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Dec. 25, 2pm.
My plane was delayed about thirty minutes on takeoff, and headwinds
added another half-hour to its flying time.  When I landed in L.A.,
I carried my bags over to the PSA terminal, just in time to miss a
plane to San Francisco.  The next was only an hour later, and I
finally arrived home around 9pm (5 am London time) -- about 19 hours
door to door, from hotel to home.   Funny, I had expected the
flight over to London to seem long, in anticipation, and the flight
back to seem short, in fulfillment, but the opposite was the case:
thoughts of you and our time to come made the flight to you fly,
but yesterday's flight was pure hell.  I was in a kind of twilight
state, exhausted but unable to sleep, feeling as if my guts had been
ripped out, as if there were a huge piece of myself missing.
It feels like an eternity until I'll be with you again.
It felt like I was heading in the wrong direction.

Coming home only amplified my longings for you, my love for
Nicole, my commitment to Merle.  I don't think Merle and I
will ever achieve the intensity, the sensuality, the fantasy,
the love
that you and I have already found, let alone what we may
reach in times to come (so to speak).  
Continuing my life here as it was seems a hollow sham, a
commitment-fulfillment and so little else.   Life has gotten
even with me in a way, for the very sort of arrogance you
upbraded me for at dinner, the notion of not having to work
for a living, like other people do, drudging for months with
only brief periods off for pleasure.  Professionally I'm still
free, but the rest of my life is now in that rare-vacation
mode, where by putting in enough time at home, I can justify
to myself an earned holiday with you.

The
first thing I did was give Nicole my present to her (I'd bought
it before leaving, as I suspected that we might not spend a
lot of time shopping), a Mr. Potato Head toy, which she loved,
and we spent a lot of time today playing with it.  Nicole went
to sleep, and Merle and I talked a bit.  Much of what I told her
was incomplete -- I didn't mention you at all -- if not exactly
untrue.  We then took a nice long, hot shower, and made love.
The 19 hour hiatus had completely restored my usual degree of
stamina and rigidity, so she didn't notice anything unusual
in that sense, but she made a very telling comment, namely
that I tasted of Vanilla!  She took that in stride, along
with the various attempts I made to introduce new elements
into our lovemaking, but she resisted or disliked them all.
So I'm back to the prison of conventional respectable marital
sex.  I'd heard about the grounds outside, but it's so much
worse now that I've experienced them for myself, tasted of
their sweetness and exuberance and light and life, and then
been forced back into the dim closeness.

If you don't call me on Monday, I don't know how I'll get through
the next fortnight.  I love you so...

I unpacked this morning, and came across my embroidered golden
Yucatan wedding shirt you'd worn, and it smelled of you!  I
stood there inhaling you for minutes, a lump in my throat,
unable to move, tears welling, beathing deeply.  Finally I
put the shirt away for the day; it may be quite a while until
I wear or clean it.

Please keep our pet well fed.