Crystal Clear Ch. 32

"Dr. Cowan would give me homework to do, and then we'd start each session with a discussion on what I'd done from the day before. I had to read books and articles – things that covered trust, faith, loyalty, duty, obligation, relationships, and reliance, and other things like self-confidence, self-reliance, self-love, and narcissism. I had to study about drugs and STDs too, and what they did too your body. Next, she got me to think about what I trusted and had faith in. We talked about spirituality, and the union of mind, body, and spirit, and what my God concept was. I would cry because I remembered so many discussions you and I had about some of these topics. Oh, God, Jim, I cried so hard and so often I didn't know I'd survive. Some nights I was sure I'd never see the dawn from the pain I felt."

I reached over and took Crystal's hand in mine. I hurt just thinking of her hurting. Crystal smiled weakly at me in response, but continued to hold my hand tightly.

She squeezed my hand and continued, "Part of what I'm going through other women go through too; my case is severe according to Dr. Cowan. I know it may be silly to you, but I'm getting older, and I have so much more I want to do. You'd think with the singing, the concerts, and the movies, having fans, fame, and the stuff surrounding these things that I'd be satisfied, but ... well, somewhere in the midst of all this I guess I expected I'd feel different – complete, more unified and serene."

She gave a mock laugh of self-derision, "So what do I do? I blow myself up into a million pieces with drugs, indiscriminate sex, and alcohol. I alienate the people who are dearest to me. Not only do I start having all these insecurities, I disintegrate myself instead of getting more integrated. I fly apart uncontrollably instead of figuring out how to tighten up my life around the things that are important to me – around the people who are important to me."

A wave of anger came over me, and I couldn't resist the urge to vent. I stood and turned back to her, "Crystal, I was around all the time and ready to listen to you – your worries, your crises, your bad feelings about yourself. Instead, you walled yourself off from me – from your sister, your mother, and the rest of your close friends. YOU STOPPED COMMUNICATING WITH ME – WITH US. Did you think so little of our love and care for you, that you turned your nose up at what you knew we'd do for you – to try to help you? Almost every day I'd ask you how things were going or if you felt OK, and you'd say you were 'fine' or I guess, blow me off. You were lying to me."

I paused for a second and went on, "You were lying to me, and that's the one thing I can't stand when I think back to the months before you left. I forgive you for the drugs and the crazy sex with people you didn't know; I hope those things are behind you, but the hardest thing to forgive, and that I'll never forget, is that YOU didn't trust ME with what was going on in your head. I thought we were close, but now ... I'm left to wonder."

Crystal sobbed for a minute, "I know. I know. I felt terrible about not talking to you, but I had to do it myself. I couldn't even articulate what I felt. I'd just wake up depressed, put on a brave face, and try to act 'as if' everything was all right when it wasn't. I knew it wasn't, but didn't know what to say. I think the drugs and sex made me temporarily forget the bad feelings welling up inside me. I found out late that they really contributed to my depression and ill-feelings about myself. I'm so sorry I went that way."

She paused for a huge sniff, "Dr. Cowan helped me see the same things you just said that I'd shut out you and the others that could have helped me out of the darkest part of my life. She was amazed at the physical relationships we shared, but helped me see that I'd shut down the more important part of those relationships – the sharing of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and inside me things were really getting bad and ugly."

She looked at me with teary red eyes, "I didn't want to burden you with my craziness. What could you have done when I said 'I'm feeling bad today, and I don't know why'?"

I sat beside Crystal again and said softly, "We could have talked. I could have told you about my bad days before we met. We could have gotten you help. We could have done – and probably should have done interventions of some kind with you. One thing I still kick myself about is not being forceful enough about your increased drug use. I saw it right in front of me, I talked to you a few times, but I didn't persist. I didn't check to see whether you'd really stopped. In hindsight, I knew you were escalating your use, I just didn't want to admit it."

Now, I was the one that sniffed and took a deep breath to bring life-sustaining oxygen into my tired lungs. I looked at Crystal and said, "So, go on about your treatments and what Dr. Cowan helped you learn about yourself."

Crystal squeezed my hand. "I relearned some things about myself. I like sex – surprise! I like the way we play and the way we make love. I love that we have a small group of intimate and sexy friends who join us. None of that bothered Dr. Cowan at all; she was wonderful, not a bit judgmental, and actually supportive of our circle. She knew more about polyamory than I did. I found a boundary in my discussions with Dr. Cowan: I feel uncomfortable admitting new people to our circle that I haven't met before, even if someone else in the group – like you, maybe – vetted them in some way. The trouble is, this is a 'sometimes' thing; it's hard to explain."

She sighed deeply and went on, but kept holding onto my hand. The words were starting to flow more easily and without so much crying. "One example we homed in on happened when we were in Switzerland. Jed, Lea, Samantha, and Janice visited, and we got together with them for almost two-and-a-half weeks of solid and fun sex. It was fun, but I felt inferior to Lea, Sam, and Janice; they were so beautiful and poised. I felt like a country bumpkin, and truth is, that's exactly what I am underneath the veneer of a popular country music singer and movie star. I'd never met them before – you knew Jed and blended right in with the others as you always do, and I went along with it. Oh, I liked it, and I'm not at all trying to push my problems off on you; it's just that when I reflected back on it, I wished I'd known them before hand in some other situation instead of showing up and we all hop into bed. I sort of felt that way the first time we got together with George and Summer, and I ended up with George; I thought it was expected of me while you went off with Summer. Don't get me wrong, I liked the sex and the results, it just felt 'off' when I went back over it with the doctor."

I stepped in, "Did it bother you that I was having sex with other women?"

Crystal thought a moment, "Sort of. I worried you'd like them more than me. I didn't worry about Ellen, Claire, or Nadia. Surprisingly, the way PJ suddenly appeared and we immediately started to make love with her bothered me, but I didn't know it until Dr. Cowan helped me identify it. You just picked her up on a morning run, but I know that's what you sometimes do, and I love you for it and I don't want you to stop. You'd also never met Sam, Lea, and Janice, but you slid right into that so easily. Edie too, but she's special for other reasons I'll come to."

I asked, "What about your mother?"

"Oh, God," Crystal said with a large sigh. "I had to work that one through for several weeks with Dr. Cowan – we did the whole parent thing looking for the seeds of my ... my instability ... in my parents. So, initially, I liked that you and my mother bonded and had sex, and then it bothered me, and now I've come full circle, and I think it's a good thing that I am solidly behind because it unites the family in some unique ways. I know Mom and Dad's being with us sexually had bonded the two of them together like never before, and I've never seen them happier. I had a couple long conversations with my Mom and separately with my Dad while I was away. I think your relationship with Anna is the same; I'm glad you and your sister connect emotionally and sexually, and I'm privileged to know her in the same way. I think of Lauren that way too. See, they were people we'd known for a long time and that we'd talked about and talked with before anything happened."

I said, "Help me draw the line a little finer. What about Margo or Tanya?"

Crystal shook her head, "They're not on my list, nor are most of the other women you met along your road trip. I hate to say it, but Tina Devoe and Jill Danes are not on my list either, nor is Beth Mansard or the two girls on Joe's ocean liner – Luba and Renata. They were all just 'fall-in-bed' acquaintances – initially a step beyond a one-night stand. I don't know what kind of time frame to know someone ahead of time that I'm thinking of; I have no idea. It's just ... "

I interrupted, "So you want a close-knit polyamorous group that doesn't include others unless we've known them for a while, and we all feel comfortable about them 'before' we initiate sex with any of them – male or female, I assume?"

Crystal whispered, "Yes." I heard the catch of a choke at the back of her throat, as though in that one word she had sealed her fate.

I also could tell from the tone of her voice that she thought her agreement would result in my picking up the phone and calling a limousine to take her back to the airport. She even glanced at the shirt pocket I had slipped the limousine's business card into, so I felt I'd intuited her thought accurately. And then, I saw the verifying tears start to roll down her cheek again.

Crystal sobbed, "I'm sorry I'm this way. This is where my mental wanderings over the past six months have taken me. Deep down I've got a bit of an inferiority complex. I love you so much, and I don't want to share you except with people that I think deserve you. I'm willing to share with some people – I like sharing you with some people – people that I love, but not others, not casual acquaintances." She sobbed, "Does this make any sense at all?"

I pulled Crystal into my arms and pushed her head against my chest, immediately feeling her tears soak into my shirt. She cried for a minute, and I rocked her gently. I whispered next to her ear, "It makes sense."

Crystal pulled away from my chest, looked at me, and blurted out, "There's more."

I nodded for her to continue.

She launched into more of her self-learning. "I failed myself. Over time, partly due to the success of my recordings and concerts, I'd come to expect 'perfection' from myself. Every song had to be perfect. Every concert had to be superb. The way I dressed, looked, spoke, and on and on, it all had to be perfect. I had such high expectations for myself that when I started to slip and slide, even inside my head where no one else could see, my whole being got a kick in the ass. Later, I couldn't believe I'd gone against some of my basic rules of life, but I kept doing it – and that made it worse. I went in the wrong direction to help myself. I got in a vicious spiral downward."

She cried into my shirt again. "I'm such a mess. Still! Dr. Cowan has worked the entire time with me about not trying to be perfect, to just accept myself as I am, and to not beat myself up, but I keep doing it over and over. I fail to meet even my simplest expectations sometimes. Dr. Cowan says I'm setting the bar too high, as she calls it."

"Maybe you are?" I volunteered. "Until the last few months, what you referred to as your dark period, I never felt disappointed in you in anything you did. You were wonderful."

Crystal shook her head, "No, you were the perfect one through all this. You were so full of love for everyone, and so inclusive, and you always would say the right thing or have the right solution to some problem any of us were facing. You'd be so tolerant and forgiving. You're the perfect one."

I spoke in a weak voice, "Oh, Baby, if only you knew how imperfect it feels to be inside me. I'm always struggling with some insecurity or uncertainty. I doubt I could live with a truly perfect person; I would know I'd never measure up to either their expectations or my own. I still surprise myself almost every day about what I've done, about what you helped me do with my life. Honey, without you I'd still be adrift."

She said, "As you said, I held a lot in – many of my insecurities, but they festered. I'm working on this now, and Dr. Cowan wants me to talk about not only my expectations for others, but also tell others what I expect for myself. She wants me to listen when someone tells me I'm shooting too high or that I'm off base. She wants me to TRY to be 'imperfect' and to like it, to savor it, and to know that I'm that way because I'm human – and that's a good thing not a bad thing."

"I can help you there, anyway I can. I need to be more open with you about my own feelings." I paused, feeling there were still some untouched areas. I said tentatively, "There's more, isn't there?"

She took a huge breath. "This part ... what I want to say ... well, it's one of the hardest for me to talk about with you because I think it's where we may part ways because it involves you so directly." Tears were willing up in her eyes, and she again looked at the pocket with the business cards of limo service in it.

Crystal got control of her voice and said, "You have three children now: two by Summer and one any day by Edie. I'm proud of you, and those women are near and dear to you, and they're on my A-list of beautiful and loving people we know. They're the mothers to your children, and I love them for that alone, let alone how nice they are and have been to us. I include George in that too despite our ... awkward start for me."

I nodded. "OK. I think I understand." Even as I said the words, I knew I was missing something important.

Crystal shook her head. She blurted out through a choked up voice again, "NO. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND AT ALL.I WANT YOUR BABY TOO." With that she threw herself back against my chest and hugged me to her. Crystal's sobbing became uncontrollable at that point. I could tell she didn't want to look at me to face the possible rejection of what might be her most important reason for being here.

I wrapped my arms around her and thought about what she said. She sobbed and sobbed, so much I couldn't even speak because she wouldn't have heard me over the sobbing, choking, and snorting noises she was making. This was an area even Lauren's questions and my own thinking had never addressed. Eventually, as Crystal quieted down and waited for the guillotine to fall, I whispered to her, "That can be arranged."

Crystal jerked away from me. With red eyes and wet cheeks, she studied my face to test my sincerity; "Do you really mean that? Talk to me. What do you mean?"

I started, "Crystal, I fell in love with you on a back road not too far from here – the day your tour bus broke down, and you had to get to a recording session. I took this hot looking babe that could sing on a motorcycle ride, and she changed my life in so many ways from that day on. For one, she rescued me from the grief I'd wallowed in after Karen died. YOU gave me hope and made me see a new future – a future with you."

I kissed away a tear on each of Crystal's cheeks, tasting the saltiness of the liquid. I went on, "I forgive you for everything you did – the drugs, the sex, and for running away from us. I love you, and I would move heaven and earth to make you happy. A baby won't automatically do that. You know that real happiness will have to come from inside you?"

"Yes, yes," she said quickly. "Dr. Cowan is always reminding me of that. But, you really forgive me enough to father a child with me?"

"Yes."

Crystal looked at me with intensity, testing my sincerity.

I added for emphasis, "Yes, I forgive you. I won't forget all that's happened, because there were many lessons we both learned from the past months; you especially. One of them apparently includes expressing your feelings instead of denying them until they explode into a bad habit or two."

"Huh?"

"As I said a minute ago, we weren't talking enough. Maybe we were substituting sex for communication, and believing that was all it took to be close to one another, but that's only one factor. After you'd left, I realized how little I knew about what you were thinking. You'd done what I thought was the impossible, walked out on us. I really thought you were throwing everything we had away, and I didn't know why. I knew what you'd done, but not why. I wasn't sure you'd come back. If we'd been talking, even about stuff that felt 'a little' off, we'd have opened some doors to learning about the stuff you just talked about, rather than let it fester inside you – or me – or any of us. Stuff that festers, becomes bad stuff after a while, and later it blossoms into actions we regret."

Crystal nodded, "Oh, boy, do I understand that now." She pulled several tissues from her skirt pocket and started to blot at her eyes and cheeks.

I picked up the thread of conversation we'd bypassed for a minute, "As for having a child, I would be proud to father a child with you. That would make both of us very happy indeed. It's a big step; are you sure?" I smiled broadly at Crystal as I pulled her away from me so I could look her in the eye.

Now, the tears really flowed down her cheeks. Crystal said, "I'm really, really sure. Yes. Dr. Cowan said that part of my darkness involved my 'biological' clock going haywire – hormones and all. I couldn't see that, I was so focused on my career, and I'd talked myself into believing I'd never have kids; I'd have a long career instead. Cowan said my body thought otherwise, and was over-riding those decisions and trying to get my attention, albeit in unconventional and inappropriate ways. Actually, she helped me figure that out, and it so fit with what I was feeling. I didn't want to go back and revisit the decision about not having children that I made years ago, but now I have, and I've changed my mind totally and completely and without reservation."

I nodded and encouraged Crystal to continue with anything she wanted to say.

Crystal suddenly looked exceptionally nervous, almost as though she'd remembered a list of things we had to talk about, and she'd reached the one she'd postponed the longest because it was the hardest to deal with – for me to deal with. I hoped it wasn't the one that would hurt the most for either of us, but I could tell it was the hardest for her to broach.

Crystal whispered a few words to herself with a very worried look on her face; she glanced at that pocket with the limousine's business card in it again, so I knew whatever she planned to say would be monumental. I couldn't even hear her first sentence it was so silent.

Crystal cranked up the volume slightly, "One more thing ... do you remember ... shortly before Nadia's graduation party ... we were coming back from a run ... you asked me a question?" She scrunched up her face and tried to choke back crying for a second, and then haltingly stuttered, "I. Want. To. Change. My. Answer." Each word was punctuated by a sob of epic proportions.

Crystal threw herself back against my chest again accompanied by a further flood of tears and loud crying. I would have never guessed Crystal could cry so much fluid in such a short period of time. This visit – this very conversation – must have been mind consuming for her for months. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me, rubbing her back with one hand.