Page 158 of Undefined Terms

‘Fuck. Ron.’

I press, circle, the two fingers working slow and deep, and Celyn comes apart on my chest by degrees. The cock trapped hard between us, leaking against my stomach. The forehead grinding into my jaw. The Welsh leaking through, the words gone soft and wet and not English. And the legs. The thighs either side of mine start to go, a flutter first, then a proper tremble Celyn can’t stop, the body running on ahead of them.

I curl them, find the place that stops the breath in their chest, and hold there, no movement, just the pressure, and the whole back bows up off me and drops again. The heels scrabble the sheet for grip and don’t find it. One hand fists in the duvet by my head, the other goes flat to my chest and pushes down, like they think they can slow the whole thing by force and can’t. A thread of them leaks onto my stomach. I want my mouth on it and I keep still, because the deal tonight is this, my hand and them undone on it, until they can’t stand the wait.

I keep the angle, slow, relentless, and the shaking climbs up out of the legs into the hips, the stomach, the sounds going short and high.

‘Stop,’ Celyn says. Grabbing my wrist. ‘Stop. I’m going to come.’

I stop, my fingers still inside, the pulse around them tight and fast. Celyn breathes, the body trembling, holding it, keeping it.

My other hand goes to the hip. The angle I know. The way we usually move from here, me rolling Celyn, me pushing in. Celyn’s free hand comes up. Lands on my chest. Not stopping. Just. Asking.

‘Not tonight?’ I say. Rough.

‘Tonight.’ The eyes. One side of the mouth. ‘I want to be inside you when I come.’ Against my neck. The voice wrecked. The accent thick. ‘I want, Ron, lie back.’

My fingers slide out, loss of warmth, I lie back, pillow, stars on the ceiling, Celyn between my knees. Lube, more, on Celyn’s fingers this time. One finger, Press. I breathe, the deep kind, the core-stable kind. Celyn watches my face how Celyn always watches. Reading.

Two fingers, the give. My hands on the sheets. Celyn’s chin grazing my hip, the breath on the bone, and the angle’s right, I know it now, don’t need to search, and the sound comes without warning. The deep one, mine.

Three. My hand finds purchase and holds. The muscle under the skin. Celyn’s cock brushing my thigh, hard, wet at the tip. The patience costs. I can see it in the mouth, in the held breath, in the arm that’s shaking.

‘Ready?’

I nod, my teeth clenched.

Condom. Celyn’s hands, quick, practised, but the fingers tremble on the wrapper. Tear, roll.

Celyn settles over me, between my knees, in no hurry at all. Takes the time. The push starts slow and stays slow, slow on purpose, the give and the give and the give, every inch of it felt and let happen, nothing snatched. No clock on it anywhere. Our bed, the stars I stuck up wrong on the ceiling, all the time there is.

Celyn’s face stays over mine the whole way in, watching, reading me the way Celyn reads everything, and I keep my eyes open and let it be read. The weight comes down by degrees until there’s nothing left between us, hips to hips, the heat seated deep, and we hold there a second and just breathe each other in. Wine and garlic and sweat, the whole dinner still on us. Skin. The warm of it everywhere we touch.

Then the hips, the long strokes, unhurried, the slow drag almost out and the slow press back to the root, again, and again, as slow as the night asks for, Celyn keeping their time and me keeping mine and the two falling together like music, neither of us ever having to ask. My hands map the back, the spine, the shoulderblades shifting under the skin, the freckles I know by heart now under my palms. Celyn’s mouth comes down on mine, slow, open, and the kiss runs on past breath and neither of us lets it go.

‘Ron.’ My name. The Welsh R. The vowel pulled. The third thing.

I come with Celyn inside me and Celyn’s hand on my cock and Celyn’s mouth saying my name and the dishes in the sink and the wine in the blood and the flat that’s ours and the brother who pressed his knee under the table and the family in Beddgelert and all of it, all of it, is real.

Celyn follows. The thrust that goes deep and stays and the groan buried in my neck and I feel it, the pulse inside me, the body finally letting go.

Celyn collapses, on me, the weight, the sweat between us.

I don’t move.

Celyn doesn’t move.

The flat around us is solid. The ceiling with the stolen stars that didn’t cost enough to matter. Celyn not moving because moving would mean ending and we’re not ending yet. We’re in the moment where the concrete’s just finished pouring and the whole thing’s waiting to be checked, the surface, the level, the give. The moment before you know if the job’s right.

The heart underneath Celyn’s ribs is going as fast as mine. Right there under the skin. Different rhythm but same speed. The same message: this is real. Load-bearing.

We fit. Nobody designed it. We looked at the angles, stayed while the concrete set. Celyn trusted me not to break. I got trusted with the brace.

Everything’s alright, the kitchen’s alright. The job’s going to hold.

The flat, the ceiling, the stars.

Everything’s alright.