Running for Home - 55. February 12, 2022

February 12 2022

Bobby and I are fine. I just want to get that out of the way right away.

He did come to bed with me after our fight, caught me right as I was spitting out toothpaste into the sink. He hugged me from behind and apologized softly over my shoulder. I guess Jubilee had seen him stomping down the hallway and they talked out the interaction because Bobby was completely overreacting. I am so glad she was able to get him to see things more clearly. The feeling of him holding me there, his brown eyes gazing at me over my shoulder in the mirror full of remorse and sorrow… I got a bit lost in it, tugging at my heartstrings. Once I’d rinsed my mouth out and wiped away any remaining toothpaste from the corners of my mouth, I turned and kissed him softly. He pulled back, smiling, his right hand rising up from my waist to stroke my cheek and my newly minted beard. It had grown out while I was imprisoned, and I left it long at first out of laziness but more recently out of vanity. When I had griped that I should finally shave it off a few days ago, Bobby told me that it looked hot and he liked the feel of it. My father had a beard like this when I was really young, the same well-trimmed golden blonde. I guess I never grew one before because it reminded me too much of him. I’m not my father, though, and Bobby’s right. I do look good with it. Maybe this physical change is something I need to go along with all the mental and emotional changes I’m dealing with.

We kissed again and I got lost in it, lost in him. Before I even knew what was happening, his clothing and my pyjamas were quickly lost to the floor. Stumbling out of the bathroom wrapped in one another’s embrace, we tumbled down onto my bed together. Flesh against flesh, heat against heat. There was that desperation to it, that need for solace. We were passionate, kissing and frotting until we both came hard, me shouting his name into the crook of his neck. My body shivered with sensitivity for minutes afterwards, unable to come down from the high.

So there you have it. Bobby and I had our first sexual encounter, and it was magic. Fireworks. Everything that I ever thought it would be and we didn’t even do all that much. I am not all that happy that it happened as make-up sex, but whatever. We had to start somewhere, and I think that we would have been waiting longer if we hadn’t gotten upset with one another. I was less hung up than I thought, afterwards. I don’t feel any of the things I was worried I would feel.

I guess I lied a bit when I wrote that Dom and I started having sex right away after I got out of the hospital and it was fine. I mean, it was fine in that I could perform the acts, that they felt good, that it was all about him and me and us in those moments, but afterwards as I lie in bed and he’d drifted off to sleep, or at other times when I was alone with my thoughts… Sometimes I’d shiver and cringe. We didn’t have anal sex for the first six months after I got out. I told him it was because of the damage I’d taken while I was being tortured, but that wasn’t the truth. Or rather, it was. But it wasn’t from anything physical at that point. We did eventually do it, though, when I felt more secure in our relationship. When I really started to believe him that he did love me. That it was real.

None of that happened with Bobby. There were no dark thoughts, no worries, no psychosomatic pains in the scars of that Arabic script on my back. I slept well. Better than well. And I woke up in his arms again and swallowed down the deep emotions I was feeling, the deep love and happiness.

Yesterday afternoon I met with the woman who has been subbing for me while I recovered. It’s Sam’s younger sister Paige Guthrie, actually. Emma had her follow my long-term plans so she hasn’t completely fucked up what I wanted my students to be doing. How they’ve progressed through the material is another story, though. I looked at some assignments she’s had them do and I have mixed feelings, both about the work my students were doing and about the assignments themselves. Whatever, she did her best. Emma says she’s considering keeping her on as a live-in sub if Paige is willing, and then maybe finding classes for her next year teaching the middle school kids, or freshman and sophomore English. Maybe even an art class to take some load off Piotr. Whatever. If Emma thinks she can handle it, fine. I sure as fuck want nothing to do with teaching twelve and thirteen year olds.

Most of my Writer’s Craft students chose to stay on for Part II of the course, so at least that class is a known quantity. I have no idea what I’m walking into with the other classes. The senior Literature class will be fine, since it will just be a repeat of the curriculum I developed last semester. The junior Lit class, though… Fuck, I don’t know. It’s going to take more thought than the senior class because they can’t handle books that are quite as heavy. I’d only really figured out the first few weeks, so I’ve only got next week left that will mesh with my original plans. Paige got ‘lucky’ and did Romeo and Juliet with them. You know what? Thank god I didn’t have to do it. I’m not a huge fan of that play, but it’s got a lot of concepts in it that are good for this age group. I still have to finish it with them next week, but I didn’t have to deal with the majority of the slog. Next year I’m going to find something else to do instead. Some other 16th century English bard, just to show them that Shakespeare, while monolithic, is not the only cool dude in school. Maybe some Marlowe?

I think I’m going to do The Catcher in the Rye with them next. All the teenage angst, alienation and rebellion is relatable enough. It was for me, anyway. I read it back when I was sixteen, before I left here. Not for class, though. That’s another thing a lot of people didn’t know about me. I read a lot of books at night once my homework was done. Well, the nights I felt bothered to do my homework, anyway. I wasn’t always the most compliant student.

Oh, you want to know what else is another mindfuck I have to deal with? Sam and Paige have a shit ton of siblings, and the youngest two are in my senior and junior Lit classes. Jay and Melody Guthrie. That means that their mother was barefeet and pregnant off and on for almost twenty years. Sam told me she had him when she was fourteen, and his parents have stayed together through it all. Apparently his Momma and Daddy never learned the meaning of birth control. Jay and Melody are damn lucky they weren’t born with any major health problems, because women in their forties don’t have a record for having the healthiest babies. It must have sucked for Paige to have to be teaching two of her siblings. Then again, she’s so much older than them that they must barely feel like siblings, and instead just relatives. I mean, Paige just turned thirty and with that six year gap she and Sam were never particularly close growing up. With him leaving Kentucky to come study here at age twelve must have only exacerbated things, since he was finishing school around the time she was arriving to get started.

Anyway, Sam told me to be a hard-ass on them. Well, mostly on Melody because she’s a bit flighty. Jay is a good kid, supposedly. He’s in Julian’s group of friends, another one of the ‘good influences’, I guess. Whatever. I’m not going to treat either of them any different than the rest of my students because that’s not fair. I think Sam was sort of joking, anyway.

Jubilee wants to have a party on Friday night to celebrate my return. I don’t know how I feel about it. It would be nice to cut loose, but I can’t be drinking because of the meds I’m taking and even if I could I don’t want to be around the temptation of alcohol right now. It could be a big setback. Maybe we can see how the week is going, because I may be just too exhausted to do anything anyway. Next weekend is going to be taken up doing more curriculum development for these juniors, too. I can’t afford to have lost sleep and be hung-over on Saturday.

God, I sound like such an adult.

Oh, wait...

Sigh. I should just let her do it, but give her a bunch of stipulations. Or maybe we could just go out for dinner, a bunch of us. Yeah, that would be nice. I could use a good steak. I’ll definitely convince her we should do that.

Okay, Bobby has arrived and is currently massaging my shoulders and trying to pretend he’s not reading what I’m typing. Yeah, Drake, fuck off. We’re going to be in bed soon enough and I’m going to fucking suck your dick until you blast your rocks off into my mouth.

Fuck yeah.