Auntie Rachel, as the kids called her now, weaved among them wearing a Santa hat, passing them gifts from under the little artificial tree she and Al kept in the corner, a tree Samson kept chewing on when he wasn't trying to remove his red and green plaid bow tie, pulling at it with his rear leg. The bow tie was Rachel's idea, Al lamented. "Samson is a beast," he said. "He can't be constrained by a tie, he needs to be free to hunt and kill."

"All he hunts are the crumbs at the kids' feet," Rachel said, gesturing to the shortbread particles falling every time they took bites. Lauren self-consciously bent to pick them up. "Don't bother," Rachel said, "The four-legged vacuum will get it."

"You really didn't have to get them gifts," she said. "They got enough from us and from their extended family."

"It's our pleasure," Rachel said. "We don't have any kids or nieces or nephews to spoil, why not the children of our best friends?"

Naomi, Tosh, Harpreet and Ajit tore into their gifts immediately, barely waiting until they all had them in their hands. Wrapping paper went flying, and they squealed in delight at the toys and clothes they got.

"Hey, look, Star Wars figures," Sunny said. "What's old is new again."

"Have you watched any of those prequels?" Al asked.

Sunny grimaced. "That first one with Jar-Jar Binks just turned me off the whole franchise."

"Oh my God!" Lauren cooed. "Rachel, are those clothes from Gap Kids?!"

"Yeah, why?" she asked.

"That's way too expensive! They're going to outgrow this stuff in a few months, maybe wear them a couple of times."

Rachel shrugged. "Your kids are gorgeous, they should wear gorgeous clothes."

"The clothes are gorgeous, but if you ever have kids you'll find out quickly that you'll blow your budget if you raise them in Gap Kids," Tej said. "We appreciate the gesture, though. Kids, what do you say to Auntie Rachel and Uncle Alistair?"

All four of them uttered the flat thank you of kids coerced to politeness everywhere. When they set to opening their toys, Rachel turned to Lauren and Tej and said, "Well, we're not having kids, so we can spoil yours every now and then."

"Didn't you two think you might try fostering at some point?" Sunny asked.

"Yes, maybe after we live together a while. And I guess we're going to have to move again before that happens, too, because we only have the one bedroom here. I'm sure social services won't want the child sleeping on the couch."

"Maybe if the couch was a pull-out bed?"

"It's not, but if Samson continues his shredding spree, I may get rid of this and replace it with one that is."

"So, what did you get Al for Christmas?" Lauren asked.

Rachel smirked. "Al needed a little sartorial improvement, so I got him a selection of items designed to hug his frame, in colours that compliment his skin tone, hair and eyes. Al wears clothes that are too baggy, he's slimmer than he lets on."

"I prefer the term comfortable to baggy," Al said. "The clothes she got me are dryclean-only. I've never drycleaned anything in my life, except for a suit I spilled food on at a wedding once."

"Welcome to the world of adults," Sunny said. "Has she taught you to iron yet?"

"It's my life's mission," Rachel said, "but he continues to elude my education."

"I don't have a lot of dryclean-only stuff either," Joe said.

"Thanks, Joe," Al said. "It all depends on the work you do. You're a bigshot lawyer, Sunny, so you need to look sharp for your clients. I don't even deal with the public, and Joe probably spends more time on construction sites than he does meeting bigwig developers."

"I wish I could convince Al to model them for you," Rachel said. "He looks hot."

"We don't want to make the other men in the room jealous," Al said, smirking. 

"I want to see!" Lauren said, surprising herself. "I want to see how Rachel pictures you. It could be eye-opening."

Al looked at her with interest. "Really? I don't think it's that interesting."

"Well, now you have me curious, too," Sunny said. "Put something on."

"Yeah, get out of the cozy sweater and sweatpants," Lauren said.

She could tell Joe was looking askance at her, and she knew she was overstepping. She didn't care. She felt strangely exhilarated by the fact that she was together with her friends on Boxing Day, a day normally spent visiting extended family. Maybe it was different for Sunny, because his family was Sikh, and so Christmas wasn't as big a deal to them and they didn't have anywhere else to be, but it was a testament to the strength of their renewed friendship that she and Joe wouldn't have been anywhere else; Joe especially had family friends that would have anticipated a visit from him and his parents, but Joe had chosen a visit with Rachel and Al over them this year.

Al shrugged and said, "Okay, I'll put on one outfit. Rachel really spent too much on me."

He closed the bedroom door behind him. When he reemerged, Lauren was stunned at the change. It was outstanding how the right fit improved a look, and Al really was hiding his light under a bushel. Slacks that hugged the backside she'd witnessed hard at work in Rachel's Skype shows. A crisp Oxford shirt in a light purple, under a charcoal grey zippered sweater that was unzipped.

"Sleek, dude," Sunny said.

Rachel ran her hand along his pant leg and around to his ass. "I'll say," she said.

"You know how to dress your man," Lauren agreed.

"Can I get out of this now?" he asked. "I don't want to get this dirty."

"We'll go out on the town very soon, and you can show it off then," Rachel said. 

When he fled back to the bedroom, Lauren turned to Joe and said, "Maybe we should get you some nice things, I bet you'd be smokin'."

"I'd look like a prize show horse," Joe said, rather glumly. "I already go to the Big and Tall store. Do you know how much it would cost to get me into clothes like that? It would have to be made to measure."

"Poor baby," she said, sauntering over to sit in his lap. She suddenly felt a little randy, and she didn't know why. Was it seeing Al all done up like a model in a magazine ad, or was it the idea of dressing Joe that way? "You're right, though. It would take a lot of fabric to cover you up. Maybe we could get you something only decent enough for me to see."

He wrapped an arm around her waist and said, "Careful, babe, you're going to scandalize our hosts." But she felt him stir beneath her thighs, and she was satisfied.

"I'm scandal proof, Joe," Rachel said.

"We're well aware of that," Sunny said, winking at her, and Lauren knew he was quietly thanking her for letting them use her apartment that day in the fall, and again she felt a heat down below, picturing him and Tej naked and performing acrobatics in the sheets in which she and Rachel had also performed their own. She wondered if Sunny's hair was even longer than Tej's, freed from its turban, and pictured him like an ancient warlord off the cover of a romance novel, dominating his woman until she demanded her turn on top and rode him like a stallion, his hair fanned out on the pillow like the rays of the sun. 

If that bed could talk. Rachel had been living here with her husband Mason before they'd split up; then she'd entertained Martin Heath, the CEO who'd duped her and embezzled money from his own company using her credentials, and who now lay in repose in the concrete foundation of one of Joe's developments; then she and Al performed on that bed, on and off camera; then she and Lauren had pleasured each other in numerous ways; with Tej and Sunny, that made five different couplings. Its poor springs must have been exhausted.

When Al emerged again, he was back in his sweats, and Lauren was disappointed. For a brief instant she wanted to walk over to him and fling off that ridiculous sweater and pull down those giving-up sweatpants, and make him into the naked, sweaty performer in the Skype shows. It was ludicrous, what she was feeling. She'd had eyes for no other man than her husband in all the years they'd known each other, and Al was only mildly handsome in a boyish way. Even gorgeous Sunny didn't do this to her, because Tej's hold on him was complete and unyielding; but Rachel was a sharer, and her sharing of Al, in her shows, and in how she saw him when she clothed him like that, made Lauren see him through Rachel's eyes, and that was dangerous. Suddenly she wanted to be the one to perform with him in those shows, and have Rachel be the viewer.

That realization made her uncomfortable, because it made her wonder if the inverse was true with Rachel; did Rachel watch her shows, with Al by her side, and picture herself with Joe?

"You okay, babe?" Joe asked her, snapping her out of her reverie.

"Huh?"

"You kind of shuddered, there. Are you cold?"

She discovered they were all looking at her, even Al, which made her flush with embarrassment. "No. Sorry. Just a chill."

"Mommy! Look what I got!" Tosh said, brandishing his Star Wars figures in her face.

"Well, look at that!" she chimed, grabbing a figure that looked to be a Jedi, because she had a lightsaber; she thought it was a she, as she had female attributes, but her face was decidedly alien. "What's she called?"

"Ahsoka Tano," Tosh said. "Doesn't it sound Japanese?"

"It sort of does. Did I ever tell you that the maker of the Star Wars movies based the Jedi on the samurai of ancient Japan?"

"Yes, Mommy," Tosh said with a roll of the eyes that was decidedly cheeky for her gentle boy.

"Looks like your son has also heard your history lessons," Sunny said.

Lauren smirked and would have told him to fuck off if her son wasn't standing in front of her. Tosh would learn swear words soon enough from his friends and peers; he didn't need to learn them from his mother.

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