Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
The alley, the wall, the same wall.
It’s our wall now, which is a thought I don’t finish. We pass it on the way to mine and Celyn stops like the bricks have caught a sleeve. Leans back against them in the cold, breath visible.
I stand in front. Close. Closer than I used to. Close enough to feel the breathing change when I step in.
‘You smell like the restaurant,’ I say.
‘Degreaser and onions. Very sexy.’
‘I didn’t say.’
‘You were thinking it.’
I wasn’t. I was thinking that under the degreaser and the onions there’s the other thing. The garden-fruit smell. Like a screed under the finish coat. Like—
Celyn puts a hand on my chest. The palm, the fingers spread. The heat through the t-shirt. Through the jacket, through whatever I’m wearing. I don’t know what I’m wearing.
Then the hand goes down.
Slow, sternum, ribs, stomach. The fingers on the fabric, the pressure light. The stomach, the belt. The fingers on the buckle.
I catch the wrist.
Because I want so much my hands are shaking, my heartbeat thundering, and if Celyn undoes that belt here, against this wall, I’m going to. That’s the problem, I’ve never done this. Not this, not with hands like these on me.
‘You want this,’ Celyn says.
‘Yeah.’
‘Then stop thinking.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘No,’ Celyn says, eyes on mine. ‘You’re thinking about trying.’
The wrist is still in my hand. The ring presses into my palm. Cold, then warm.
‘Not here,’ I say.
Celyn’s face shifts.
‘No?’
‘My place.’
A beat.
Then Celyn smiles, small and not quite steady.
‘Good.’
The flat, my flat, the door.
I get the key wrong twice, wrong way round, fingers thick and the lock is small and Celyn’s stood behind me in the hallway, breathing fast.
Inside, the door shuts.
Celyn pushes me, not hard, not rough, just decided. Hands on my chest and the bed’s there because the flat’s a shoebox and everything’s three steps from everything else.
I sit on the edge.
Celyn stands in front, between my knees.
The t-shirt comes off. Celyn pulls it over the head in one motion and underneath is skin.
Just skin. No bra, no vest, nothing. Flat, the stomach, the line of dark hair below the navel.
The collarbones. The muscles lean, built from trays not rebar.
The stubble on the chin, the upper lip. The skin pale, and the whole of them at once is.
My mouth opens, my hands close.
Nothing comes out of me that’s a word.
Celyn’s hands on my shirt. Pulling it up.
I lift my arms like I’m told. The shirt goes.
Celyn looks, the body, the hair on it sparse and dark against the skin, the shoulders broad from the hoist and the shovelling, the stomach flat and hard from the work because the site doesn’t leave room for soft.
The arms, the biceps from the rebar, the forearms thick, the tan line at the sleeve.
Celyn’s fingers trace the line. The look isn’t hungry, it’s worse than hungry, it’s. Deliberate, like reading something.
‘Lie back.’
I lie back.
Celyn on top. Knees either side. The weight, real, solid, the hips pressing through the jeans. Kisses, the mouth, the neck. I hear myself make a sound I didn’t plan.
Belts, both. Celyn’s fingers on mine, quick. My fingers on Celyn’s, slow, too big, the buckle fighting back. Celyn laughs, not at me, at the buckle. The laugh is warm and close and the breath on my stomach when Celyn leans down to undo it and.
Jeans, both. Under Celyn’s, boxers, black, cotton, plain. Nothing underneath it. Celyn just waits, hips tilted up, and I get there on my own. On the cotton, on the heat.
‘Here. Like this.’
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.
At the door, Celyn turns. ‘Goodnight, Ronan.’
The R, the soft R. My name not thrown away. Put down carefully.
‘Night.’
The door. The stairs. The building door downstairs.
Bang.
My mouth, the taste. Still there. Under the beer, under the toothpaste I should use and won’t yet. A taste the mouth didn’t know it could have. Can’t un-know it, can’t put it back.
I close my eyes. The image comes: Celyn’s face from below, the eyes shut. The sound, the Welsh word I don’t know. Twice.
I’ll ask what it means.
No I won’t, better not knowing, just the sound.
I pull the sheet up. It smells like both of us. Two smells that don’t go together. Concrete dust and garden-fruit. Degreaser and aftershave.
I sleep. With the taste in my mouth and the shape in my hands and the smell on the sheets.
Saturday morning, the team in early, the formwork for Block D came in and scheduling’s tight. I didn’t sleep properly. Three hours maybe, then woke at four with the taste still there, the sheets sticking, the flat too small to turn around in without hitting something that smells like Celyn.
Gaz takes one look at me and his whole face changes.
‘Mate. Mate, no. You actually did.’
‘Don’t say anything.’
‘You did. You actually went and did it.’
‘Gaz, I’m warning you.’
‘Boss is getting laid!’ He’s shouting this across the site like it’s news, like it’s something the whole of Victoria North needs to know. ‘Dean! Dave! Boss got some action!’
Dave looks up from the level. Doesn’t smile. Just nods like that’s information received and put away. Dean does an actual nod of respect, one that means something in a crew. Jay’s on his phone but his eyes are laughing.
‘Cheers, Gaz. Really appreciate that.’
‘Was it.’ Gaz stops. Looks at me. Actually stops talking. ‘Was it good?’
Nobody’s ever asked me that after. The women before, they’d text or they wouldn’t. No processing, no debrief. Just: it happened, move on, next thing. But Gaz means it, like he cares about the answer.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘That’s the face someone makes when they’re gone.’ Gaz eats a crisp, his whole body vibrating with it. ‘You’re proper gone. It’s done.’
‘Can we just work?’
‘Is it the person you wouldn’t talk about.’ He grins. ‘Mate. That’s brilliant. That’s properly brilliant.’
‘It’s not a story, Gaz. It’s real.’
‘A thing that happened.’ He’s laughing, because he likes me.
By lunchtime I can see the question in Dave’s eyes and the something in Dean’s face, but they don’t push. A real crew sees the shape of something and lets it be. They don’t need the explanation, just see how I looked at the wall of the building like it might tell me something true and they know.
And they’re kind about knowing. Gaz less so. But kind in his own way.
We pour the second section at three. The concrete comes smooth, the work’s clean. My hands remember what they did twelve hours ago, my mouth remembers the taste, and I can still do this: pour and smooth and wait. The body holds two things at once.
Celyn.