Page 36 of Undefined Terms

I touch, through the fabric first, the shape, and Celyn’s hard, the cotton tenting, a damp patch already at the top where the head pushes. My hips push up without my say-so. Then inside, Celyn lifts the elastic and my hand slides in and skin. Hot, smooth, the weight in my palm heavier than I’d reckoned. Different from mine. Thinner, the curve different, longer, the foreskin loose and the head slick under my thumb when I drag it up. I don’t know the right grip. Two of Celyn’s fingers press the back of my wrist — tighter, they mean, tighter than I’d have dared — and the breath that comes out of them when I get it right goes straight to my own cock.

‘Yeah,’ Celyn says. The voice rough. ‘Like that. Keep going.’

Celyn’s hand slips off mine. Finds my shoulder. Grips. The fingers that always hold, that always know, are not holding.

I keep going.

Then I go down.

The mouth wants to, not because someone asks, just because the thought arrives like a direction on site: do this next. The body’s already there.

Celyn’s lying back, I’m between the legs. The boxers are off, pulled down, kicked somewhere, I’ll find them later. And I’m looking at, I’m close, my face is close, and the smell is skin and soap and something else and my hands are on the thighs and the thighs are shaking.

Or my hands are shaking. Both. Both are shaking.

I’ve gone down on people before. Women. A handful, enough that I thought there’d be something carried over, some shape of how it goes. The give of it, the soft, the wet, the way you settle in and find a rhythm and follow it. None of that’s any use here. There’s no give. There’s a cock, hard, right at my mouth, and it’s heavier than I’d worked out from my hand the other night, longer, the kind of size you clock and don’t say anything about. Celyn’s not small. My hand knew it. My mouth’s about to.

I put my mouth on. The head first. The angle’s wrong and my jaw hasn’t worked out how wide it has to go and I take too much too fast and gag, pull back, eyes stinging, a string of spit breaking between my lip and the head. Again, slower. The taste, clean, sharp, soap and salt and underneath it just skin. The weight on my tongue, pressing it flat, filling the space in a way nothing’s filled it before, the stretch at the corners of my mouth, the spit pooling and I let it, wetter, easier. Celyn’s hips lift and the hand comes down and finds my hair. Resting. Then not resting. The fingers curling, holding my head where they want it.

I work it out. Listen. The sounds Celyn makes are small, controlled, then less controlled. A hitch in the breathing. A word in Welsh I don’t understand. I change the angle. Use my hand at the base. The other hand on the hip, holding, the bone under the skin.

‘Ron.’

I look up, the face above me, the throat exposed, Celyn’s eyes closed. The bare hand gripping the sheet.

I find what makes the sound louder. Do it again. Do it until the thigh muscles lock and the fingers in my hair tighten and the word in Welsh comes back, twice, and the body under my mouth goes rigid and Celyn comes and I stay and I taste and it’s, new. The taste is new. And the best of it, harder than my own cock aching untouched, is the wreck of them, the Welsh punched out twice, the thigh still jerking against my ear.

New, all of it. The salt still on my tongue, the ache in my jaw, my cock so hard it’s pushed past the waistband on its own and leaking against my stomach. Then Celyn’s hand is on me. Tight, the grip Celyn just showed me but reversed, faster, the fist closing harder on the upstroke where I’m most raw. The mouth on my neck and the teeth and a half-laugh against my throat that means now I’ve got you back.

Strange, after twenty minutes of me doing the work, to have it done back. The hand runs everything and all that’s left for me is to feel it, and the feeling’s almost too much, every bit of what they just watched me learn turned round and used on me.

I don’t last. A minute, less. The grip goes ruthless, faster, knowing exactly where to push. It goes off too fast to count, hot across Celyn’s hand and my own stomach, my hips bucking up off the mattress and the mouth at my throat catching the noise I make that doesn’t have letters.

Celyn’s hand keeps moving through it, slower now, milking, until the body shudders past and the cock starts to soften. The kitchen towel from the bedside. The wipe, slow, Celyn looking at me looking at Celyn. Doesn’t say anything. Stays.

Midnight.

Celyn kisses me slow, then stays there a second, mouth close, breath warm on mine. Like leaving is something they’ve remembered late.

Then they get dressed. The t-shirt. Inside out, doesn’t fix it. The jeans. The shoes by the door.

I’m on the bed, the sheets wrecked. The body’s empty in the way that’s not empty.

‘I’ve got an early shift,’ Celyn says. Not at the door yet. Looking for the jacket, finding it, not putting it on. ‘Need to shower and sort my clothes for the morning.’

‘Yeah.’

Celyn looks back at me. The face goes softer, just for a second. ‘Don’t make that face.’

‘What face?’

‘Like I’m doing a runner.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are a bit.’ Celyn comes back to the bed, one knee on the mattress, and kisses me again. Slower than they need to. ‘I’m not.’

The jacket goes on. The bag over one shoulder.