Page 77 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Reg knew it was partly his own fault for teasing Joel all day.
Joel slumped forward on the floor, forearms balanced on his bent knees, surveying himself.
“I’m sorry,” said Joel, who didn’t sound at all sorry.“I just ruined these brand new trousers.”
Reg massaged Joel’s shoulder.“They had it coming.”
“Literally.”
They laughed, breathlessly, Joel resting his forehead on Reg’s shoulder.Reg knelt there and held him, and they stayed like that on the kitchen floor, Reg surveying his handiwork and enjoying the situation far too much.
“Come on,” said Reg.“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He put his hands under Joel’s armpits and hauled him to his feet.Joel was so sex-drunk, he fell against Reg, who had to hold him upright.At the bottom of the stairs, Joel’s knees buckled again, and Reg picked him up and carried him.
“Look how careful I’m being of your spleen,” said Reg.“Juliet would approve.”
“Can you not mention my sister right now?”said Joel.
In the bathroom, Reg laid Joel on the seaside blue tiles, that particular intense blue that looks beautiful in houses on the coast and obscene everywhere else.He stripped Joel out of his soiled clothes.He had never seen Joel properly naked before and was struck by how young and pale he looked.
Reg lowered him into the tub.Then he rolled up his sleeves and turned on the taps.
“Come in,” said Joel, lying back in the water, eyes half shut, stroking Reg’s cheek with the back of his hand, rasp of stubble against skin.
“No room,” Reg murmured, and he poured green shower gel over a sponge, and he slowly sopped it all over Joel’s body while Joel lay back with his eyes shut, and though he was still smiling, he looked sad.He sang “You Are My Sunshine” quietly, and Reg noticed anew what a lovely voice Joel had, rich, deep and full of sated desire.
“I remember,” said Joel.
“What?Remember what?”
“My dad,” said Joel.“Giving me a bath.”
Reg felt him submit to his touch, sinking into the water, and when a small tear leaked from the corner of Joel’s eye, leaving a glistening trail down his cheek, Reg said nothing but wiped it gently away.
Reg worked until every inch of Joel’s skin was covered in foam, then he pulled the plug, and while the water drained away, used the detachable showerhead to rinse him clean, by which time Joel was so relaxed, he was almost comatose.Reg dried him with the softest towel in the linen cupboard, combed his hair, and carried him, a loose, contented weight in his arms, to Joel’s bedroom, where he laid him on the bed.He adjusted the pillow under his head and tucked the duvet around him.By this time, Joel was deeply asleep.
Reg stood watching him, listening to his slow, easy breathing, feeling overcome with an almost crippling tenderness.He kissed Joel softly on the forehead and once on each eyelid, feeling Joel’s eyes twitch beneath his lips, then he opened the window wide to let in the sea air.He went back to the bathroom and put Joel’s clothes in to soak.He looked at the soap bubbles nestling in the blue-grey water of the wash tub, the same colour as the sky that afternoon, and then he was scrambling to find one of his notebooks to write the poem burgeoning at his fingertips, lifted on images and emotions, rising like a hawk catching thermals.
