire, decking the halls with boughs of holly and building snowmen then pretending they're Parson Brown when I've never done any of those things.

Even funnier is how I still expect Christmas to be a family holiday when, really....

I should know by now that my family don't share that expectation and have never given me reason to think that they do.

For some reason alien even to me, I just presumed that I would travel from Leicester, where I'm currently living and studying, to Oxford, where my parents live, and spend Christmas there. This seemed so obvious to me that I didn't think to check with my parents to make sure they'd even be home.

When I phoned my mother a week ago, it was merely to settle the details of my journey to Oxford.

"Well..." my mother started before stalling.

I could picture her by the phone in the hallway, leaning in the doorway between hallway and sitting room, looking oh, so chic, twirling the cord to the phone around her finger.

"Your father and I were planning to go away over the holidays," she finally continue.

"What?" I don't know why I bothered to sound affronted.

I have learnt long ago that any sort of emotional display is unlikely to register with her.

"Where are you going?" I asked her instead.

"Egypt. We were thinking, what with you being in Leicester and Luke in Sydney, we might as well get away from the cold." She genuinely sounds ecstatic this time.

My brother Luke, two years younger than me, had left for Sydney a couple of months previously. I had wrongly presumed that he would return to Britain over Christmas. Apparently he preferred Australia.

"I was planning to come down to Oxford over Christmas, though," I whined.

I'm not sure what I expected her to do.

It wasn't as if they either could or would un-book their f*cking trip to Egypt so that they could stay in the lovely Oxford's bleakness, spending a week staring at my morose appearance.

However, the fact that I understood this and kind of sympathised with the idea just made the whole thing seem even more absurd.

"Oh, Matthew, honey," my mother said, and I could perfectly picture her detached smile.

"Right. Say hi to dad from me and send me a fucking postcard," I growled and hung up.

For a brief moment I felt guilty about using the f word when talking to my mother, but knowing her, she didn't even hear it. She has an amazing knack of hearing only the things that fit into her neat, inoffensive universe.

When I told Gabby about it, she was close to tears. She hugged me and told me how much they would love to have me staying over Christmas. She is my wonderful landlady and plays the role of surrogate mother with alarming credibility. She treats me more like a son than my biological mother ever did, though that isn't really saying much.

My living arrangements are a little unorthodox, I guess. When I was accepted to do Economics at the University of Leicester, I had already decided that I didn't want to live on campus.

Generally, I wanted to avoid student accommodation to any cost. The thought of sharing a kitchen with kids who still haven't realised that garbage doesn't magically disappear and fridges don't magically dispose of rotten food was enough to make me shiver. I didn't want to share a bathroom with girls who spend hours in there or boys who leave their stubble all over the sink.

I don't mind partying, but I want to go to the party, I don't want the party to come to me. Especially not if I'm cramming for an exam whilst the last days of Rome are replaying on the other side of a too thin door. I've done it in the past, and never..!

Never! Again!!

Needless to say, there were few places that corresponded to both my desires and my budget.

Very few.

In fact, two weeks before the start of term, I still had nowhere to stay.

That's when my mother told me of a friend of a friend of a friend of hers who was looking for a tenant. It wouldn't be my own flat, but it would be a room in a house together with my mother's friend's friend's friend, who presumably wouldn't leave rotten food in the fridge, stubble all over the sink or have orgies outside my room.

It didn't seem ideal, but with two weeks left to the start of term and no accommodation I was getting desperate, so I decided to see the room.

As it turned out, it wasn't so bad.

The room was decently sized and neutrally decorated, located on the top floor of a large detached house in one of Leicester's more respectable areas. Not exactly around the corner from the university, but close enough to cycle or walk. And I would get my own bathroom. Tiny, but still.

The couple who owned the house, Mr and Mrs Sunders, seemed like the typical middle-class and middle-aged pair. He's an accountant with a couple of years left to retirement and his spouse a housewife.

What can I say? It's a house of home baked goods and ironed sheets.

It's perpetually spotless.

Overall, my landlords are very friendly and pleasant people. It took me about a second (and a cup of tea and Gabby 's homemade scones) to decide to move in, and I was immediately accepted into house and family alike. Though definitely giving me the privacy I need, and never questioning any late nights or so, Gabby has a tendency of fussing over me.

However, since I was never fussed over as a kid, the novelty hasn't worn off even after three months in the Sunders house.

So far, I've not once regretted moving in there. I don't see Mr. Sunders – Rupert, as he insists I call him – that often since he's usually at work during the days and I'm usually out when he gets back, but I see quite a lot of Gabby .

They've a son as well, Steven, who I've not seen at all other than in a school photograph on the mantelpiece. In that photo, he looks about seven, and very much like the typical English schoolboy: dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, comely features.

Steven's room is the one next to mine, and when I had been staying with Gabby and Rupert for a week or so, I decided to go snooping around in there. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything of any interest whatsoever.

Everything was neatly stacked away, ordered in razor sharp lines and when I looked underneath his bed (where I figured his porn stash should be); all I saw was the clean floorboards. His room showed a certain military order, which is appropriate since he's in the army.

This, of course, was the reason I'd yet to meet him. He had been posted in Afghanistan since July. As it turns out, a significant part of Gabby 's excitement over Christmas is down to Steven's return.

I suspect that Gabby is one of those overly mothering types, who have to have someone to look after. That would be where I come in. My guess is that I'm the son equivalent of a nicotine patch. In order for Gabby not to go completely mad over Steven's absence, they bring in a stray student to replace him. Not quite the real thing, but will tide you over the worst moments of withdrawal.

I'm also suspecting that a significant part of Gabby 's excitement about my staying in Leicester over Christmas is down to Steven's return. Since I told her that I won't be going home to Oxford, she's taken every opportunity presented to talk about how swell (her word, not mine) I'll get on with Steven. How much we'll have in common. How she's sure he'll love me.

I don't really know what to make of it all. I mean, I'll happily admit that I'm not against the idea of spending Christmas with a soldier. A man in a uniform, and all that. But I find it difficult to whip up the enthusiasm that Gabby seems to think would be appropriate.

.

When Steven finally arrives, early morning on Christmas Eve, I'm still not dressed.

In fact, I'm still lounging about in my room wearing nothing but my dressing gown. I throw a glance at myself in the mirror doors of my wardrobe and decide that there's no way in hell that I'm going to meet anyone for the first time looking like this.

Certainly not someone who, during the last week, has morphed from a mummy's boy to a hard-muscled, sexually deprived army man with a leaning towards the love of which you can't ask, nor tell and either way, dare not speak its name. I've always had this innate inclination towards unrealistic daydreams.

I escape to my little en-suite bathroom and take a quick shower. I shave, because let's face it; I look a tad on the homeless side when I've not shaved for a few days. I brush my teeth and sort my hair out, and then I throw on a pair of jeans and a shirt.

Once all this is out of the way, I venture downstairs to introduce myself to the returning soldier.

The first I see of Steven is his back. He's sitting by the kitchen table facing the opposite direction. He's wearing army greens and his hair is cut short, though not shaved (in my dreams, he had a buzz cut, as the Americans would call it).

I hear him talking to Gabby about something, in a deep, rumbling voice. His voice isn't loud, only very deep. I can almost feel the vibrations.

"Ah, there he is now," Gabby says when she spots me.

Steven turns around, and spotting me, he stands up, holding out his hand. I shake hands with him, thinking about one of those cock-and-bull stories I heard in middle school about how the firmness of your grip corresponds to…

Well, it doesn't matter.

"Alright there, mate," he says.

He comes across as a little gruff, but he looks friendly nonetheless. Not quite as hot as in my pervy dreams, but certainly a handsome man.

"Alright," I reply. "Nice being home?"

"Hell yeah," he says and starts an eternity-long recount of his doings in Afghanistan.

Gabby nods for me to sit down and puts a full English breakfast in front of me. I eat in silence, listening to Steven's war stories. The more he talks, the more I understand two things.

First, that I was definitely right about being the nicotine patch son, because Gabby treats Steven as if he's still ten (when in reality, he's my age). Second, that even though he's still a man in a uniform – and I'd still do him given half the chance – nothing is ever going to happen between us.

Unless my straightdar is severely malfunctioning, this guy wouldn't even bend over for the soap in prison.

By lunchtime I'm tremendously bored, so I excuse myself, pretending that I have studying to do, and I withdraw to my room.

...