(Or is it #3? Does the short story count as an epistle? I’m not sure.)

February 16, 2016

Ava,

It’s taken me two days to put these thoughts in order in my own head well enough to be able to even write them down here.

I nearly had sex with Martinique. I was getting drunk alone on V-Day, late. I drank and I lay on the boat thinking of you. Of us. Of all that’s gone wrong and how to fix it and just…everything. Missing you. Regretting all the pain and mistakes. Wondering about you. What you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. If you miss me.

And then suddenly Marta was beside me, not wearing much, as drunk and melancholy as I. It began innocently, discussing why we were both so drunk on Valentine’s Day—me, because of you and us, and she because of an asshole ex. And then she was kissing me and I was kissing her back because it’s been so damn long since I’ve had sex, since I’ve felt the touch of a woman, since I’ve felt release brought on by something other than my own hand. I said nearly, however.

I didn’t.

I stopped.

It doesn’t make it right that things went as far as they did, because you and I are still married. I don’t know what this is, what we are, but I’m still your husband, legally and emotionally. You are still my wife, legally and emotionally. We’re in a fucked up place, to be sure, but…damn it, I still love you and I’m not ready to move on and I don’t want you to move on. I don’t know how to fix us, but I’m not ready for someone new.

I was drunk, and it felt good.

But I stopped because even though it felt good, it didn’t feel right—both in the sense of morally and ethically, and in the sense of wrongness, meaning…god, it’s hard to put into words. Like lying in a stranger’s bed and trying to sleep, or wearing a shoe on the wrong foot…just wrong. Not correct. Unfamiliar and thus uncomfortable.

She wasn’t you.

That’s what it came down to. She wasn’t you, Ava.

I couldn’t keep going, couldn’t go through with it because she wasn’t you. And you know, for the sake of total honesty…I wanted to keep going. I wanted to be able to just move on, get over you, get over us. It’d be easier, in so many ways. Trying to fix all that’s wrong between us is going to take enormous amounts of work on both our parts. We both have to want it more than anything. It’s going to be so hard, Ava. We’ve both done things, wrong, painful, stupid things. Regretful things. Decisions that will make reconciliation so much harder.

But it’s the only real choice for me.

Except…I don’t know if it’s even possible.

I can’t live on land any longer. My life is out here, on the sea. It’s where I belong, Ava. I can’t just give that up, get over it, or forget it. And I know you won’t sail with me. So what’s the answer? Maybe there isn’t one. I don’t know, Ava. Answers are not coming to me.

I just know that I can’t move on so easily.

What if you have, though? What if you decided to see someone else? Would you tell me? You promised to tell me.

I made a mistake, a drunken mistake, and in so doing, sort of made a lie of what I told you on the phone, that I wasn’t thinking about doing anything with Marta. But the thing is, and the reason I say sort of, is that it wasn’t a conscious decision, a sober, clear-headed, I know the consequences and I’m going through with it anyway decision. I was drunk and she was drunk and it just started happening before I knew what was going on—and yes, I know that’s a classic bullshit excuse, one I’ve never used in my life, but in this case it’s just true. I could have stopped it, I think. Gotten up. Recognized the temptation and left the situation. I should have, I know this. I feel guilty, and I hate it. Knowing it will hurt you and make you angry with me when you find out.

I have no intention of keeping secrets.

I’m probably going to go too far with this, but since I’m not sure you’ll ever read any of these anyway, I’m going to put it all down.

Marta was beneath me, all but begging me to push inside her. I was about to, I wanted to, it would have been so, so easy. But then…I blinked. And I saw you. It was you beneath me, Ava.

The way I remember you, from so many times I cannot count them all, could not even begin to. We had a lot of favorite positions, didn’t we? You enjoyed most having your legs over my shoulders. I hit you inside in just the right way, and you always came within minutes like that. Doggy style. Standing up, you bent forward over the bed. Cowgirl, reverse cowgirl—those were my favorites, you know. You above me, riding me. Taking me deep, taking control, your hips sliding and rocking, your breasts bouncing, your hair wild and in your eyes. My fingers dimpling your hips as I gripped you and pulled you down onto me, harder and harder. But when it came down to it, missionary was what we went to as our default. It just…it was the most intimate. The other positions were erotic and allowed for different angles and different sensations, but for raw romantic love-deepening intimacy, missionary is just the best. It’s not boring. It’s not routine. It’s not vanilla. It’s the most meaningful. It puts our bodies together so we are wrapped up in each other, pressed as close as two bodies can be, from toes to hips to chest to lips. You always wrapped your legs around me, hooked your heels behind my back or my thighs and clutched my shoulders, clawed your fingernails down my back. You would kiss my throat as I moved above you. Dig your fingers into my hair. Bite my earlobe. Whisper encouragement in my ear—yes, yes, yes, yes, Chris, don’t stop baby, don’t stop, oh god Christian you feel so fucking good. I wrapped my hand around the back of your neck and kissed your face and your throat and your breasts as I moved, and when the release billowed through me, you always knew. You felt it, in the way I moved, in the way I breathed, in the frantic roughness of my thrusts. I didn’t have to say anything, although I often did. You just knew. And you would beg me to keep going, to give it to you, to come so hard. You would touch yourself, then. You would wait until I was close, because you have a hair-trigger orgasm, and when I was close, you would reach between us and I could feel your knuckles against me and your fingers moving on your clit and you would gasp desperately and your hips would flex and slam and your hot wet sheath would tighten around me and you would scream and scream and scream as we came together.

I need that, Ava.

The intimacy, the familiarity of us. Of you, beneath me, wrapped around me.

In that moment, in that blink of an eye, I knew. She wasn’t you, and that’s all it took for it to just feel completely alien and foreign and unfamiliar and wrong, and I couldn’t do it. I could never go through with it, not with her, not with anyone. I’ll spend my life celibate before I betray us like that again, Ava. It was a betrayal, too. I know this. I hate it. I want to take that moment back, unkiss her, untouch her, eradicate the feeling of her hands on me, erase the memory, erase the reality.

Ava, forgive me.

I may never forgive myself.

If we cannot reconcile, what then? What will I do? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move on from you. I’ll always belong to you, Ava. I cannot fathom ever being able to touch a woman without thinking of you. I shudder now, at the hazy drunken memory of what I did. I’ve washed and washed, but I cannot wash away the guilt or shame.

I was achingly hard, when I stopped things. Marta walked away, and I was painfully hard, and all I could think of was you.

One of the mornings we spent waking up together on the beach. How you touched me, and then instead of climbing onto me, you took me in your mouth and gave me a morning I’ll never forget. Cannot, will not. I thought of that morning, and I came all over myself. Alone. The stars were my only witness.

I don’t send these letters to you, I print them and I save them, but sometimes I have moments where I forget I haven’t sent them and wish for a response from you, and get angry that you haven’t, and when I remember that I haven’t spoken to you or sent these to you, I wonder if I should.

Perhaps if you read these, you would understand.

But I can’t.

I’m not done yet. There’s more to say, I feel. What, I don’t know.

I love you, and I hate you. I miss you, and I want this to just be over. I have to see you again, but dare not return.

The contradictions are a messy tangled war inside me, and I know not how to mediate the conflict.