Nightlife Read Online Free Page A

true artiste, just a touch scruffy, boyishly and endearingly so. But the gap was narrowing. Six weeks since Justin’s last haircut, while shaving was now an every-other-day inconvenience; once upon a time, unthinkable.
    Justin let Erik take the lead. Following airport hieroglyphics to locate baggage was now beyond him. They boarded a stand-only elevated tram that whisked them to another building, and out its windows Justin drank in the change of scenery. Palm trees, bluer sky than he had left behind, flat tarmac. It was May in Florida, and it didn’t look any different than it did in October. He would adjust, gladly.
    “My guess is that in-flight service was very very good to you.” Erik tipped an imaginary bottle and made a gluk-gluk noise.
    “Mother Russia’s finest.”
    “That’s a good start. I talked myself into some premature vacation time this week. So what we do is, you and I bag over our legal limit of fun and we slay brain cells left and right until we get you down to one cell. And then you start over from scratch. Sound good?”
    Justin said that it did. Erik, bless him—planning strategies for overhauling the pieces of a life when he knew only the  barest facts as to what had caused its kamikaze dive to begin with. Such was his way. You couldn’t ask for a better partner in crime when you wanted to lop off a few brain cells and revert to prehistoric language. But he would still be there the next morning to make the hangover more bearable. And he was equally handy at the heart-to-hearts, as well. Erik Webber, last of the emotional Renaissance men.
    “So what’s this new job you’ve gotten?” Justin asked as they waited for the luggage from Flight 435 to find its way onto the carousels. Praying that the gods of airborne transportation hadn’t sent it elsewhere. “I thought you’d be snapping pictures for the Tribune forever.”
    Erik grinned, pushing errant hair back from his forehead. It was sun-bleached a few degrees lighter than the shade of brown it had been when Justin had last seen him. Had it really been a year and a half? They had both been too lax about contact lately.
    “You won’t believe me if I just tell you. I better show you.”
    The feed hole in the carousel wall began to spit fresh luggage. Dozens of conversations halted in midstride, eyes flicked to inspect what was emerging next. It was like watching numbers come up in the lottery. Ah, a winner.
    Justin plucked up his bags and they turned away, hoofing it toward the garage for Erik’s car. Both of them sharing the burdens.
    Justin couldn’t wipe the perplexed grin off his face as he flipped through the rack. Nothing but lingerie. Sheer nighties, peekaboo teddies, lacy little inconsequentialities that exposed a lot and left the best to the imagination.
    This didn’t make sense. The place was a photo studio, sign outside saying NORTH LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY. He’d seen customers elsewhere in the building awaiting portrait sittings, engagement shots.
    Justin looked at Erik, found a more knowing grin than his own. As if it had gotten the joke minutes before.
    “Boudoir photography,” Erik said, somewhat sheepishly.
    “Boudoir. Meaning?”
    “Meaning I shoot tasteful cheesecake and make good money doing it.” Erik shrugged, easygoing.
    Justin pulled a hangered black lace thing from the rack, held it before his own torso. They both shook their heads, and he put it back.
    “It’s the latest thing. One of them, anyway.” Erik motioned him to follow, led him past a jumble of studio gear. Lights, tripods, backdrops, ornate brass-rail bed with frilly coverlet. They left it behind for a side cubbyhole crammed with a desk and file cabinet. Erik flipped on the light. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like the office.”
    “So what does this involve, if I may be so bold?”
    Erik spoke while digging through a file drawer. “In a nutshell, women come in to have erotic pictures taken of themselves. No hard-core nudes, no