Sisterfest Ch. 05: Carys & Mike

Mike:

The first time I met Max Elliot I wasn't that impressed; I suppose I was biased; Rys had always been the little princess in my life, my adored and adorable baby sister, and suddenly she was a grown woman, attracting grown men and dating them, and I didn't like it, I didn't like it at all, and that puzzled me. Carys was supposed to go out in to the world, it was what growing up was all about, she wasn't breaking any rules, and yet I still hated the idea. Watching them sitting at the table with mum and dad chit-chatting, watching them sharing private little inside jokes and meaningful glances and expressions seriously put my back up.

I bit my tongue, sometimes literally, because this was who she'd chosen to be with, and from the tenor of the conversation I gradually gleaned the information that they were engaged; Max had asked her to marry him, and she'd said yes. And yet I didn't get any strong feeling of joyfulness from her; it almost seemed like she was working off some kind of internal tick-list: qualify, find a man, marry him, have his children, be a standard family with 2.5 kids and a 3-bedroom suburban semi-detached house, grow old together, and eventually be buried side-by-side in the local churchyard. Max seemed to be in a haze whenever his eyes alighted on her, I was in no doubt that he was absolutely smitten with her but strangely, I didn't get that from her at all, and that worried me deeply; was he forcing her, somehow?

She seemed perfectly spontaneous with him, she didn't shy away from his touch, she looked him levelly in the eyes when she spoke to him; was I seeing pressure and coercion where none existed; was she, in fact, exactly as she seemed, a fully willing partner in this and was I letting my suspicions and unease do my thinking for me? I seemed more and more that I was just unwilling to accept my Rys needed someone more than she needed me and that sent a very peculiar pang of loss and hurt through me.

That night I had a weird, sexy, and very disturbing dream; in the dream, I was talking to Carys about something and as we chatted she walked around the room disrobing as we talked, looking hotter and sexier with every item of clothing she took off, until suddenly she was naked, her perfect body on display for me. I realised I was naked too, and as we chatted she started kissing me, just little nibbles, but God, so sexy! I started responding in kind, and then we were kissing for real, our tongues exploring each other's mouths as we kissed like long-parted lovers. All at once we were in her bed, our bodies entwined as we writhed and groped, and then she looked into my eyes, her own eyes burning with lust and she whispered "Fuck me, Mikey, please, make this real!" and I did, jamming myself into her even as she thrust back at me, meeting me thrust for thrust. My heart and soul seemed to be exploding as I made love to Rys, my Carys, and when I came, it was with the heat of a thousand stars, blasting myself deep into her again and again.

I woke with a jolt, my head ringing, totally disoriented for a few seconds, unable to remember why I was here, and all that was clear in my mind was the memory of bedding my sister, of making love to Carys, and her enthusiastically receiving me, and more. I knew it was a dream, but my body's response had been real enough, and I pondered what was wrong with me as I shamefacedly cleaned up the evidence of my shameful, impossible dream, sick at the thought I could think of my baby sister in that way, beautiful young woman though she now was. Thoughts and feelings like that were more than shameful, they hinted at wrong, illegal things, things no normal person could ever indulge in, or even allow one to even contemplate.

I had to get away from her, as far as possible, until I could look at her and not see in my mind's eye what I'd dreamed so graphically.

I went back down to Bath in the morning; in truth I ran down to bath, bugging out with almost unseemly haste; my coursework and qualification requirements gave me an iron-clad excuse to run from there as quickly as possible and get away from Carys, because now, of course, every time I looked at her I saw those outrageous images in my mind. I had a one-year placement with a large architectural practice in London, and I needed to get my portfolio in proper presentation order and signed-off by my course tutor. Max shook my hand and told me he'd see me at the wedding (how I didn't crush his hand I don't know; instead I forced a happy smile and told him I was going to be there to see my baby sister married), Carys hugged and kissed me goodbye, hurt and loss flashing in her eyes as she clung to me for just a second, then stepped back and smiled widely, but the smile didn't touch her eyes, and once again I saw in my mind's eye that unspeakable image of her from my dream, her eyes wide and lambent with lust for me.

What was going on here, what was wrong with me, and just as troubling, what was I missing in the whole Carys/Max dynamic? The whole thing seemed 'off', and I couldn't work out why (or perhaps I could and I really couldn't risk going there...)

I couldn't get to Bath quickly enough, there was just too much at home for me to deal with, and somehow I knew I had to be a long way away from Carys before I could even begin to unravel it all, I was certain of that.

*

Mum kept me apprised of the wedding preparations as I worked, and Carys kept in close touch too, and all through this whole thing I kept getting this odd vibe, like she was doing this because she thought she was supposed to, not because she really wanted to. Not once did I ever tell her to cut and run, or slow things down until she was sure; I may have been her big brother, but she was an adult, presumably old and wise enough to know what she was doing, and if I'd misread the signals I stood a good chance of permanently alienating the one person in the world I loved more than anything; I could never hurt her so, so I trusted that she was sure of what she wanted and what she was doing.

The wedding itself was probably what every girl secretly wanted: the white dress like a cloud of satin and chiffon, two bridesmaids in matching pink dresses and floral chaplets holding her long veil, a page-boy to carry the rings on a white satin pillow with gold tassels, and a cute little flower-girl in a crinoline and sunbonnet strewing rose petals in front of Carys as she approached the altar on dad's arm. I watched with mixed feelings; I was happy for Carys, honestly; she'd found and married the man she wanted, in the place she'd always wanted to be married in, in the dress she'd wanted since she was a little girl. To my shame, though, I was also nursing an acid brew of jealousy in the pit of my stomach; who was this man to come into our lives and take my beloved baby-girl away from me? I still feel ashamed at the memory of those feelings on my best and closest friend's special day.

I was also feeling a jagged edge of loss and sorrow; she wasn't my baby sister anymore, she was another man's wife now, and now she had a life that really didn't include me at all anymore, except as the brother she'd maybe see occasionally. That hurt the most, that empty space in my heart and my life was getting bigger by the minute, and I could do nothing to heal it.

Carys Elliot: Married Life

Mike leaving so abruptly hurt me; if ever I needed him, it was now, before my wedding; he should be there to reassure me, to keep me believing I was doing the right thing, that this was what I really wanted. The problem was I wasn't sure at all. Oh yes, I like Max well enough, I even loved him, I think, or I thought I did, and that was the problem; I needed Mike to talk to me, to tell me I really was doing the right thing, that Max and I were meant to be together, because I really wasn't feeling that at all, and I was starting to panic.

There was another thing as well, something I couldn't possibly bring up with Mike, with mum, even my closest friends; I didn't know how, or how to cope with their incredulity, even disgust if I shared with them my deepest innermost secret. Since as long as I could remember, and especially just lately, when I'd had dark, erotic, sexy dreams, my partner was always Max, but then he'd somehow morph seamlessly into Mikey, and we'd thrash and pound each other unceasingly all night long, to wake in a pool of sweat, exhausted and aroused, and then the self-loathing and disgust would kick-in; how could I possibly see my wonderful, sweet, caring Mikey that way, doing those things to me, and why should such a forbidden, electric thrill rush through me at just the thought of it?

He was my big brother, for God's sake, the rational side of me was truly repelled and disgusted by those thoughts, those dream-memories, but another side of me wasn't at all, and I was starting to listen more and more to that side. When Mikey had come home to celebrate my engagement, those feelings and fantasies actually crested at fever-pitch, I almost felt I was losing my mind, and when he left so abruptly, a small part of me actually celebrated his departure, because the almost unbearable temptation to hold him, tell him, take him was finally thwarted and I was safe again. Of course, the rest of me felt like I'd lost my one true love; I was seriously fucked in the head. I didn't know what to do, where to turn to, except Max.

Max was my safety, the one I supposedly wanted, the one the real world said I wanted, and part of me really did feel that way, but a large part of me wondered what the hell I was doing playing it safe with a man I wasn't even sure I loved. Don't get me wrong, though; all the above sounds like I was using Max and that wasn't the case; I did love him, I just wasn't sure I loved him the right way, and was that enough, or even fair on him? In the end I convinced myself I was actually in love with him, and everything else was just me vaporing and being a fraidy-cat, everything was going to fall into place eventually, when I grew-up enough to accept it, and so I went through with it, because I loved him...didn't I?

*

Married life was...good; Max was a loving and attentive husband, and almost without thinking about it I fell into his life fantasy of him and me and baby makes three, because sure enough, I caught one. I was in two minds about the whole thing; did I really want to start a family so young? I mean, I wasn't yet twenty-two, I hadn't really done anything, been anywhere, and suddenly this little thing inside me was where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to be; is that really what I wanted? And yet, when I thought about what I was trying my hardest to see as a little interloper in my life and my body, all I felt was a shockingly fierce protectiveness toward the child inside me.

As my pregnancy progressed, Max seemed to be pulling away from me. At first it was small, subtle things; he was working longer hours, he was dealing with more, and bigger projects, and it was true, he was; all I heard from his co-workers was what kind of a workload he and his team were taking on, because with his firm the price of being able to dig the best holes was that they got to dig more, and bigger ones.

Max came home hours after he was supposed to, dog-tired and worn-out after a long day out on the factory floor, making sure his latest baby was coming along to his satisfaction and the way he designed it; all I got from him was a cuddle before he literally dropped off his feet and went out like a light. I left him on the couch most nights, which a throw pulled up over him, because with the best will in the world I couldn't shift his weight and walk him to bed, not in his exhausted state. So I slept alone most nights, after spending the long day alone, day after day and night after night. The only time I really got any attention from him was at the weekends, and even that was broken up by emergency calls from the fabrication teams on the factory floor because they couldn't understand something, or they couldn't make something work, and he'd be off, and I'd be alone again.

This went on, my new normal, until the baby, a boy we named 'Finn', was born. He was the apple of Max's eye, his son, but even then Max had managed to miss his birth, an emergency in Kuwait had him haring off the day before I went into labour, and Finn was born with my mum in attendance, and dad and Mikey pacing around and worrying, not my husband, not the father of my baby. I know now that I would never forgive him for that, and that really was where the end of us began. When he came back he was full of apologies, he really tried, but the fact was, when work called, it was more important than the birth of our first child, and I couldn't forgive him for that.

The combination of my resentment and his cavalier attitude to what was supposed to be our crowning achievement is where I think the slippery slope began. Max made all the right noises (when he was around, when he could tear himself away from his precious job for the very occasional evening with his family) but I could clearly see, and feel in my heart, that his heart wasn't in it. Gradually, fighting it all the way, I came to realise I was falling out of love with him, if I was ever really in-love with him in the first place, and that my baby and I just weren't that important to him, no matter how much he professed otherwise if I pressed him on it. The feeling I'd made a catastrophic cock-up of my life grew stronger with every passing day.

And so we stumbled along, both of us knowing it had all gone so wrong and not knowing how to fix it; we tried to reconnect, but to be honest, half the time I felt like Max was just phoning it in, that whatever interest he'd ever had in me had fizzled out, and now we were just going through the motions. We even tried to reconnect using sex and seduction, but that essential something was missing, and it felt false and 'play-actey' and uninvolving. One of our periodic bouts of sexual connection ended up ringing the bell again, because sure enough, I caught. Max tried being happy and thrilled by it, and for a while I really thought this baby would be the catalyst that put us back together, but then we started pulling away again, and I realised this new baby wasn't going to be the band-aid that papered-over the yawning crack in our marriage, that we were on life-support and there was nowhere to go.

Mikey was a constant source of support and encouragement; there was nothing he could or would do to intervene, he really didn't want to be the one to come between Max and me; for better or worse this was my marriage to salvage or let sink without trace, and nothing he could say or do could make Max love me again anyway, but I knew that whoever pulled the trigger, Mikey would be there for me, because he truly did love me, and I loved him right back.

I was almost six months along when Max finally decided to have that 'we have to talk' moment with me, and it was about as bad as it got; he'd been offered a senior post in the company operations group ...in Kuwait, and he'd told them he was taking it; he explained that it was him, not me, that he couldn't make our marriage work, that he loved me, but he wasn't in-love with me, but he'd never forget or neglect his children. Big of him. Whatever.

I made the token plea for him to at least stick around long enough to hold his daughter, but he was on a tight deadline (or so he said; I personally thought he was just looking to bug-out ASAP...) but he would set up trusts for my little boy, Finn, who already looked so much like his daddy (and, strangely, like Mikey too) it was scary, and his unborn daughter, Lara; if he couldn't be there for them, he was at least going to ensure they'd never want for anything; like that made it better...

With that out of the way and his conscience salved there came a whirlwind of packing and then suddenly I was a single mother alone in Ledbury with a toddler and a baby on the way.

Mikey came to my rescue, as I always knew he would; everything Max had neglected or seemed reluctant to do Mikey did without comment; when I needed time to myself with my back pain and aching joints and swollen feet he'd spirit Finn away to playgroup, or the toddler play-park, or just go for a ramble around town in his stroller, never mind he had a business to run; at least Mikey let me know who and what his priorities were. When I was too depressed or tired to cook a meal, Mikey would be there, whipping up something tasty and nutritious, dividing his time between feeding Finn and spoon-feeding and pampering me. Every day I gave thanks for him, and pondered, usually with a startling rush of jealousy, that someday he was going to make some lucky woman the perfect husband.

Mikey was my Lamaze partner when I went into labour, and when Lara was born, he was the first to hold her, not her absentee father; Max had mailed in a divorce application, I'd signed it without hesitation, and received the Decree Nisi from the court, now the Decree Absolute was in the pipeline, I only had to wait six weeks and a day and there was no going back. Not that I wanted to; Max had abandoned us, he'd demonstrated how little his family meant to him, so I felt no pangs of loss when the Decree Nisi came through the door.

I didn't even shed a tear, I was that unconcerned, I just sent off the application for the Decree Absolute and voila, I was no longer legally married to Max Elliot and he had no more say in my life, or those of my children. I had full and undisputed custody of the children, Max had even very kindly relinquished all parental rights over the children, which gave a big fat clue as to what he was really like; we were a mistake, and now he'd erased us.

With Max now finally and fully departed from our lives I had to give a thought as to what I did next. Max was living abroad, no court in the UK could force him to provide me with spousal support, and I had to hope he didn't decide one day to stop paying into the trusts he'd set up for the children, because if he did, again, I had no way to penalise him, he was out of reach of the UK Family Court.

Mikey came to my rescue. He grabbed all my bills, utilities, TV license, water, even the mortgage and just set them up for payment from an account he created just for that purpose; he even gave me a debit card so I could shop and not feel threatened when it came to feeding myself or the kids; the trusts Max created were educational only, so they'd only get the money if they went to university, and that would be paid directly to the university, not them; otherwise the money reverted to him, just one more reason Mikey had to kick his arse if he ever showed his face in England again; Max had never really taken care of his children at all. Without Mikey and mum and dad my kids and I would be living in a hostel on benefits; that was the legacy my husband with his six-figure tax-free salary on the other side of the world had left for his children.

Mike:

Max really did a number on my beautiful sister; he dumped her pregnant with a child in arms and never supported his children at all; he ran away to the other side of the world, scuttling like a lizard, tail-high and elbows pumping and abandoned his family in poverty; at least, they would have been except for one thing; I would never let my Rys go without, not like that cowardly bastard who ran the first chance he got. Still, Rys seemed remarkably well-balanced about the whole thing; my take is that she was just glad it was over and he was gone, and she'd bring up her kids according to her lights; from where I stood, that seemed like a good way to be.

We kind of bumbled along, and sometimes it seemed more like a marriage than a big-brother/little sister dynamic; Rys would call me at work to pick up stuff she'd forgotten, or wanted the kids try, and I'd spend the evenings chatting with Rys as she cooked while Lara slept on my chest and Finn clambered around on me. Going home to my lonely bachelor flat over the office after the noise and rumpus of an evening with Rys and the kids was sometimes hard to take, and left a peculiar, hollow ache inside me.