Crystal ClearChapter 31: Mourning, Rebuilding, Hope, And Lovemaking free porn video

I cried almost 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 total devastation sweep over me. For two days that first week, I barely 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 was gone. Crystal had been the glue that held us all together.

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

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

Words fail me; I have no explanation for my terrible 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 and know that I am sorry to my very core. 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

I numbly read the printed page with the email on it, passed it back to Ellen almost without emotion at that instant. I then walked out the front door of the house, sat on the front steps, and cried for two more hours. At least, we knew she was safe somewhere she might heal.

My heart slowly 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 hurt because some nefarious force had taken her over and made her forget about our love. We hugged a lot. I felt worse than when Karen had died after our short marriage, partly because I had been betrayed in some way 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 more kinky and perverse when Crystal was involved. In hindsight, things like that had changed a lot, only I hadn't ascribed any particular cause to it. I was so dumb; I should have seen the link to the drugs and even studied on what their effects would be.

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 lovemaking 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 Ellen found hidden in Crystal's bedroom closet suggested she'd been into drugs more than a few times a week for months. Why hadn't I searched her closet when I first knew she was taking some hard drugs. 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 after a month, 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 I felt so much had happened. I started to think about moving away.

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 or album, away on an extended vacation at a private location. Not everyone knew they were euphemisms for 'disappeared' and 'in drug rehab.'

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 despite carrying part of the heartbreak we all felt.

Claire more than any of us remained the most levelheaded. She'd seen others of her friends go through the same thing years earlier when she was an escort and porn star. The industry she'd been in seemed to thrive on drugs and sex. She'd seen various endings from suicides and ODs, to complete recoveries. Because we knew Crystal had sought help of some kind, she was highly optimistic that someday she'd recover, at least enough to return to being a functional adult again.

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 week 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, but then I started to work with PJ up at the Nashville studio. One of the things that helped PJ's 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 else she loved and could be more traditional with. 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 was 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. Soon after, Nadia helped.

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 moresomes 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 but 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 that flirted a lot with us.

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 L.A. for her movie, and often 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 L.A.

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 or supporting actress; 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. Somehow, we also got through the premieres of the movie with Crystal missing, citing a bad flu; I went to a few of the movie releases in major cities, but for the most part, we just let the movie be released without much fanfare.

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 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 were dear to me, and I always wanted them to be part of my life. Crystal had liked George, and on some of my visits she had come along and the two of them paired off.

I flew down to Jacksonville one weekend when I found out that Kim Hume was going to be there. She welcomed me with open arms, and listened as I ranted and raved about Crystal and everything that had happened. She'd been working seven days a week heading up her solar technology business, a business that had leapt into the 'big time' with an IPO with a multi-billion dollar capitalization.

Kim talked me through a lot of the bad stuff, giving me hope that we all might return to some semblance of normalcy. She also got me to stop beating myself up for my sins of omission in dealing with Crystal's drug use, plus my failure to read between the lines about her sexual behavior. I had been right; seeing her made me feel better.

Kim and I also connected on multiple levels – mind, body, and spirit, when we made love. Reestablishing that connection proved more important to each of us than we realized, so we pledged to be together more frequently. Kim's husband had given her a free pass with me.

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. The other Kim in my life would call Ellen and me, and after she'd talked to her daughter she'd tell us what Crystal had said. Through Kim Lee, we knew Crystal had checked herself into a rehab facility and was getting constant care from a psychiatrist and other doctors. Kim honored Crystal's request to not tell us where she was, other than it was in the Sun Belt. She thought we'd do better not knowing where the facility was, and we didn't press the issue. Kim added 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. She said that whenever she asked Crystal about us, that she'd start sobbing uncontrollably. 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 feared the worst – that I'd never see her again. When I felt like that, I'd go off and have a good cry.

After the shock of the whole sordid scene had worn off, I had forgiven Crystal – forgiven but not forgotten. I wouldn't be able to live with her if drugs were involved, but for what had happened in the past, I was more than willing to try to put that behind us. I wanted Crystal back – we all did, and we commiserated daily about how we would love her to pieces if only she'd return to us. We tried to get Crystal's mother to communicate our feelings to her.

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 about forty years older than Nadia, and technically could have been her grandfather.

Crystal's mother felt chagrined about Crystal's drug use, having no idea she used anything other than pot the one time Crystal had gotten her to try the drug. Kim said that the night Crystal had shared a doobie with her was her first and only time in her life on anything like that. She also felt guilt, wondering if in raising Crystal she had done something wrong that put her on the path to self-destruction. Everyone that Crystal knew had self-recriminations about something they did or didn't do that might have led to Crystal's demise.

Kim, Ellen, and I also cried a lot about Crystal and the damage she seemed to have done to herself and to our intentional family. We knew she had fallen into some kind of dark pit in her life, and that the care she sought would hopefully chase away her demons. Every aspect of our spirituality came into play, and we prayed as each of knew how for Crystal's redemption.

During their visit, I took care of Kim in a way that made her eyes roll around in her head. At her request, and with a great deal of care and lubrication, I introduced Kim to anal sex, something she said she had to try at least once in her life. After she'd gotten used to that, she announced she wanted to be DP'd, so Sean came and assisted one night while we expanded Kim's horizons in that way as well. At one point, she screamed so loud in pleasure, I thought the Nashville Police would come to investigate. Don had watched his wife with Sean and me, with Nadia impaled on his cock, and his mouth hanging open on what his wife urged us to do to her and what she was saying – lots of dirty talk. As they were leaving, Kim made me promise to create a repeat performance at some later date.

Nancy Martin, my sexy friend from the CIA who had sent me on a 'pickup mission' in Russia, drove to Nashville from Langley, Virginia, to spend a few days with us midsummer. Terry, Ellen, Claire, Dan, Cindy, and I turned her every which way but loose, much to her delight. The mystery about Nancy's life and work intrigued Terry, and he promised he'd come and visit her in DC after another trip to L.A. Nancy had taken a desk job in DC, instead of continuing fieldwork in Europe; that was about all she could tell us about her 'government' employment. Nancy did tell us that Tanya, a lover and contact I'd made in Moscow, had immigrated from Russia to England on a permanent visa, and that she now worked for MI6 in London and was practically speaking English like a native.

Over the summer, I got a letter and photo from my sexy detective Margo and our graduate student friend Caroline from London. Caroline had briefly been a suspect when someone was blackmailing me, and that was how I met Margo and reconnected with Caroline after a historic debutante's orgy in Oklahoma during my road trip.

Ellen knew about the Oklahoma orgy from years earlier as well as the blackmail threat that had erroneously followed by a sick young woman. I showed Ellen the letter and photo from Margo and Caroline. She initially laughed.

As we sat with Margo's letter and the photo between us at the kitchen bar, I started to rethink aloud that evening in Oklahoma. I said to Ellen, "You know what I did at that Debutante's Ball in Oklahoma was probably worse than what Crystal did at that roadhouse bar. I'd never met those debs before that night, yet I fucked every one of them in the spirit of 'fun.' Wasn't that what Crystal kept telling us at the police station, 'it was all so much fun!'"

Ellen looked at me in shock, but I continued. "True, Crystal had given me a green light to go for anything I could find in a sexual way during my road trip. We knew we might be soul mates, but because of my travels neither of us had put any kind of hold on the other, especially about sex. When I told her the details, she laughed, and later we fucked like rabbits."

Ellen said in a voice tinged with shock, "Whoa! Wait a minute. You don't have to make excuses for my sister. This isn't a tit-for-tat game, particularly for something you did in the open five or six years ago. She fucked up big time – with you and with all of us. What she did was different, plus like it or not, there's still a double standard although I know you think we should all be treated equally."

She went on, "Your little orgy in Oklahoma is NOT a mitigating factor in what Crystal did, and don't make it one. She got into drugs and fucked lots of guys outside our circle without any of us knowing – she made it a secret. We had a tacit agreement not to venture outside those bounds without the permission or knowledge of the others in some way, and when we did the person we were with had to be acceptable to the rest of the group whether they were there or not."

I ventured, "But with Crystal, the booze and drugs removed her inhibitions. She admitted she didn't know the names of most of the people she fucked that Friday night in that bar's backroom. Well, isn't that the same – except for the booze and the drugs?"

Ellen shook her head, "You're making up excuses to let her off the hook. She did drugs. She got drunk. She had unprotected indiscriminate sex with at least a dozen different guys she didn't know – and she'd also done it all before that night she got arrested. In my book, and it should be your book too, she was a three-time loser."

We'd each gotten tested immediately after Crystal left, but fortunately we came up sexually clean. Claire guessed that Friday night might have been the first time Crystal took on the 'whole bar' – something she'd seen some of her friends in the porn industry do when Claire had been in that line of work. Claire assured us she'd never indulged that way. That said, Crystal had admitted to the women after I'd left on her last day, to prior group sex sessions with people we didn't know and whom she didn't know well.

I struggled in my debate with Ellen, "But if I don't give Crystal a little slack, I'll never be able to fully forgive Crystal, and I want to try to go back to the way things were – maybe, if she'll let us go back. If she even comes back to us."

I thought for a minute. "Look, I know your sister had a few lovers before I arrived on the scene, but since then, up until this shit storm, I'd known about every one of her lovers. Heck, I'd even encouraged her to take on some of them even when I didn't know them, for instance, George Rinard when she did her movie in Europe."

Ellen shook her head again, "Didn't Crystal tell you that YOU made her feel like no one else in the world – emotionally and physically? She told us all that we turned her on and made her feel more loved than anyone in the world. If that's the case, then why did she go and fuck around on you? On all of us?"

"But, am I not being a hypocrite if I get mad at her for those months she did this, but I gave her these permissions at other times. I even orchestrated some of them because I thought they'd be 'fun' just the way she talked about it. I knew it would turn her on and excite her; that those sessions would make her happy."

Ellen came and sat in my lap, planting a kiss on my forehead. She said, "Nope, dramatically different. She shattered all the expectations we had about her, and what her relationships with us were supposed to be like. She knew how we thought about her, and knew what we expected of her. Because she hid what she did, she knew what we'd think of her and what she was doing at that roadhouse. She broke faith with us." At least Ellen was talking logically, and so was I for that matter; we weren't breaking apart into racking sobs that took hours to end.

Ellen continued, "If I'd been the one drugged, drunk, and laden with bucket loads of cum, how do you think Crystal would have reacted that night? I'll tell you – the same way I reacted to what she did. Sure I've fucked lots of guys in our circle and played in some of our games, for instance, at Jill's first party we went to. BUT, I wasn't hiding it, sneaking around, not sharing the experience with the people I loved, and certainly wasn't having a crisis of self-recrimination. I stayed within the bounds of everyone's expectations, including my own."

I had to admit a good part of life is all about managing the expectations of the people around you. When I went off with Claire to take the Galapagos vacation with the Mansards, Crystal expected there would be some indiscriminate screwing on the trip; she'd even mentioned 'deck hands' as she pushed me out the door with a smile and lecherous laugh. Luba and Renata appeared almost as if ordered up by Crystal, and they would have fit well with the circle if all of us had been there. I wasn't so sure that some horny dudes out for a quick piece of tail in the backroom at a county-line bar would fit in the circle; that had been Crystal's choice alone, and she DID know that we wouldn't have approved. Crystal hadn't managed the expectations of any of us – not about her drugs or drinking or fucking strangers. She knew we would have chastised her and asked her to stop; hell, before the 'DUI night, ' I'd already had asked her several times to stop the drugs – to go back to our 'No Drugs' life style. We were all let down by her actions.

I nodded in agreement with Ellen, "You're right. Each of our relationships is based on a set of expectations. What's right in one situation and time, isn't right even a day later even in duplicate circumstance. Expectations are fragile and easily broken. With our polyamorous group, we've been so careful about sharing and getting opinions from each other before we lock in some new behavior or change a relationship in some way. I think of how we've all supported Claire in her relationship with the Mansards."

Ellen said with some sense of finality to our brief talk, "I think I know why Crystal left that morning."

"Tell me."

"Crystal had to face reality that morning, particularly when Claire and I raged at her and you stood there with a look of supreme disappointment and disillusionment on your face that I hope I never see directed at me. Crystal had expectations about herself, and suddenly she realized she'd failed not only you, me, Claire, and the others, but also herself. She'd failed to meet her own expectations, and that might have been the worst of any situation for her."

Ellen went on, "Suddenly, Crystal realized she'd become a person dependent on recreational drugs like ecstasy and cocaine, and for all her life she'd been adamant that she'd never touch the stuff. She never wanted to drink to the point she'd lose control, and she'd apparently started binging – at least that one night. She'd always pledged her love in terms of mind, body, and spirit to the people she adored, and going out for raw fucking didn't come close to that image of herself. The word 'fun' for her had become shorthand for violating what she'd held as core values."

"So she ran?"

Ellen shook her head, "Yeah, except she tried to run away from herself."

I ventured, "But, you can't run away from yourself."

Ellen replied, "She had to get outside help to get her back on track; that's why the rehab facility. I don't know what they're like, but I'm hoping they have doctors, psychiatrists, and other people who work with you – who help you get back to where you want to be."

"Do you think Crystal will come back and be the way she was before all this started?"

"I doubt it. She's been through hell – a hell of her own making, and she knows it."

Ellen thought a minute and added, "She'll come back with scars and damage that'll take a long time to get over. If she comes back, she'll be carrying a lot of guilt about what she did to you, me, and the others. She may not be able to handle that guilt and be in our presence. I just don't know."

Tears came to my eyes. "Ellen, I don't want her to feel guilty with us. I just want her to come back a whole person, even if we never get together again. I just want her well. I hope she comes back, even if just to allow us to talk to her – to tell her we love her ... that I love her."

Ellen gave me a big hug and a kiss. "Jim, whatever you decide will be the 'right' answer in this mess. There are no expectations about how this will end for any of us. Crystal's left that all up in the air by not talking to us. Sure, we'd all like to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, but we can't. The world has turned many times since the damage, and we've all had to think about it, digest it, cope with it, and try to come to some resolution about it. But there's no right answer here. If you don't want her back, that's OK. If you want her back, even with a lot of conditions, that's OK too. We will still love you, and we'll still love her."

I just whispered back, "Thanks." I think I stared off into space for another ten minutes after Ellen left the room.

When I came out of my reverie, I stared at the photograph and letter from London. Margo and Caroline had decided to stick together creating a civil partnership under U.K. law that gave the two the same rights as a legal marriage. They lived and loved together. Margo wrote that they would marry officially as soon as the laws permitted, stating that they might go to Holland or France if they ever felt the need for the next step sooner than UK law-makers allowed. Caroline had finished her degree and taken a job doing detective work with Margo. The photograph of the pair showed two happy, good looking, and scantily clad women sitting in Margo's bed surrounded by an array of sex toys that could keep them busy for a solid month. They both inquired when I would be stopping by and put lots of little hearts, X's, and O's after their signatures. Margo had written on the back of the photo, "Don't forget about us. Cum by. Bring your friends of either sex too – we're broad minded." There were imprints from two sets of lips. I stuck the photo on the wall behind my desk with a few others, including one of Crystal standing next to my motorcycle on the rim of the Grand Canyon.