Page 157 of Undefined Terms

I look at him, he looks at me, the kitchen, the pasta, the two people we found, chose, fell into. I don’t know the word.

Under the table, Ewan’s knee hits mine, the press, the hold, one second, two, the pew at Mass, Ewan’s knee against mine, both of us bored out of our skulls.

I press back.

Celyn’s going on about The Haunting of Hill House and the first sentence and how it’s the greatest opening line in English and Laurence is disagreeing, politely, the Laurence polite, with his hands, and saying Austen’s better and Celyn says ‘I will die on this hill’ and Laurence says ‘Hill House’ and Celyn groans and Ewan laughs and I sit at the table in my flat in Manchester with my brother and my Celyn. And Laurence. And the pasta and the wine and the cake with the icing sugar and the flour on the collar and the stars on the ceiling.

Ewan looks round the table. He picks up the wine. Drinks. Smiles at me. The real one. ‘The four of us round a table. That’s mental.’

‘That’s mental,’ I say.

Celyn pours more wine. Laurence cuts the cake. Ewan steals a piece before Laurence finishes cutting and Laurence gives him the look and Ewan gives him the other look and Celyn catches my eye and the half-smile, the real one, the one I’d knock down a wall to see.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Celyn said it in the kitchen, not the bed. That was deliberate. The kettle on, two mugs out, mine blue and the white chipped one that came over the first night and never went home.

‘We should get tested,’ Celyn said. Not looking at me. Spooning coffee. ‘Both of us. Proper. Clinic, not a chemist’s kit.’

‘Right.’ Flat. I made it less flat. ‘Yeah. Course.’

‘It’s not me thinking you’ve been off doing anything.’ The spoon went down. ‘I know you haven’t. I haven’t either.’ One shoulder. ‘It’s the opposite. I want it on paper. Both clean, both only this. Then we know.’

‘Know what.’

‘Then it’s a choice we get to make. Later. Whenever.’ The white mug, pushed across the counter to me. ‘Not a thing we’re scared of.’

‘Booking it, then.’

‘Booked it Tuesday. You’re Thursday, half four. It’s in your phone.’

Course it was.

Later, the flat. The dishes in the sink because neither of us can be arsed. The wine in the blood, warm, slow. The green glow above, Celyn turned the lights off ten minutes ago and said ‘look up’ and I looked up and the ceiling was full of stars and then the fingers, the orange nails, spread flat over my ribs.

‘Ron,’ Celyn says. On the bed. Jumper’s gone. Jeans are gone. Boxer briefs, black, plain. Body. Skin. Freckles on the shoulders that I know by touch now, by mouth. Stubble against the pillow. Eyes.

I pull my shirt off. Belt. Jeans. Everything off. Get on the bed and the mattress dips and Celyn shifts towards me and we’re. Close. Length of bodies touching, heat. Celyn’s thigh between mine and mine between theirs and the warmth there, both of us, the hardness pressing and I breathe and Celyn breathes and neither of us moves.

‘Hi,’ Celyn says. Against my mouth. The vowel.

‘Hi.’

The kiss, slow, the tongue. Celyn’s hand on my jaw and my hand on the back of Celyn’s neck and the stubble under my fingers and the skin burning under my palm and the catch. The small one, the one Celyn makes when the kiss goes deep, the one I feel in my teeth.

Celyn rolls onto me and stays there, the whole weight, chest to chest, not sitting up, just down, the way you lie on someone you’ve got all night for. Hips into hips. The cock hard in the boxers against mine, the same.

We get the boxers off without either of us really leaving the other, the shuffle, a knee, a laugh of Celyn’s into my mouth, and then it’s skin, all of it, no fabric, Celyn’s cock sliding against mine with nothing in the way and the heat of it goes straight up the back of me.

Celyn lies full length on me, forehead to my jaw, the stubble at my ear, the fingers in my hair pulling, not gentle. A slow grind, both of us, the cocks dragging together between our stomachs, unhurried, the kind of slow that’s a decision. I taste salt on the neck. The day on the skin.

Then Celyn takes the hand I’ve got flat on the small of the back and moves it lower, between the cheeks, the signal I’ve known for months. Doesn’t say slow this time. Doesn’t need to.

‘Go on,’ Celyn says, into my throat. ‘You know the way.’

Lube, the cap one-handed, my fingers slick. The same fingers that tie rebar and read concrete by feel, and Celyn taught me this a long time ago and the body kept it. No one-at-a-time tonight. Two, straight in, slow but certain, and the breath punches out of Celyn against my neck and the hips press back down onto my hand.

Straight to it. I don’t have to go looking any more, I know where it lives, the small hard shape against my fingertips, and I press up into it and hold.