Page 45 of Undefined Terms

I stand at the counter. The two mugs. Steam coming up. And last night is. Right there, in the hands. The hands remember the clasp at the back and the angle and the heat and the sound.

Pick up the mugs, walk to the bed.

Celyn’s face in sleep. This is different in the morning light.

No makeup, nothing. The eyeliner’s gone, or smudged off in the night, a faint grey shadow under one eye like a bruise that isn’t. The lip tint gone hours ago. The faintest sandpaper across the jaw and upper lip. The hair everywhere.

The nails on the hand by the face. The yellow’s chipped now. Three nails still bright, two nearly bare, the polish cracked in lines like paint on old rendering. The ring, silver, thin, still there. Always there.

Nothing on, just, the face. The pale, the mouth slightly open. The breathing.

I put the white mug on the bedside table. The blue one I hold. I drink. The watching isn’t wrong. I’m not doing anything. I’m stood in my own flat holding a mug of tea looking at a person in my bed and the person is Celyn and Celyn is in my bed and last night I was inside Celyn and this morning I made two teas.

The eyes open.

Celyn wakes like a switch. Off, on.

The grey-green eyes focus, find me standing there, the boxers. The t-shirt that’s not mine.

‘You made me a cuppa.’

‘Yeah.’

Celyn sits up, and the sheet falls. Past the waist, past the hips, pooling at the tops of their thighs.

The flat chest, pale skin, the dark line of hair disappearing below. Their cock, soft, resting against one thigh, ordinary and real, and I saw it last night and I’m seeing it now and the seeing hasn’t got any easier.

‘One sugar?’

‘One. Like you take it.’

Celyn picks up the white mug, wraps both hands around it, the chipped yellow nails on the ceramic. Drinks, the throat moves. The swallow, the Adam’s apple.

‘What time’s site?’

‘Seven.’

‘It’s quarter to.’

‘I know.’

I don’t move, the tea, the watching. It tips up and the strand across the mouth is still there and I could move it. Tuck it back.

I drink my tea.

‘You’re going to be late,’ Celyn says. Eyes on me over the rim.

‘Probably.’

‘You don’t care.’

‘I care.’ I do. I’m the site manager, can’t be late, can’t be the boss who walks in after the lads and everyone knows. ‘I’m going.’

I don’t go, the tea, the steam. The face without anything on it, no colour, no liner, and the stubble catching the light from the blind and the mouth saying I want you last night saying nothing now and the nothing is.

‘Ron.’

‘Yeah.’