Page 74 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“I want to.”
“I know,” said Reg.
“Today?”
“Today, I’m taking you to the fair.So put on your finest clothes and meet me at the front door.”
Joel stretched elaborately and went upstairs.He came down again wearing the tangerine shirt with the top three buttons undone with no T-shirt beneath, and the new pair of trousers Reg had bought him with a lace-up fly, neatly tied.
Joel hugged Reg at the front door.
“Oh, Joel,” said Reg, luxuriating in the way Joel’s name filled his mouth so sweetly, the way Joel’s eager body filled the hollows of his own.Joel looked and felt so inviting, Reg was tempted to stay in with him all afternoon.But he’d made a promise.
“Let’s go and see if the blackberries are ripe,” said Reg.
Instead of taking Joel straight to the fair, Reg led him around the corner to the end of a cul-de-sac from which a lane led off behind the houses.One side was bounded by a railway embankment, the other by a wooden fence high enough to block anyone from the houses seeing them.The lane was so narrow, two people could walk abreast only if they were very permissive about their personal space, and so they moved along it, softly clasped to each other.Blackberry bushes grew in a thick rough and tumble over the fence.
“Martin and I used to pick these and put them in our plastic sandcastle buckets, and if we gathered enough, Bethan would make us blackberry tarts.Come and look.”
The first one Reg found was red.
“Can I try?”said Joel.
“It’ll be sour.”
“I don’t care.I want it.”
Reg plucked the berry and held it out to Joel, who leaned forward and took it from Reg’s hand with his mouth.Reg felt Joel’s soft lips on his fingertips and shivered.
Joel bit the berry and winced.
“I did warn you, cariad,” said Reg.“Spit it out if you need to.”
But Joel swallowed it.
They went looking in the bush together, grappling gingerly among the prickles, disturbing a bee that hummed past them.
Reg, peering into the bushes, found a darker one.“This one should be sweeter.”
He fed it to Joel, and Joel sucked the tip of his finger.
“Nice,” said Joel, chewing it with his eyes half shut.
Reg could see a trace of dark hair in the V of his tangerine shirt.Reg touched it with his thumb.Joel lifted his head, and Reg moved closer and his lips touched Joel’s.They held still for long seconds.Joel’s mouth was tacky and tart with blackberry juice, warm, and full of summer, and it softened and relaxed under Reg’s.
It was a sweet kiss.
Joel sighed quietly as Reg pulled back.
“Was that your first kiss?”Reg whispered.
“Yes,” Joel breathed.
“Did you mind it?”
“I liked it,” said Joel quietly.
“You didn’t say.”
