Page 75 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“My mouth was full.”
There was a streak of purple juice on Joel’s chin, and with his half closed eyes, Joel was looking into Reg’s with pure affection, intense and endearing.It must have been all that build-up.Leaf shadows flickered over their bodies—white, black, white, black—in the muffled humid air.He took handfuls of Joel, holding his ribs gently, reassuring himself he wasn’t imagining this.Joel’s hand came to rest on Reg’s back.This time, they moved in unison and met halfway.Joel opened his mouth slightly as the kiss went on.Clearly, he didn’t know what he was doing, so Reg led him gently, touched the point of Joel’s upper lip with the tip of his tongue and let his tongue play on it awhile, and Joel shivered in his arms.
Reg hadn’t properly kissed anyone in years.He and Flip had been together for six years, long enough that they generally skipped the kissing and went straight to fucking when they reunited.Reg didn’t want to skip anything with Joel.He wanted to experience every single first time with him, to savour every moment and make it last.But what he really wanted, if he was honest with himself, was to return to his youth, those days when he and Flip were Joel’s age and they’d first acknowledged their feelings, before the stress of his profession had worn Flip down and made him jaded and paranoid.Or back to more innocent days when he and Martin had been children, building sandcastles and racing the tide.
Reg pulled back, mouth wet and sticky from Joel’s, and he breathed, “You are the most beautiful, unutterably precious creature I have ever met.”
Joel laughed.“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t speak, then.I want to squeeze you till your juice runs out and then imbibe you all afternoon.”Reg kissed Joel again, revelling in the feeling of engulfing him, and in the feel of Joel’s mouth.
Their kisses became prolonged, the breaks between them shortening, Joel gasping each time, until Reg coached him on how to breathe while they kissed.
“I can’t,” Joel whispered.
“You can.It’s like breathing underwater in a dream.”
Joel gradually relaxed, and his breathing evened out.As Reg kissed Joel, his awareness spread along the laneway and spilled into the road.He could feel the breeze riffling the water in the lake and feel the warm tarmac on the road.
If it was up to Joel, they would stay here until someone discovered them, and maybe even afterwards, but Reg decided it was time to call a halt to the proceedings because, for his part at least, the kiss was growing much too heated for a place this public.
Reg drew back, but Joel followed him with his mouth, holding him, refusing to let go.Reg indulged him for a few moments longer before breaking the kiss.
“Was that nice?”Reg whispered.
Joel licked his bottom lip.“Reg?”
“Yes?”
“Can you come, just from kissing?”
Reg laughed.“It’s never happened to me.”
“I think I will if you keep kissing me.It’s a good hypothesis, because it’s testable.”
“Then, we shall have to test it.But not yet.”
“Why not?”said Joel.
“Because I promised to take you to the fair.”
“Will it be better than this?”
“It’ll be different.And while we’re there, you’ll remember this kiss, and you’ll get so hard you’ll ache.You’ll be bursting by the time I take you home.And when we get home, we can do this again and again and again, all evening, for as long as you like.”
Reg kissed him one last time, and he pulled a soft sound of pure longing from Joel.
“Well, my little fox,” said Reg.He groped in the brambles, plucked another blackberry, and crushed it against the wooden fence, tracing the wordcorruptalong the board with its juice.
“Have you considered a notebook?”said Joel.
Reg clapped him on the back of the head playfully, then put his arm around Joel’s shoulders and led him out of the lane.The hardest part was letting go of Joel when they came to the road.Still, Joel persisted in being so close they continually brushed against each other as they walked.
It was a gorgeous afternoon.Generous heat welled up from the asphalt, and above them, pale grey cloud held it in.At the fair was the smell of candy floss and deep-fried potatoes, coloured lights wheeling in the sky, and sounds bloomed from the arcade and wheezed from machinery as the rides spun around and around.
“You’ve got my fingerprints on your shirt.”Joel pointed.
“You’ve marked me for yours, have you?”said Reg, surveying the purple stains.
