Jaime Samms, $2.50, ISBN 978-1393358251
Contemporary Romance, 2019 (Reissue)
Ever since I saw a larger version of the cover of Jaime Samms’s Model Christmas, I can’t un-see the eyebrows of the two men. What are those things? Did those guys shave off their eyebrows and then draw new ones using a brush and tar?
Anyway, I also spot in the copyright page that the first edition of this thing was published in 2010 by “SLPP”. My search engine tells me that SLPP is likely either the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna or the Sierra Leone People’s Party, but I really doubt those guys ever dabbled in publishing man-on-man romances. I guess the nature of this “SLPP” will always remain a mystery.
So, the story.
Grey. Slate. Gunmetal…. Sebastian ticked off ways to describe the Vancouver sky as he ambled down the street. Dismal and grungy came to mind. The very infrequent appearance of the west coast sun suited Sebastian fine, though. Who needed that much illumination on his bleak life? He might have to look too close at the dregs he had left and that would suck. He kicked a pebble. It bounced off the stone foundation of St. Patrick’s church and disappeared down a sidewalk grate.
Like me. Disappeared.
Let me guess: I am reading the internal monologue of the stereotypical overly-sensitive creaky bottom that will spend the entire story wailing about his first world problems.
Sebastian has moved to Vancouver to be his boyfriend, but now the boyfriend has become bored of his whiny self mean and dumped him, and Seb is now left all alone, looking for a job and complaining that he is in hell. In hell.
Oh, I don’t know. Doesn’t Canada offer free self-elimination services or something? I’m sure he can apply to whatever department that manages this service and take a number. After all, why suffer unnecessarily when the Canadian public health service always shine a bright light at the end of the tunnel for creaking cranks like him?
Meanwhile, artist Cody Carter bumps into him on the street and monologues to that gloomy puss like he’s reading aloud lines from a Nell Breen movie:
“This city is going to eat you alive.” He shook his head. “Terry wasn’t a bad guy, but he was practical. You should be glad he left when he did. He had other plans for you than warming his bed. That super is a freak. Terry is used to making concessions to get what he wanted. I’m going to bet you aren’t. Maybe Terry liked you enough the idea of selling your ass to pay the rent made him uncomfortable, but he was tired of doing it himself. If I were you, I’d find a new place to live before that old shit figures out he isn’t coming back.”
Wow, I didn’t realize until now that Vancouver is such a dystopian hell hole! Canada is truly a terrible, terrible place, clearly the home of the most venomous, backstab-y evil people in existence… although I’m sure many people have always suspected this to be the case all along. Don’t go there, people—they will eat you alive over there!
Anyway, Cody gives Seb his number, not because he wants to be Seb’s new pimp but rather, he needs a model for his latest project.
So Seb does the whole Kate Winslet pouting and being sexy in the name of art thing for Cody, and then Cody stuffs his salami into Seb’s mouth, and then Seb’s literal mommy issues catch up with him, and these issues reveal that Seb really isn’t in any actual threat of dying of starvation or getting a slew of STDs from selling his ass for a Canadian dollar, and yes, at the end of the day, he’s just the stereotypical high-maintenance whiny twink that needs a sugar daddy to pay his bills teach him the true meaning of love.
This story is as tepid and tedious as it is tiresome, due to the obnoxious unnecessary melodrama of Seb’s turns-out-to-be-dumb-wangst so-called existential crisis, and a romance that is more about this hopeless twink finally scoring a sugar daddy that will support and coddle him, without ever really doing anything to earn this happy ending.
Well, unless one considers having a mouth that can take in the biggest dongs around and a hot booty as “earning one’s way to a happy ending”, I suppose.
This one is a model nope to me.
