Page 128 of Undefined Terms

Slow.

That’s the first thing, everything slow. Celyn’s hands, the hoodie comes off and the joggers and underneath is skin and stubble and bone and the body I know but haven’t touched in days and the days are nothing and it’s a year. My hands remember the shape before my brain does. Ribs, hip. The dip where the hip meets the stomach. Line of hair below the navel. Warmth.

Celyn’s hands on me, the boxers go.

Celyn pushes me back. Gentle. My back on the mattress. The pillow under my head. The light on the ceiling. Celyn above me. The weight of them settling, the knees either side of my hips, the hands on my ribs. Looking down.

‘Here,’ Celyn says. ‘Slow. Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Lube. The drawer, the bedside table, the same place. Celyn’s hand, the fingers. I’ve watched them type and push hair back and hold a mug and wrap around a pen and trace a line down my spine and now they’re,

Warm, slick, one finger first, the press. The breath I take, deep, through the nose, how I breathe when I’m lifting something heavy and need the core stable. Celyn watches my face, reads it.

‘Okay?’

‘Yeah.’

Second finger, the give. My hands grip the sheets. The cotton, the sheets I’ve slept in and fucked in and held Celyn in and now they’re under my fists. Something that doesn’t have a name. Weight inside, press.

Celyn’s mouth on my hip. The stubble on the bone. Soft mouth, rough chin, the fingers moving, slow, slow. The angle changes and a sound tears out.

‘There,’ Celyn says. Quiet. The mouth still on the hip. ‘Stay.’

The third finger. My back arches off the mattress and my hand leaves the sheet and finds Celyn’s shoulder and grips. The muscle under the skin. The bone underneath, I hold on. The sound again, the one from somewhere I didn’t know had a voice.

‘Ready?’

I can’t, the word won’t come, I nod. My eyes on the ceiling. The cracks, Celyn’s ceiling, the cracks I know.

Fingers leave. The empty after them. A part of the body clenches after the fingers, wanting them back. The thing the body learnt weeks ago and forgot in the days apart. Relearning now. Fast.

Condom. Sound of the wrapper, the tear, the roll. Celyn’s breath, quick, concentrated, mechanics matter.

Then, the press, the head. Blunter than fingers. Hotter. The latex slick from the lube and underneath it the shape of Celyn, the ridge of the cock I’ve had in my mouth and on my palm and inside me before, long, and somehow the days apart made the body forget how much there is of it.

‘Breathe,’ Celyn says, mouth at my ear. ‘Out, slow. Push back when you breathe out.’

I breathe out. Push back. The body opens around the head and Celyn slides in an inch and stops.

‘Fuck,’ I say. Not pain. Not exactly.

‘I know.’ Celyn’s mouth on my shoulder, the kiss there. ‘I know. Stay there. Tell me when.’

For a second I want to say stop. I breathe. I don’t move. I let Celyn keep pressing because the want’s bigger. The want’s the only thing bigger.

Celyn cups my face. My cheek, then the thumb sliding to my temple. ‘Look at me.’

I look. Grey. Close. Face above mine. Mouth, not the half-smile. Open. Lower lip bitten and released. Wanting.

Celyn pushes in, slow, slow, the stretch burning and easing and burning, every inch of the length feeding into me and my body opening round it by degrees. My hand grips tighter. My other hand finds the hip, Celyn’s hip, and holds. The fingers pressing into the bone. The body taking something in and adjusting around it and the body’s full, fuller than the fingers, full to the back of the throat it feels like, and my eyes are doing something I don’t want them to do and I can’t.

‘Yeah,’ Celyn says. Still. All the way. Not moving. ‘Here. I’m here.’

The breath stops. No warning. I wait for it to come back.

Celyn’s hand flat on my chest. Feeling for it. Doesn’t move until it does.