Before the Kettle

The kettle was empty and Ben was still in bed.

Katya stood in the doorway in his T-shirt and nothing else. Thirty-three. He was forty, half awake, one arm over his eyes. They had said it on Tuesday, plainly, over pasta, and then been too tired to do anything but kiss. Sunday was not tired.

"Still want it," she said.

He moved the arm. "The piss thing."

"The piss thing. On you. Then you fuck me. Bath mat's down. Say no if it's no this morning."

"It's yes." He sat up. "I'm nervous. That's not a no."

"Good. Nervous means you're here. Don't compliment me through it. Hold me."

They used the bathroom floor because the bed was a coward's version and they both knew it. Ben lay on the mat. Katya straddled his chest, knees wide, and felt the ridiculousness and the want at the same time. He held her thighs. His cock was already hard against her, which helped.

"I thought about this in the meeting yesterday," he said.

"And?"

"I had to think about spreadsheets on purpose."

"Go on, then."

It took a second. Then the heat hit his chest, a steady stream, running down his stomach toward his cock. Katya gasped at the relief and at his face. He was staring. Not disgusted. Hungry.

"Fuck," he said. "Don't stop."

She didn't. It coursed over him, into the line of his hip, onto the mat. She reached down and rubbed herself while she did it, piss slicking her fingers, and the obscenity of that made her clench on nothing. Ben groaned and stroked himself underneath her, getting her on his fist.

"You look filthy," he said.

"I am. Keep looking."

The stream thinned. She shook the last of it onto his stomach. He was shining. She dragged two fingers through it and wiped them on his cock, and he swore like she had hit him.

"My turn's next weekend," he said. "You said yes to that as well."

"I did. Not now. Now you fuck me before I get civilised."

She turned, took his wet cock in her mouth for three slow sucks, tasting skin and salt and the thing they had just done, and then sank onto it facing him. The slide was easy. She rode him on the bathroom floor with his chest still wet and his hands on her hips. The tile was cold under her knees. She did not care. She came fast, grinding, saying his name like a complaint. Ben fucked up into her and came with his head back on the tile, spilling deep, arms locked around her waist.

They lay there. The mat was a loss.

"Kettle," Katya said.

"In a minute." He kissed her mouth, ordinary again. "I want to do you next weekend. You on your back. I asked. You said yes."

"I did." She kissed his wet collarbone. "Put the wash on first. I'm not explaining that mat to anyone."

They showered after, which felt like a different activity from the one on the mat. Ben washed her stomach and then, because she put his hand there, washed between her legs without turning it into a second scene. Almost. Katya bit his shoulder when his fingers lingered.

"Saturday," she said. "You on me. I want to see your face when you let go."

"You'll see it."

"Good. Don't practise in the shower and spoil it."

Ben laughed into her shoulder. Outside, a neighbour's radio started. Sunday, doing what Sunday did, as if the bathroom had not just become the most honest room in the flat.

Katya made the tea in his T-shirt, still damp at the hem. Ben came into the kitchen in a towel and stopped when he saw the state of her thighs. She let him look. That was part of it, the after, the ordinary room with the evidence still on her.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm allowed. You put it there."

"Saturday you can put it on me. Chest, stomach, cunt. Not my mouth. Same stop word as everything else."

"Noted." He took the mug she held out. "This is a ridiculous hobby."

"It's ours."