Read Junk for Free Online Page B

so. He’s still with Jos, last I heard.” Lewis should call Brandon, he knew. It was a challenge to keep friendships going sometimes when relationships interfered, and Brandon and Jos were tighter than a pair of shrink-to-fit Levis.
    “Oh. Shame. You’d look adorable together. And I know for a fact the board choosing the next head of department has a healthy mix of ethnicities and sexualities represented. They’re like a multicoloured QUILTBAG explosion. Alan and I look like a couple of middle-aged, middle-class fuddy-duddies in comparison. Keeping my maiden name is so old hat. I need something new to impress them.”
    “You could always try turning up to work starkers and seeing how that goes down,” he teased.
    “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
    Lewis stared in openmouthed horror.
    “Oh, don’t give me that look. There’s nothing wrong with the naked human form.” She gestured down at her body, and Lewis couldn’t help his eyes tracking the motion. He shuddered. There were some things a man shouldn’t have to know about his mother, and whether or not she shaved her pubes was one of them.
    Best change the subject before she really did take his suggestion seriously. “I’m not going to start a relationship with someone just to improve your chances of being promoted.”
    “No, of course not. It’s just you’re the kind of man who needs someone in his life. And I’ve always liked Brandon. Nice boy. Very…committed to social causes.” Her face brightened. “How’s about you just invite him around next time I have a dinner party? You don’t have to actually kiss him or anything. Just, you know, make out you’re in an open relationship or something. Or a ménage with this other man. He could come too. Actually, yes, that’s a fabulous plan. Polyamory is so in right now. I could invite a few gossips from the uni, and word would soon get out.”
    “I’m not going to lie for you.”
    “Oh, come on. It wouldn’t be the first time. What about that Christmas when you pretended to have chicken pox just so we could get rid of Alan’s awful brother?”
    “You still owe me for that!” His parents had been so uncomfortable after having to spend an entire week clothed around the house, they’d staged an elaborate ruse to send Uncle Rudi back to Australia a whole two weeks early. It had involved some brilliant makeup work from his mum and a fair bit of play-acting from Lewis. Carroll had refused point blank to waste a day of her Christmas holiday sitting around in bed, but Lewis had always gone along with things to keep the peace.
    “Just have a think about it anyway. You don’t want your poor old mother languishing on a lecturer’s salary for the rest of her career, do you?”
    The sad thing was, Lewis would probably end up agreeing if it weren’t for the fact Brandon would almost certainly refuse. “Night, Mum,” Lewis said, shutting the door firmly behind him.
    As he climbed the stairs he wondered, not for the first time, how he’d managed to survive growing up with his sanity pretty much intact.
     
     
    He could do it. He could throw something away all by himself.
    Jasper sat up in bed and stared resolutely at the walls of stuff around him. He’d read through the worksheets Lewis had given him the previous night and rated his attitude to various aspects of hoarding. As far as he could tell, he had difficulties related to both acquiring and letting go of objects. Letting go of them seemed the obvious place to start, though. He absolutely had to clear some more space in the house, and after the first good night’s sleep he’d had in a long time, he felt ready to start.
    He’d begun piling up fiction in the bedroom, as it seemed like the sensible place, seeing as how he loved reading in bed. Unfortunately, now the stacks of paperbacks surrounded his bed on all sides. He couldn’t get to his wardrobe, so he kept his current collection of clothing piled on the end of his bed. In winter,