The Guest Room

II. Fellowship of Christmas

“I guess I’ll stay in the guest room,” I said. His mom nodded and beckoned me in her direction.

The guest room was nicer than my room at home, back up north, and certainly better than our dorm

Mia’s Room: The sheets were white and the decor of the room was bare and minimal. I had a feeling of a blank canvass on which I could paint whatever story I wished here.

I closed the door and sat down on the bed. It was the first time I’d been alone for a long while. The room felt slightly cold, but in just the right way. That cold room Melville described in Moby Dick, under whom’s covers I could become like that winter ember. There was a flash in my mind of fleshy, female figures joining me beneath the covers. All so nebulous. I still had no idea what Luke had in store for us.

I unpacked my back into the closet and dresser. It was something I had learned at a young age, one of the few lessons I had held onto from my father, who was not one known for much great advice. But this one had stuck; “if you’re staying longer than one night you unpack.”

By the time all my shirts were hanging and all my underwear was tucked away in the drawer I felt..I felt as though I had always been there. The room had a masculine energy to it, in which I felt I bloomed up into my extremities.

I pulled out my copy of Solaris, the book I had been reading as of late. I opened the bedside table to put it in where it would be easily accessible. There was another book in there, waiting to keep it company. It was a brown journal, held fast with red string. I placed my book down and lifted it out, turning it this way and that in the light, admiring the leathern quality of its cover. It was a book somebody had once loved dearly. It was worn. I began to unravel the red tassel when a knock came at the door.

“I’m hopping in the shower,” called Luke through the door. “You can have next. We got to have dinner soon…at the neighbors.”

“Aye aye,” I called. I heard his feet shuffle away. So it was all happening this soon. It was the 23rd, the night before Christmas Eve when we would have to be polite and do the family thing with his parents.

I let the front cover of the brown notebook flop open before me. Words were scrawled in purple ink below.

Fellowship of Christmas as agreed to by the Edgewood Family and the Sullivan Family 1974

down the page were scrawled little ink imitations of holly and ivy and evergreen trees. At the bottom of the page, in the margin, was scrawled the piny triangle of a christmas tree.

Rule 1: In all Decorum we will acknowledge the deep winter roots of this pagan holiday and its masquerade crudely cloaked in the farce of Christian tradition. There will be no crass blasphemy at dinner and in the Lord our Christ we will display fetishistic faith.

Rule 2: In issuance of this tradition, and our language may here be sparse as all members will at all times be orally trained in the specifics, we will, after the banquet of the 23rd, exchange the Christmas Sweaters, to be renewed and provided by the Sullivan family to all members there in attendance.

Rules 3: Sweaters shall be worn along with pajama bottoms or boy shorts for the PM hours of the evening. At the witching hour pants will cast away and sweaters will be worn solely in conjunction with underwear/knickers of the wearer’s choosing along with woolly socks.

Rule 4: The youth and elderly will at this time depart to separate quarters for mixed celebrations and the rotation of hygge style cuddling will commence in the modern hearth-light glow of contemporary Christmas classics.

Rule 5: Afterwards the Secret Santa ceremony will commence…

I read the page twice, trying to understand and never really understanding, but knowing that what Luke had previewed to me, the reason I had been drawn here like a cold moth to a warm flame had something to do with a pact made decades ago, and that I was not some fake guest, smiling at the mother and than making mischief with the son, but actually an acknowledged participant in something far older than myself.

I picked out a polite outfit, taking particular care in my choice of underwear. After I heard Luke exit, I stepped into the hallway bathroom and took my turn at grooming.

There was **** left to me now, I followed the course of the night.