Nathan's been wearing things around his neck more often, lately-- bandanas, ties, bolos. Shirt or no shirt (whether he wears a shirt and/or jacket or more bracelets or whatever else or not depends on me, really… on how much I banged him up in the days prior, or not, that is[112]). His own leather jacket, too, sometimes, which is cute. The ties/bolos are SO fun to play with, or grab and use to tug him to me after shows, use as a makeshift collar and leash in my room, etc (him naked with only that on all fours is just.... unbelievable. I'm so glad I can fuck him hard, now, because how could I not. Ugh I wish I could eat his ass. --If we both make it out of this, I'm eating his fucking ass).
It's ridiculous how he's one of the only things keeping me sane at this point. His sex *and* his playing (which, really, as I've realized, is sex in another form, sex without touching). It's still not enough. It couldn't ever be enough, and it's not his fault at this point. I'm worried that even if a miracle happens and we leave Walt and possibly also Jeff behind at the end of this, I'll still go fully crazy sooner rather than later-- the door will swing fully open whether I want it to or not-- and I don't think he'd be able to handle that and I wouldn't want him to have to handle that, to ever see me that way.
Maybe it's something I can ride out, somehow. Just go somewhere quiet like a dying animal and slice myself up and scream and wail and puke and slam myself against things or whatever it is I need to do to get whatever-it-is out of my system. There are some things I'm doing right now I know I can't keep doing forever. Speed, mainly. I'm not sure when I'll quit-- it can't be before the tour's done, obviously-- or how. I absolutely am NOT going to some ~rehab facility~ or even some fucking ~outpatient program~. Fuck that shit; just throw me in fucking prison and cut out the middle man. I'll ride it out like I did the last time. It'll be painful, I'll have no energy, eating'll make me want to puke even more than it already does and then I’ll be hungry non-stop, I'll have migraines more often than not, get the shakes and cold sweats, I won't be able to get it up, NOTHING will interest me or make me happy... the list of fun goes on. Needless to say, it's nothing I can manage on a tour. Nate can keep getting away with coke for awhile, but I know I'm hitting quite a few walls at once; I didn't have breaks before but now my steering's just about shot, too.
And then at home-- if I do go home, if I don't kill myself (I keep changing my mind on that)-- everyone's still dying. I get calls updating me about everybody for better or worse, mostly for worse, from Enrique or Casey. There's some drug now that only the more well-off dying people are able to get and they're not even sure if it fucking helps, but they’re still trying to figure out how to gather enough funds together to get some for people that aren’t so well-off, because something is better than nothing if you’re going to die anyhow (There are days I don’t understand Mom’s decision to go thru chemo and other days, like today, where I very much understand). I remember writing awhile ago about fearing the day I walked into LR at peak hours and it was only half-full-- thinking about that again. But not for long. I can’t. There's nothing I can do about it right now beyond what I already do with my money (another kind of sending love along the wire, I suppose).
I can still do quite a bit with and about Nathan, even if it likely won't be enough in the end. He's shed nearly all of his nerves by now, and he's understanding the "why" behind all he's enjoyed feeling, and the why's and how's of gay sex generally, more and more. He's more confident; easier on himself. After a show recently he took my microphone/wire from me and wrapped it around his neck with a silly face. One of those moments everyone else could laugh off while being an invitation for me and a turn-on for the both of us. A shared little secret among shared little secrets. Far nicer than the little secrets I had to keep behind the fucking door, that's for damn sure.
Outside of that, it's a lot nicer to think about the time Nathan said how fucking good I feel inside him (in a moaned out disbelief while I fucked him from behind), than it is to think about anything I can't change. Or other nice things, like how he hasn't asked to fuck me in quite some time. How he's giving, trusting, more and more of himself over to me. How much more his brattiness turns me on the more dominant I’ve been with him (how easy it is to see it as another kind of flirtation, getting what he wants the way he knows how). How wonderfully intense things can get when we both know we had a great night on stage beforehand. After any and all official business is through I pull him into dark little alcoves the way Ben used to do with me, we kiss n' grope 'til one of us can't stand it anymore and asks the other if he wants to go back to his room. We give each other the exact feelings we need, or as close to exact as we can. He’s more and more mine; I'm more and more his. Musically, physically, sexually. It’s the strangest bubble outside of everything else, and of course I’m drawn to it more and more as everything else gets worse and worse. I mean, I suppose it's what I've always wanted, ever since Rick-- to be so close to another musician, in every way possible, it's like we're each others' instruments.
There are some nights on stage, now, though, where I can’t even reach that quasi-perfection through Nate the way I could so easily at first. Everything’s a struggle I have to think through. I can’t just let myself go. Too many limitations. Even physically, sometimes, everything just hurts. If my mental brakes are just about shot, my physical ones aren’t far behind. I still don't know what I'm going to do about that. When I'm high enough I don't even feel it, but again, I know that's not going to work for much longer. I don't want to be weak around Nathan. I already was, in a way, but that was still different. It was a romantic vulnerability. If I fully break around him, it's not going to be romantic. --He needs to know about Walter. I still don't know how I'm going to tell him about Walter. The closer things get to the end the more of a panic I feel. I need to do so much. I can't stop.
PS: Ugh, I wish I could get away with seriously wrapping my mic cord around his neck. Tight enough to bruise. There’d be no hiding that, and that’s why I can’t do it and why I wish I could. I think I’d spend every quiet moment kissing those bruises or wanting to. Pressing my lips and tongue into them just hard enough that he feels that soreness ripple outwards from the source. Fuck.
It’s getting more and more difficult again to enjoy the feeling of Nathan touching me. And ugh, things had been going so well with Nathan lately. Beautifully well, admittedly. Not anywhere else. But with him. I hoped, prayed (to who? To what?), that I could at least have him without any further complication or pain. But no. I still want him so much, it’s hard to stop thinking about him once I start, I still love fucking him, I still love touching him, kissing him, but he touches me and my first instincts are to freeze or shove him. And I don't want to have to tell him that (beyond the barest instruction, of course), don't want to have to worry him or make him feel like it's his fault, somehow, because it's not. I know it's not, this time. Having to think through so much more of sex, like I have to think through so much more of singing. Shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose. --At least at this point he’s tied or bound up more often than not, and of course he looks astoundingly beautiful that way. And sucking dick is something I can still completely shut my brain off for.
Since he’s seen my scars I’ve been a little more comfortable with less clothes on around him (even if being touched still feels so strangely awful), a lot more comfortable riding him. He wishes he could grab my ass while I do, and I’m sure he does, but it’s clear the thought of it’s enough to get him going just fine. I don’t always fuck him afterward, but when I’m having a good night, and when he doesn’t have anything else planned[113]... fuck it’s so good. He feels so good around me AND inside me. He gets me so fucking hard (and I’ve told him so) and I can barely let him touch me. --It’s not just him or about him, though, like I said. Fans grab my hand to shake it or touch my arms or my shoulders and each time I have to fight myself not to freeze or jump or shove them. But I still hoped it wouldn’t be him. I mean, it happened with Jack, too, eventually. I don’t know why. It just did and I couldn’t stop it. Stress makes it worse and I’m so fucking stressed now it flips back around to numb. I guess, then, that I can't be too surprised.
There’s going to be a small break for Christmas. I’m going to be alone for it again. I’ll probably get a million fucking phonecalls from everyone. I'll need to set up some voice message so people at least know I'm okay (or at least, not dead). Maybe I could spend it in a hotel or something. ...It’ll be strange being completely alone. Last year I still had Jack (and it was so nice having him for that). FUCK it’s going to be terrible. But being around everyone would be terrible too. I’d feel like such a sleazy fucking asshole looking for sex on Christmas. What the fuck can I even do, just do lines and jerk off all day like a loser? Probably.
Anna came by instead of just calling, this time. I told her I didn’t want to see anyone, and she asked if it would be alright if it was just her-- because it was (Jake had Eli with him). Caved. She brought a plate with a sampling of everything from Roya’s place on it, and I picked at it decently enough, I thought at first (she is still such an amazing cook). Still whipped up some cupcakes for dessert (had half of one w/o frosting, told her she could take the rest for Eli) to have something to do with myself. I told her that this tour was likely going to be the last one, and if not truly the last one, then it would have to be the last one for a very long while. That I didn’t think I could do it anymore. She told me I didn’t have to do it forever, and I told her I still wished I was leaving for something better. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. I’m not good at anything else[114]. She said I had plenty of time to figure that out, and that much is true, I suppose. If I give it to myself.
I told her I was using again-- which she’d probably guessed at this point, but I wanted to get on the level with her about it-- and that I was using pretty heavy. Too heavy to be around the kids. She thought I relapsed because of the breakup with Ben, so I guess I did a damn good job keeping it under wraps to everyone but Ben. I was still thin enough for her to ask if I’ve been eating, though. And I said sometimes. I was trying to. “I won’t push you, but I know what that part’s like.” And she noted that the portion of food that I actually ate was “impressively small”. Well, whatever, everyone’s different. She didn’t lie about not pushing me beyond that, at least.
She did ask what I thought about ~getting some help~, of course, and I told her that I’d already seen what “help” looks like for people like me. It’s easy to ask people to “get help” when they’ve never had to experience that help for themselves. They’d never want to “get help” either, after that. And that’s what I told her. And that I DO want to figure things out, that I know I’m headed for a wall, but I knew that wasn’t going to be the way that it happened. She said-- “You think the help I got was hugs and puppies?” Well, maybe it should’ve been, I don’t know. “Sometimes it’ll feel like shit either way, Julie.” --People using that nickname is still jarring. Anyway, I told her that I’d rather have a feeling-like-shit I can control, as long as I can help it, and I hoped she could respect that. What I wanted to say-- but stopped short of-- was that if she called an ambulance on me I don’t think I could ever forgive her. I think she did understand, at least, to a degree. She didn't push that further, either, anyway, and she was nicer about things. I know she's just worried (and stressed, and that I'm stressful, and... ugh).
It’s nice that she visited, though, despite being frustrated with her at first and even though I know I frustrated her by the end. I’m so thankful she didn’t force me into seeing anyone else and didn’t push anything else on me too hard. I still made her sad, but I could’ve made her a lot sadder. Still have a few days left to go ‘til I’m back on the road, and they’re going by like molasses. There really is shit to do before New Year’s. It makes everything so close to flooding me and I still can’t afford that. Missing Mom. Missing Cryssie. Missing Ben.
[112]And ugh, it’s so typical of me that of course I love that, of course I love that no one else knows that but the two of us, of course I love knowing what and where every single mark is under his shirt/jacket, that he’s mine beneath it all in front of thousands of people a night and none of them’ll ever know, of course it turns me on a little that Jeff’ll never know and that he couldn’t do anything about it even if he did. ...Walt's a different story, but I don't think about that much unless I have to. He isn't around. Once he is again... I'll get there when I do.
[113]Or if I don’t get myself locked into such a good rhythm and feeling I can’t help but keep riding it, and him, to its conclusion… it was just once, but still silly to have allowed myself. –Ugh, it did feel incredible, though, and I couldn’t hide it at all because I wasn’t fully expecting it. He wasn't too smug about it, at least. And during, just thinking about him murmuring those little "Fuuuuck yeah, Raj"'s... ugh.
[114]This is something she tried to deny, but she’s one of those people who can’t help but be nice– Pam’s the most honest person I know, in that respect, as much as I love Anna. And even there I was pushing Anna's limits... ugh.