Ben cleaned out the truck.*

That is all.

*(Sillies. They're mine. Well, until he eats them.)

Crazy dream.

I made a huge dinner last night. Pork brined and roasted in a thick mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, buttered and salted, steamed broccoli and fresh garlic-buttered dinner rolls. I made too much food and still we ate it all and then after hockey was over, we retired to the theater to watch The Lightning Thief. I curled up in the corner of the big sectional and put my head on Ben's chest. He was sacked out directly in the center of the couch, feet up on the coffee table, warm as toast for a change.

Lights out.

I was told it was a good movie.

I got up and refreshed some drinks and put the children to bed and we headed back downstairs to watch The Song Remains The Same. I put my head down again on Ben and that was that. Out for the duration. (Sorry, Robert, nice jeans.)

I really think some sort of sleeping gas is piped from the Blu-ray player that only affects Bridgets. Now when the boys want to watch a movie they call it 'putting the baby down for her nap'.

And no one sings me lullabies
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky.

I love it when Lochlan gets new tattoos.

Beauty.

Shades of this night from two years ago.

The doorbell rang right as I was cleaning up dinner tonight. I went to answer it and to my surprise Caleb was standing on the verandah with John. Between them was a large object wrapped in a padded moving quilt and on top of that was a small white box tied with a green velvet ribbon. John stepped forward and kissed my cheek awkwardly and gave me a brief hug before retreating to the Escalade and Caleb waited patiently until I addressed him.

What is that? Is that a television? We don't need a television.

It isn't a television, Bridget.

I'll get one of the boys to come and get this...whatever this is. Just a minute.

Too late, Ben appeared behind me, looking over my head at Caleb. Caleb paled and cleared his throat.

I figured if you weren't coming back you might need these to work from home, that is, if you still plan to continue. We can talk later in the week, I've got plans this evening and I'm late. Goodbye, Bridget. Ben, take care.

Ben nodded and I felt the bottom of his mask crack the top of my head. I turned around and he was in his hockey gear again. This is the new stuff that he's been trying to break in all week. He looks imposing in it, I know he came out on purpose to scare Caleb. Ben is very subtle like that.

Would you stop that?

Ben just laughed.

Look at him run, Bee. Look at him go. Holy Christ, he's practically breaking a sweat.

I covered my mouth with my hands. It was funny. I'm sorry! I enjoy it when Caleb is uncomfortable for once instead of everybody else.

I turned my attention to the mystery packages still sitting on the verandah. I stepped out and collected the smaller box and Ben picked up the big one, depositing it inside the front hall. I already had the small box open.

A brand new white Blackberry Torch. The one I threw the other day when I quit turned out to be my work-issued Blackberry bold, (identical to Caleb's) and it's been all scratched up since. I love this new phone. It's beautiful. Caleb feeds my love for cellphones the way the other boys feed my need for affection. It's glorious and disgusting all at once.

The big package turned out to be my desk from Caleb's loft. The beautiful one I begged to have at the house. Now here it is. Wow.

It looks perfect, right where I thought it would. In the nook at the bottom of the stairs. I put my laptop on it. And a tiny lamp. And a jarful of pens and pencils for drawing. I stole a chair from the kitchen to put at it for now. I sat down and felt like all the pieces were falling into place maybe for once.

It could happen.

A 16-hour drive to San Francisco.

I have been charged to write a list of ten things I don't like. This is courtesy of Sam, who likes to keep me on my toes when he is here and frankly New Jake is STILL talking and I can't think but hey, it's Friday and Fridays are always really good days because on Saturday the dog sleeps in for a whole hour and I can catch up on my rest because of course I stayed up until midnight or some equally crazy thing.

Hmmm *crickets*.

Okay, fine, Sam. Here goes nothing.

1. prawns.
   
2. slippery roads + tailgaters.
3. sixteen-month-old laptops failing when you are damn well aware all of the American versions of said laptop with same said issues south of the border get recall fixes. Fuckers. Three times in four years! Three different brands, no less. I have a macbook now. Hold your breath.
   
4. Incredibly shallow people who will dismiss someone based on their clothes/job/race/sexual orientation.
   
5. isolation.
6. Oatmeal from scratch. Gross. I much prefer the sugar-laden instant stuff.
   
7. injuries that prevent running.
8. Size discrepancies in clothing. Junior, petite, misses, and regular. What the fuck.
   
9. Bad bakeries.
10. gin.

There. That's all I can come up with. I could be all global and discuss the Canadian political climate or the price of oil or that ridiculous skinny jeans fad but really, I gotta say, please don't order me anything with prawns.

(The title of today's post is simply a random fact. And a nod to the TSA. That is all.)

Chills.

Hark how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say
Throw cares away

We are standing in the front hall in the dark. I am tired. It's been a long day. I rest my head against Ben's chest. I can feel his heart beating. Slow. Steady.

Lochlan returns from the kitchen with orange juice in a glass. He takes a sip before handing the glass to me. I'm not paying attention so Ben takes the glass and lets go of me, steering me forward. Straight into Lochlan's arms. I shake my head just once, a useless protest, pointing out how late it is more than anything. This is when they are both awake, fired and confident. This is when I am beginning to fall away from the day, vaguely combative and yet well aware of how far we will go before sunrise.

Lochlan brings his hands up to my head and kisses my cheek. I am breathing him in. As soon as he starts he is finished, turning away, reaching back for my hand and pulling me with him from memory. I follow him up the stairs. We are silent. The house is asleep. Ben is right behind me. I always fight the urge to run up the stairs as fast as I can because they have always chased me under threat of a tickle war. It occurs to me that it's good we are still so silly after all these years.

And sometimes so serious too.

The door to my room stays locked behind me to keep our secrets inside, stacked neatly beside the memories, cataloged and arranged in chronological order. Ben's hand slides over my face and I am left to his inclinations now. He becomes a part of me and I am so grateful and so exhausted tears mix with joy on my face though it's almost too dark to see. Truth and trust take center stage together. The spotlight burns out, taking away any remaining shame and I am soaring now, safe in arms. Safe to do what I want, safe to make mistakes, safe to divide myself right down the middle. A dotted line. Sign here with no excuses, please and thanks, take what you want with no apologies. And just never ask me to choose because I won't do that ever again.

My lips burn and my flesh is raw as we work our way through to blissful sleep, to the rest of that orange juice, in the glass beside the lamp. The alarm goes off too soon and I can't reach it, not for the rubber limbs but for the fact that I wake up locked in Ben's arms, my head on his chest. I have to wake him in order to reach the button to turn off the music. Only I don't want to turn off the music and so I put my head back down and listen as Ben's heart beats in time with the song, with the rain, with Lochlan's heart and with my own and I am struck by how perfect imperfect love is.

Electrocute.

Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
~Charles Baudelaire

There's a steady drone today, an undercurrent competing with the drumming of the rain on the windows today. The glass electrified, dangerous, the view of the deadly seas comforting if only for the color, this beautiful dark green-grey shade that only makes itself known when you stare directly into it and allow the waves to wash over you, drowning you and teaching you to float all at the same time.

They were right about the rain here.

But I still think things are better overall.

Tonight is Ruth's very first band concert. Everyone is going to cheer her on and hear her play with her entire group. It's going to be mayhem and it could be fun too. After bedtime I have a date with my two favorite boys for a late supper. We need to get back on track. We need to chill together a little more. Maybe a lot more. I need to chill out altogether.

A lot. A whole lot.

More than a lot.

Tons.

Oodles. Boatloads. Meh, you get it.

Made in heaven.

Even angels have their wicked schemes
And you take that to new extremes
But you’ll always be my hero
Even though you've lost your mind

I'm telling you Ben is different. You're not listening.

Jake always refused to indulge Lochlan. Jacob met Lochlan and based on what I told him about each and every friend, Jacob refused to buy shares in history and instead kept his savings invested in the present, painstakingly reminding me to live for now, because the past is just that, the past.

I failed.

I failed spectacularly, elisting Lochlan to pay Jacob back. I've had Lochlan pay back everyone who's ever wronged me and yet I'm pretty sure I drove them all to madness because of Lochlan in the first place. Rather than be outraged, you should be used to this. This is the way things are and that's one of the most amazing things about Benjamin. He wrote me a free pass and I became his boomerang girl and it works and I'm happy (in relative terms) and things are good.

Oddly Jacob believed in Ben. And Ben was a spectacular mess in the Jacob-days. Spectacular with a capital B. Holy fuck. Jacob must have been one hell of a visionary to see past what Ben presented to the world as himself.

Ben is the polar opposite of everyone. Every single one of them. They say white, he says black. They say light, he says dark, they say steaks, he says lipgloss. They tell him to be quiet, he'll blow the roof off. They tell him to relax, oh, Jesus, don't ever tell Ben to relax. He'll revolt. Implode. Break things. But only when you tell him to calm down. He's lost the most here and he wears it on the outside.

But they can't push Ben the way Jake got pushed around, second-guessed and ignored. Ben has nowhere to go but up, he's got nothing to lose by rebelling against the entire collective and they learned a long time ago he's going to do what he wants and no one's going to be able to stop him anyway.

Not sure if it's the constant exchange of bodily fluids or some sort of marriage-osmosis but it seems to be contagious. Healthy emotional cooties we've been sharing now for years. Hey bee, what do YOU want? Do that, and don't worry about what they say.

That's why I quit. I took a page from Ben's big book of Personal Anarchy for Dummies and I said enough. I said I was never fucking going back and I was rude and unladylike and I may or may not have thrown a BlackBerry (not mine, do I look like an idiot to you?) and I made a bit of a scene in the lobby when Caleb had the completely scary and unexpected nerve to chase after me when I left.

As usual, Caleb refused to accept my resignation. As usual he blamed everything on Lochlan because in case you didn't notice, they don't interact with each other. As usual Ben feigns disinterest in everything EXCEPT my bodily fluids. As usual Bridget spent the day having a tantrum. As usual it accomplished nothing.

As usual Lochlan is throwing down his customary ultimatums and as usual they're not going to last long enough to take hold. Ask Ben. I'll be in the library chewing on pages, choking on words. Call me when he comes home.

***

Ben came home two hours later, throwing the front doors open wide, his giant boots tracking wet leaves all the way across the foyer. I felt the vibrations of his footsteps from where I sat on the floor in the library. He threw the doors to that room open too, switched on the lights, took one look at me and crossed to where I sat against the glass, my back turned against the evening's black skies. He stopped when he reached me, crouching down in front of my face. He smelled like leather and forbidden cigarettes. He lifted up my chin and smiled at me. Gently and not like a monster. Not like everybody else.

You decide what you want to do.

No ultimatums, just letting me figure it out. Not because he's spineless, not because he's a pushover (God, sometimes I hate you, Internet), but because he watches. He watches fucking everything, and he's smarter than the rest of you by far. I have to figure this out and he knows it. I am not his child, I'm an adult. As depraved as he is, I am a grownup in this relationship too. An equal.

A match.

Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, and then plugged his headphones into it and put them in my ears. Then he pressed play, put the phone in my hands, and kissed my forehead hard. Then when the music started he stood up, turned around and left, shutting off the lights and pulling the doors closed behind him. He knew what I needed. No one else ever does.

Unpredictable (louder than you).

What the FUCK, iTunes? You took away my play count?

I give up.

Unless he did something. It wouldn't surprise me. I know how to set it up to play one song on repeat infinitely, cranked up to forty so that the windows flex and he gives up on trying to make calls because 'his assistant is doing some high-volume editing today'.

Yeah, of her BRAIN.

Sheesh.

I'm still damp just from going from the car to the door this morning and back again in the rain. I'm still annoyed that I had to be there even though I can do all of that from home and I'm frustrated that on our territory (the house), he is cordial and emotionally level and on his territory he is manipulative and willing to push me so hard I slid all of the glass out of the windows so the whole city could enjoy the October Rust album but just that one song and I kept sticking my head out into the rain dozens of stories up in order to feel less dead and less afraid around him.

I don't think Caleb even noticed, he was too busy picturing my O-face or maybe plotting to pump deadly noxious gas into Ben's sound booth and give me that hat trick that will make everything okay for him. Then he can do something to Lochlan's bike and Lochlan will go out in a ball of fire and then frankly, Caleb would have everything he ever wanted. Except my mind would be long gone and the shell would be just that, a shell. A corpse. Probably pretty at the beginning but when pretty things die you're better off with the memories because the rest will fade, the color running down onto the floor, shades of grey left behind. Everything growing stiff and unrecognizable.

Yeah, all that and I stood beside him waiting for a fucking signature while he looked out the window and choose to ignore me and I choose not to go any closer so we were even and eventually he turned and walked away, not signing my work so I could have it sent to the bank and he TURNED OFF THE MUSIC and I left. Because really, who the fuck needs a boss like that?

And who the fuck needs an assistant like me?

Find someone else, asshole. This asshole quits.

Of course, Ben thinks this is hilarious. Because he said the poison gas thing only happens in the movies, and Lochlan would know something was wrong with the bike before he left our driveway, and I'm never at Caleb's loft as his employee but rather as his muse and he doesn't need me to or care if I actually get any work done, as long as he can be near me. Like Cole. Like Jacob. Like everyone.

Ben put my song on. At a volume of eight-five. It is so loud I can't even hear it. Awesome. I get my own glass booth just for fun. The big headphones. I'm going to bring a bed and live in here. No interruptions. Just music.

I will have lunch here with Ben and then head home so I'll take my knocks later.

The new favorite song. (Sorry, Lochie).

Now like a bird
She flew away
To chase her dreams
Of books and praise
Still I miss her
Yeah I miss her
Since she's gone
At JFK
Who played the fool?
Self pity sick
Jet fuel perfume
Still I miss her
Yeah I miss her
Since she's gone
Girl I want to die with you
In each others arms
We'll drown in flame
If this time were the last time
Could I hold you all life long?
Since this time is the last time
Can I hold you all night long?
Lay your head down for the last time