Page 31 of Rhymes with Metaphor

T here was a lot to adjust to, being surrounded by strangers in a place where the air was more humid, the sky more open, and everything once familiar now felt unfamiliar.

As Reg drove them home from the airport, Joel said, “I don’t feel tired.”

“Jet lag’s not as bad when you travel east to west, and you’re not sick anymore.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to see Juliet yet. I don’t know what to tell her.”

“You don’t have to come out to her for my sake, cariad.”

“I don’t know what to come out as,” said Joel. “The only person I’m attracted to is you. I don’t know what I am.”

“We’ll burn that steak when we butcher it. She doesn’t need to know you’re back yet. You’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you like.”

“But I can’t live this way forever.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not independently wealthy.”

“Live off me,” said Reg. “I don’t mind.”

“But I do,” said Joel. “I don’t want to be kept.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” said Joel.

“You know you don’t want to be a doctor. Go from there. You’ll find your Maxibon in due course.”

Reg pulled into the parking garage and shut off the engine. “Well. We’re here.”

“It feels weird wearing clothes again,” said Joel.

“We can remedy that once we’re inside.”

They’d barely deposited their luggage in the entranceway of Reg’s loft before they were kissing, Reg pressing Joel against the front door, pulling his shirt out of his trousers and feeling him up underneath, doing everything they hadn’t been able to do on the plane.

Reg’s phone rang.

“Who knows we’re back?” said Joel.

“I didn’t tell anyone. Except the chair. My defence is tomorrow. Shit.” Reg rummaged in his pockets and checked his phone. “It’s a university number. I’d better answer it.”

Joel stepped back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Hello?” said Reg.

“Reg.”

“Martin,” said Reg. “This isn’t your number.”

“I dropped my phone from the ski lift at Blue Mountain yesterday. I’m calling from a payphone at the University Centre.”

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing yet,” said Martin. “When are you getting back?”

“In due course.”

“I should hope so if you intend to defend before the semester’s over,” said Martin. “But I’m calling you in particular about Juliet. You see, I’m thinking of proposing.”

“Does she know?”

“No,” said Martin. “I want to surprise her. I’m not doing it imminently, so spare me the lecture about rushing into things.

I’m still in the planning stage. Which is why I need your advice on choosing an engagement ring.

You’ve got such impeccable taste. Those diamond cufflinks you gave me for my twenty-fourth were outstanding. ”

“I seem to recall that I lent those to you.”

“Reg...?”

“All right,” said Reg. “We’ll organize something when I’m fully back.”

“Thanks so much, Reg.”

“Right.” Reg disconnected the call.

“He proposed to her, didn’t he?” said Joel.

“Not yet.”

Martin’s call had killed the mood for both of them.

Reg sighed. “I don’t have any food in. We can go out for a meal, if you’re hungry.”

“Can we order in? And order groceries?”

“If you like. But we can’t hide away from the world indefinitely, cariad. I have to defend tomorrow, and we’ll need to go out and order a bed and mattress for your room. Why don’t we do that now?”

Reg took Joel to the furniture shop that had sold him his own bedroom set and helped Joel pick out a bed and mattress.

“Stop looking at the prices, cariad,” said Reg. “Pick the one you like best.”

After Joel chose his bed—and in a gratifyingly short time, since he knew exactly what he wanted—Reg sent him to look at the antiques on the second floor while he paid and made arrangements for the delivery. Afterwards, they made their way to the underground parkade.

“When we get home, you can order linens and charge them to my card,” said Reg. “And we’ll have a clear-out to make room for your things in my office.”

“I don’t have anything. Just my laptop and clothes. My textbooks are at Juliet’s, but I’m going to sell them.”

“I hope you’ll be getting rid of those scrubs too. I’ll take you out later and get you fitted for a new wardrobe.”

They arrived at the car and got in. Joel was quiet.

“What’s wrong?” Reg put his arm around Joel.

“Don’t you want me to sleep with you?” said Joel.

“Of course I do, cariad. You don’t think I’ve gone off you because we’re not in England anymore?”

“Why do I need my own bed, then?”

“It would set my mind at rest if I knew you were sleeping with me every night because you want to, not because you have to.” Reg moved close and kissed him. Joel kissed him back, tentatively at first, then letting his guard down as his need grew.

“Your car’s bigger than the one in England,” said Joel.

“It’s still not big enough to fuck in.”

“You tried it with Flip?”

“You’ve seen Flip. He’s enormous, so no.”

At Joel’s insistence, they got takeout at Tim Hortons on the way home.

“I missed real donuts,” said Joel.

In the loft, Joel sat on the settee and placed his food on the coffee table. Reg sat beside him.

Joel ate his sandwich. His chewing slowed, then stopped. He was staring at the wall, fixedly. Reg followed his gaze and saw the sketch of Flip’s hand hanging there.

“Do I remind you of him?” said Joel.

“Not at all. You wouldn’t intentionally hurt someone to get what you wanted. He would.”

“Am I better in bed?” said Joel.

“Don’t compare yourself with him, Joel.” Reg took the sketch off the wall, removed it from its frame, and put it in a drawer in his office.

Then he found his sketchbook and carefully removed a drawing he’d made of Joel posed in the rockery with a half-smile, looking at Reg with an expression of affection and tenderness.

He fitted it into the frame and hung it in the place where the sketch of Flip had been.

Joel watched him do all of this without saying a word.

They spent the rest of the evening unpacking and clearing out Reg’s study to make room for Joel’s new bed.

The room was piled with papers, notes, and the detritus that had accumulated since Reg had moved in two years ago.

Joel wanted to go through every single paper to figure out if it needed to be pitched or filed, but Reg told him to put everything in boxes, and he’d deal with it later.

Their energy flagged as it grew dark, and they sprawled on the floor amidst the clutter.

“I can sort through all of this stuff for you,” said Joel.

“It’ll take hours.” Reg yawned.

“I’ve got time,” said Joel. “I want to be useful.”

“Try being ornamental for a while. You’ve a knack for it.”

“I don’t want to get used to not working. I don’t think I’d be happy without a job—a career—but I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll find your calling, given time, and whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”

“Don’t you need to study for your defence tomorrow?”

“I’ve been preparing all summer, cariad. Now, let’s christen your bedroom, sans bed as it is.” Reg unfastened Joel’s trousers, and went down on him.

Afterwards, Reg kissed him. “You did well, cariad. You didn’t go off too quickly. What element did you get to?”

“I finished the periodic table,” said Joel. “I’m using the stars in the constellation of Centaurus now.”

Reg squeezed Joel’s left nipple.

“I know.” Joel hugged him, then spoke quietly, shyly, into his shoulder. “Reg?”

“What is it, cariad?”

“Can I give you one?”

Reg laughed and ruffled Joel’s hair. “Not today.”

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T he next day, Reg put on a suit for his defence and used mousse to get his hair into a semblance of respectability. He stood in front of the mirror. He wore his amber tiepin for luck. “How do I look?”

“Amazing,” said Joel.

“What?” said Reg. He’d gotten so accustomed to Martin saying the exact opposite whenever he asked.

“Fuckable.” Joel hugged Reg from behind and looked at him in the mirror. “Can I come?”

“No, cariad. The defence is closed to the public. Anyway, having you there would be terribly distracting.”

“How long will you be?” said Joel.

“Three hours? There’s the defence, then the examination committee will want to take me out for a congratulatory meal and a drink afterwards—as long as I don’t botch the job.”

“I’ll organize your study while you’re gone,” said Joel.

“Why don’t you enjoy yourself instead? Relax. Go for a walk. Go out to a café.” Reg gently extricated himself from Joel’s embrace. “When I get home, we can do whatever you like.”

“Good luck,” said Joel.

There was that feeling of leaving for war again, and Reg realized he and Joel had only been apart for a few hours all summer. It left him unsettled, not least because the last time Reg had left him alone, Joel had gotten his ear pierced.

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A t his defence, Reg was marinated, basted in his own juices, grilled over the coals, nicely charred, bitten into, and, in the end, found to be well done. The chair was particularly critical, stating that most of his poems were “too much of the moment” and “lacking introspection.”

As soon as Reg could decently take his leave, he’d gone straight back to Joel.

“Did you get anything else pierced while I was gone?” said Reg.

Joel laughed. “No. How was your defence?”

“That old thing? Piece of cake.”

“When do you find out if you passed?” said Joel.

“Already have. I did.”

“They told you right away?”

“No. They sent me into the hallway for twenty minutes to make me sweat. Then they told me.”

Joel hugged him. “What happens now?”

“Now, I must make corrections to my thesis to pacify the chair and then resubmit the manuscript by the end of the month to avoid paying tuition for an extra semester.”

Joel let him go. “Reg, it’s the twenty-seventh.”

“So it is.”

“How many corrections do you need to make?” said Joel.

“They’re negligible.” Reg flipped through the copies of his thesis that the examiners had written on. The chair’s copy was marked by an excessive amount of red-penned comments. “Fairly negligible. What have you been up to while I was gone?”

“Come and see.”

Joel led Reg to the study.

“I can see the floor,” said Reg. “How did that happen?”

“I bought some organizers. Your academic files are in the stack of boxes in the corner, and your notebooks are in the box by the door. I’ve arranged them chronologically from oldest to newest. I collected all your documents in that folder.

You’ve got too many books for a shelving unit.

Getting a bookcase and putting it in that corner would be more efficient.

I’ve measured the dimensions, so you’ll know what size to get. ”

“But...” Reg was at a loss. “How will I find anything if I know where everything is?”

“If you know where everything is, you can find it,” said Joel.

“That’s not how it works, Joel.”

“That’s exactly how it works. You wanted me to clear the study out.”

“Only enough to get your bed in. I didn’t know you’d go berserk.”

Reg went to the recliner by the window and stooped to move the books off the seat, but they weren’t there anymore. Nothing was there anymore. The room looked so empty.

“I’m sorry,” said Joel.

“Look, I haven’t shared a place since I lived with Martin at boarding school. And we didn’t get into each other’s things or on each other’s nerves, except he did have this tendency to make smells when I was trying to study.”

“Would it make you feel better if I farted?” said Joel.

He said it with such sincerity that Reg burst out laughing.

“Can I help with your corrections?” said Joel. “If you dictate them to me, I can type them.” Joel sat at the study desk, now bare, apart from his laptop. “It’ll save you time. I’ve still got a copy of your thesis on my computer.”

“I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“What do you want to do?” said Joel.

“Get drunk on Cognac and give you a hand job.”

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T he next morning, after a lie-in, Joel convinced Reg to deal with his thesis corrections.

Reg was inclined to work on them the day they were due, but Joel argued that if the job was bigger than Reg anticipated, he might not finish in time.

Reg reluctantly acquiesced. He sat with Joel at his desk with the marked-up manuscripts and went through them, page by page.

It was tedious work. Reg would have hated it if he’d been alone and would have quit after ten minutes. But Joel was by his side, prompting him to keep going, and by early evening, they’d finished.

“You see?” said Reg. “That could have waited until the last day.”

“You aren’t finished yet. You forgot the acknowledgments.”

“Blast,” said Reg. “All right. Take dictation.”

Reg paced the study, noting the experience wasn’t the same now he wasn’t stepping on random papers and socks. He listed the people he wanted to thank, periodically correcting himself on his wording. Then he stopped.

Joel looked at him expectantly. “Is that it?”

“No. But cariad, the poems are about you. If I put your name here, everyone will know who you are and what you are to me. I’d be outing you. Do you want that?”

“Use my name,” said Joel. “My full name. I want people to know.”

Reg had been given permission, for the first time in his life, to name someone publicly as his lover. He started welling up. He closed his mouth over Joel’s.

“Joel, my cariad, sweetheart who bore my words and without whom this collection wouldn’t exist. And who wears too many clothes—no, don’t write that.”

Reg undid the button at Joel’s collar, then another, then another. And he got Joel off on the desk.

Afterwards, Reg said, “Tidiness has its points. There wasn’t room on my desk to do that before. And, of course, I didn’t have anyone to do it to.”

Joel put his shirt back on and pulled up his trousers. “You forgot to give your thesis a title.”

“How about Rhymes with Metaphor , Mr. Pettifer?”

Joel smiled and typed it in. Reg put his hand over Joel’s, and they both clicked send.