Page 27 of Undefined Terms

I reach for the light. Celyn’s hand catches mine at the switch, holds it.

‘Leave it.’ A beat. Breath on my jaw. ‘You alright with this, Ronan? The actual answer.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Say it proper.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then listen for me.’ Celyn takes my hand in the dark and lays it flat on their own chest, holds it there a second, the heart going under my palm. ‘If I move your hand, you let me move it. There’s places that aren’t mine, and words I don’t want on my body. I’ll keep you off them. You won’t put a foot wrong if you let me steer.’

‘Tell me the words.’

‘Later. Tonight you just use your hands.’ The mouth at my jaw. ‘And you ask. Like you did. That’s the whole of it.’

Celyn’s hands push the jacket off my shoulders. It hits the floor. Then my shirt, pulling it up, and lips press my neck, the pulse, the teeth on the tendon of my neck.

Wall, my back, my own flat.

Celyn’s body against mine. Narrower, pressed flat against me, the heat through the jeans.

I don’t think.

My hands move.

The t-shirt. I pull it up and Celyn lifts the arms and the t-shirt comes off and in the dark there’s skin, the chest, the ribs, the stomach. The collarbones. The chain at the throat. The smell, everywhere. Sweet and close and underneath the sweet is warm skin.

I put my hand on Celyn’s body. Flat, the ribs, the heartbeat under my palm, fast. It starts to drift and Celyn’s catches it, moves it an inch, sets it where they want it. I follow. Their rule, like they said. My hand on Celyn and the heartbeat quick under my fingers and kissing me again and the stubble scratching and my hips pressed to the wall and Celyn’s hips pressed to mine and through the jeans, through both jeans, Celyn against me. Hard. Both of us. The same.

My hand moves. Down. Stops at the button of Celyn’s jeans. The knuckle against the heat through the denim.

‘Yeah?’ I say. Against the mouth.

Breath. Close.

‘Yeah.’

The button, the zip, careful, then the hand inside. I know the rhythm, the grip, the pressure. The difference is that this time it’s not mine and the sounds, the sounds are different.

I knew what I’d find. And still, the half-second my hand closes round them, something in me recalibrates, the way your hand reaches already shaped for a tool that isn’t there any more. Then the gap shuts. It was never about what’s in their pants. It’s them. Would’ve been them whatever my hand found.

Celyn’s cock in my fist. Heavier than the angle of my own, the skin loose and shifting over the hard of it, the foreskin still half over the head, wet already at the slit. I do what I know. The full length, slow, my thumb dragging the wet down to ease the pull.

‘Slower.’ Celyn’s voice against my jaw, already wrecked. ‘I’m not, fuck. Not in a hurry.’

I slow. Celyn’s hand covers mine, shows me, the grip a notch tighter under the head, a twist at the top. I copy it. Get it wrong. Get it right.

‘There. That. Keep that.’

The foreskin drags back full now, the head dark and slick, and I work it the way Celyn showed me, the way I’d want it, my own knowledge turned sideways onto a body with the same hardware that uses it different.

Celyn’s head goes back. The neck, long, the chain catching the light from the window. The fingers gripping my shirt, pulling, twisting. The face, the eyeliner smudged. The jaw with the shadow of stubble, lids shut, and the expression is a person coming apart under my hand. Because of my hand. Me.

Celyn comes over my fist, hot, the cock jerking against my grip, the come slicking my fingers. The sound is lower than a moan, punched out and held. The grip on my shirt goes tight, then gone.

My hand, wet, warm. Celyn’s body against me, breathing, the forehead on my shoulder.

Their breath still ragged on my neck, not steady yet.