“Then, you don’t have to get up, sweetness. You don’t want some dramatic good-bye scene anyway. So boring and overdone, right? Oh, I know why. You didn’t have time to prepare the rhyming good-bye poem done in the style of Dr. Seuss? I do not like to basket weave. / I do not like when Sabin leaves. / I do not like—”
Now, I actually laugh. “No! I just mean, I don’t want to get up in the morning to say good-bye because I don’t want to go to sleep.”
His eyes brighten. “You want to stay up all night?”
“I do.”
“And make mischief and mayhem?”
“Yes.”
“And watch me wait until the very last minute to pack and then giggle unhelpfully while I throw some random shit into a suitcase and leave behind necessities, like underwear and pornographic coloring books?”
“Exactly.”
“We can do that.”
So, that’s what we do.
In the morning, the shuttle arrives to take away the people I love most in this world. I will miss the hell out of James, Estelle, and Eric, but I will especially ache for Sabin.
Fall on Frenchman Bay is permeated by silence. The lack of sibling chaos is not unbearable, but it is noticed very sharply by Chris and me. The everyday logistics remind us of everyone’s absence, like when I first went grocery shopping after the crew’s departure. I returned home with so much food that I had to turn all the extra meat and produce into a stew and freeze batches. I don’t have to wait in line to take a shower or deal with heaps of laundry. I’m not interrupted by shrieking laughter or screaming or giggling or racing footsteps tearing through the house at all hours.
Nearly three months with a full house created a new normal, and returning to just the two of us has been a relief and a shock to the system. Even Jonah has seemed restless and out of sorts since the first week, continually running to the door or checking bedrooms for his friends.
The late September air has a chill this evening, and it’s perfect for running. I retie my laces and lift myself up on my toes a few times to make sure my sneakers feel right. I’m fussy about how much wiggle room I have. Too loose or too tight, and I’ll be distracted throughout the entire run. I require perfection.
With my eyes closed, I inhale and raise my arms above my head, and then I exhale and drop them down. My usual stretches pass by in a blur because I’m so focused on the run ahead of me. I’m antsy and edgy, and I’m hoping that this workout will expel some of my mood and some of the emptiness plaguing me.
Music blasts into my earbuds, and I begin. Running over the hilly and often rocky terrain in this area has taken quite a bit of getting used to, and the side roads around here are not exactly paved to perfection. The slope on the main roads makes my legs burn and my lungs raw, but I like that. I have to run harder and stay stronger.
Running is part of how I saved myself, and even now that I am not the fragile mess I was a few years ago, I know that I will never stop. While running is a solitary sport, it’s not lonely for me. It never has been. It forces me to think, to examine, while it’s just me and the music and the road.
I leave the dusty dirt road and hit one of the main roads where there is actual concrete with painted lines, and I hold my pace while “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton starts in my ear. I smile. Chris made me a new playlist.
No one else in the world understands how I can run to such slow rhythms and melodies, but he knows that I run in contrast to what I’m hearing. The mood or lyrics or tone of a slower song propel me much more than pop or dance tracks ever could. He intrinsically knew this about me before I knew it about myself. The music he sends me is always right.
As I begin to work my way through this new song list and through my seven-mile goal, I’m already feeling more settled. Chris is at home right now, starting on dinner, and I’m looking forward to spending the evening with him. Of course, I feel this every day. I never tire of him, of us.
He is my home. The two of us together are peace and love after too much uncertainty and fearful instability.
The truth is, I like the quiet. After the fire that killed my parents and nearly destroyed James and me and even after the healing from that, I seek serenity. I like the cleanness and simplicity in my days—writing for the magazine from home, conducting interviews often by phone and the occasional outing to meet someone for a local piece, shopping in town, near daily runs, cooking in the evenings, weekends on Acadia’s trails or curled up at home. Together, Chris and I have created safety for ourselves, and we fall more deeply in love each day. To some, the idea of reliability and safety might sound boring. For us, they bring joy.
Yet it seems my heart will eternally engage in a tug-of-war struggle between my need for calm and my fervent desire to be surrounded by those who disrupt one sort of calm to bring another. Because there is calm among the chaos. There is a completion that comes when I am with an entire group and inundated by noise and constant talk and wild energy. This is not to say that, on his own, Chris doesn’t fulfill me more than I could have imagined, but he is one person, not a crowd.
I think Chris feels this as well. He’s spent his entire life watching over his siblings, first doing everything in his power to shield them from their father and later fighting to keep the aftermath from swallowing them up whole. He roots for each of them, and he celebrates their successes, but he stays on guard. I know he is always watching, waiting. There is no relaxing, no chance that this particular tension will ever leave his body or mind. I’m not sure he’ll ever escape his sense of responsibility. He lives in measured anxiety and fear.
But as much as he wants to keep incessant tabs on his brothers and sister, it’s probably good for him to be separated from them. He has to learn to trust in their abilities to function and succeed on their own. Each sibling hides their traumas differently—Chris perhaps better than the others—but I see he is trying to clear out pieces of the wreckage, and he’s getting there.
Music pounds through me on this run—and emotion as well. Sometimes, I clear my thoughts and collect my miles in a near trance. Then, there are days like this where I dig my way through feelings. Because I blocked out life for so many years, I’m phobic about missing something. It’s why I push myself toward introspection, toward clear thinking. I’ve missed so much, and I’m afraid I’ll miss more—in myself, in James. I failed him massively before, and I refuse to let that happen again. So, I keep myself in check to protect him and to protect everyone I love.
Oh. So, I guess I have that in common with Chris.
That’s another thing that ties us—fear that we’ll fail those we love.
I run harder because I miss them all and because I need space. It’s an impossible fact of life that I might never resolve because we cannot collect our siblings and lock them in the house with us forever while also allowing each of us to define who we are outside of the others. We all need to tolerate distance and find the good that can come with that.
Sabin calls and texts me a few times a week. He hasn’t found a job, but he has seemingly found the beach because I have about six hundred pictures of waves. The cheap motel where he’s staying doesn’t thrill me, particularly because the Yelp reviews I’ve read universally address a rather severe bedbug issue, but Sabin claims to find something humbling about slumming it.
“One does not stay at the Ritz when one is looking for an entry-level job, my fair lady!”
The song in my ears fades away, and I wait to see what the next track is. Instead, I hear Christopher’s voice, and I nearly trip over my own feet. I’m almost embarrassed at the slight shiver that runs through me, and I mentally shake my head at my physical reaction. After all these months together, this boy still gives me butterflies. I regain my stride and listen to what he’s recorded.
“If I timed this right,” I hear him say, “you’ll have another few miles before you’re home. Home. It’s such a stupidly simple word, but it carries so much weight.”
There’s a long sil
ence now. So, I run. I can pass the time. Because I know what it is to feel Chris even in these moments of silence. It means he’s thinking and processing. He’s controlled in what he says, and he doesn’t waste words.
I round a steep curve in the road. It’s one I’m familiar with and one that makes me push myself. The hill hurts every time I run it. My calves ache, my quads ache, but I take this one on because of the hurt and because I know I’ll be stronger after fighting to conquer it. So, I take what’s in front of me.
“Home,” Chris says, “used to be a terrifying place. It’s not anymore. And you did that, Blythe. You gave that to me, to all of us. I haven’t forgotten it for a minute.”
It’s unlike Chris to even mention his past without my asking, and I can see that he’s doing it in a way that’s contained for him, having recorded this for me to hear. It guarantees a safety, a way to separate himself from addressing this in a style that’s too straightforward. He doesn’t have to face me. I can’t respond or react. He’s pouring out what he can in a way that is tolerable for him. I want to be there for him, I want to let him shed this pain in person, but that is and will always be a lot to hope for.
Still, in this audio, he’s telling me something difficult. He’s putting out so much of his history and himself, even in just a few words, and that makes me even prouder of who he is.
“So, come home to me, Blythe. I know it’s been a little rough for both of us. The loss of the summer isn’t easy, and we haven’t been in our usual groove. We’re going to change that. I miss your body and your taste. I miss the way we move together, the way we come together. We need to get back to us and the indescribable way we connect. Your body is part of me. I need you.”
Chris and I are not by any means all about sex. We never have been. Yet I can easily admit that it’s a near constant with us. A palpable draw constantly lures me to him. Everything we feel and do on a physical level is a reflection of our emotional tie, so I never once feel guilty, nor do I question that bond. The heat we share is there for a reason.
With that said, not much throws off our sexual connection, but this last month of adjusting to our family leaving has slowed even us down. Melancholy does not breed sexual appetite, we’ve discovered, and we’ve gone longer than ever without making love. I miss him, and I miss us.
“Come home to me,” he says again. “We both feel the difference between a full house and the two of us alone, but I want to remind you that there are benefits to having privacy.” The tone of his voice changes here to one that I remember easily. Chris can go from serious and heartfelt to heated and sexually clear the next. “With no one else around, we can make all the noise we want. We can fuck anywhere we want…”
In an instant, I am undeniably glued to his voice, to the essence of Christopher and his desire.
“When I go down on you, when my tongue is moving against your clit, you can get loud. I know how you are. You start with a certain strain in your sounds, a whimper that drives me crazy. I love making you feel that good.” Chris pauses, and I can feel he’s making that coy smile he gets when he’s flirtatious and teasing. “Later, I get to listen to so much more. There’s nothing better than when I hear that purr from your throat, the sound of your heat, the way you manage to push out my name when that first wave of your orgasm hits.”
There’s the Chris I know. It’s tempting to pick up my running pace even more, but I have an appreciation for foreplay, so I continue to run evenly.
We got used to stifling our tendency to get loud, to fuck anywhere in the house we liked, to let ourselves get carried into lovemaking in the middle of the day. It used to be easier to ignore the fact that our siblings were always within earshot, but at some point, we started to feel a certain responsibility to control ourselves.
I can’t exactly complain about all the times Chris whispered in my ear, trying to keep me quiet, while grinding against me. Like the night he nearly made me lose my mind because we fucked so slowly and endlessly that when he finally picked up his pace, I couldn’t help myself from screaming out.
Thinking about that night now makes me wet.
“Shh, baby,” he told me as I got close to coming. “I feel how tight you are, how you’re on the edge. Breathe, Blythe. Breathe for me. Don’t make a sound.”
In a haze, I told him I couldn’t, that he was too good, that it was all too much. I wouldn’t be able to keep silent.
“Of course you can. Because if you make any noise,” he said, “I’m going to stop fucking you. You don’t want that. I don’t want that.”
So, I dug my fingers into his back, and he kissed me while I lifted against him over and over, his tongue against mine, until my climax subsided.
“Good girl,” he said softly. “Good girl.”
Chris has always had control that I can’t seem to find without his help. He’s teaching me though.
So, as I run now, I turn up the volume while his recording continues, and I don’t want to miss a thing. A mix of sweetness and sensuality in his voice compels me to run harder.
“Come home to me, Blythe. Meet me at the first place we reconnected.”
The outdoor shower. I remember that very well.
I make that last mile at record speed, but I take the walk on the dirt road to the house more slowly. I have to catch my breath before Chris takes it away again. The last song on his playlist has rhythm and build and lust, and the thought of stripping down in that shower with Chris pushes away any leftover sadness about the lonely house.
The light from the sun is fighting over whether or not to set, casting a nearly electric glow over the house. Near the house, I walk down the steps leading to the level land below, and I can see steam from the shower wafting upward. My earbuds come out, but they’re the only things I bother to take off before I step into the large wooden enclosure where Chris is naked and slick with water.
His back is to me, but immediately, he turns and takes me in his arms, my mouth seeking his because I cannot kiss him fast enough. Water pours over us, drenching my running clothes and sneakers, but I feel lighter than I have during the past few weeks. My hands move through his thick hair, pushing on the back of his head to press his mouth harder against mine, to get his tongue deeper into me.
Chris comes up for air and undoes the wide hook on my running bra. “How was your route?” he asks with a smile.
I move my hand between us and stroke his cock. “Fabulous.”
For a second, his eyes close, and he inhales sharply. Then, he looks at me and pulls my sopping running bra over my head. Chris kneels in front of me, and I step on the heels of my sneakers to get them off. The water flows over me while he peels off my leggings and underwear, and then he kisses my stomach and my thighs, swiping his tongue between my legs for a heartbeat.
Fluidly, he turns me around, and I lean forward, bracing my hands against the wall, while he glides his mouth up the back of my leg until his lips are on my ass where he lingers for a while. He stands behind me, holding me, while his touch wanders over my stomach and my breasts. He’s gentle, caressing my skin and igniting every part of me. I take my hands from the wall and stand fully, leaning into him and dropping my head back onto his shoulder. He cups my breasts, massaging his fingers over me, and then he takes each nipple and squeezes just enough to jolt me with arousal.
“I adore you, Blythe,” he says without whispering. “I absolutely adore you.”
I reach up to set my hand on his face. “And I absolutely adore you, Chris.”
He smiles into the palm of my hand. “You ready to get loud?”
I nod and set my foot on the shower bench, effectively spreading myself open for him. “Absolutely.”
So, we get loud.
Chris is behind me with one hand under my ass, lifting me just enough, while the other one is between my legs, his pressured touch on my clit. I keep my eyes open, letting my vision blur, as my pleasure escalates. When my fingers start pressing harder against the wall and when my panting and nois
es tell Chris that I’m nearly there, he scoops his arm from my ass to move around the top of my rib cage and brusquely pull me back against him, his fingers moving between my legs with more pressure now. I’m breathing so hard, and every time I exhale, the sound of my pleasure is pushed out from deep within my core.
“That’s right,” he says. “Let me hear you.”
His palm pushes up over my breast, his fingers dragging across my skin to the top of my chest. I’m trying to keep my eyes open, so I can stay totally in the moment, but it’s not easy. My head nestles into him, and his hand moves higher, settling just below my throat. I follow his grip, inching it higher, wanting him to have more of a hold over me than he already does.
There is something distinctly erotic about this move of his. It’s unexpected and deeply arousing. Having his touch around my throat isn’t scary or creepily controlling. It’s the opposite. The level of trust and understanding between us allows this. I get to enjoy boundaries being pushed because I’m in the safety of our relationship, in the context of something meaningful and based on love.
Because of that, because I like what he’s introduced, I tighten my hand over his. I want more, but he keeps the arc of his fingers firm, not letting me break the shape or position of his hand. He knows more than I do what is smart and what isn’t. What he’s doing is showing me how much he wants me to be his—to drop any extraneous thoughts, to just commit to the moment, to do nothing but focus on my own pleasure.
That, I’ve learned to accept, is of the utmost importance to him.
Oh God, I can’t last any longer. “Chris…”
“Come home to me, Blythe. Come home to me,” he says over and over.
My orgasm rocks through me, and the hand Chris has between my legs cups me hard, both to finish me and to keep me standing. When I slow down, I take my foot from the bench and bend to rest my hands on the edge. I don’t filter the cry that comes out when he enters me, partially because he likes hearing it and partially because I do. I lift up on my toes a bit so that I can move with Chris and get his cock as far inside me as possible.