Young Mungo

by Douglas Stuart

There was a tide in James’s chest, and Mungo bobbed on the swell of it.

The best he could do was to lay his hand next to James’s so that their little fingers were almost touching. They were close enough that it was as if they were touching.

stour

James was bigger than him, a whole head taller, a whole year older. There was a dark road and James was on it. Mungo knew he should not follow, if he didn’t step on to the road, he could still turn away. James looked at him, and as though he could read his mind, he laid his finger on Mungo’s twitching cheek and said, “Don’t be lit me Mungo. It’s not too late for you.”

The first time Mungo saw James naked, the closeness of him made it hard to take it all in. Mungo wanted to push him away, pin him on the floor, stand over him, and just simply look. But they twisted together, brow to brow, mouth on mouth, and everything was like peeping through a crack in a door: an eyeful of alabaster and rose, the glacial blue of inner arms with their veins like violet rivers, the chafing at James’s elbows that Mungo wanted to kiss so badly, and the fields of fevered carnations blooming high on his pale collarbone. The boy was all growing bones and unblemished skin; a paint chart of the softest whites.