Bathic content.

(I'm doing nothing but waiting so here's a post about nothing.)

Lochlan reaches up and turns on the light on the chest of drawers. My face is illuminated in the mirror. Delirious eyes, wild hair. Pink cheeks. He kisses my shoulder, without taking his eyes from mine in our reflection.

Bathtime. 

I close my eyes and he leads me into the big ensuite and I am put on the chair to not fall over while he runs the water in the tub. He adds a capful of rose oil and a capful of bubbles and then one of salts too (which takes away a lot of the bubbles) and then he comes back and takes off the Hello Kitty pajamas I am still wearing. 

We can burn these. 

They're my favourite. 

I'll get you a new set. He kisses my forehead (should we burn that too? I feel like I already am, from the inside out) and I'm neck-deep in bubbles finally. I lie back against the little pillow and instantly slide down so that just my face is visible. 

Good? Lochlan appears upside down above me. 

Come in with me. 

After I wash your hair. 

He sits on the little stool by the tub where I normally keep my phone and washes my hair for me before stripping down and sliding into the tub behind me. The water is now up to my shoulders and I'm still sitting up. He lies back and I use him as a pillow. I offer sleepily to wash his hair and he says he doesn't want salt in it. 

Salt should be in everything, I point out. 

Tomorrow you can have a saltwater bath then. 

I don't know what he means but I close my eyes and breathe in the steam and my throat feels a little better. The doctor is coming after lunch today. He would have been over first thing but he is flying back. It's fine. I'm not going anywhere. Other people have far worse problems. Get to me when you get to me, I think and before I know it our time is up in the tub, because Lochlan doesn't want me to overheat. 

I could live in the bathtub.

Come on, mermaid. Let's get you dry. He steps out and towels his skin off quickly, giving me the most wonderful show while he's doing it. His milk-pink skin, freckles scattered everywhere like sun stars, hair still tied back, woodchopping/fire throwing muscles threatening to blow his white-collar cover, as ever. Tattoos damned never everywhere now and I love it. He was late to the game, but took it up eventually.

What are you staring at?

You. 

Let me return the favour then. He holds out his hands and I take them, stepping ungracefully over the very high side of the tub. He wraps me up in a giant towel and lets the water out of the tub and then comes back.  

Oops. Forgot your hair.

It's fine. 

Another towel and he blots my whole head. (One of the advantages of being with a man with super crazy curls is he doesn't rub your head dry like he's polishing wax off a car. My hair used to be straw for a while there, right through the Cole/Jake/Ben years, but now it's shiny and soft again. God, my brain's going everywhere. It's probably a prion disease). 

I am combed and dressed in clean clothes. A warm baggy sweater and comfortable soft jeans. Matching Lochlan only his sweater is a navy and mine a robin's egg blue. Our jeans are the same shade of dark indigo and he goes back, after a thought, and gets socks for me. Thick cream-coloured wool socks that feel so nice. I am the barefoot princess, usually. 

I wait for a hat and a coat, possibly, but he seems satisfied at last. 

Breakfast-

-I'm starving.

God, I love it when we can read each other's minds. Good girl, he says, and I go weak in the knees.

Hello sicky.

Two in the morning and there's a knock at the door. I startle awake because I'm a light sleeper. Lochlan's hand grips mine and then lets go as he turns over. He's in dreams, at the fair, no doubt. His happy place. Way back at the start. 

I open the door just a little. The Devil's face in shadow from the light from the windows at each end of the hall. 

Neamhchiontach. Will you come to me? 

I study his face in the dark. The expression holds, as if cast in stone and I meet his eyes. Yes. 

I come back to the nightstand for my phone while he waits by the door. Lochlan touches my hand and then makes his warning. 

You bite her again and I'll kill you. 

You have my word. Caleb says it softly in order not to wake up Ben. 

I close the door gently and we move down the hall, around the corner and to his door. He bends down to kiss me on the forehead and then opens the door and waits for me to enter first. His rooms are dark. He wagered on me saying no, or not being allowed. He turns on a few low lights and the gas fireplace and then comes back close to me, pulling me in against his chest, tucking his head down toward mine, breathing in my hair. 

He exhales slowly, as if he has been holding himself tense and ready.  I hold my breath like a line thrown from a ship and I'm in the water. As hard as I can. It forces me to cough and he just holds tighter, smoothing his hand up and down my back as if to soothe me. His hand is warm. 

For once. 

When I stop long enough for him to relax again he steps back away from me, shrugging out of his jacket in one motion. It's fine wool but he lets it fall to the floor in a crumple anyway, and then he takes his cufflinks off. He doesn't unbutton his shirt though and he steps closer again, hands around the hem of my Hello Kitty pajama top. It's a glorified t-shirt. Soft and thin. He pulls it up gently and I raise my arms over my head dutifully. The shirt joins the jacket. He takes his shirt off quickly and pulls me back in to his warmth and I don't mind. It's cold. 

The sound of the rain against the windows drowns out anything he has said so far, or maybe he's said nothing. Either way we stare at each other but don't speak. He lets his pants fall so he's down to his briefs and I'm still in my pants, shivering now. I look at my shirt and he snatches it up, pulling it back over my head, threading my limbs through the holes. 

For now, he reassures himself and again, I say nothing. 

He leads me down the hall into the dark and I can appreciate his form. Strong and tall. Confident in a way that only comes with time and money. A sudden confidence compared to the acting he did at my bedroom door. Just vulnerable enough for me to drop my guards and then back to predictable devil. 

He takes his time. He takes all night, almost. I am not released for sleep just yet though. He isn't finished with me yet. 

And then I cough again and he stops. 

Bridget, are you sick? 

I didn't think I was. It's just a tickle. 

By morning there is a roaring fever to accompany that cough and I can hardly move. No one blames him, though. I am still in my pajamas, and they are stuck to me as I sweat right through them. It wasn't cold. It was chills. It wasn't a delirious dream, it was a fever dream. The best and worst kind all at once.

Honoured.

Home to the Devil and the magician who take notes and are collaborating this morning on breakfast. There's a roaring fire in the woodstove, all my tiny lights are lit and nothing else and the rain pours down outside like a punishment for something dire. They are making marshmallow fluff toast and hot chocolate mixed with coffee. My very own early cafe mocha, as it were. Lochlan makes a last-minute healthy choice to peel an orange, as is his custom so that I don't die of scurvy but I always feel like Veruca Salt at the chocolate factory in life. 

Or maybe that's Augustus Gloop. 

Shakti. Lochlan's voice floods into my head. It's amusing. Caleb can't hear him in here.

Either way, I am well-fed, rested-up, touched-out and content right at this moment. I reach up to hit the pause and Caleb takes credit. Almost instantly, before my finger can touch that invisible but necessary button, he crows that he knew it would work. Lochlan glowers at him but says nothing and I let my arm come back in close against my body for warmth. Not pausing right here, suddenly I'd like to hurry through. Suddenly my handknit sweater isn't warm enough and the fire's heat isn't reaching me and the coffee's grown cold in the cup. 

Lochlan feels it and comes and pulls me in against him, his arm tight around me, fist holding me to his heartbeat. A kiss on the top of my head stakes his claim and I am written into the logs as his forever. I always thought I never deserved it maybe, or that he was simply too good to be true. Oftentimes I thought I would never be good enough or that his standards were so high I couldn't see over the top and then he reminds me that life is simple, that we have what we need and we have each other and I can't hear the devil any more and then Lochlan works his magic and I can't see the devil either and it's a moment I can finally breathe.

Unsavage garden.

Eating Pad Thai in Schuyler's bed, watching Emily in Paris because Daniel offered and I'm not saying no to any of the three offers-their bed, good Thai food and endless feel-good Netflix, and feel-good only. 

Today will not be a sad day, Schuyler proclaimed, remote held high. 

That was yesterday and well, we're still here. This is the very definition of a safe place. There are no ghosts, no frowning allowed and no tears unless we are Working Through Shit and no safe words because these men pay close attention and find no joy whatsoever in hurting people to get off. They also don't throw out sharpened words meant to hurt and they're always up to speed on who in the house needs a little S&D, their very own brand of TLC. 

It involves ones favourite meal, a bunch of happy shows or music, and absolutely no clothing, or clothing optional in winter, as I've been dozing in Ben's big t-shirt all day, as is my habit. I feel almost whole again as neither the ghosts nor the demons can touch me in here.

Told you, Daniel says, and he kisses my nose. Better?

Almost. I yawn again. Schuyler winks at me.

That's it then, we're keeping you for the week.

Build the ark, I'm coming for you.

Ben isn't doing cocaine. He's all about the self-disparaging jokes these days, and yet they take a while. He thinks slower than he used to. The words, the thoughts and plans are all there in his head but his head healed a little thicker than it was before, he says, and so it takes a little longer for everything to come out. 

I always always tease him when he says this, as he has always been thick-headed. Stubborn. Aren't we all. 

And we have have as many bad days as good, here on the point. The barometer is never just for me, though I can be as quiet as they can when things aren't just right. Only I can't fake it along through the hours. I just get more and more wound up, fingers clenched, teeth clenched, miserably tight and miserable indeed and then I explode or I melt, depending on the issue and everyone gets to see everything and I get to keep nothing to myself. 

It's healthier but I hate being the bad guy. 

And so does Ben but Ben is in survival mode. For those who say it's nice to retire before sixty with a catalogue the likes of which he has, for those who say more money is so lovely and that rich people shouldn't complain, for those who do nothing but snark before me from their faceless keyboards, words stabbing my tattooed skin like daggers, drawing endless blood, endless rivers of black and the floods carry us all away, I can only say one thing. 

Fuck you.

8:03/4:31 (we're the worst).

Caleb is at the bedroom door. 

I have something for you, Neamhchiontach. 

Lochlan looks up from his book. We are hibernating today. Having hygge (which is the danish word for fun, if you want to be technical). Clean pajamas, a small fire that we let go out because it got so warm we opened all the windows instead, and breakfast for three, in bed, and I lost a fork and Ben went looking for it which made us all howl with laughter. Then...um...new sheets and more clean pajamas because fork is a similar word to, and sometimes used as, another word that makes sense in the bedroom and then I catnapped and now I'm starving. I have closed the windows because the sun is headed for the cliff of horizon and it's time for another dark cold night and I even checked the sunrise and sunset times and it feels like we aren't getting anywhere here. A few lights on and both boys are now reading. We're unplugged, an acoustic BLB. Off the grid. Well, the lights are electric and so are our hearts but that's it, today. 

What is it? 

He holds out his hand and drops it low. It's a carved lepidolite heart. 

How did you know? 

I was reading up. This one is for restlessness and anxiety. 

Where did you get it? 

I went to a little shop that sells all the crystals. 

Ohhhh and you left me home? 

It was near another store where I was already running errands so I thought I would take a look. 

I love it, it's beautiful. Thank you! 

If you have a list I would like to help you collect them all. 

Like Pokemon? Lochlan calls from inside. 

Hush, you. 

Gotta catch em all, Ben laughs in that slow, infectious drawl he does now. 

Hey man, I read that crystals are taking over the world. Caleb is defensive but light.

I told you! Well, not really but they're so pretty. 

Yes, I like the display in the hall and since you work hard to keep the decorating as woodsy-masculine as you can it's good if you can have something to remind us all that a beautiful woman lives here too. 

I didn't know you cared, Diabhal! Lochlan is in hysterics. 

Shut the fuck up and try harder, Lasraichean, Caleb all but sings it over my head, in through the door. 

And I laugh and hold the cool stone up to my cheek. That was a term of endearment, meaning flame. They're comfort-sparring, today.

Shall I put it with the others? Caleb smiles. So pleased. 

No, I have to cleanse it and then charge it first. 

This is...oddly complicated. 

Not really. They work best when they are cleaned, renewed and charged up with power. 

And how do you do that? 

Either put them in soapy water, sunlight or moonlight and then put them on the white plate with the carvings for a day or two. 

Oh, I see. Then their power is...unleashed? 

I mean, kind of. It's hard to explain. 

Works for me, Lochlan grins, still determined to tease Caleb any chance he gets as he ducks between us. Going to get Chinese food. Need anything else? 

Rain, I call after him. 

Huh? Oh, that day. Ha. You. Lochlan points at me and winks and then he's gone and it's just me, the rock and the devil and a really sleepy Ben nodding off into his pages. 

Thank you again. 

Drink later? 

Maybe tomorrow or the next evening. I have plans tonight.

What rock do I get for loneliness? 

Cocaine, Ben says and he starts laughing again, awake after all.

 It's snowing again. 

*#@%#$&@*!.

매 순간을 치고받아!

Things toasted until they're burnt, martini olives, k-pop and doom metal playlists that alternate between the two, velvet hair ties and Ozark. 

Sam is rapid-fire. Fast. Okay, name the perfect day. 

It's raining like crazy. Lochlan and I wake up, make love, have a long hot bubble bath and then make eggs and toast and coffee. Then we paint for a little while and then go for a walk on the beach, pop into a little restaurant for chinese food. After we get home again we change into dry clothes and watch a movie and then make love again and go to sleep by ten. 

Specific. 

It happens around once every five or six years, just by chance. It's the best day ever. 

I'll make a note of that. I think Matt would be up for it. Sam laughs. Now, a barometre on today. 

I still hate the snow and I'm worn down and I hate this time of year anyway but daylight brings perspective that I don't seem to possess at night hence the drinking, and everything will be okay. 

The drinking. Address this. 

I honestly don't think the three martinis I had this week, spread out across seven days are cause for alarm. 

What would be?

Three a night. 

Definitely. 

Though, having a second is not the end of the world. 

But can you not have any for a week? 

Yes, but I fear the unchecked anxiety will just kill me faster, to be fair. 

To be fair you're not taking your med-

I HATE the side effects. Sam, you know. (Really hard to not full-on whine here but I tried.)

Which is worse?

Side-effects, every time. 

We can keep looking-

I said I was done being a test subject and I meant it, Sam. 

I understand. 

Keep going with the questions, this is fun. 

Favourite song. 

Right this second? The Real by Ateez. 

Hahahahaha that's amazing. 

It's a banger. Just like my life. 

Sam smiles but it's not his practiced, professional smile. It's full-on, with teeth. 

What's happening?

Sam is dissecting my brain in real-time. 

And? 

Sam turns to Lochlan. You're right. It's full of cotton candy and glitter. 

Better than wet clouds, like sometimes. Lochlan smiles back. No teeth though.

Chum deureogayu/춤 들어가유.

George wouldn't let me shovel the sixty million feet of snow we got today so I'm inside spooling up the dance party and making hot chocolate for when everyone is finished and comes back inside. This is oddly one of my favourite things, when there are gloves, hats, jackets and boots flung damn near everywhere, with puddles of snow melting on the floor. 

I hate the snow proper, though, don't get me wrong. It makes me claustrophobic. It's exhausting to get rid of, and it makes it hard to go places, emergency or otherwise and I think fewer people understand that then I would like but that's neither here nor there today and our driveway is completely shoveled. Can't wait until it's fifty percent longer by Easter or whenever the snow is gone and the work begins. 

I want to run though. So bad and the treadmill doesn't cut it. Ben sped it up all the way and then a little more still and I was running flat out and it's just not the same. He put on a video of a jaunt through the mountains of Switzerland and asked if that was better. No, of course not. It will pass. I just need to stay distracted. His eyebrows go up. 

Oh, I can distract you. 

Oh, really? How's that? 

Jump off. I obey his order. No point slowing the machine down and making a graceful exit when one can fly off like a maniac. Someday one of us is going to die playing on this thing and it will probably be me. I already chipped a tooth on it because my timing was off. It's a death trap and it's only good for bad weather or total boredom. It's actually good for nothing, come to think of it. Speed. That's it. 

I did a front walkover over Lochlan's chair last night and misjudged my spatial awareness level for the night and had to be rescued as it were so I'm not really up to running hard anyway. I think I stretched my back and my hamstrings further than they've ever been and now they are adventurers for life. 

I should know better than to be trying acrobatics without a sufficient warm up. Lochlan never ever let me miss the full warmup even if I was still eating dinner. More than once I did stretches with a pizza crust between my teeth, admonishings from Lochlan to put it down or finish it already so I don't choke. I would take my sweet time finishing, just to make him crazy. 

Okay, I'm off. I turn back to laugh at Ben. I stuck the landing, anyway. Now I wait for the distraction. 

Oh, you are the distraction. Wait til they come inside. 

Why? 

Remember that time in the back of the truck? 

Yes. (Oh my God. Found it.)

Thought maybe for old times sake.

You thought for old times sake we should freeze our asses off? 

Yes. Yes I did. He laughs slowly, picking up speed. Just like my run, right out of my mind.

Where can I move where there are still seasons but no weather bombs, domes, tornados, fires, snowstorms or earthquakes?

The snow keeps coming and this just makes my plea for a baby plow/4x4 for yard work that much more interesting. I could just order one but that's no fun. I like it when they do it on my behalf. Hell, not like I'm having much luck this week. I tried to order a custom G wagon for Caleb in robin's egg blue and I got precisely nowhere. I tried to do some taxes and got nowhere. I tried to get motivated and got nowhere. I keep finding the mornings drag and the afternoons rush by and I did buy something today, so there. I ordered a labradorite sphere. I'm hella excited. It looks neat. If all goes well I'll go back for a lepidolite bowl or maybe an agate one or maybe both but that's for another day. Look, a girl has to have something to do when it's snowing this much and there's nowhere to go. 

We're not even going to talk about the necronomicron infection (oh do I mean Omicron? No. Je refuse.) I think at least 4 of us have. 

And we're definitely not going to talk about Schuyler's eyeliner today because some of us might spontaneously combust. Oh my Lord the fire is turned up to seventeen with that one. 

(The fire measurement being the dial on a gas fireplace in my house but whatever, he's making his own fire today.)

I told you there was nothing happening and now I'm going to go make four shepherd's pies.