“But what exactly is the plot?” asked Grady Stone, a puzzled expression on his face. “It’s just some old man planning on visiting the local neighbourhood, bringing gifts, with elves running around smiling at him. Is it an urban fantasy, or one of those retrospective things that Gerry gets so wistful about? Or some kind of Public Service broadcast about the danger of strangers?”

Jack Bradford rolled his eyes. After a day helping set up the production facilities, they were sitting on his bunk in their shared trailer, and examining their copy of the new script. “Red suit, Grady. White beard. Soot on his nose. Ring any bells?”

Grady’s eyes lit up, and he slid a hand up under Jack’s T-shirt. “Like that collar I got you? The one with the sleigh bells? I was hoping you’d want to try that again soon. I know you were nervous about the cats stalking around the trailer the last time, but I can get Pam the sandwich girl to keep them at bay.” He tilted his head, thoughtful. “Maybe not that black moggy from the pub that seems to follow me home every time we go down there. I think Gerry’s tempted to write her into the next script, but I told him we weren’t ever going to consider sex with animals, not even if you wore a costume.” He tilted his head back the other way. “Well, okay, maybe in that reindeer thing Tomasz has been cursing all week --”

“Grady, please listen more carefully.” Jack was struggling to stay calm. His jeans felt too tight around the groin again. It often happened when Grady was around. Actually, it happened every day since he got together with Grady. Grady didn’t even really have to be talking about sex, however indirectly. Jack just looked at Grady, or thought about Grady, or remembered what they’d been doing the previous night and where ... and the denim seemed to contract. Jack knew the only way to pacify his aching groin was to find the nearest -- and hopefully comfortable -- place to fuck. And soon. But there were other things at stake, just for the moment. “Try and get the context of the movie. It’s the night before Christmas. The chap is riding a sleigh. There’s milk and biscuits left out for him by the chimney.”

“Chimney? That’s just a prop. They’ve got a gas heater on set.”

“Well, yes. I mean, I’m not sure about that, but the spirit’s the same.” Jack was starting to panic. Whatever his body wanted, he had to get Grady to read this script before morning, else they’d be late for shooting again, and Gerry had already docked them another day’s pay for that little incident in front of the camera crew with Grady astride the sound boom ...

“You mean it’s about Santa, on his Christmas Eve rounds?” Grady breathed against Jack’s ear. “Do you know how cute you are when you’re worried?”

Too late, Jack felt the brush of Grady’s teasing smile on his skin. Dammit, he was still just that little bit too slow to catch Grady’s humour sometimes. Grady reached over him, the careless touch making his nipples stand to attention like small winter walnuts, and his lover stabbed a finger on the open page of the script.

“Hey Jack, we’re in this scene, you know. By name.”

“We’re the extras, like usual, just the elves in the workshop.”

“Nah.” Grady shook his head emphatically, his tousled hair falling forward and nuzzling Jack’s cheek. As Jack’s groin throbbed at the teasing sensation, Grady leant further over into his lap, and flicked over the pages. “And this one. Look.”

“Want to touch, not look.” Jack’s voice sounded hoarse, even to his own ears. He slid a hand down the back of Grady’s sweat pants, easing his fingers between the cheeks of Grady’s arse. The elastic waistband stretched easily -- the fabric was used to this.

“Actually,” Grady said, not giving Jack his usual, devoted attention, “We’re in almost all of them. That can’t be right. We never get any sort of a main role in a film, because --”

“We can’t be trusted not to get distracted. Yes, I know.” Jack squashed himself up close to Grady’s body, stretched down with the hand inside Grady’s sweats, and wriggled as many fingers up into Grady as he could reach. He reached three before his own breathing got too shallow for comfort.

“I don’t know if I want to be a star in this movie,” Grady said.

Jack only had one ear on the conversation. His concentration was on pushing Grady’s sweats down his legs. Grady’s buttocks were white in the evening light and lightly furred. He never wore underwear, of course. Jack tugged the last inch of the waistband over Grady’s generous cock, and it bobbed back against Grady’s belly with a slippery slap. Grady was almost always aroused, too.

“Who wrote this thing?” Grady asked.

Jack didn’t give a pickled pint, as an elderly aunt of his used to say, but his politeness won out. “A ghost writer. The client himself, I reckon. Can we talk about it later?” He reached under Grady’s arms and flipped him backwards on to the bunk. Grady’s sweats were unceremoniously yanked off his ankles, and his legs spread apart. Jack had been reading up on self-assertiveness training and, as far as he was concerned, it was going damn well.

Grady yelped when his toes slammed against the wall of the trailer. “We need a bigger bed, Jack.”

“Put it in your letter to Santa.” Jack tried not to snap, but he was struggling with the zip of his own jeans with one hand, whilst trying to keep Grady’s thighs wide apart with the other. “Along with the pink wig and the full set of Transformers movies in HD.”