Chapter 61: Mourning, Rebuilding

I felt like I’d cried nonstop for an entire week. Everyone came by the house and tried to console me, as well as the others close to Crystal. We were all crying or moping around the house; we relished the few moments when we fell asleep exhausted because for a few minutes we were numbed from the events Crystal precipitated.

Crystal was gone, disappeared, and maybe even dead somewhere. I couldn’t even think of her without feeling a total devastation sweeping over me. For two days that first week, I never got out of bed except to go to the bathroom. I didn’t eat. Ellen, Claire, PJ, and Nadia took turns holding me as I cried, or rather as we cried inconsolably together. One of our anchors was gone. The love of my life – our lives – was gone.

Ellen got a short email from Crystal one morning ten days after that horrendous day after her arrest for DUI.

Dearest Jim, Ellen, Claire, PJ, Nadia, and everyone –

Words fail me; I have no explanation for my behavior. I have gone off to a place that I hope will help me return to being a whole person without the bad habits that sunk me. I hope I can recover at this point. I never realized the path I got on was so steep and would end in such a notorious way. I hope you can each forgive me in your own way. I never expect you to take me back, just please forgive me. I love you all, and I already miss you every second of every day. You’re all I can think about. I’ve barely stopped crying since I left; I can’t believe what I did to you all. I love you.

Crystal

P.S., I’ve talked to the court about my arrest, and have that sorted out.

I numbly read the printed page with the email on it, passed it back to Ellen, and then walked out the front door of the house. I sat on the front steps and cried for two more hours. At least, we knew she was safe somewhere she might heal.

My heart scabbed over from the raw wounds Crystal had left, and my uncontrollable crying stopped – at least most of the time. I suppose the others felt the same way. We all knew that each other hurt, so we were especially careful and sensitive about each other’s feelings and emotions. We hurt because of Crystal’s infidelity to all of us. We hurt because she’d left. We hurt because of her drug use. We hugged a lot. We walked on tiptoes.

I felt worse than when Karen had died after our short marriage, partly because I had been betrayed in some way that I had a hard time describing or rationalizing. I blamed myself for a large part of the events that took place; I kept playing the ‘If only’ game in my head, thinking of all the words I should have said or all the actions I could have taken to turn things around before they got out of hand and Crystal imploded.

Crystal and I – the entire extended family – had fostered this loose atmosphere of sex and inclusion with each other. The lines we drew about who was in and out were thin, and wavered. The activities we did with each other varied, but over the past months had gotten kinkier and more perverse when Crystal was involved.

Where we’d often had ‘vanilla’ sex, maybe in the same room with others, Crystal had become insatiable about having a cock in every hole in her body, and if there were more dicks left over, she found a way to accommodate them. Overtime, we’d become more abnormal than our ‘normal’ polyamorous behavior.

We’d seriously underestimated Crystal’s entry into the drug scene. Whereas, I’d gotten Crystal to confess to a ‘few’ episodes with cocaine and ecstasy, the stash we found hidden in her bedroom closet suggested she’d been into drugs several times a week for months. Ellen and I poured all the drugs and pills down the toilet with hatred in our veins about the damage the addictive substances had wrought in our intentional family. Afterwards, we cried some more. That was the day I found out that, like me, Ellen blamed herself for not intervening in some way with her sister. At least we found company in our misery and self-blame.

Terry coaxed me back to work, slowly at first. He eased me back into singing and rehearsing; having me work with PJ on a few new songs. Somehow, I found more inspiration in the sadder songs of the heart, than the lighter, uplifting, or more humorous songs we’d often included in our programs. Cindy coaxed me into doing a couple of cameo appearances with The Hobo Palace band on a couple of gigs within driving distance of Nashville. On one, I rode the Harley with Cindy on the back. I hated to admit that it felt good to get out and away from the house where so much had happened.

Terry and Dan found a way to cover for Crystal’s disappearance, but in our business, it wasn’t unusual for singers to take several months off and drop out of sight. There was a series of phrases that got used: taking a breather, working on some new material, preparing for another film, away on an extended vacation at a private location.

Reluctantly, Claire went off to the west coast to start work on her new movie. I hoped she could put much of this behind her and focus on her burgeoning career. We were open with her about our concerns, and she promised to put a special effort forward to right the wrongs we’d all felt by Crystal’s actions and precipitous departure. She was a good actress, and I knew she could put on a good face when the time came.

Nadia and Sean completed the purchase of their new home about twenty minutes away. The couple spent about half their evenings with us, and half at their home. Nadia’s presence was always welcome, and even Sean was depressed over Crystal’s absence. Nadia made it a point to always be in my bed when she was at the house, and I delighted in spooning up against her sweet and adorable ass after we’d made love. Sean was a very tolerant and loving man.

PJ moved in with Jake Randall a few weeks after her engagement became official and she had the ring, and for a while only Ellen had talked to PJ when she’d telephoned to give us an update on her life. One of the things that helped her mood, besides her engagement and pending wedding to Jake, had been Sony’s adoption of three of her newly written songs to be debuted in a new movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones. They’d be appearing on a companion album of songs; but in their pre-release to a few disk jockeys, the remarks had come back all positive. Sony had been very generous to the young songwriter. Despite Crystal’s disappearance, PJ had insisted to Sony on Crystal and my ability to also sing the songs without restriction after their full release to the market.

PJ’s departure from our house also left me feeling blue. I loved her, and I knew she loved me. I had always told her to find her bliss, and to find someone she loved. I had my ‘loves,’ and I didn’t want to shut her off from something greater for herself.

To Jake’s credit, he displayed unbridled pride in his fiancée’s song writing capability, and crowed about her accomplishments at every opportunity. Much to his own credit, he hadn’t lost the edge he had in song writing; he continued to turn out a hit song every couple of months along with other good music. He and PJ had also started to collaborate on a few songs, so we saw a good union resulting from their partnership.

I ended up celibate for a month after Crystal’s departure, a span of time even I couldn’t believe. I’d been having sex three or more times a day maybe since I got into my road trip. After Crystal’s terrible night, the thought of sex just turned me off. After a month, Ellen gently coerced me into making love to her, and I have to admit I felt as though I made a leap to becoming ‘normal’ again. Ellen and I became exceptionally close, especially since many days and nights we were the only two people there for each other.

PJ hinted that Jake might come around to the idea of polyamory someday; she said she’d been getting him all hot and bothered talking to him during their sex play about threesomes and more-somes with some of us. I detected a more casual demeanor by Jake when he was around Ellen and Nadia, even allowing them to cuddle up to him sometimes when we were together as a group, as PJ would cuddle into me with no overt sexual moves. He’d even allowed Ellen to put his hand on the outside of her clothing over one of her breasts. To her credit, PJ only gave Jake an encouraging smile. Maybe something might change, but for now they were a fine monogamous couple.

Terry flew to California for three weeks. He had a series of appointments lined up, plus he intended to stay a couple of weeks with Tina Devoe, the pretty cougar and Sony senior executive I’d met in Michigan about six years earlier during my road trip. He also spent a couple of nights with Claire who was in LA doing a film, and in Jill Danes bed along with Helen, her agent. Like the rest of our group, Claire, Tina, Jill, and Helen were nymphomaniacs, so Terry came back exhausted and sexually sated from his time in LA.

Terry lined up another movie that Crystal and I could do together, but until we knew what Crystal intended to do about her future, he got Sony to put things on hold. In this movie, Claire would be our full-fledged co-star, a point that made me happy because of the increased importance of her role in the movie. She wasn’t just a minor character; she had a pivotal role in the plot and would appear often. That said, none of us had heard directly from Crystal, and we wondered if we’d ever see her again.

Claire’s performance in Downslope had gone well; and if anyone had deduced who she was, no one made any comment about her history in adult films or as an escort. She received praise by some of the reviewers who kept an eye out for new talent, praise that no doubt paved the way for Terry’s success in landing us all in the same movie.

Dan and Cindy Wonder started dating and instantly got serious about each other. The pair flew to Vegas for a long weekend and came back married. A few weeks later, we threw a reception and party for them. They had already become ‘an item’ before their elopement, but their wedding did come as a surprise to all of us. Dan and Cindy continued to spend ‘quality’ time with us, and now Cindy became a ‘regular’ member of our polyamorous family showing up at our house with Dan a couple of evenings a week if she were in town and not out doing a gig with her band, The Hobo Palace. The pair gave each other free passes to play at our house.

I went up to Greenville, Ohio one weekend a month to see my children and visit with George, Summer, and Edie. Ellen had tipped off Summer and Edie what had happened with Crystal, so they were especially loving and supportive on my first few visits there. By early September, Edie was almost six months pregnant with my child, and I was getting primed for the call to come back to Greenville for my third child’s birth. I knew almost instantly when she’d conceived. Edie had come to visit and help spin the news to minimize damage from our extended family’s little ‘sexting scandal.’ Fortunately, all those headlines went away, but not without some minor fallout. I had the opportunity to make love with Summer and Edie again on each visit; something I never tired of. The two women are dear to me, and I always want them to be part of my life. Crystal had liked George, and on some of my visits she came along and the two of them paired off.

A month after she’d left Nashville, Crystal started to communicate with her mother, but not too frequently; just enough to let her know where she was and that she was all right. Kim would call Ellen and me after she’d talked to her daughter and tell us what Crystal had said. Through Kim, we knew Crystal had checked herself into a rehab facility and was getting constant care from a psychiatrist and other doctors. Kim thought we’d do better not knowing where the facility was, and we didn’t press the issue. Kim did tell us that it was ‘out west’ somewhere.

We didn’t know what Crystal’s mindset was about all of us, and despite Kim’s questions to Crystal, there was nothing to share. Were we to interpret her lack of communication as a final decision on her part to severe her ties with us? Did she plan to come back and try to pick up where she left off? Something in between? We were at a loss for what she might be thinking, and I fear the worse – that I’d never see her again. When I felt like that, I’d go off and have a good cry.

Crystal and Ellen’s parents, Kim and Don came to Nashville for a two-week visit. Nadia and Sean stayed with us then, mainly so Nadia and Don could go off together and make love in the evenings. We laughingly referred to Don as having been ‘grandfathered’ into Nadia’s polyamorous agreement with Sean. Don was nearly forty years older than Nadia, and theoretically could have been her grandfather.