Archive of Our Own

She woke at sunrise like always. Mark felt the house met its highest calling around dusk, when the day’s work was through and the dancers prowled from parlor to kitchen to sunroom to dining room to porch to kitchen again as Paul supervised dinner and Mark supervised Singapore Slings. Paul liked it best during the quiet after lunch, with everybody rehearsing in the barn or napping in heaps like cats. 

And Chrissy loved the house then, too! She really did! But one of her life's happiest discoveries was that she could hold her own opinion about domestic matters which would not be received as a wound or a trick. Her opinions were just facts. Sometimes when her blood sugar was low or her bed was lonely, she thought how unfair it was that life seemed content to transform or steal pretty much everything except the worst parts of herself. The shaky wormy paranoid stuff which seemed–as she got older and older–to be woven into her no matter how much everything else changed. 

But most of the time all Chrissy could think was that if she WAS going to be fucked up forever, how wonderful that she was fucked in such a way which made her grateful anew on mornings when things were sweet. 

This was such a morning. Which was HER favorite time in the house! Hers!!!

She stepped into the kitchen where Paul stood, shirtless (his body at fifty-one remained um insane!) and holding a tin of fresh popovers. He smiled that slow surprised smile at the sight of her which always made Chrissy feel like she’d done something right just by being born. Steam rose from the caramel-colored pastry, each of which spilled over their tin confines in a variety of shapes and sizes. As she went for a particularly large popover, Paul’s voice tsked and that wound inside her which would never heal smarted. But of course Paul only offered a potholder as he clucked, “Oh honey don’t burn yourself, I should have said!” 

Paul brewed her black tea because he knew coffee hurt her stomach. Soft rain fell in veils outside, obscuring the pines and providing a calm undertone to the quiet. Paul spread the Seattle Times across the bench of the breakfast nook to consume in sections, which was also how he ate his breakfast. His salt-and-pepper hair (still heavy on the pepper) fell in loose forelocks over his craggy matinee-idol face. He had to kind of brace against the wall because the leg of his chair wobbled and had done so for years. This ranked so low on the eternal, “Things to repair once Mark stops spending every cent of disposable income on rare Maria Callas recordings instead of paying the gas bill” list that Chrissy was unsure if it would ever be fixed. Just like the crumbling water heater and the missing chunk of banister and the light switch on the second-floor landing which zapped you if it was in a bad mood. It was a house where you had to pay attention. It was her favorite place in the world.

She and Paul did not speak as they breakfasted. They never did. When she reached for a second popover he slid the tin her way. 

As Chrissy ate she looked out the window at the place where the lawn turned into meadow and the meadow met the woods. The scarlet paintbrush and reed grass–Paul knew more plant names than this–were going to seed, which meant their tops feathered and split into frothy bursts which caught droplets from the mist like crystals stitched onto tulle. Once Mark and Paul explained to her that the meadow was a former logging ground, and that history of cultivated destruction was why such beautiful things could grow there now. Sometimes Chrissy tried to imagine a group of now-dead lumberjacks sitting here, in what had been their boarding-house kitchen, eating–what did lumberjacks eat anyway? Curds and whey? Briefly she considered a one-handed pushup contest populated by a troupe of walking muttonchops in thick flannel shirts who sucked on bacon strips and sang "Alouette."

But the Brawny Man image was spoiled by the view of the genuine Robert Mapplethorpe giclee lithos looming with erotic menace from the hallway over a vase of fresh-cut yellow balsamroot. Chrissy had spent seven summers (how many more?) on Brautigan Island and still couldn’t tell you exactly what the Mapplethorpes depicted. The suggestion, however, was. Like. Suggested!!! 

Robert Mapplethorpe, Chrissy knew, had died in 1989. Dead just like the lumberjacks. Except they hadn’t died in 1989. Had they had more time or less time? What was worse? To die all at once like a tree with a saw stuck through the middle? In service of something at least? Or to decay slowly from within? Which one was giving up? And why did people even talk about something like dying in terms of “giving up?” Who on earth had ever won that final fight? She was no longer eating her popover but was shredding it between nervous fingers into crumbs. Robert Mapplethorpe had been a friend of Mark’s. That was why they had the prints. They were probably worth a lot of money now. Things like that always were worth a lot more when you died. 

The edge was right there. She teetered. The lip of the orchestra pit yawned. 

She paused.

Regrouped. 

She inhaled on the eight count and felt the air passing through her gather up all the threads of her introspection and melancholy into something manageable. She was here. She had a warm drink and a full belly. She was loved and she loved. 

Mark came downstairs–already dressed in his blacks, he never lounged in pajamas–and kissed the top of Chrissy’s head. Paul got a real kiss on the mouth from his partner. He declined a popover, citing the thrill of a caloric deficit (“Sometimes all one REALLY wants to feel like is a teenage medieval girl mystic about to perceive angels in the architecture,”) but lit a Newport to go with his coal-black coffee. He joined Chrissy in staring through the window at the thick mist.

“I bet you a dollar we’ll have sun by cocktail hour,” he said with a Bacall-level exhale of silver smoke. Nobody answered him. “Well? You’d be a fool not to take my money.” He gestured to the wet outside with innocent eyes. 

Paul shook his head. “I’m not falling for your weather witching. Take a look at these, why don’t you? I was up until one.” Paul reached beneath his Sports section and passed Mark an envelope. Mark gasped and took Chrissy by the shoulder, steering her past the trick floorboard which had claimed more than one ankle over the years. They were on their way to the sunroom where the two did all their best thinking. Behind him, Mark cried out “I cherish you I cherish you, I cherish you and all you do!” and Paul waved a hand in recognition as he continued to read about the Mariners. 

The sunroom had a set of four matching rattan chairs, three of which were still functional enough to be sat upon. One was occupied by Leland. He was busy administering henna in the shapes of foxgloves and ejaculating penises all over his own wrists and palms. Mark fanned him with the heavy envelope as if trying to dislodge smoke fumes through a window before they triggered the alarm. 

“Leland, blossom, we need the room.”

Leland looked up from under his crown of black braids with wounded eyes. He was excellent at poses. 

“I am FEELING,” he said, “Rather CENSORED.”

“I haven’t the strength for a confrontation, darling,” Mark replied while continuing to fan. “Please oblige an old man and scat.” Leland ignored them. Chrissy put a hand on Mark’s arm and tried not to think about how thin it felt. She took a deep breath and acted like the person she imagined being and sometimes was! “It’ll just be a few minutes. There’s popovers in the kitchen.” 

Leland challenged her with an eyebrow. Her ears burned with the knowledge of his enmity and that she could do nothing to change it, not even win his respect because by now she understood that respect and civility were two different things. Ugh!!! What if people just were NICE! She felt her stomach wriggle but did not flinch. Mark did not intervene. A tiny silent struggle took place in the psychic wrestling ring. 

Then Leland unfolded himself from the chair. He kept his painted hands ostentatiously level by his shoulders. Sophie and Dina, each holding one of the season’s first Cortland apples, stuck their heads in. If Sophie and Dina were up that meant the house was thawing. Soon privacy would be impossible. Chrissy squirmed at the thought of intrusion. Mark needed her!!! Leland did a Gwen Verdon pivot with his palms steady like hers never were and addressed the girls. 

“Poms and Daddy have secret plans and are colonizing thusly.”

“If you get henna on that wallpaper I’ll weep for days and then won’t you be sorry. It’s handpainted by Penny Morrison,” Mark returned primly. 

Leland stopped by the hall sideboard and pinched between exaggerated fingers a knockoff Hummel pepper shaker shaped like Big Edie. His pose switched to affronted prince escorted by rebels from the summer palace. “I’m taking this because I like it,” he said. Mark groaned. “Oh, Leland, I had her specially-made in Provincetown!” Leland opened the pocket of his dressing gown (not a robe, do NOT call it a robe) and dropped Ms. Beale inside. “I’m taking this,” he repeated, “Because I like it.” Then he hooked his arms around Dina and Sophie’s necks–taking care not to smudge his tattoos–and exhorted them to escort him away from this dreary place, which they did.

When he was sure they were out of earshot, Mark caught Chrissy’s eye. “I always hated that fucking pepper shaker.” Chrissy smiled and picked up the lonely Little Edie, full of salt. She tried to do a weak however shall I cope without mother darling! and broke halfway through because she was really so awful at impressions. Mark barked his single coarse laugh–HA!–and gave her a squeeze.

“Poms?”

Chrissy flushed. “Oh. He means like–” She balled up her fists and pantomimed a few Rah rahs . “It’s his new nickname for me.”

Mark pursed his lips. “I see.” Chrissy puffed a piece of hair out of her face. The very very very last thing she wanted was to upset him right now.  “It’s alright. He’s just been–I think he knows. So he’s been a little–”

“Shitty?”

Chrissy hated! That she still got so pink!!! “Yeah. I’m not–I’m not like, upset-upset.” It was what she wanted to be true and it was true! She continued, “It was just easier when we all were friends.” Mark was exactly her height so it was easy for him to kiss her on the cheek. “Oh my darling girl. This won’t be easy for you at all, I think.”

Katrina strode past the sunroom, topless and rubbing almond oil around her navel. “Good morning Mark. Good morning Chrissy.”

Chrissy smiled. “Morning, Katrina.” Mark said, “Have you eaten?”

She stretched and yawned, highlighting her waterslide obliques and gumdrop nipples. “I think….I’ll have two eggs. In fifteen minutes.”

Mark nodded. “Extremely sensible. There’s coffee on.”

Katrina refused. “Did you know that coffee has all the same active ingredients as fertilizer which has all the same active ingredients as napalm?” 

“That seems highly unlikely, Kitty darling.”

She twirled her boobs upwards once like a shrug. She’d gotten her start in burlesque and so could get them–directionally–pretty much any place she desired them to go. To Mark she said, “It’s your funeral.”

Katrina, Chrissy had to remember, was an idiot. So it would not be fair to dump the salt contents of Little Edie on her head. She vanished into the kitchen to distant cries of, “TITTIES!”

Mark cupped his chin so his bangles would bangle. “We were saying?”

“Good morning good morning Ma and Fa!” Iggy clattered down the stairs in his tap shoes and black unitard, all five foot two of him. He gave Chrissy a two-handed wave which she returned happily.

“Good morning, sweet boy. No tap shoes on the hardwood. You know that.” Iggy, unbothered, tipped into a handstand and walked on his palms into the kitchen where he could be heard to pout, “Aw no more popovers?!” 

“Chrissy, you were–”

“Bonjour tout le monde! Today I feel wretchedly split so I’m going to past-life regress until I feel unified in mind and spirit!” Aileen wandered in from the yard, a muddy bucket of foraged chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms clutched in her hands. She shook droplets from her waist-length hair.

“I’m sorry to hear that but what a marvelous plan of attack. Please have Paul check those before you eat them. I can’t have anybody shit in the barn again. Chrissy–”

“Has anybody seen my maroon stirrup leggings?”

“Did you check the compost?”

“Comedy comedy I HATE comedy–”

“Hi Mark! Hey Chrissy!” 

“Aileen took them!” 

“You’ll always be a part of me, I’m part of you indefinitely…. ” 

“Mark, are we working that breakout sequence today? I don’t feel very pneumatic–”

“WHO HAS VASELINE. I NEED VASELINE.”

“Chrissy can we look at the last sixteen count before rehearsal?”

“BOY DON’T YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T ESCAPE ME– ”

“Bitch for real what the fuck where are my leggings!” 

“Good morning Mark!”

“I told you I’m CLEFT today–”

“Are there seriously no more popovers?” and on and on the dawn chorus went as more dancers descended from their rooms until Mark bellowed in a voice to split iron, “CHRIST ON THE CROSS AM I NOTHING TO YOU PEOPLE BUT MISS CLAVEL?! HOW ABOUT A LITTLE FUCKING GRACE AND SPACE?!?” He picked up the salt shaker and threw it against the wall where it shattered. 

The house rippled and was still. The effect of his outburst was like a gunshot through a vee of geese. The ensuant whispers from distant rooms the frightened flutter of wings. The unspoken thing: he’s allowed. We all know why. The silent agreement sent horrible prickles up and down Chrissy’s arms. 

And yet. Although the violence was terrible Chrissy could not help but see the kinetic beauty in it. The sharp shock through the soft haze. Noise into silence. Ooh there was something there! Forms began to take shape in her mind. Clusters breaking, that was the central image. Like duh. Reformatting, somehow. What was that word for when birds all moved intuitively as one? Something like murmuring. She’d have to ask Omar, he knew things like that. And, then, yes!! The body as one!!! And then into many!!! And on and one, the pleasure of the collective and the pleasure of the individual, because really the fantasy of the piece would be that you’d never have to choose–you could be apart and be whole and then–oh wow yes, you could be A PART and APART!!!

Then Mark was touching her elbow and saying, “I hate to interrupt but shall we take advantage of the moment?” and Chrissy didn’t even have to blush or apologize because he understood. 

She said softly, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to do that. Like you.”

“You won’t have to. You’ll find a better way.” Mark–her Mark!!! Chrissy-sized!!! Gray and ratty and fierce and funny and proud!!!–suddenly seemed exhausted. It was as if a balloon burst inside his chest and all that was stretched across it collapsed inward. God! If she cried right now she would pinch herself until she bruised, she really would!! But just as quickly it passed. The balloon was restored or perhaps had never popped at all. He went on. His belief in her was so casual that it made her heart ache. “I’m not worried. Now come and see, darling girl.”  

Across the glass-topped sunroom table, Mark spread out the photographs from the envelope for Chrissy to examine. The scent was still chemical-rich from the makeshift darkroom Paul had constructed in his shed. The pictures chronicled one of Mark’s favorite games. It was a kind of tag where colored sashes were affixed around the hips (“At wherever you consider to be the erotic peak of your own ass,” he counseled) and the goal was to capture as many as you were able. The winner then was entitled to an open-mouth kiss from every loser, although the location of the kiss was at the loser’s discretion. When Chrissy won (which was not often) she liked to receive hers on her back. 

They were beautiful pictures, frantic and languid all at once. Each marked by a small number noted in chinagraph pencil. All the dancers wore white for the game and the effect on film was that of moths taking wing against the endless deep green of the pines beyond. Hair flew in endless streams because gravity could not take hold. Grins suspended in perpetual mirth. Hands clutched and grasped for their quarry, some fists fat with colored ribbons and some with no bounty at all. In the early morning light they looked less like photographs of humans and more like abstract paintings, or perhaps evidence from some amateur cryptozoologist (a word she had learned only this year, thank you Bigfoot and the interest the men in her life had in Bigfoot!) that spirits could be caught on camera. 

Mark looked at her now, all arch bravado gone. He was hugging his elbows close to his ribs the way he always did when he wanted her opinion. 

“They’re not too bad, are they?”

Chrissy, eyes wide, shook her head. “No. No. Not at all.” Mark sidled next to her, dipping his pointed chin against her shoulder so they could look together. She could feel him retreating to that wonderful inner place from which he would emerge with some new treasure or discovery, the place that once he had described to her as feeling like the secret shelf at the top of a linen closet where he would climb to hide as a boy in Rhode Island. And although she had not even been born until Mark was twenty-one and she had never been to Rhode Island, all she could say as she stared at him in starry-eyed wonder was Mark I know exactly where that is. 

His voice was very, very quiet. “Some are actually rather good.”  She hummed in agreement. Then he clapped his hands and said why didn’t they play a game because he loved games more than anything except Paul and Verdi and lime-blossom tea and amphetamines and Douglas Sirk and fucking and candied chestnuts and Umbria and six-toed cats and jetés and Gilda Radner and Chrissy too, always. 

This game was to write down in secret which of the five photographs they each thought was the best, and then compare. It took them no time at all. When they showed their hands, they didn’t even laugh because this was how it always went with the two of them. Chrissy had selected 1, 7, 11, 12, and 19. Mark had selected 1, 5, 11, 12, and 19. 

He reached down and picked up 5. The outlier. A pale blur across the frame, distinguishable from the others only by a bright red ribbon cutting violently across the center and a smudge of strawberry blonde hair. “I like this one especially.” Chrissy exhaled and let her head rest against his. The bristle of his steel-gray cropped hair was sharp against her cheek. The skin sagged under his chin. His frail ribs sank and rose. She pinched her arm, hard, but of course it didn’t stop anything.

Then Mark pulled back and wiped his nose, his erstwhile five bangles (foot, foot, hand, hand, head) clattering slightly against his septum piercing. “You and Paul will have to–I don’t know. Put them all in a book or something .”

Chrissy nodded. “We’ve been talking. Paul’s got–Mark, he’s got wonderful plans.”

Mark raised one admonishing finger. “You’ll have to keep him true. Otherwise he bends to sentiment every time.” 

Chrissy clutched her hands to her stomach which she–swear to God–would scoop out and donate to science if it began to churn. “I will.” She meant it! Mostly! Because what good would it do to say Mark are you freaking serious sentiment overruns me like the tides?! Or How can I do this without you or no actually it was I don’t WANT to do this without you? She drew her lips tight. Enough. She could because she must and because she must, she would. Mark saw this run through her and bobbed his head in satisfaction. He looked back down at the photos and scattered them all except for 5 which he clutched to his chest with both hands. 

“Oh! I hate photographs of my work!” She knew. It had been his idea, but he had to pretend he hated it. She touched his wrist. “Maybe you can–” and then Mark stepped away and looked out the window. On the lawn Suzanne and Omar were practicing catch lifts until they tipped over, hysterical, onto the wet grass. When they saw Mark and Chrissy, Omar grabbed Suzanne around the waist, raised her high, and waved her whole body in salutation as she screamed with laughter. Mark waved back and lit a fresh cigarette. 

“Anyway, Christine. It’s a beautiful day,” he said, letting the smoke plume in decorative whorls around his face.He looked in manner if not in face just like Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, which Chrissy knew because a few days ago he had thrust himself against the windowpane with a practiced look of bruised optimism and said “Chrissy! Look! Brief Encounter!” Sometimes Chrissy thought Leland was such a bitch because Mark was better at posing than any of them. He always had been. “And we’ll have sun soon enough.” 

He was right. By lunchtime the world outside was gold and green. 

Chrissy did not cry during morning rehearsal or mid-day meditation by the shore led by Dina. She did not cry at lunch or while deadheading dahlias in the garden with Paul and Iggy, or when Omar and Susan and Tamsin and she drove across the bridge into town to get more toilet paper and cigarettes and kinesiology tape for Leland’s knee. She did not cry as they decided to be thirty minutes late and watched seals roil in the kelp forest by the bridge landing. She did not cry during the afternoon rehearsal of her latest piece, not even when Leland and Dinah got snotty with her about the routine’s button in front of everybody!!! She did not cry when Mark faltered and forgot her name for three seconds, three small inarguable seconds that nobody noticed but her and Paul. She did not cry when she opened the mail and saw a payment for a performance with the Pacific-Northwest ballet had been misfiled, which meant nobody would get paid next week unless the error was corrected. 

She excused herself to her makeshift office in the widow’s walk tower at the top of the boarding house to call the bank. The tower was a funny little eight-sided room with a porthole window overlooking the lawn. It reminded Chrissy of a place where a Borrower might live. (The porthole an old monocle, the chair a pincushion, the wastebasket a thimble, she could go on for days!!!) There was a reclaimed sewing table for a desk, where throughout the summer Chrissy read her letters and rewatched Martha Graham tapes and helped Mark balance his checkbook since–HOW!?!–she somehow was the best in the company at math. (“It’s not that you’re especially GOOD, darling girl,” said Mark three Singapore Slings deep one night. “It’s just that we’re all unquestionably worse.”)  

Even more bizarrely, she made few mistakes despite calculus bringing her to tears in high school. It was amazing what you could achieve when people you loved counted on you not to go nuts. 

But also!! Actually!! Chrissy was well within her rights to go nuts!!! She just needed the proper place and the proper time!!! So as the sun dripped yolk-yellow through the porthole, casting weird shadows across her dollhouse desk, Chrissy began to cry in earnest. Her lungs felt flat and her face felt hot as she sobbed fat heaving sobs that felt like they were being scooped out of some shallow place inside her that did not have enough to spare. She cried for the grief she felt already and the knowledge that the grief to come would make this feeling seem pale and mild. She cried because she was drowning in love. She cried because she was lonely. She cried because she was afraid she’d disappoint him or destroy what he’d built. She cried because she hated being disliked and because she felt like a horrible stupid baby for even caring about that at all anymore like seriously will you ever grow UP Christine!!! She cried for the cruelty of disease. She cried for the passage of time; impartial arbitrary time which she could not even hate because again and again it brought her as much as it took. She cried because she felt so lucky and all luck meant was you had things to lose. 

Then she wiped her eyes and took six deep breaths and dialed. Because she was twenty-five and being twenty-five meant you still had to call the bank even if you were a total headcase. 

She leaned over the desk with the receiver pressed to her ear. The sunlight in the room now thick and orange and about to dissolve entirely. From outside she could hear the faint shrieks of the dancers playing on the lawn. Mark cheering them on. The expanse of her feelings was overextended and brittle. Soon it would splinter and crack. The responsibility of her task would not be enough to hold her together this time. Over the phone the bank’s hold music was a scattered, ugly synthesizer which made her mind feel like a bunch of cockroaches under the sudden blaze of an overhead lamp. 

(That was a funny thought. Not really the kind of thing she usually–)

And she knew. 

She knew by the way he opened the door. 

She knew by the measure of his breathing.

She knew by his footfalls. Heavy. Padded. Deliberate. As if after all these years she might startle and scream at his approach and like fair enough because sometimes she did! The gentle thump of his touring duffel on the ground. Her fingers curled more tightly around the receiver. She bent deeper over the desk. She did not turn around. Her heart! Her little beating heart! 

His footsteps drew closer. She felt the familiar press of him into her body. Her breath caught short before melting into chocolate liqueur which dripped in fat beads straight into her stomach, nourishing and intoxicating all at once. He was wearing new-ish jeans. Maybe his Levis? She could tell by the rough grain of the denim digging into the jersey of her wrap skirt. He’d smoked a cigarette in the taxi, she’d bet a million dollars he had, the scent of tobacco on his clothes still fresh. She wanted to ask How did you know that this was when I needed you the most? How do you always know? But she didn’t say anything and only wiggled her butt into his crotch for a greeting. In response, he folded himself against the slope of her back. She felt the rumble of his exhale through his chest against her shoulder blades. He breathed there once, twice, three times. Taking her in. She felt tears prick her eyes again. The warmth of him, the smell of him, the WEIGHT of him (yes god please yes the weight of him) on her the needle and the thread to help stitch her up. In his hands she could mend. 

His arm landed with a clunk on the table so resolutely her collection of champagne corks from that summer’s Sunday Dinners jumped and thus did she. She giggled and muffled it. Fingers thick with silver rings and runic tattoos scrabbled for paper so she slid him a notebook. His free hand pinched her ass in gratitude and she squeaked. He took up one of the thick black Sharpies with which she liked to mark her blocking and wrote:

I couldn’t find your Todd Oldham flares at the apt so I brought the white ones.

She read it. He did not get up but continued to lean into her, bracing his now not-goosing hand against her ribs on the flat of his forearm. She knew he was feeling everything her body did–her shiver, her pulse, her heat. She made gimme gimme fingers and he slid her the Sharpie.

Those ARE the Todd Oldhams :) 

He snorted against the back of her neck. Oooh. His air!!! The bank’s hold music looped back to the beginning. He took back the marker.

Airport was easy, no traffic. Caught the earlier ferry. 

She made a soft noise of thanks. She felt him think before writing again.

Important call?

Important. But brainless. Not too long now. I’m on hold. <3

You good?

There was no astonishment that he knew instantly how rattled she was. Why she’d shut herself away. He was only even asking to let her say it herself. 

When she didn’t write back, he tried again. 

What can I do?

Gingerly, she reached back and untied the sash of her wrap skirt. He was pressed so tightly against the slant of her back that he had to step away to let the soft fabric spill to the floor. She never in one thousand basquillion years would have been able to say the truth of the thing which was something like I thought once it was that you had to break me apart so I could be whole again, but now I know it’s that you remind me that I was whole the entire time, which only serves to break me apart all over again but luckily Eddie had GREAT critical reading skills! He brushed the hair off the back of her neck and kissed the top of her spine in arcs until she flexed her shoulder blades together. He took one calloused finger and traced it past her black camisole. When he hit the elastic of her thong, he hooked it beneath his fingertip to drag down past her thighs to the floor. He paused to kiss the back of her knees as she stepped out of her underwear on his silent command. He pressed himself against her once more, and her throat contracted at the feeling of his belt and the denim and the strength of his erection against her naked body. He collapsed over her spine, digging the metal and leather and him him him! into her. He returned to the paper.

Feel that?

She whimpered. Suddenly she was filled with such squirming glee that she wanted to smash the porthole with a paperweight and ring out the bells and scream out the news to the dancers outside HE’S HERE HE’S HERE AND HE’S GOING TO DICK ME SIDEWAYS!!!! But instead she rolled her body beneath him so sluttily that he grunted and grabbed a handful of her hair to pull her head back. He ran his tongue under her jaw.

The skittery hold music continued its work in ignorance. Chrissy pitied it almost, she really did! It could never get fucked like she was about to get fucked! It could never get fucked at all! 

He didn’t even have to touch her pussy to know. He wrote:

You’re wet. You’re so fucking wet.

Reading about it made it worse! She bucked once under him and he squashed her by the nape of her neck–No Chrissy bad Chrissy–flat against the desk. She saw his hand pick up the marker and underline for emphasis so fucking wet. Then he tapped the Sharpie thoughtfully and continued:

Missed my cunt

She had to bite her hand to leash the noise which almost escaped. 

You miss your cock? 

She flipped her burning face over to the other side so she couldn’t read his words anymore. If she opened her mouth she might actually start singing the National Anthem because really what was she in this moment if not the rocket’s red glare/bombs bursting in air etc etc!!! It was too much. It was never enough! She reached back once, awkwardly, and hooked her pinkie in the beltloop of his Levis to tug the following via their private Morse code: Yes. Yes. I missed it the first night and the fortieth but none of that even comes close to how much I miss it right now at this exact second when it’s less than an inch away from me. He understood. He kissed her ear and positioned the notebook in her line of sight once again. 

Don’t worry. I will eat this paper later. 

It had been four years. There were days when she did not want to talk. Days when she did not want to be seen. Days (impossibly, incredibly, but seriously!!!) when she did not even want to fuck.

There was never one day with him when she didn’t want to laugh. 

She laughed now, the first real sound she’d made since he arrived. Then there was the sound of a zipper and Eddie slid inside her. 

She jerked and arched her chest into the desk like trying to break the surface of a wave. This part–this first part–when the curve of him slowly stretched her out and it felt almost maaaaaybe like this would be the time he wouldn’t fit all the way inside? This was when her mind went white like burning ash and the scant thoughts which remained sizzled to nothing but i love him i love him i love him i love him. When he bottomed out, she felt the wetness seeping from her pussy squelch against the flat flesh of his groin. He ground against her to spread it around, smearing it all over them both, because he was gross and she loved him she loved him she loved him she loved him all over again!!!! He filled her in ways she couldn’t explain. It was satiety and starvation all at once. He was inside her–it was everything. He was inside her–if he didn’t start fucking her five minutes ago she would die. On and on these thoughts circled as her heart fluttered and her cheeks reddened and her pussy got wetter and wetter around his solid perfect made-for-her cock. 

The receiver was still pressed against her ear. Feebly she made like to hang it up. He held it in place and tapped with one finger on the notepad where she’d noted Important. Her belly swooped like a skywriting plane spelling across the inside of her YOU ARE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. Even when she was impaled on his dick, he remembered!!! Desperately she grabbed his fingers and kissed them. Ran their tips along the glossy inside of her bottom lip. He let her. He’d let her do anything. 

She could feel herself opening around him by the second, growing softer and wetter and more swollen the longer he stayed inside. He didn’t move much. He took his broad hand up the skin of her back, surveying his territory. He brushed the side of her stomach just to watch her squirm as surface-light pleasure feathered out along her nerves to meet the liquid hot ache in her cunt. Then he must have made his hand into a fist because suddenly his knuckles were sidewinding along the bumps of her spine and she was butter on a warm popover on the last morning of summer. She melted further under the pressure, loose paperclips and pencil shavings undoubtedly forming indentations across her sternum where it lay along the desk. It was possible her eyes were rolling back. She felt herself unhook, eyelet by eyelet, as he continued to massage her back and shoulders. His thick cock still inside her, the pressure of it so right she could hardly breathe. He found a knot she didn’t know existed and pressed into it with his thumb until she keeled backwards, involuntarily, into the welcome expanse of his hand. This motion pushed her ass somehow firmer against him, and because nothing could last forever this caused Eddie’s discipline to snap and he began to fuck her in earnest. 

She felt erased. She felt indelible. She wanted to smile but it kept breaking as the air was ripped out of her, again and again, producing a pathetic shattered chant that by now they knew by heart: ah ah ah ah ah. He gripped her around the waist with one hand and pushed the other up the front of her camisole so he could tweak her nipple. She took her phoneless hand and clutched his so he couldn’t pull it away from her chest, curving her ribs upwards off the desk in the pose that Dina called cobra during yoga class. He buried his face in the place where her neck met shoulder and bit and kissed the bite and then bit again as on she panted: ah ah ah ah. He nuzzled her face and mouthed at her hair–she could not hear him say anything out loud but knew the words to be some combination of so good I missed you I love you take your fucking cock all for you always for you fuck Chrissy I love you fuck. 

He paused for a second, the wind-up before the punchline, and then thrust into her so deep that the desk actually jolted. Pencils and champagne corks scattered across the floor as she slipped from the fold of her elbows onto the desk. He did it again again and she moaned out loud. And despite all best efforts at diplomacy, God and Chrissy Cunninham would NEVER find their peace because it was at that exact moment that the hold music ended and a voice on the other end of the line said, “First Bank of Washington, how may I direct your call?”

He heard. He stopped fucking her. UM this was NOT ON THE MENU!!! She took the Sharpie and scribbled the following because she didn’t have the resources right now for apostrophes OK!!! 

Dont 

u 

dare

She let him read as she rasped into the phone, “Hi, I have a question about a payment processed on August eight–eenth….” the final syllable of which was broken across ascendant octaves as he began to fuck her again. His thrusts were languorous and unbothered and she was gonna come but she wasn’t but she wanted to oh God she wanted to so bad...

On the small of her back he traced the words:

OK?

Weakly she offered him a thumbs-up. He continued to move inside her. Over the phone, the teller asked for the reference number for the deposit, which she provided. Eddie had both hands around her waist now, pumping into her with a lazy possession that made her want to bite the phone cord in two. He was unhurried because they had time. He palmed her ass, the silver of his rings cool against her skin. He rubbed back and forth over the same spot, tracing with his pinkie his initials over and over like she wasn’t branded his already in every place that it counted. Over the phone, Chrissy could hear the teller typing. 

“Alrighty. It looks like the payment might have been misfiled–are the personal account and the LLC co-signed by the same individual?” 

“Yes, Mark Mahoney.” Her pussy was so wet it was starting to leak down her legs. She felt Eddie take a finger and catch what spilled down her thigh. He offered it to her and she licked it. 

“Can you confirm the primary account-holder’s date of birth and social security number?”

As she began to recite the requested information, he smacked her ass but she was a pro and didn’t even flinch. Hnnngh. OK but like he was still fucking her!! She circled her hips once as revenge for the slap, then flexed her cunt around him until she heard him mutter, “Jesus fucking Christ” and he pulled all the way out. She actually almost cried out for real at the injustice of this! Hello? Police? There's been a terrible crime!

Then she could feel him crouch behind her because his breath was suddenly warm on her wet lips. She grabbed uselessly at nothing, at the air, in anticipation of his tongue. It had been soooooo long and she’d come soooooo many times against her own useless hand imagining him, ravenous, licking into her soooooo deep….

But he didn’t. Instead he just stayed there. Kneeling. Breathing into her. She couldn’t whimper so she batted her palm against the table like a spoiled kitten pawing for cream. More more more more!!! But still he did nothing. She felt her pussy clench once against the hateful void he’d left behind, and this sent his fingers up and around (but not!! inside!!!!) her lips. Spreading her out. Helplessly, she clenched again, she needed, she needed–

She heard him murmur, “Fuck yes. Show me.” 

On the phone, the teller said they’d need to cross-check the reference number and the payment date. Chrissy was like buhhhhh OK if u say so!!!  

He spread her further and she helped him, parting her legs wider and wider against the desk until she was splayed out like for dissection. He opened her pussy wide, nosing her lips apart and kissed them lightly once or twice. He breathed hot and real against her as he– FUCK that this could even be possible, allowed, and desired, sometimes she reset back to zero just to feel everything he did fresh –looked straight up into her wet hole dilating hungrily around nothing. He was staring into the core of her. How could she get hotter? How could she get wetter? And yet she did by the second.

She could feel her pussy yawn and contract, a mouth demanding to be fed, bratty and pouting, Fill me Eddie fuck me Eddie don’t you want to fuck your cunt? He ran his hand over and under the mound of her, and when he touched her swollen clit she made a noise like she’d been stepped on. She was a balloon too close to the sun, high and hazy and about to pop. She could come RIGHT NOW  if only he would give her a chance–!!

But he didn’t. He only took his hand along her soaked thighs and gathered what dripped there freely. He pulled his hand away and there was a deliberate slobbering sound so that she would know he was feasting on it. He was so fucking gross. She was obsessed with him! He pressed his lips to her thighs and her ass at leisure but mostly just watched her gaping cunt pulse for him. She was sweating. She was sopping. She was dazed with need.

The teller said, “The transfer should post in two to three business days. It looks like you’re all set, Mrs….?”

Sorry she was no longer a person but the sweetest dregs of a vanilla malt with cherry syrup swirling in pink whorls along the glass so it wasn’t her fault because vanilla malts didn’t have brains that Chrissy reflexively breathed, “Munson.” She heard Eddie startle behind her. 

It was an accident!!! But she was so–she couldn’t think–!!! 

The teller thanked the Mark Mahoney Dance Company for being valued customers of Seattle First National and hung up.She dropped the phone into the cradle and then she didn’t have to worry about anything else because he was upon her. His grip was graceless as he pawed at her hips and jammed himself inside. All pretense of his unhurried calm vanished. Still. If there was any outstanding concern on his part about her misstep, she would obliterate it now!

She popped one foot off the ground to get the momentum for the complete pinwheel spin up and around. Eddie had just enough time to react with a dazed, “Chrissy, wha–” before she did a full rotation split switch on his dick which landed her flat on her back against the desk. It hurt a little bit to not unsheath from his cock here, but who cared!? Eddie looked like he’d been tazed!!! Tazed by her pussy!!! She locked her extended legs around the back of his head and looked at his wonderful perfect gobsmacked face for the first time in two months. Her love. Her guy! She drew him closer with the strength of her crossed ankles behind his skull. Her voice was soft with adoration as she said, “Hi Eddie.” 

He laughed in disbelief. He kissed her calf. He whispered, God. 

And then they were fucking again. He tugged his shirt clumsily over his head so she could greet each of his tattoos with her open mouth. Hello goat skull! Hello bats! He bit her nipples through the fabric of her camisole as she cupped the back of his skull and drew him closer. He plowed into her without grace or restraint. When they kissed she could taste her pussy on his tongue from where he’d wiped her thighs clean. He knew what this did to her so he bade her open her mouth. She received his saliva with her eager tongue. Their eyes did not part. She was delirious with how good it felt for him to rock her so hard against the desk; her mouth full of him, her pussy full of him! He invaded every part of her, she welcomed it. Their fingers intertwined, his sweat dripped onto her forehead and blended with her own, their bodies close enough and tight enough that they could hardly even kiss anymore. Instead they just nudged their faces together, his chin against her neck, her nose against his ear, their voices bound together in a unified language of mine love yours here fuck me now fuck me fuck me. 

He came first, flooding her in quaking bursts that had him cussing and stuttering as she smiled into his shoulder. Afterwards he knelt down to kiss her cunt and fetched a mouthful of his own cum for her. He fed it to her with his tongue as he rubbed her clit until she came so hard he had to hold her in place. Then he ate her out until she came again and again and one final time with his tongue swirling over her nipple and a new vibrator (brought all the way from Berlin! Genuine German engineering!) twisting inside her. They were both fucked out to the point of incoherence. He watched her eyes show white as he repeated dumbly, “You like that? You like your pretty present?” and she could barely scrape together the braincells to drool, “Unnhhnnyeah I like it oh God I like it Eddie, please…”

Afterwards she sucked the toy clean with big eyes gazing up at his tender face as he stroked her hair with the back of his hand. When she was through he touched his forehead to hers and blinked. 

“Well, I’m back,” he sighed and she kissed him. 

She woke with the sun, this time happily shackled in his arms. Nobody on Brautigan Island got a double bed except Paul and Mark because the boarding house for the long-ago lumberjacks had wanted to discourage the solicitation of prostitutes and/or sodomy, so all the bedrooms could only accommodate a twin extra-long. This did not bother Chrissy and Eddie, who always slept in such an entwined sliver that they probably could have managed to nap on a balance beam. Chrissy got up first which meant sliding her still-warm pillow into the space she left behind in Eddie’s embrace so he wouldn't fuss. More and more as they aged he woke with her, saying that sleeping in had lost its appeal. But this morning he was exhausted and jetlagged and did not stir. She dropped a kiss to the top of his shoulder. When she returned from breakfast to brush her teeth she’d hoped in a babyish way that he might be awake, but her love was fucking fried (his words from last night) so she left him a thermos of coffee and a cinnamon bun with a note that said “I’ll be in the barn, I love you I love you you’re so pretty ahhhh :)” 

That morning’s rehearsal was kind of a joke, since MAENAD (that summer’s mainstage program) was over and Mark had yet to announce the fall and winter season. This was a frequent topic of gossip on drunken car rides from the townie bar and in line for the shared shower and during warm-ups on the barre– what was the fucking holdup? What is going on? This morning the dancers were especially twitchy, buzzing with whispers and showing up late in street clothes and taking too many cigarette breaks. Mark didn’t correct them. He was using his cane today. 

Chrissy asked Tamsin on the piano to take it from the top. Omar and Suzanne launched into the middle sixteen, a series of passé chug hops into traveling chug steps. It would end with Omar in a deep lunge and Suzanne balanced on one foot atop his thigh. The finished piece would be playful and breezy, with the other dancers in the back holding kites made of bras blown aloft by portable hairdryers. But it wasn’t right and she couldn’t say why. So Chrissy took to the floor herself and worked through it with them again and again. A shadow to their movements. Seeing what they saw. Feeling what they felt. And once she took the problem into her body she knew the answer as easily as dreaming. She instructed them to step back and ran the sequence herself, now with a crucially-integrated penché for Suzanne atop Omar’s thigh represented presently by an applebox. “Suze? Can you manage it?” 

Suzanne–radiant all-caps Tennessee Suzanne–said, “HELL YES CHIEF GET ME BACK ON THE FLOOR!”

When she watched them, Chrissy knew she’d cracked it. She’d perspired through her deodorant. She was bright red. She was eight pounds too heavy. She’d never been happier. 

Then she heard Mark shriek, “EDWARD!” and she knew that previous statement had been a complete and total lie because there was Eddie backlit against the barn door. She drummed her fingers in the air and mouthed hi with a shy smile. He mirrored her exactly. 

Then Mark hobbled over, scattering dancers with his cane as he scolded, “Move scat get out of the WAY,” until he was about two feet away. He said, “Have you ever seen An Affair to Remember? ” and Eddie said, “What?” and Mark said, “You’re a quick study you’ll be fine–” and tossed his cane to the side so Eddie was forced to catch him in his arms. From the sidelines, dancers abandoned their stretching and banter to watch Mark and Eddie because (Chrissy felt a spoiled twitch of pride here) the two of them were always the most interesting people in a room. With a quick sideways glance to be sure he had his audience, Mark looked up at Eddie from his enforced swoon with dewy eyes and tremored, “If you can paint…I can walk…the world can turn upside down…if….IF….!” From the piano, Tamsin began to play the movie’s love theme in big bombastic chords.

Mark stage-whispered to Eddie, “This is our big kiss.” Eddie grinned with all his dimples and said, “Oh IS it?” and Mark said, “Don’t DISAPPONT your PUBLIC Edward–” and Eddie said “Alright alright Deborah keep your hair on.” Mark crowed in triumph, “Oh you HAVE seen it–!” before Eddie dipped him and planted a huge flat kiss on his lips for all to see. He pulled back with an audible MWAH! as Mark’s foot obligingly popped. Everyone applauded. Chrissy felt a huge sugary fizz of love, even if she did seem to be doomed to always have boyfriends that her parents wanted to fuck. 

Then the terrible moment. Mark reached for his cane but misjudged the distance and his left knee caved. In an instant Chrissy saw his fall. The rush of the bodies. The humiliation. The misjudged solicitousness of the dancers which would put Mark into a temper. The storm. The gossip. The pain. 

But none of this actually occurred! Because Eddie saw things and Eddie was too fast and Eddie caught Mark before he hit the ground. He disguised his rescue as a bridal carry and whirled Mark about in his gorgeous hickey-covered (oops!!!) arms. “Darling,” Eddie purred in a bearcat tenor. “We have to stop meeting like this.” Mark threw his bangles over his eyes and cried out, “Oh! OH! Don’t TAKE me from my father’s INN, you horrible highwayman! Not in my WHITE MUSLIN NIGHTDRESS!” 

“You mean my FAVORITE FABRIC FOR RIPPING ASUNDER?” Eddie cackled as Mark shrieked, “WILL NONE HAVE MERCY ON THIS POOR CHILD OF GOD?”

The dancers screamed back a collective reply of: NOPE YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN as Tamsin played a doom-laden Beethoven riff. The game had worked. If anybody had seen Mark’s stumble it was forgotten now. Chrissy bit the pad of her thumb as she watched Eddie laugh and rock a screeching Mark in his arms. His ease. His laughter. His wide-open heart. 

If later somebody had asked her– when ? 

Then!

Paul entered the barn and flanked Eddie. They were very nearly the same height, but once on a wine-soaked January night in Seattle Mark had measured them back to back and declared Paul the winner by a half-inch. Paul opened his arms into a basket as Mark wailed, “Thank GOD! A mountie!!!” and Eddie plopped him into his beloved’s embrace. Chrissy felt very tight in her chest. The pleasurable tension of a held breath before release. Then the show was over and it was time for lunch. 

Since two days of sun in a row was something to be cherished, Eddie and Paul had set up lunch in the garden while the company was rehearsing. They’d carried out the long dining room table onto the front lawn facing the sea and stabilized the wobbly legs with a few of the paving stones reserved for the patio Paul was always threatening to build. The seating was mismatched and wonky, a mix of barstools and desk chairs and ladderbacks and even a few overstuffed armchairs from the parlor. The sky was clear and the breeze was dry and the air smelled like cut hay and pine and the sea. Suzanne and Iggy said, “CHRISSY SIT WITH ME” at the same exact time that Tamsin said “EDDIE SIT WITH US” so the lovers exchanged sheepish grins and went to their commanded places across from each other in the center of the table. It was OK! She could still get her foot into his lap!

The food was cheap and scaled to a crowd of twenty, but delicious–radish sandwiches with butter and salt on crusty homemade bread, cold roast garlic chicken, and tomato pasta with basil from the garden. Paul served white wine and homemade lemonade as he extolled Eddie’s skills with the paring knife. Eddie leaned into his elbows and actually went pink as Chrissy bapped his knee with her toes and grinned. People asked him about the tour, and he talked about Dublin and Stockholm, dropping little Theo breadcrumbs for the Exegesis fans (Tamsin had a cuff tattoo which read SLEEPER IN THE VALLEY, the title of their second album) with his master storyteller’s pace. The company laughed when he was funny and listened when he was interesting. She would never, ever, EVER get tired of watching other people understand how wonderful he was. 

Then Mark got to his feet and Chrissy felt a surge of anticipation. He tapped the jamjar which held his wine with a knife until the company quieted. He placed his hand on Paul’s shoulder.

“First. Our thanks to the chefs for the bounty.” From the corner of her eye Chrissy saw Iggy mouth along. This was what Mark always said. 

“Second. I know there has been some talk about the fall and winter season. I know some of you have taken advantage of the void to scheme your own creative advancement. I applaud this impulse. But knock it off.” There were laughs and maybe a few guilty blushes. Then there was silence with nothing but the sound of the waves lapping behind Mark. He cleared his throat and continued. 

“I have a plan. Some of you will be happy with your roles. Some won’t, that’s business as usual. What’s not business as usual is what will follow.”

Chrissy felt her throat go dry. It was time. From underneath the table, Eddie squeezed her ankle tight for strength. 

“After this winter’s Nut, I will step down in my capacity as artistic director of the Mark Mahoney Dance Company.” He paused for the reaction from the group, which was practiced in its restraint–he had been right, Chrissy thought. They knew. Her eyes flicked to Mark’s bare forearms, which he almost never exposed these days. The cluster of dark lesions there. The color and shape of raisins. Sometimes it hit her like the day he had told her and she almost collapsed but didn’t because Eddie’s hand was on her ankle. 

“You’re an intelligent bunch. I imagine this won’t surprise you,” Mark raised an eyebrow as he placed a Newport between his lips. “Nor, then, should the news that Chrissy Cunningham will be my successor.”

Now there were gasps. Only a few, but real gasps. Some involuntary cheers–Iggy grasped her hand and literally said, “Oh GOODY!” as Suzanne and Tamsin and Omar led the applause. Eddie hooted like–well, he hooted like Eddie! Chrissy knew she was salmon-pink across her face. She didn’t dare look at anybody but Paul who caught her eye and winked. And fine she did start to cry then, OK?! 

“I’ve informed the board. They’ve approved. I’ll maintain my chair until such time as–well. You know. At which point Chrissy will assume my chair and all voting rights afforded therein etc etc blah blah blah, who cares! We’ll do a press release in October, and given that I’ve personally fellated every major arts columnist in the Pacific Northwest, I WILL be given the names of anybody who leaks the news before such time as I deem apropos. Is that understood, Leland?”

Chrissy did look now at Leland, whose face remained impassive as he sucked the flat side of a wooden spoon. Mark caught her gaze and raised his cigarette directly to her. She could because she must and because she must, she would. He had told her that when she was twenty years old. It was true every day of her life. 

“She is young. This will be controversial.” Mark smiled. “To those who take umbrage, I would remind you that there was a time when I was adored because I was young and controversial. There is one great blessing we can be given in this life, and that is the gift to decide without fear. I have made this decision without fear.” Chrissy’s eyes never left his face, not even as tears began to course down her cheeks. Eddie’s grip around her ankle tightened and then released. He rubbed the arch of her foot and she loved him anew. Mark ashed his cigarette into his wine and sighed.

“Which is not to say I am without fear in other regards! I’d love to be graceful about this, darlings. Really I would. How chic would that be! But the ugly truth of it is that I am fucking terrified. Oh yes.” 

His voice presented the tiniest evidence of breaking. The group was very still. 

“I am unwilling. I am afraid.” His hand shook as he placed it on Paul’s shoulder. Mark rolled his lips together and raised his eyebrows as if to say, Well? Paul brought Mark’s knuckles to his lips and kissed them. Their eyes did not part. 

“But I am not alone.”

She made up her mind. 

After lunch there was such a cluster of kisses and congratulations and spontaneous cartwheels that Chrissy lost sight of Eddie for a second. Iggy was basically hanging off her like a backpack. Dina (clever, climbing Dina) forgot all other allegiances as she grabbed Chrissy’s elbow and enthused about her deep passion that Chrissy might not have noticed for the role of the Lilac Fairy if they ever did a Big Gay Pass at Sleeping Beauty! At last the well-wishes and questions about casting (oh GOD she really was going to have to practice saying NO or at least WE’LL SEE in the mirror twenty times every morning) got to be too much. She found him at last on the front porch, smoking and looking at the bay. At the sight of her he hopped to his feet. His gaze was so focused on any wrinkles in her mood that she actually blushed like he hadn’t been telescopically-deep in her pussy twelve hours ago. She felt too raw. “I can’t be like, x-rayed right now,” she said and he nodded as the quality of his gaze–his endlessly-permutable gaze–shifted into warm acceptance. He slapped his knee to invite her into his lap. She shook her head.

“Do you wanna go on a walk with me?”

He let her take him by the hand. They snuck past the company, now wine-drunk and sentimental and rolling Mark around on the lawn like a gay croquet ball they were all in love with. They made their way into the meadow. The noise of the house dwindled and vanished. The afternoon sun was warm on her arms and shoulders as they brushed past coneflowers and orange butterfly weed and Queen Anne’s Lace and tall gold grass glowing in the light. Beneath the scent of sweet pollen and hay was the rich scent of damp earth–it was Washington, after all!–which made her think of growth and death all at once. She didn’t cry, though. She turned over her shoulder to look at Eddie, whose pensive face split into the Chrissy Grin (his phrasing) when their eyes met. The sun was behind him as he smiled at her. A halo of light was set across the frizz of his curls.

Oh. Oh! Oh she fucking knew!

He sensed something because he didn’t play when he asked, “Where are you taking me?” She smiled and bit her lip.

There was a channel to the sea which cut straight through the heart of Brautigan Island, fed by some mysterious freshwater spring deep in the woods. Once the dancers had taken a hike through the mossy forest trails to its source, and the churn of the whitewater over the rocks had made Chrissy dizzy. But here, half a mile into the meadow, the water diffused into something broad and slow on the final leg of its journey to the mouth of the bay. The mysterious lumberjacks (of whom Chrissy was now rather fond) had shored up its banks at one point with boulders which had once stood in the way of their timber saws, creating a pool deep enough for diving. 

She sat on the shore and he lay down with his head in her lap. He’d called her every night on the road and filled in the details with long weekly letters, so instead of catching up they talked about the future. They both agreed the LA cottage was probably too much space for them now they were both spending so much time in Seattle, but neither wanted to give it up even though it made no sense. Money , Eddie reflected as she stroked his hair, had a way of making greed easy. This gave them both pause. 

Eddie would stay with her in Seattle through the winter while Theo recovered from the tour and then went to Austria to shadow the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic for…..something…..Chrissy didn’t really get it….but the salient point was that there would be no more travel for either of them until 1995!!! Eddie in particular was buzzing. He had a million plans. He was gonna sit in with Slattern, his sometimes-band in Seattle which consisted largely of other guys in bigger grunge bands (one even from Soundgarden!) who had neither the time nor the inclination to get serious about it. This, Eddie insisted, was the only way he could frontman and not go insane. He was gonna fix the transmission on his beloved Dodge Coronet. He was gonna eat American peanut butter. He was gonna fuck Chrissy every day (that meant HER!!!!). He was gonna finally read Ulysses. 

“And uh.” He looked up at her with his rarest most special precious look, which was shyness. “I’m gonna start typing It up.” He could never say my book out loud. Only It. 

She squealed and his hands covered his face like staaahhhhhhp. Sorry! But he was so wonderful! He could do anything! “Oh, EDDIE, I’m so–that’s AMAZING! Did you finish on the tour?”

He spoke through cracked fingers. “Nooooo but I don’t think I’m ever gonna finish until I get serious about the beginning, so I guess it’s like….up to me. Or WHATEVER.” Chrissy chirped with happiness and plucked at his curls as he went on. “The uh, weirdest part. Is that It keeps on circling back to being about like…the kids. And what they’re feeling. Instead of all the, you know, COOL COSMIC STUFF I was planning…” and she laughed and said, “Eddie, feelings ARE cool!” as he groaned Jesus Christ and tried to bury his face in her crotch. She laughed again and sighed into silence. There was a moment of perfect stillness as he took her hand against his chest and squeezed it. The only sound was the gentle flow of the river beside them. 

Chrissy was suddenly shy. Her heart beat rabbit-fast, a forgotten cadence from long, long ago. She touched his forehead and murmured, “Do you wanna get in the water?”

Eddie said, “SICK, YES, I’m sweating like a hog,” and stripped to his underwear before yodeling banshee-style and wading in. Then he yodeled some more as the cold water hit his dick and Chrissy forgot her nerves as she doubled-over in fits of giggles. He acclimatized quickly and dove deep, once, before splashing back to the surface with slicked-back hair. He had about 89267 dimples and all of them were on display for her. Because of her! 

Oh my God. 

This was her MAN!

He needed KISSES!!!!! 

Possessed by a wild urgency, Chrissy yanked off her yellow cotton dress (Eddie did an Arsenio Hall hoothoothoot and splashed the water with flat palms) and climbed to the top of the tallest boulder. She didn’t mind the height at all. The rock was warm beneath her feet. The water clear to the bottom below her. She didn’t even have to ask. He opened his arms. She laughed as she fell. 

Chrissy landed with a freezing spritz–holy MOLY he wasn’t kidding!–as he caught her. Then he said, “Hold on–” and she took a deep breath as he dunked them both beneath the surface. Underwater, she opened her eyes and he was looking at her. His curls floating dark like seaweed around his face tinted green in the water. She kissed him, cupping his jaw in her hands. He wrapped his arms tight around the small of her back as bubbles popped around their embrace in tiny silver bursts. When they surfaced they were still kissing. She slid her tongue into his mouth and he groaned a little as she wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed the front of her underwear–now totally translucent, she knew–against his belly button. She sucked on his bottom lip and kissed it and kissed the corner of his mouth and his neck too. Then she pulled away. Her elbows rested on his shoulders so she could hold the back of his head. There were two silver hairs now along his temple. They looked like magic thread. 

“I love you,” she said. It felt like she’d never said it before. 

His chest was rising against hers. He nodded. “I love you.” He swam with her in his arms to a place where his feet could touch the bottom and balanced there. He let her look at him. She curled a piece of his wet hair around her fingertip. Magic thread, magic thread. 

“Eddie,” she said.

“Chrissy,” he replied.

“Marry me.”  

He froze. He said nothing. That was OK. She’d been ready for him to be speechless! She took a huge breath.

“I know we said–we didn’t have to. And I still don’t think we have to. But I want to.” He continued to stare at her. She had no fear. None at all. “I want to more than anything in the world.” She brought her fingers to his bottom lip and drew it down just to see it move. He held her so tightly in the water. Over their breathing a Pacific wren was singing. The sun was just beginning to set over the far pines. She continued to brush his hair away from his forehead, her fingers taking special care with the new silver strands. 

“I told you–that Christmas–that I never wanted to take anything with you for granted. That’s all. I know things will change. Everything changes. And the more I see of that, the more I understand how–how it’s not that I don’t want us to change, Eddie. I want us to change together. Through all of it.” 

He took her pinkie to his mouth and exhaled roughly against it, like a horse or something. The stupid thought protected her mind from the intensity of her feeling enough that she could continue. He squeezed her closer and she felt happiness quiver loosely all through her. He said, “I’m here. Forever. No matter what. You know that?” She nodded. She had never, not once in her life, felt so secure as in his arms right now with the question still unanswered. 

“I know.” She brushed his ear with her nose. “I know.” He closed his eyes for a second to let some massive emotion she couldn’t parse move through him. She was patient! When he opened them, she went on. “It’s not about anything except that I want to. There’s nothing. Like. To prove. You have everything I can give already.” And she placed his hand on her chest where her heart now beat in perfect, steady time. 

She kept waiting for some elaborate image to arrive. Some fantastic construct which would explain how she felt in perfect dizzy, dreamy, labyrinthine detail. 

Nothing came. There was only the bare truth of her feeling.

“I want to be your wife. I want to wear your ring. You’re my family. I want everybody to understand that. And, and, I want Mark to marry us. I don’t care if it doesn’t mean anything we don’t already have. I want to. I’ve wanted to for a really long time.” She felt a little flush creep over her cheeks here at how repetitive she sounded. But he would never ever ask her again in a million years so it was up to her to say something even if she sounded silly! “And Eddie if you say no, it won’t change anything–because it’s like you said, we already have each other, but it’s in my heart and you have to know, I need you to know–”

He said, “How’s tomorrow?” 

In the end it rained, so they had to wait three more days which ended up being for the best anyway since it gave everyone time to get things arranged. Among those invited: 

Mark didn’t cry but Paul did, such uncharacteristic hysterics of happiness that even he seemed shocked. At last he blew his nose on his handkerchief and said, “Christ I have to go bake something,” and didn’t emerge from the kitchen until he’d produced a croquembouche tower four feet high which he then ate down to two. 

Paula-Marie and Lisa-Ann could not attend due to a trunk show they were hosting in Houston. But they overnighted a handmade veil for Chrissy of white waist-length tulle. There was a red satin ribbon to fix it to her hair, and all the edges were embroidered in criss-crossing elfin red thread EM CC EM CC EM CC EM CC EM CC. They sent it to the wrong island’s package depot which meant Eddie retrieved it in a foul temper wearing a leaking poncho, muttering fucking twins without really meaning it. 

Meredith sent a king’s ransom of bagels and smoked salmon for the wedding brunch but misspelled Chrissy’s name on the card. She also included papers for Eddie to sign in triplicate. 

Theo arrived a day early. He sported two long platinum blonde braided pigtails now and was accompanied everywhere by a pillar-like beauty unconcerned with gender named Alder. The dancers bore this romantic disappointment well until it became understood that the ball was still in play–as it were–and the starting gun fired for a psychosexual footrace the likes of which Washington State had never seen before or since. 

Babs could not be reached in time, but Amy and JJ lived in Tacoma now (JJ was with Microsoft) and Amy arrived overflowing from her own romantic heart that they’d both married their high-school sweethearts. They came with their three children who by the day’s end were using Eddie as a jungle gym. He took it in stride, tapping his beer against JJ’s with that weird silent respect they’d shared since high school. Amy glanced at Chrissy with a raised brow, but Chrissy blushed and said nothing. 

The Fairviews sent their warmest congratulations and the happy news that Joshua the donkey had recently sired a foal of his own. They’d called him Munson. 

Wayne flew in on a first-class ticket purchased with what the couple now referred to as Snow Cash. He brought his mandolin and his gray sports coat. To Eddie he gave his grandparent’s wedding rings, hidden for years from Leo in Wayne’s most unexciting tax file. To Chrissy he gave a letter, the contents of which she never shared with anyone for as long as she lived. When she’d finished reading it for the first time she wrapped her arms around Wayne’s neck and cried and thanked him as he awkwardly patted her hair. 

Lila was two weeks into her Broadway debut replacing Vanessa Williams in Kiss of the Spider Woman , but somehow managed to have fifty white orchids and six cases of Veuve delivered by hand to the boarding house the day of the wedding. “Oh, isn’t that TASTEFUL,” Mark sighed as Eddie laughed, “Yeah I think you two would get along.” Mark sniffed an orchid and hhmphed. “I get along with everybody. It’s the hallmark of a sterling personality.” 

The dancers loved a project. The hardier ones ventured into the rain-soaked meadow, cutting clear a path through the tall grass for the ceremony. After they were through Omar and Aileen–drenched and grass stained–chased a shrieking Iggy around until they trapped him in a hug which left green fingerprints all over. The more indoor-minded folks inked place cards and tied sashes from Mark’s game to the banisters and the light fixtures and the backs of all the chairs as Paul baked layer after layer of cinnamon chiffon cake. 

Leland decided the move was to serve the absolute most cunt possible at the ceremony and so wore yards of cream taffeta draped around his waist with no shirt and special-occasion barbells through his nipples. He won the psychosexual footrace. 

Laura and Phillip sent their regrets but mailed Chrissy's sixteenth-birthday aquamarine earrings for her something blue and a check for $150 dollars. She sat alone in her room for a long time, turning the box over and over in her hands until Eddie found her. “We can roll a joint with the check if you want,” he offered but she shook her head. “It’s OK, Eddie. It’s–it’s OK.” She meant it. In the end Paul used the money to fix the light switch on the second floor so it would stop electrocuting people. 

Baby Bro Benj of all people did come! He brought Chloe, his girlfriend from IU where they both were freshmen studying American history. They were sufficiently awed by the surrounding weirdos and never quite found their ease on the island. But they stayed for the whole party and Benj after three Veuves did the Roger Rabbit as all the dancers completely lost their shit. Eddie gave him a noogie and Chrissy kissed him on the cheek until he pushed her off like ok JEEZ you don’t have to get so MUSHY about it!!!

Ruth said, “You want me to go WHERE? On a FERRY?” and hung up the phone. 

Mike Wheeler arrived in a navy suit with two inches of ankle showing, prompting Eddie to be like, “Who still has growth spurts at TWENTY-TWO?!?” while Chrissy shushed him and rubbed his back until he settled because he always needed a little more help than her with the passage of time. When Chrissy threw her bouquet Mike caught it and cheered, “Woohoo!” to nobody but himself. He looked hopeful. 

And what of Chrissy and Eddie?

There was no time to shop for wedding clothes, so they raided the company’s costume archives. Chrissy wore a knee-length Willi tutu leftover from a Giselle workshop and a pretty cornflower blue corset with only one cigarette burn from Katrina’s burlesque trunk. Marisa and Jo (flown in from Kansas City where Marisa cheered for the Chiefs and Jo was twice divorced) did her hair half up with soft curls spilling down her back. Her mascara was blackity-black and her lips glowed strawberry pink. Her bouquet was ox-eye daisies and red paintbrush and wild carrot flowers. The black bandana was tied around her pinkie.

Eddie wore a white buccaneer coat from a long-ago staging of Le Corsaire, his own black jeans, and no shirt. His favorite earring–a thick silver drop purchased by Chrissy in Mexico City–shone against his dark curls which the rain had teased into a thousand unmanageable ringlets and cowlicks. His bouquet was blue camas and common sunflowers and lupine. The golden C was pinned next to his crotch. Neither of them wore shoes.

Wayne and Paul had built a kind of chuppah/archway from scrap wood and one sacrificed rattan chair and a reclaimed Irish linen tablecloth festooned with Lila’s orchids. It was placed at the flattest, sandiest bank of the place in the meadow where they’d gone swimming. The mismatched chairs from lunch–-now decorated with sashes and ribbons—formed a crooked but serviceable aisle. Mark stood under the canopy in his pink linen suit with columbine pinned to the lapel and his best septum ring polished for the occasion. Drops of aquamarine twinkled from his ears. The sky was clear and the air was fresh after so many days of rain. The meadow stretched out far beyond on the other side of the river, full of the last summer wildflowers, until it vanished into the pines. 

They walked down the aisle arm in arm at 4PM exactly. Wayne and Tamsin accompanied them on the mandolin–a sweet unpopular song that Chrissy loved, she wouldn’t tell Eddie it was by The Monkees until it was too late for him to object–as they made their way to where Mark was waiting. It was slow-going. There were so many smiles to meet!!!

Under the canopy which fluttered in the breeze, Mark brought his hands to his chest and addressed the crowd. 

“I am vested with no power by any state or religious institution. My words have no authority except that with which we collectively endow them today.” He waggled his eyebrows at Chrissy and Eddie. “Isn’t THAT fun.”

Chrissy and Eddie laughed together and before they could stop it they’d kissed. Then Chrissy said, “Sorry! Sorry!!!” and Mark rolled his eyes. “What am I, a cop? Kiss him till he buckles!” So they kissed again as the dancers catcalled until Wayne cleared his throat because the world needed those who made the trains run on time too. 

“Edward Munson.” Suddenly Mark was composed. Eddie followed suit.

“Do you vow to love Christine Elizabeth Cunningham every day of your life, on purpose?”

“I do.” 

“Do you vow to build with her a home characterized by honesty, grace, passion, privacy, dignity, care, and humor?” 

“I do.” The ants and worms in the meadow that day would report two sets of bare feet which touched and rubbed and overlapped and tapped all along one another's toes (one set of which was painted permanent rose) for as long as they stood facing each other. 

“Do you vow to use sex as a holy tool to enrich your bond and NEVER as a bandaid except when absolutely necessary or maybe when it’s really really REALLY fun?” Amy and JJ covered their youngests’ ears for that one. It was too late for the eight year-old because they had cable. 

“I do.” 

“Do you vow to be brave and faithful both to her and to yourself?”

“I do.”

“Excellently done if God did all.” Then Mark’s breath snagged. Something seemed to occur to him. He inhaled and whispered, oh. He turned towards Chrissy. 

“Hello little bird.”

“Hi Markie.” She reached out and gave his hand a little squeeze. He said, just to her, “Let’s 1-2-3 promise not to cry?” She nodded and they counted together. Mark wrinkled his snub nose once to freeze the tears in place, motorboated his lips together, and continued. 

“Christine Elizabeth Cunningham. Do you vow to love Edward Munson every day of your life, on purpose?”

She looked at Eddie and nodded. “I do.”

“Do you vow to build with him a home characterized by honesty, grace, passion, privacy, dignity, care, and humor?” 

“I do.”

“Do you vow to use sex as a holy tool to enrich your bond with all the equivalent previous caveats?”

Chrissy laughed and said, “Yes of course.” Her eyes did not leave Eddie’s.

“Do you vow to be brave and faithful both to him and to yourself?”

“I do.” 

“Well. In that case.” Mark brought their hands together and lay his own atop them. He looked from Eddie to Chrissy and back again. “I have no notes.” 

As one, the guests were on their feet. There were showers of flower petals–wildflowers mixed with Lila’s orchids–tossed from those positioned on the aisle. Katrina popped a bottle of champagne she’d stored under her chair and foam rocketed across the sky. Wayne wiped his eyes but quickly picked up his mandolin to play the song of Eddie’s choosing for the recessional, accompanied by Theo and Alder singing in harmony a pledge that everyone will be alright tonight. That I am gonna love you ‘til I reach the end. That I will see you in the sky tonight.

Amy and JJ’s kids began to bounce like superballs in the aisle, drunk on the incongruity of adults swearing and dressing like fairies and acting like witches until it became too much and Iggy and Suzanne and Marisa and Mike joined them and then the kids went REALLY nuts. Paul pushed his way through to Mark and held him to his chest and whispered into his ear. 

Through all this. Eddie and Chrissy kissed. 

He held her face in his hands as first she gripped the lapels of his greatcoat while they kissed deep and sweet. Then he pulled back, just three inches, to grin his most private and special grin for her. Inside it was everything. His love. His trust. His boldness. His imperfect faith, rippled through with scar tissue and the stronger for it. His combustive joy. His true sight. His heart. Everything except his horniness which was stored in the dimples currently threatening to crater into the entire central third of his face. 

In his hands, she breathed. And with every breath she felt all that was contained in his grin move through her and find its perfect home. There was a place for all of it. She gazed up at him and knew without words as she stared into his eyes that in this exact moment, there was a place for everything. All strings were knots. All keys had locks. All songs had dancers. All cups were full. 

The moment could not last. It would be unkind to expect that it would. But for this brief, microscopic instant. Everything was held. Nothing wanted. Nothing ached. Nothing lacked. 

She slid her hands up his chest and laced her fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck. She drew him close and kissed him until she levitated up the tip tip tips of her toes as his hands moved to the small of her back to better support her. She kissed his lips and his cheeks and his beautiful neck as he did the same to her and they laughed and kissed and laughed and kissed as they would every day for the rest of their lives, surrounded by music and dancing and the love of their family. 

Then slowly they unwound. They took each other by the hand. They walked away from the crowd under the archway fluttering white against the clear September sky. 

They laughed once more at nothing. At everything! 

And together they stepped barefoot into the river.