After the shower he lies down and waits for me to sit

I set the timer on my phone for ten minutes while I was still in the bathroom, drying my hair. I came out in his old T-shirt, barefoot, and he was already on the rug by the sofa: on his back, hands behind his head, the way I told him last time and every time before that. The cage was on him under his house trousers — and I knew he was feeling it more than usual right then, because he was lying there waiting.

This is the third month since he first asked for it. The first two times I thought about his nose and whether he was comfortable. From the third time I stopped. He didn’t lie down on the rug for comfort, and I didn’t sit down for comfort either.

I put the phone on the sofa, screen up, so I could see the numbers. I knelt with a knee on either side of his head. He looked up at me and didn’t move. The T-shirt, nothing under it. I lowered myself slowly, not with my full weight at once — first so that he could breathe me in, and only then I sat.

The palm

I put my palm on his forehead. It isn’t for show: that is how I feel it before I hear it — when he flinches, when his neck tenses, when he wants a gulp of air before I allow one. My thumb settled on his eyelid. He closed his eyes himself. My other hand I put on his chest, on the ribs. The heart under my palm was going fast, faster than mine.

The first breath I gave him at once — short, half a second, lifting a little. Then I sat down harder and the sounds stopped. Only the warmth of his breathing into me, and even that ran out fast. I shifted forward, to his lips, and he started working with his tongue the way he knows how: unhurried, not asking where. Inside I went hot and wet, and I knew it was all running down onto his chin. He swallowed. I felt it with my knee, at his throat.

We have a stop signal. Three fast slaps on my thigh. We tested it once for real, in the first month — I sat down and didn’t get up until he slapped. He slapped at forty-one seconds. I was up instantly. Since then he knows it works, and I know he won’t use it without need.

Breath

I don’t count minutes, I count his breaths. At first I gave him one every ten seconds, then every fifteen, then whenever I remembered. Between breaths he lies motionless, only his chest tries to rise, and I feel that with my knees on either side. When I lift, he breathes in through his mouth, loud, once, and I come down again before he can take a second one.

Between breaths I don’t hurry. I move when I want and where I want: his tongue is where I placed it, and he doesn’t choose. Sometimes I go completely still and just sit, and then he understands that the next breath will be longer in coming than usual, and he doesn’t jerk. That stillness is where I find what I sit down for: all of him under me, with no key and no rights, breathing when I decide.

Once he made a sound. Not a word — short, almost a sob, from underneath me. I didn’t get up. I looked at the phone: four minutes. I wasn’t sure he would last to ten. I waited three more seconds and only then gave him air. If you get up at a sound, within a week he learns that the sound works.

I closed my eyes. Under my palm the forehead was hot and damp, the neck under my knees was hard. I know that at that moment all of him is in the cage: the steel is tight, there is nowhere for him to go, and that is why his tongue works even more carefully. A shiver went through my thighs. I lifted, gave him a breath, then sat as hard as I could and came without opening my eyes, listening to him under my palm stop breathing and wait.

The timer went off. Ten minutes. I stayed until it let go of me, then stood up. He remained as he was, hands behind his head. Only his face — red, wet, and on the forehead a pale print of my palm that later turned pink. Under the house trousers everything showed: the steel strained, the fabric pushed out. He didn’t touch himself and didn’t shift his knees. In three months I have never once told him he mustn’t — he worked that out on his own.

“Stay.”

I went to the bathroom, washed, came back. He was lying there. Then I bent down, ran a finger over his forehead, over the mark, and said: “Up. Tea.”

Morning

In the morning I worked from home at the kitchen table, laptop and email. He was getting ready for work and slicing bread for toast. Then he put the knife down and came over.

“May I?”

I nodded without looking away from the screen. He went down on his knees on the lino and pressed his face to my thigh, through the pyjama fabric. Just pressed against it and breathed. I put my hand on the back of his head and went on reading an email from accounts. It smelled of toast and his shampoo. I didn’t look at him. That is the point: he is at my feet, and I am reading an email, and right now the email matters more. He knows it, and he breathes evenly, the way he waited on the rug the night before.

The mark on his forehead hadn’t quite faded overnight. A pink stripe where my thumb had been the evening before. He would go to work with it, nobody there would understand a thing, and I would know all day.

“Enough. You’ll be late.”

He stood, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and silently set a cup in front of me. I didn’t turn round. I knew anyway that he was standing at the door, waiting to see whether I would say anything else. I didn’t.

In the evening, after dinner, the dishes stayed in the sink, and he lay down on the rug by himself, before I came out of the bathroom. I set the timer for fifteen. He saw the numbers on the screen when I put the phone on the sofa, and closed his eyes before I sat.

• Agree the stop signal beforehand, not in the middle: three slaps on your thigh. Test it once, for real.
• The palm on his forehead is not decoration. It tells you he is about to jerk before you can hear it.
• Count breaths, not minutes. Set the timer for five — then decide whether you want another five.
• Get up by your own decision, not when he whimpers. Otherwise he learns fast that whimpering works.
• Don’t pretend in the morning that the evening didn’t happen. One minute at your feet before work seals more than an hour on the rug.