Page 81 of Undefined Terms

‘There,’ Celyn says. Quiet. Not doing it again. Filing it. ‘That.’

Two fingers. Now it’s the stretch, the burn, the wait Celyn talked about without using the word. The rim protests, gives, protests. I want to push back onto them. I want to pull off. The two cancel and I stay still and shaking, full in a way that’s got no precedent, the slick easing the drag of them in and out.

‘Don’t hold your breath.’

Didn’t know I was. It goes ragged out of me. Celyn moves slow, patient, opening me by degrees, three fingers now, the burn flaring again.

‘Look at you,’ Celyn says. Low. ‘Taking that.’

Then the fingers are gone and the empty’s its own thing, a clench around nothing.

More lube, too much, the kind of too much that seems like the right amount. Celyn slicks the condom, the long line of it shining in the lamp, settles between my thighs, hauls one of my knees up and back, opening me to the air, to the look on Celyn’s face when they look at where they’re about to be. The head against the rim, blunt, wider than three fingers, and the pressure builds and the body says no the way a door says no before the hinge gives.

‘Wait.’

Celyn waits. Doesn’t move. The breath above me steady, the hair down around my face, them holding right there at the stretch.

‘Okay. Go.’

The head breaches and the burn flares white, wider than anything the fingers did, and I grit my teeth and Celyn stops, no asking, reads it straight off my face.

‘Out a bit. There.’ Pulls back to just the head, the angle shifting, a degree, less. ‘Now breathe.’

I breathe. Celyn feeds it back in, slow, and the burn turns into something with no edges, the body opening the way I once watched it open for me from the other side and never understood till now. Inch by inch, pausing when I tense, until the hips meet the back of my thighs and Celyn’s all the way in and I’m full of them and there’s no word for it because I’ve only ever been the one doing the filling.

Celyn’s mouth at my ear. ‘Still okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Tell me.’

Slow. Celyn wasn’t lying about slow. Everything slow, how Celyn watches my face. And the feeling is—I don’t have the. Pressure. Weight from inside. The edge of too much that doesn’t tip over. My hands on Celyn’s hips, the skin hot under my fingers. The lipstick on my shoulder, my collarbone. The stain it leaves, the mark of a mouth that said slow and meant it. The scratch lines I’ll feel tomorrow.

And the thing that happens, the thing I didn’t know would happen, is that my body gives up. Gives up the thing it’s been holding. The control. The need to drive, to push, to build, to carry. The hands that hold the level and the trowel and the blocks and the weight of a site and seventeen men and a brother who needed saving and a father who went quiet. The hands let go. They let go and find the sheets and twist and hold on to nothing and the nothing is enough.

Celyn’s forehead on mine, the breath. The rhythm that Celyn sets and I follow and the following is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the floor could give and I’d fall and I’m falling and the floor doesn’t, then the angle changes. One inch, maybe less. And something in me, something I didn’t know was there, fires. Like touching a live wire buried in a wall you thought was dead. My whole body jerks and a sound comes out of me that isn’t language and Celyn says ‘yeah, right there’ and does it again and the wire fires again and my spine bows off the bed.

‘Look at me,’ Celyn says. ‘Ronan.’

I look. Eyeliner smudged. Lipstick gone except in the corners. The bralette off one shoulder. The eyes on mine. The hips rolling.

‘Watch me,’ Celyn says. ‘Watch what I do to you.’

My cock between us, untouched, hard against Celyn’s stomach, sliding slick with the smear of pre-come across the skin. I could come from this. From not being touched. From watching. Celyn rolls again, that one inch, the wire, the wire, the wire.

‘Yeah,’ Celyn says. ‘Like that.’

My hands grab whatever they can find, Celyn’s arms, the sheets, the headboard, and my mouth is open and there’s no thought. It tears through me, hot, between us, the cock untouched, the curl of toes, the back bowing. A sound that’s animal coming out of me. Celyn keeps moving through it, milking it, the eyes never leaving mine. Wave on wave, gut to throat. The body emptying. The site is gone, London is gone, my name is gone. There’s just the nerve and the rhythm and Celyn’s hips and the smudged lipstick and I come apart and the world’s here and I’m here and the ceiling has the crack and the lamp’s on and I’m Ronan Carrick and none of that changed.

Celyn pulls out, slow, careful, the same care as going in. I feel the drag of it, the empty after, the ache settling in low and new. The condom off, tied, gone towards the bin. A miss tonight. Neither of us moves to fix it.

I’m on my back and I can’t make my arms work. The ceiling. The crack. My chest going like I’ve run for a train. Lube everywhere, the sheet’s ruined, my thighs shaking with something that isn’t cold, the ache of them still in me, and I’ve never in my life been this far from in charge of a room.

Celyn comes down beside me. Doesn’t say you alright. Doesn’t make it a thing. Just a hand flat on my sternum, over the heartbeat, waiting for it to come down.

My calf cramps. The muscle locking, sudden, and I swear and stretch the foot and Celyn laughs, low, and the laugh undoes the last knot of it.

‘There he is,’ Celyn says.