The Long Way Home Read online

  I blink, and for a moment, I see Ava. Short thick black hair always in her eyes. Blueblueblueblue eyes, Ægean blue, stark stunning azure. Svelte, athletic figure. Small, high, firm breasts, dark areolae, prominent nipples. Nipped-in waist, a taut round ass. Strong legs. God, the way Ava wrapped those long legs around me, it drove me wild. She wasn’t all that tall, but most of her height was leg. She’d gaze up at me as I moved in her, blue eyes fierce and wild, hips pivoting madly, fingers scratching down my back—I’d have scratch marks for days after sex, and given how frequently we had sex, I always had scratch marks. Her eyes, god her eyes. So blue, so expressive. So much love in those eyes.

  I blink again, and it’s not Ava, it’s Marta. Blonde hair, not black. Brown eyes, not blue. Large, heavy breasts with pale, small areolae and flat nipples, more curve to her waist, to her buttocks. Lying beneath me, heels hooked behind mine, staring up at me in confusion.

  “Christian?”

  I growl. Roll away. “I can’t.” I climb to the nearest hull and haul myself up, crawl to the railing and stand up naked and stare down at the sea. We’re anchored offshore a ways rather than in a berth at the marina. The waves lap restlessly against the hull, slapping, slapping.

  My cock aches.

  I feel Marta behind me. “What is the matter, Christian?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  I sigh. “No, no. God, no. I mean, I wanted it. I do want it.” I twist in place, stand facing her. She’s still watching me. “But I just can’t do that.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “Please, explain.”

  I clench my teeth; she’s naked, and my balls ache, and I still want her, I need release now more than I ever have in my life. My body is at war, with itself, with my mind, with my heart. “I looked down at you just now. I was about to…I was nearly inside you, and I…I looked down at you—” I break off, tear my gaze from hers because it’s too hard to say this with her intense brown eyes on mine. “I saw her. I saw Ava. Then it was you again, but…if we did this, Marta…”

  She sighs and rolls onto her back and slides down the trampoline, almost out of view. “You would feel guilt. You still love her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn it.” She slaps the trampoline angrily. “Dammit! Why are the men I am attracted to always unable to give to me what I want? You are a good man. A strong one, very handsome, smart, a wonderful sailor. And in love with someone else! Still, even after everything. I do not know all that has happened, but it is much, and very painful.”

  “Marta, I’m sorry, I—”

  “Non. It is what I have come to expect.” She rolls over again and climbs up the netting to eye me. “I would not wish to cause you guilt, or more emotional pain. I do not want to make this thing worse for you. I thought you wanted this. I was mistaken, and I am sorry.”

  “I did, I do. But…it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  Her gaze flits down between my legs, where I am still painfully aroused. “I wish I could at least make you feel a little better.”

  Temptation rifles through me, a strong burn. “Marta, I…” A groan of frustration rippled out of my chest. “No. No. I can’t make sense of anything right now, and I’m drunk and confused and I don’t want to risk doing anything I’ll regret later. I don’t want to pull you into my mess.”

  “I don’t mind a mess.” Her voice is sultry, suggestive.

  I laugh, bitterly. “You’re not making this easy for me, Martinique.”

  “Why should I? I want you. I want this. Very, very much I want this. If you were happily married, or in a relationship which was going well, I would never have gotten on this boat. I am not that woman. You are alone. You are hurting. You are lonely. You are needy. I can help with all of that. I do not ask for commitment. Although, you and I, Christian, we both love the sea. We are content to live out there—” she waves a hand at the sea behind us, “to never have a permanent home except a boat. The sea beneath and the stars above, it’s all people like you and me need, Christian. We could be happy together, I think.”

  Somehow, she’s gotten close all over again, and the sound of her voice and the lure of her words is mesmerizing, and then she’s touching me again and it’s been so long and I am so aroused that it takes but a few moments only before I feel myself nearing release.

  But the feel of her hand…it isn’t Ava’s hand.

  I knock her hand away at the last second. “No, Marta. Please, no. Not like this.”

  She stands up, naked, and walks away. “You are stronger than any man I have ever met, Christian St. Pierre.” Then she’s gone, and I hear her door close.

  “Not strong enough,” I say to the lingering scent of her presence, the fading warmth of her touch.

  I ache.

  God, I ache.

  I close my eyes, take myself in my hand. The image that arises in my mind’s eyes is Ava.

  A memory.

  I’ve just woken up. Dawn breaks golden on the horizon—we’ve spent the night out on the beach, wrapped up in our favorite fleece blanket. Ava is cradled in my arms, her head on my chest, snoring gently. I just hold her and watch the sun rise. And then, gradually, Ava stirs. Murmurs sleepily under her breath. Nuzzles against my chest. Her eyelids flutter, and those iridescent blue eyes of hers meet mine through a haze of black hair. She smiles up at me. Wiggles, and now she’s pressed against me, her warm skin flush against mine, her thigh over mine, her hand on my stomach. The morning air is cool beyond the blanket, but nestled here together underneath the fleece, we’re warm. She just smiles happily at me for a moment, breathing and staring, loving me with her gaze.

  And then her grin shifts.

  Becomes…eager. Predatory.

  She takes me in her hand and fondles me to life—which takes barely an instant, the moment of touch igniting a fire in me. I let her touch me, do what she wants, assuming she’ll touch me a little and then when I’m ready, climb on top of me and ride me in the dawn’s light.

  Instead, she keeps touching me.

  I’m grinding into her hand, and she’s watching me, gauging my reactions, my breathing, my eyes. She knows when I’m close, and she ducks beneath the blanket, and I feel her mouth on me, hot and wet and sliding around me, taking me deep, and I have absolutely no chance of holding out. She doesn’t want me to. She brings me to gasping, ragged, bursting release. Swallows, and swallows, and then her hands are on me again, caressing me to shivering shuddering wracking paroxysms.

  Ava emerges from beneath the blanket, a smile on her face and come dripping from the corner of her mouth, which she wipes away with a thumb, and then licks the pad of her thumb, her eyes on mine. “Good morning, love,” she murmurs to me.

  Then, in the memory, she’d then pushed me down under the blanket and I’d made her scream so loud the gulls had cawed in response.

  Now, I return to reality only grudgingly and I’ve made a mess of myself.

  I don’t even think twice before stumbling naked to the swim platform at the stern of the boat and dive into the sea. I let the waves close over my head and I scrub myself clean in the salt, burst gasping to the surface, and swim away from the boat a ways. Wondering how I’ll feel about all this in the morning.

  If I’ll tell Ava what happened—what almost happened.

  I wonder what she would say—what she will say. Because I know I’ll tell her…at some point.

  I swim until I’m weak, and then I climb back aboard and stumble wet and naked to my room and the shower.

  I fall asleep thinking of Ava, and I dream I’m a selkie, and Ava has stolen my sealskin so I’m trapped in a between-land, trapped on an island surrounded by the sea but never able to become my true self. She taunts me, seduces me, teases me, teaches me love, and keeps the sealskin hidden, and when I wake, I miss her more than
ever while somehow feeling angry and resentful toward her because of a dream.

  Or resentful because of reality.

  I don’t know.

  God, I don’t know.

  26

  Epistle #4

  (Or is it #3? Does the short story count as an epistle? I’m not sure.)

  * * *

  February 16, 2016

  * * *

  Ava,

  * * *

  It’s taken me two days to put these thoughts in order in my own head well enough to be able to even write them down here.

  I nearly had sex with Martinique. I was getting drunk alone on V-Day, late. I drank and I lay on the boat thinking of you. Of us. Of all that’s gone wrong and how to fix it and just…everything. Missing you. Regretting all the pain and mistakes. Wondering about you. What you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. If you miss me.

  And then suddenly Marta was beside me, not wearing much, as drunk and melancholy as I. It began innocently, discussing why we were both so drunk on Valentine’s Day—me, because of you and us, and she because of an asshole ex. And then she was kissing me and I was kissing her back because it’s been so damn long since I’ve had sex, since I’ve felt the touch of a woman, since I’ve felt release brought on by something other than my own hand. I said nearly, however.

  I didn’t.

  I stopped.

  It doesn’t make it right that things went as far as they did, because you and I are still married. I don’t know what this is, what we are, but I’m still your husband, legally and emotionally. You are still my wife, legally and emotionally. We’re in a fucked up place, to be sure, but…damn it, I still love you and I’m not ready to move on and I don’t want you to move on. I don’t know how to fix us, but I’m not ready for someone new.

  I was drunk, and it felt good.

  But I stopped because even though it felt good, it didn’t feel right—both in the sense of morally and ethically, and in the sense of wrongness, meaning…god, it’s hard to put into words. Like lying in a stranger’s bed and trying to sleep, or wearing a shoe on the wrong foot…just wrong. Not correct. Unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable.

  She wasn’t you.

  That’s what it came down to. She wasn’t you, Ava.

  I couldn’t keep going, couldn’t go through with it because she wasn’t you. And you know, for the sake of total honesty…I wanted to keep going. I wanted to be able to just move on, get over you, get over us. It’d be easier, in so many ways. Trying to fix all that’s wrong between us is going to take enormous amounts of work on both our parts. We both have to want it more than anything. It’s going to be so hard, Ava. We’ve both done things, wrong, painful, stupid things. Regretful things. Decisions that will make reconciliation so much harder.

  But it’s the only real choice for me.

  Except…I don’t know if it’s even possible.

  I can’t live on land any longer. My life is out here, on the sea. It’s where I belong, Ava. I can’t just give that up, get over it, or forget it. And I know you won’t sail with me. So what’s the answer? Maybe there isn’t one. I don’t know, Ava. Answers are not coming to me.

  I just know that I can’t move on so easily.

  What if you have, though? What if you decided to see someone else? Would you tell me? You promised to tell me.

  I made a mistake, a drunken mistake, and in so doing, sort of made a lie of what I told you on the phone, that I wasn’t thinking about doing anything with Marta. But the thing is, and the reason I say sort of, is that it wasn’t a conscious decision, a sober, clear-headed, I know the consequences and I’m going through with it anyway decision. I was drunk and she was drunk and it just started happening before I knew what was going on—and yes, I know that’s a classic bullshit excuse, one I’ve never used in my life, but in this case it’s just true. I could have stopped it, I think. Gotten up. Recognized the temptation and left the situation. I should have, I know this. I feel guilty, and I hate it. Knowing it will hurt you and make you angry with me when you find out.

  I have no intention of keeping secrets.

  I’m probably going to go too far with this, but since I’m not sure you’ll ever read any of these anyway, I’m going to put it all down.

  Marta was beneath me, all but begging me to push inside her. I was about to, I wanted to, it would have been so, so easy. But then…I blinked. And I saw you. It was you beneath me, Ava.

  The way I remember you, from so many times I cannot count them all, could not even begin to. We had a lot of favorite positions, didn’t we? You enjoyed most having your legs over my shoulders. I hit you inside in just the right way, and you always came within minutes like that. Doggy style. Standing up, you bent forward over the bed. Cowgirl, reverse cowgirl—those were my favorites, you know. You above me, riding me. Taking me deep, taking control, your hips sliding and rocking, your breasts bouncing, your hair wild and in your eyes. My fingers dimpling your hips as I gripped you and pulled you down onto me, harder and harder. But when it came down to it, missionary was what we went to as our default. It just…it was the most intimate. The other positions were erotic and allowed for different angles and different sensations, but for raw romantic love-deepening intimacy, missionary is just the best. It’s not boring. It’s not routine. It’s not vanilla. It’s the most meaningful. It puts our bodies together so we are wrapped up in each other, pressed as close as two bodies can be, from toes to hips to chest to lips. You always wrapped your legs around me, hooked your heels behind my back or my thighs and clutched my shoulders, clawed your fingernails down my back. You would kiss my throat as I moved above you. Dig your fingers into my hair. Bite my earlobe. Whisper encouragement in my ear—yes, yes, yes, yes, Chris, don’t stop baby, don’t stop, oh god Christian you feel so fucking good. I wrapped my hand around the back of your neck and kissed your face and your throat and your breasts as I moved, and when the release billowed through me, you always knew. You felt it, in the way I moved, in the way I breathed, in the frantic roughness of my thrusts. I didn’t have to say anything, although I often did. You just knew. And you would beg me to keep going, to give it to you, to come so hard. You would touch yourself, then. You would wait until I was close, because you have a hair-trigger orgasm, and when I was close, you would reach between us and I could feel your knuckles against me and your fingers moving on your clit and you would gasp desperately and your hips would flex and slam and your hot wet sheath would tighten around me and you would scream and scream and scream as we came together.

  I need that, Ava.

  The intimacy, the familiarity of us. Of you, beneath me, wrapped around me.

  In that moment, in that blink of an eye, I knew. She wasn’t you, and that’s all it took for it to just feel completely alien and foreign and unfamiliar and wrong, and I couldn’t do it. I could never go through with it, not with her, not with anyone. I’ll spend my life celibate before I betray us like that again, Ava. It was a betrayal, too. I know this. I hate it. I want to take that moment back, unkiss her, untouch her, eradicate the feeling of her hands on me, erase the memory, erase the reality.

  Ava, forgive me.

  I may never forgive myself.

  If we cannot reconcile, what then? What will I do? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move on from you. I’ll always belong to you, Ava. I cannot fathom ever being able to touch a woman without thinking of you. I shudder now, at the hazy drunken memory of what I did. I’ve washed and washed, but I cannot wash away the guilt or shame.

  I was achingly hard, when I stopped things. Marta walked away, and I was painfully hard, and all I could think of was you.

  One of the mornings we spent waking up together on the beach. How you touched me, and then instead of climbing onto me, you took me in your mouth and gave me a morning I’ll never forget. Cannot, will not. I thought of that morning, and I came all over myself. Alone. The stars were my only witness.

  I don’t send these letters to you, I print them and I save t
hem, but sometimes I have moments where I forget I haven’t sent them and wish for a response from you, and get angry that you haven’t, and when I remember that I haven’t spoken to you or sent these to you, I wonder if I should.

  Perhaps if you read these, you would understand.

  But I can’t.

  I’m not done yet. There’s more to say, I feel. What, I don’t know.

  I love you, and I hate you. I miss you, and I want this to just be over. I have to see you again, but dare not return.

  The contradictions are a messy tangled war inside me, and I know not how to mediate the conflict.

  III

  27

  [Email from Ava to Christian; April 9, 2016]

  Chris,

  * * *

  I’ve sent a package of letters to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, c/o of the postmaster there. They should have arrived a week or two ago, but I knew you wouldn’t be there yet, so I’m just now writing to tell you.

  I’m still not ready to email, which is why I sent you the letters. Respond in kind, if you’re so inclined. Or don’t.

  * * *

  [A series of letters written on a computer and printed out, from Ava to Christian; undated]

  * * *

  Christian,

  * * *

  I’m losing my mind, and I don’t know how to stop it. I shouldn’t be writing to you, but I am. I’m friendless, loveless, and lifeless. You’re out there somewhere, and still you’re all I really have. I hate my reliance and dependence on you, emotionally and otherwise, and that reliance is something I’m coming to recognize. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve had to learn how to do so many things. You’ve always taken care of me. It’s the little things, honestly. The way you’d always wake up first, make coffee, and bring me a cup in bed before going on a run or heading into your office to write. Now, I have to make my own coffee. Some mornings, I still wake up and expect to smell coffee brewing. Expect to see you with my favorite mug in hand, a smile on your handsome face, set the mug on my bedside table and kiss me stupid.