Chapter 16: London Lights | December, 2016

Benedict

Though it only lasted a few hours, my mind continues to return to that magical and exciting night for many weeks afterward. There was a sense, being there, that we were both on the cusp of something entirely new, still in midair after the risky jump from the high diving board, before hitting the water, the thrill of lessened gravity in our hearts and smiles. Everyone there was so excited to see Holly with me on the red carpet; and in subsequent nights, the internet was undergoing a Cambrian period of its own over the photographs of us together. Holly was graceful through and through—a quality I admired greatly, for I was the only one who knew how truly nervous she was underneath—and was easygoing and friendly to everyone I introduced her to. I was overjoyed, too, to notice how some of the other celebrities there were gladdened by the way she treated them, without getting overly starstruck, and they were all extremely interested in her, kind and down to earth, helping to make her feel included and accepted despite the stress of the lights and the press. But, on a fundamental level, the real thrill came from the fact of her existence next to me: she outshines everyone, to me; her beauty radiating a fierce and glorious power, even though she chose to keep quiet and not to speak to any of the press, a decision I condoned.

Before that night, when we were both already in Los Angeles and I had some downtime between interviews, but not enough to return to the hotel for a time, I had gone out and bought her—in a sort of foolish but giddy spell—a little string of pearls, which I thought she might like to wear to the premiere. But at the last minute, I'd decided against giving them to her, since we'd already been arguing about money, and I didn't want to upset her right before what was intended to be a fun night for us both.

I kept the pearls, though—I still have them—wanting to give them to her at some other time, but knowing how important it will be for me to take caution when giving her gifts, spreading them out over longer periods of time so that she might be the frog in the slow-boiling pot of water, rather than the frog dropped into an already-hot pot... For lack of a better comparison. I consulted Tom shortly after the premiere and had decided, with his help, to save the pearls for Valentine's day: a decision he had made sure I would follow through with, especially after I admitted to him that I've bought a typewriter for Holly as a Christmas present. I knew instantly that he was right about how completely two such expensive gifts would throw my darling into a panic, so I keep the pearls, still, in a secret place in the sock drawer, awaiting the proper time.

In the two months following that October night in Los Angeles, the both of us have had to deal with more and more pressure from the press; especially since, now, people recognize Holly around campus and (though she's reluctant to admit such things) I know she's been getting some negativity from a few jealous young women in some of her classes. Most of the pressure, though, is regarding her age—people get really rude about it in various comment threads and in articles—meaner than they've been about anything else I've ever been involved in, and I would be lying if I said it didn't upset me more than a little bit.

We've shared a few angst-ridden phone calls, especially during those early weeks, when we both experienced some emotional setbacks and moments of wariness and concern that sent our minds down thousands of terrible tangents. But the moment we were on the phone again, swaddled in the warmth of one another's voices, it was as though none of that negativity existed at all: everything outside of the two of us has a way of resolving itself immediately, evaporating in the warmth of what we know to be true, what we know to matter more than anything else in the world. Our souls are the same age, even if our bodies are not.

And, oh, how my body misses hers...

Through the month of December, I'm in Boston filming The Current War while Holly finishes up her studies in New York before planning to come over to London again for Christmas. There's a second section of filming in London on the exact same day as the filming in Boston wraps, so there's no opportunity for me to take a short flight to New York to see her, which is terribly aggravating—but, as she reminds me in her calm but empathetic tone later, something that we will both have to become accustomed to (even though it seems as though we've been saying that to each other all our lives, now, but still haven't made an inch of progress towards that goal). Perhaps it's a good sign: perhaps becoming indifferent would truly be a sin, as I love her so much. So I let a bit of that aggravation keep in my chest, on the flight from England, feeling her physically grow further and further from me, across the sea.

She's terribly stressed in the final days before the end of her semester and the subsequent flight out to London which I've had arranged. She has no qualms about leaving her aunt, who has adopted a safe circle of friends from Rehab who she has started spending time with again, getting more safely social than she has been in decades. Holly tells me with a note of relief that they will be hanging out together over the holiday season, keeping her aunt effectively occupied and distracted from any temptations that may show up. She tells me that she thinks it might even be good for her aunt not to have her niece hanging around.

But on our very next call the change of tone is extreme and so quick that for a moment I feel as though something must have gone wrong in my brain. Quickly, however, I find after listening to her that vice-versa is closer to the truth. She tells me, disturbed and slightly shaky, that something really weird had happened to her in class that day: she'd been feeling very overwhelmed, and had suddenly forgotten the entirety of a book she was writing a paper on; such a lapse in knowledge that, for a moment, she'd felt as though she hadn't known where she was, even. She'd been forced to go through the entire day without any progress on a paper—which, she told me, was better than having been forced into a situation where this sudden stutter of her brain resulted in a blank examination sheet. It's a freaky incident and I can tell she's disturbed by it, maybe even a little more than she's letting on. But we're both sure after some joint research while still on the phone that it had just been as a result of some stress and lack of sleep. I try to convince her to take a pill, if she has to, but I can tell by the way she tells me she will, that she won't. And for that last week before her arrival, a certain part of me consistently strains out to her, hoping that some tendril of my existence might help to buoy her up in some way until we can finally meet again, and my physical arms can take over the task of comforting and strengthening her.

She calls me just before getting onto the plane, a few days later, when I've spent the day readying the apartment for her, smiling and almost giddy at the utter unnecessary nature of a guest bedroom. Her voice sounds so tired and droopy, especially through the speakers, with the sounds of the airport buzzing in the background, that I can't wait to hold her in my arms.

"I..." she says, yawning (her speech is interspersed regularly with them), "...Really should get some shuteye before I land." (Yawn.) "I think I'll just put some..." (Yawn) "Enya in my earbuds and just try to zone out, for..." (Yawn) "my own good."

"Aren't you a little young for Enya?" I say jokingly, matching the softness of her stone so as not to sound too brittle and animated to her exhausted ears, but determined to make sure she doesn't fall asleep before getting safely onto the plane—something I don't find unlikely at all.

"Don't go there," she says, almost in a sigh, too exhausted to summon up any of her usual fire.

"Sorry," I tell her, feeling genuinely bad for the tastelessness of the joke: the press has certainly been 'going there' nonstop for the past months.

But there's no apology needed, and by the time she's finally on the plane and we hang up, I get a slightly humorous inkling that this is mostly because, when she wakes up again, she won't remember it at all.

I'm more than thrilled when, upon her arrival downstairs, she jumps up into my arms and wraps her legs around my waist, gasping in her relief, as I do, in mind, as our lips finally meet. We kiss gently, and slowly her body slides down mine until her feet meet the floor again. We've already decided not to have sex right away; to prolong it until later. But we don't shy away from a very long kiss and embrace, both of us becoming more than a bit teary at finally being back; looking into each other's eyes, finally feeling at home again.

We just stand there in the entryway area, her shivers from the freezing weather outside gradually ebbing as my body heat ripples out to her, embracing with no awkwardness or hurry at all, because we know there is nowhere else in the world we should be but right here, and there's oh so much lost time to make up for.

After a while we do separate, Holly consenting—thank God—to let me carry her suitcase up the stairs for her. I tell her, while she takes her clothes from the suitcase and puts them into a dresser drawer, that my parents are also staying in their house in London for the season this year, but they're having a day together today, so we will have to meet them (on their specific orders) tomorrow or later in the week. Tom, however, is also in London, and is dreadfully alone in his apartment, and she agrees happily to go and see him.

"By the by..." I add, before we've left the apartment. "You're not allergic to dogs, are you?"

"Welcome to the abode, you impertinent lovebirds... Bobby, down... How could you neglect me for so long?" Tom grins at us as he opens his apartment door wide, letting us through, his small dog Bobby repeatedly pouncing at Holly's legs.

"Tom," Holly retorts, dropping to her knees and quickly befriending Bobby, "you should know taht I've been in London all of thirty minutes."

"Precisely!" he says, giving me a hearty pat on the back. "Thirty minutes is a long time!"

She laughs and stands up suddenly, Bobby sitting beside her ankle happily. All at once, from the speed, she goes slightly pale, and almost stumbles a little in dizziness. I catch her arm on instinct, but she shakes her head. "Sorry, I think I need to sit down. I'm feeling really weird after the plane, for some reason."

For a moment I think back to what she told me before, about her frightening lapse in memory during class, and make a mental note to ask her about it later, a part of me slightly worried that she might be overstressed with her work. But after another moment she seems to normalize again, and I know that any stress which has been burdening her recently will soon dissipate as we settle into the holidays together at last.

Tom leads us from the foyer area of the apartment into the giant room dedicated to all types of entertainment: a VCR player (just one of many old pieces of technology that Tom loves to use) and television positioned against the wall, and a giant built in bookshelf wrapping around the rest of the room, absolutely packed from wall to wall. For me, it's a usual sight, but Holly is instantly dumbstruck by the awesomeness of Tom's personal library. It doesn't escape his notice and with a chuckle, as he sits down on the couch, he says, "You're welcome to any of them. But be gentle with the Tolstoy, please."

She turns around and stares at him with stunned, excited eyes, before turning back to the bookshelf and brushing her fingertips gently against the spines of the books. I love the wonder she brings to everything in life, and watching her in such a simple act I feel my heart grow a little bit

"Careful, Tom," I say in jest, "you'll steal her away from me."

"If anything's going to steal me away," she retorts playfully, "It'll be these beautiful books." She tears her gaze away from the spines of a collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work, and looks around at me with a slight bit of suggestive coyness in my eyes. It makes me want to lunge over and grab her and push her up against the bookshelf... and I know she knows it. But Tom is there, and I also know how averse both of them would be, even in theory, to engaging in sexual activity in such dangerous proximity to such precious hardcovers.

Holly smirks slightly, keeping her amusement just to a small corner of her mouth, so that it remains just between us, and I stare hard at her, making a light blush rise on her cheeks, before she turns around again and continues examining the books. Tom's collection is extremely impressive: some very old collectibles take the places of top honor, and especially his Shakespeare and Tolstoy are of notable value.

"May I?" she says to him when she comes upon a particularly large and old volume, with the spine so worn that the title is undecipherable.

"Go ahead," Tom says in response, a note of amusement in his tone that makes her even more curious.

With the utmost carefulness, she removes the book from the shelf, balancing it against her ribcage for its size and heaviness as she carefully turns over the fabric hardcover.

"What is it?" I whisper in Tom's ear, so quiet that she can't hear.

"Tolstoy," he responds under his breath, "War and Peace in the original Russian."

And it's only a few more seconds before Holly discovers this by her own powers of deduction, accusing Tom of the unimaginable, and then gasping, eyes going wide when he confirms her suspicions. "Oh, my God, Tom!" she gasps, looking through the pages carefully, turning each one and more than once lowering her nose into the binding of the book to inhale the scent of the old paper.

"Can you read Russian?" she asks after a moment.

"I wish," Tom answers. "But now that you've reminded me of it, I'm going to be forced to start working on it again..."

It warms me to know that Holly and Tom have so easily grown this close. Once, when I make my way into the kitchen to bring out glasses of water, I overhear them talking in the living room, and Tom is sure to tell her that he sees her as an extension of myself, and so, she is always welcome with him in a time of need. We spend the remainder of the evening watching one of Tom's tapes: of an old production of Macbeth that has Holly on the edge of her seat. And with her there, I'm overcome completely with a peace the likes of which I always seem to forget when she is gone, but which returns to me now as though it had never left; as the sun returns to the earth after we have endured the night.

When we return to the apartment, though, everything suddenly seems silent and dark. Outside the windows dusk has fallen and an ashy snow has started to drift down from the sky. We're both chilly, and there's a sort of odd tension between us which there never has been before, which is especially strange since we'd both been so eager when she first arrived earlier. But we know not to force it, and we don't do anything at first, changing into warm clothes and laying down together, spooning on the bed under the covers, silently waiting for the right moment to arrive.

After a time, though, something seems to force her to speak, and she rolls onto her other side to face me, propping herself up on her forearms. "I was wondering..." she says, in a tone that I can tell causes her great effort in its casualness. "...if we could try something new."

I lift an eyebrow, prompting her to go on, and she explains her intentions slowly, glancing between my eyes and the sheets, which her fingers tousle and then smooth over, tousle and then smooth over nervously. And slowly, what she's requesting takes form. She tells me with the smallest possible measure of pain from the memories, how her father would never rape her anally. He was a homophobic, she explains, and connected anal sex to gay men solely, so never once dared to it to her. And at the bottom of it all, she's been wondering if I would be alright with experimenting with that with her. She wants to probe new territory with me, which her father never scarred.

Once she's finished, I gently press on the tear rolling down her cheek, and tell her that, of course, my answer is yes. With her, anything with her, my answer is always, always yes; and I doubt that will ever change.

Swaddled in the warmth of the bed, we kiss with a tender, probing caution. I tell her that I want her to know that I'll be thinking about her, and only her, the whole time. I know other men may imagine different women when they don't face her partner, but I know it would be impossible for me to be anything apart from completely present with her.

We take our clothes off slowly, button by button, stitch by stitch. The room is chilly, heightened by the snow drifting past outside the window, but our bodies form a safe haven of warmth, the friction of fabric against skin bolstering us onward. I feel, after all this time, as though I'm discovering her body for the first time, again; it's a magical sensation, she is so warm and small, supple yet mighty in a quiet way.

Just before, I massage her shoulders to help her relax, and I sit back against the headboard while she slowly guides herself over me, facing away, her hand gripping mine, as though she's in danger of falling upward into outer space. I kiss the back of her neck with a weak, open mouth as she arches reactively: I can't get enough of the way her body caves and swells, dips and molds to mine, even in this unfamiliar and electric position. It takes a few long moments, which we both savor, through all of their gentleness, and the slight discomfort on her part that comes with the incredible newness—but eventually, I am completely inside of her, and we both sigh, her back relaxing, pressing gently back against my chest. I can feel the depth beneath her gasping silence.

Another moment, and then we are moving, as I press her gently forward, both of us moving together as though we are one; a slow rotation of knees and limbs, never separating, until we are laid down across the bed. Her fingers curl and grip the blankets, her gentle hips arched slightly to meet me. I can feel her body exhausting itself of its reserves, trembling as we both move, the warmth growing between her fluid back and the warm solidness of my chest. It's an amazing moment of unification; I hold her hands, slipping my fingertips in between her fingers and clenching gently, and I take special care not to crush her. My cheek rubs alongside hers and I kiss her ear as she sighs and shudders in her effort. I snake a hand beneath her, around her silken side and to her warm center, pleasuring her there, spurred onward into a gentle, rhythmic pressing when she whimpers at my ministrations.

When she comes, she moans loudly, almost screaming into the sheets, sending me over the edge soon after her. After a gasping moment, she turns herself over weakly, her eyelids drooping down, and we make love a second time, her legs lifted like the inverted wings of a beautiful bird as we moan softly together, like two doves, safe from the snow. I feel a tear slip out of my eye, and she cries, too: the love too dense between us to be bearable.

Everything that has ever happened makes sense.

In the morning, I wake first, and lay beside her with my eyes open, tracing the lines of her restful face, illuminated by the white light streaming in from the window, filtering through the fast-falling blizzard of snow. She wakes up a minute or so afterward, with a little groan, her body shifting partway before she winces and opens her eyes, giving me an effortful smile. I kiss the tip of her nose dryly and gently, and she smiles again, admitting, "I don't think I can move. You've disabled me."

"I'm sorry you're hurting," I say, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, a true pinch of guilt twisting at my stomach at the thought of her feeling pain.

She smiles, though, a dose of mischief in her glittering eyes, and she says, "I'm not sorry," suggestively, nibbling at her lip.

"I love you, you little imp," I murmur, kissing her lips before shifting my weight carefully from the bed, so as not to make her shift uncomfortably. "I'll go get you something."

During the rest of the morning, we go to visit my parents in their apartment, and then Holly, struck by a wave of inspiration, remains there with them for a few hours to write her book (she's nearing the end, on one of the final chapters, and I can't help but look forward to the day when she'll let me read it) in a refreshing setting, while I go to visit Tom alone.

We sit down on the couch to watch a film we've been trying to see together for a while, settling into a comfortable quiet where be both feel completely open and accepting, without any inhibitions or requirements to be talkative. But after the film has ended, and Tom is rinsing out the bowl of popcorn he'd made earlier, he brings up a topic that I never thought we'd come to discuss—or rather, that I had yet to discuss with myself in my own mind.

"So, what are you thinking... about moving forward, with Holly?" he says casually, but the words wrought with levels of complexity and implication—it's the type of tone that might come close to aggravating me if it came from anyone apart from Tom, who always has a way of putting the most abrupt and stringent topics to words in a sensitive way. "It's okay if you don't know, yet, but if you do, I'd really like to, too. It's obvious you love each other. I've never seen you happier with anyone else, ever. So... where do you want to take this?"

At first, I don't think about it much. I say something about not being sure yet, and then we move on to talk about other things before I leave to pick up Holly and take her to the park for a stroll we've been planning. But then, like seeds, Tom's words grow, and I begin to find myself considering what he said more and more, as the days leading up to Christmas go on...

I love doing everything with Holly: going on walks, jogging in the mornings, watching movies, reading books, watching her read my latest prospective script and helping me to prepare for an upcoming audition, dancing to music. I love watching her write, love the way she talks about literature, the way she and Tom get into arguments pitting literary titans of the past against each other: Milton versus Alighieri, Steinbeck versus Hemingway, Dickens versus Tolstoy.

I love the way, when we make love, I can make her respond so vocally to me... she is usually quiet and gentle, yet her soul slips right out through those beautiful sounds in bed. Even then, some of the best lovemaking we partake in is the silent kind, when we don't need to say a single thing; when the communication is taking place on a different level altogether, when we are at one. Sometimes, the best love we make is absolutely silent. We need only breathe softly, me, sitting against the headboard, and Holly wrapped around me, leaning into my chest, the both of us sighing into each other's mouths.

And besides the wondrous connections that our bodies have formed, over these days, we only now truly begin to understand how deeply our emotional ties run. We are learning together to get along under the weight of more press, and attention for our relationship: both good and bad, but with some searing negativity from some who cannot get past the differences in our ages. But through it all, we stand with each other; we buoy each other up.

Especially, though, after what Tom said to me about the two of us, I cannot help looking at couples with children more than I ever have before, and pondering that in the silent darkness of my mind... How I would love to be a father alongside Holly as a mother.

On one specific afternoon, we are on an impromptu jog together through the park, and I find myself looking at one young couple pushing a child on the swing set. All of them are wrapped up in winter clothes, and I am so utterly distracted by the look of them, the pealing laughs of the child coming through the cold crisp air, that I don't notice until a few seconds later when Holly suddenly slips and falls on some black ice, scraping her knees and the heels of her hands badly.

She is achy for the next few days, because of how jarring the concrete path had been to her bones and muscles, and on those few nights, she is more fragile than ever, but I love her, still, gently. Though the pain of the fall ebbs quickly for her, though, it seems to me that the fall is meaningful beyond the literal event, and I come to feel, as Christmas approaches, more troublingly ecstatic than I have since my youth.

Most of our time is spent alongside Tom. My parents are content with each other, happy to finally be back in London, so we leave them for the most part alone, our intentions confirmed when they tell us "young folks" to go and "frolic" on our own. Tom is especially lonely this year, too, which encourages both Holly and I to keep him company—and it turns out to be anything but a chore. We spend a great many comfortable and cozy hours in his apartment watching movies or plays, doing nothing in particular, just relaxing and taking a break from the ridiculousness that is every other time of year.

The three of us go to see the lights of the city as the holiday grows nearer and nearer. Outside, Holly is shivering and perpetually cold, and she makes a point of telling me how I always seem to be so much warmer than her. "Biology has it in for me," she says at one point, her teeth chattering as she huddles against my chest, her hands in my pockets, my thumbs tracing her chilly knuckles. "I'm a woman, first of all, and I'm incredibly small on top of it. But—at least there is a hidden plus for people in love with constantly warm men, like you." And as we continue going on outings as the snow falls in drifts and carols jingle through the air, she finds every excuse she can get to cuddle close to me as we walk, both of us smiling cheekily, Tom sticking his tongue out at me whenever Holly is looking away (and, I'm sure, doing the same to he when I'm distracted). We feel like a miniature family, in ourselves.

On Christmas morning, she gives me the most beautiful gift I could ever ask for: a small, leather-bound journal and the best ergonomic and refillable pen I've ever used; a journal to write my thoughts in. "I was a little worried about it," she tells me, relieved when she sees the genuine grin on my face. "You have such beautiful thoughts; and I thought that this might be a cool new creative avenue for you."

"I love it," I tell her honestly. "I'll write in it every single day, without fail." And it's true—I've wanted for a while to try keeping a journal, but now that I have a true reason to, I'm overjoyed to receive such a thoughtful and well-timed gift.

I tell her that I left her present on her desk in the main sitting room, and she goes out in front of me, while I linger behind and fold my arms, leaning against the doorjamb, watching her tiptoe in her puffy socks across the floor. When she sees it, sitting in place of her computer on the desk she uses for her writing, the overhead light glittering against the black enamel of the keys and metal body, her hands go up to cover her mouth. Slowly, she pivots around and looks at me, her face red and full of surprise beneath her parted fingers.

"Ben, Jesus!" she says at length, shuffling back to me and hitting me playfully in the chest before we both go back across the room to further examine the typewriter. "Do you realize how inferior this makes me look?" She cries tears of elation and is so excited to start writing on it: we spend the next few minutes working out how to get it to work, and in under an hour, she's already clacking away like a professional; the warm and comforting sound of creation filling the apartment joyfully.

We share a tender kiss, and before long, we've found ourselves on the couch before a small fire that sends tingles skittering across our skin. Only a few minutes into our bliss, however, a knock comes at the apartment door, and it's Tom, loudly singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" from the other side of the door, knocking rhythmically, shaking what sounds like a handful of jingle bells as he does so.

"Sod off, Tom, we're busy!" I manage to shout in the direction of the door, and Holly, beautifully short of breath, chucks a stray shoe at the door, making Tom laugh loudly from the other side. We both laugh when we hear his galloping footsteps receding down the stairs, accompanied by the jingling of his bells, and a laughing cry of surrender.

Author's Note:

Hello, all! So... here we are, a month later...

First and foremost, I hope that I didn't disappoint any of you by not giving you an in-depth chapter solely focusing on the premiere—I just felt that it would turn itself very quickly into an exhausting chapter for me, personally, and then, by extension, for you, the readers. For Ben to recollect the events of that night in hindsight (I think), made it a little more interesting, relevant, and less of a potential drag! Please forgive me if this was upsetting to you—my goal was primarily to keep things fresh and moving forward!

I have to confess that I really just loved Tom in this chapter... BOOKS! Need I say more? Fun fact: when I mentioned Tom and Holly having playful arguments pitting authors against each other, the inspiration for "Dickens versus Tolstoy" was based on an actual YouTube video that I stumbled upon, in which Tom was participating in this intellectual presentation pitting those two against each other... Basically, if you love Dickens or Tolstoy or BOTH (like me), then you NEED to see this video... it's pure awesomeness.

More of all three of these lovelies to come... Please continue to let me know how you feel about the story, or take a little leap of faith and reach out! I love hearing your feedback, it absolutely brightens my day! But if you are feeling shy, that is okay, too. :)

Thank you ALL for your commitment, in spite of this egregious update delay. I have a child returning to school with the remote method, and let me tell you, single parenthood is NO walk in the park right now.

Anyway... I WILL be back.

Une-papillon-de-nuit

13 September, 2020