Page 79 of Rhymes with Metaphor
“No?”said Joel.His eyes looked so much like a fox’s.
Reg patted the mattress beside him.“Come back to bed.”
Joel crawled onto the bed, smiling, and lay down beside Reg, pulling himself close.He hooked his finger round the gold chain Reg wore and held up the ring that was fixed on it, looking at it curiously.“What’s this?”
“Heirloom of the Fieldfares,” said Reg.“It’s been in my family for over two hundred years.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Joel, turning it in the morning light.
A sapphire and amethyst ring made of Welsh gold.It had belonged to his mother, and she had worn it on a chain as well, as it had been too large for her delicate hands.Reg kept it on the same chain because it was too small for his.He had never let anyone touch it before.Not even Flip.But something about the reverence and innocence in the way Joel held it made it seem all right, not a violation.
“I never take it off,” said Reg.“It’ll be buried with me.”
Reg returned the breakfast tray to the kitchen.Joel followed.Reg made tea, and they sat in the front room while the rain pelted down, Reg on the recliner, revising last night’s poem, while Joel stretched out on the sectional, writing in his Argyle notebook.
As Reg watched Joel writing in his journal, he could see him sporting an obvious erection.Joel noticed Reg watching him and licked his gold pen suggestively.
“Don’t be puerile, Joel.”
“If I was being puerile, I’d suck it.”
“What are you writing?”
“Don’t you know?”said Joel.
“No.That’s why I asked.”
“Juliet would have read it by now, if she were here,” said Joel.
“She’s not here, cariad, and your private thoughts are yours.You don’t have to share them if you don’t want to.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“If it pertains to me, I trust you’ll tell me directly.”
“Half of it’s what we’ve been doing,” said Joel.“The other half is what I want you to do to me.”
“Are you afraid you’ll shock me, cariad?I’m sure you have a prodigious imagination, but I’ve been abroad in the world, and I’ve done a lot of shocking things.”
Joel turned back a couple of pages and recited from the journal, “This afternoon, Reg drove me to Dunraven Castle and fucked me in the back of his car.”He passed the open notebook to Reg.
“Your writing is obscenely tidy.It looks like your hand took elocution lessons.”
“Would you, Reg?”
“You’re underestimating how compact my car is.Imagination rarely accounts for scale.”
“Would you at least dosomethingwith me in your car?”
“Joel, I appreciate your willingness, but you’re so innocent right now.Do you even know how to masturbate?”
“I’ve never tried,” said Joel.
“Why not?Religious hang-up?”
“It’s not something I ever thought about.Tickling yourself doesn’t make you laugh.How would it work?”
“Why don’t I show you?”
