Austenkin/TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <h2>A New Kind of Mid-Life Crisis</h2> <h3>By Izzy</h3> <h4>Part 10: Moved In <p>Tuesday, September 25, 2012</h4> By the early afternoon everything which Diamond wanted to take with him had been moved to George and Nessa’s apartment, and the three of them, Sheila, Rudy, Camille, the Mr. and Mrs. MacAddie, Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, and Mrs. Mosley had set to work emptying the apartment Sheila had lived in for well over two years. In this case everything was to be removed, but first it had to be decided whether it was to go into storage, or taken to the MacAddie’s home. <p>Her clothes and most of her linens were being piled into one box to be taken to the house. Her skating costumes had been piled into another box to be put in storage. Her medals had been carefully taken out and laid in another box to be taken with her. Her dishes were to go into storage, right along with what furniture she wasn’t going to try to sell. <p>She was currently in the tiny bathroom, sorting through her large collection of cosmetics, throwing out everything over a certain age. Even with this measure she was going to need another box for what she was bringing with her. <p>Mrs. MacAddie came in, gingerly picking out a spot for her feet on the floor, and looked at the shower. “The shower curtain’s going to have to go into storage,” she said. “There’s no use we can make of it in our house; it’s too small for our bathroom.” <p>Sheila nodded, though it grieved her to part with it; it was one of her favorite things in the apartment. <p>“What about the lamps?” Mrs. MacAddie asked her. <p>“Put them all into storage except the one by my bed,” said Sheila. “I want to keep that one with me.” <p>“Of course. Are you sure you don’t want to store some of the CDs? You have a lot of them.” <p>“We’re going to listen through most of them come April,” replied Sheila. “Though I know Diamond’s probably left some duplicates, especially of the stuff George and Nessa already had. I wonder if we couldn’t give them to some other skaters. I’ll ask Diamond if Faye and Ken might be interested-but they’ll probably have all the music we’d offer them already.” <p>“Too many copies of <i>Carmen</i> in the world,” Mrs. MacAddie agreed. “That’s probably why too many people skate to it.” They both laughed at this remark. <p>Just then Camille came into the bathroom. “Sheila,” she said, “my grandparents need to go home. My grandfather has work to do. Rudy and I can only stay if someone else can drive us, unless we can get his parents to leave work early.” <p>“We’ll do it,” said Mrs. MacAddie immediately. “Look out for the base.” For Camille had nearly stepped on Sheila’s base make-up. <p>“Good,” said Sheila absently, though this was not good; the loss of the Monroes also meant the loss of their car. <p>“Camille,” they heard Rudy call, “come help us with the mattress!” Camille ran out. Sheila also stood up, and peered out as she watched Camille, Rudy, and George lift up her mattress and carry it out of the room. It was to go into storage, along with her pillows. Her bedframe was too old to keep for any purposes, and would just be discarded. It and the empty dresser(which was to be sold) were now the only things left in the room; even the wall mirror and the curtains had been taken down. <p>“Feeling nostalgic?” Mrs. MacAddie asked her gently. <p>“Maybe,” said Sheila. She wasn’t going to mention it in her current company, but she’d had mixed feelings about living alone and she had equally mixed feelings about moving in with the MacAddies. On paper, she knew, it could be a recipe for disaster. She thought they had a better chance than most of avoiding that, but the stigma remained of being “kept” by a partner’s family, like one of the rented Russians who had been so common in American ice dance during the 90s and early 2000s. There was no denying her great sacrifice of independence. <p>She heard someone knock on the apartment door, and someone else answer it, and then an exclamation of surprise. Then Diamond came running into the bedroom. “Sheila, Natalia and Sergei are here! They say they want to help move you.” <p>“Well, let them,” said his mother, grinning. “The more hands, the better.” <p>Sheila could hear Natalia talking to Mr. MacAddie, and the sound of boxes moving. Sergei could especially be of help, she thought, with his considerable physical strength. <p>Diamond left, but he came back a few moments later, “Are you nearly done here?” he asked. “Dad’s decided we’d better start moving everything out while we still have Natalia and Sergei here; he seems convinced they’re going to leave. <p>Sheila looked at the small pile of unsorted cosmetics. “Most of the rest I’ll probably just throw out,” she said. “We can get this all boxed.” <p>Diamond brought a box, and while Sheila and Mrs. MacAddie filled it with her cosmetics. “Hope there’s room for them,” Sheila commented dubiously. <p>“Don’t worry,” Mrs. MacAddie assured her, “Diamond’s took up just as much space already.” <p>They carried the box out into the living room, and put it down next to the pile of boxes already there. Sergei was indeed there, and holding one of the bigger boxes along with Diamond. Sheila could hear Natalia and Nessa in the kitchen. <p>“So I’ll drive over in half an hour with the CDs, the blankets, the various electronics,” George was saying. “I think that’s all my car can hold.” <p>“That sounds good,” said Mr. MacAddie. “I think we’ll take these six downstairs and see what we can do with them. Come on!” He grabbed one of the boxes himself and hoisted it up. Rudy hurried to help him with it. The four of them moved out. Sheila suddenly wished she’d wished him a happy new year or something-or was that next week? <p>Natalia and Nessa came out of the kitchen carrying some garbage bags, which Sheila went over to help them with. “I’m not sure these are worth keeping,” she said. <p>“No, bring them,” said Mrs. MacAddie. “We’ll find a use for them, trust me.” <p>“What she says.” The she got an idea. “Natalia, how much music do you and Sergei have in your possession right now? Could you do with some more?” <p>Natalia considered. “We’ve got all the big ones, I think. Most of the operas and ballets and such. What do you have?” <p>George, who was standing by the box filled to the brim with Sheila’s extensive music collection, reached in and said, “Hey, this is that Hans Zimmer CD.” He pulled out the homemade CD. “I know Diamond left his copy of this behind, since Nessa and I both had a copy already to have three copies of the same CD lying around the apartment is just ridiculous. If I remember right, it has half of <i>The Da Vinci Code</i> score, a long track from some old Dreamworks animation-Spirit, was it called?-and some pieces for <i>Gladiator</i> and <i>Batman</i>.” <p>“No <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i>?” asked Natalia. <p>“No,” said Sheila, “that was on two other CDs. Though we might be able to part with them, too.” <p>“No, actually, no <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i> is good,” said Natalia. “We have the scores for all three movies already. Ended up acquiring them along with Memoirs of a Geisha, and that’s a story worth an hour.” George reached out with the CD, and she took it. <p>“You know, your English had grown a lot better since the last time I talked to you,” Mrs. MacAddie commented, not noticing how the entire room tensed when she said this. “Have you been studying very hard?” <p>“Oh yes,” said Natalia quickly. “I am living here, now, after all.” <p>“And you have plenty of opportunities to practice, of course.” Then they heard a thump and Mr. MacAddie yell. “Connor!” Mrs. MacAddie exclaimed, and hurried out into the corridor to see if her husband was all right. <p>“He’s fine,” came a voice from the kitchen, as Mrs. Mosley came out. “I’m sure of it. He’s probably better right now than the lot of us.” <p>“I’m sorry,” said Natalia. “I forgot.” <p>They’d all forgotten, thought Sheila. With Sheffield having happened, Nessa and George’s trip to the States coming up, and all their season opener’s after that, it had been easy to forget. Which made remembering all the chillier. <h4>That Evening</h4> The first hour Sheila was left alone in Diamond's bedroom, she found herself doing the inevitable and looking at all the various things he had left behind. The closet was filled with all his old skating costumes, including the ones he'd worn when he'd been eleven. There were old tapes and DVDs too, each labeled “Diamond and Diana” or even “Diamond and Sheila,” with the date it had been taken. Aside from skating paraphernalia she also found old shoes, several old jackets, other old clothes and books and DVDs, a couple of old toys, folders and folders of his schoolwork-she read a couple of the essays and noted he'd been a much better student than her. There was his ancient iPod mini, two old mousepads with a worn cable, and a stack of gay pornographic magazines hidden under his dresser-that she hastily threw out, feeling as embarrassed as if she'd found her brother's porn. She also threw out several pieces of very old make-up, an old hairbrush, half a dozen pens that didn't work, and a black sock filled with holes. <p>Her biggest find was a book with the cover read off, which she assumed he'd had another copy of he'd taken with him. The title page had been read off as well, but she recognized the book anyway as George MacDonald's <i>At the Back of the North Wind</i>. His mother, a clergyman's daughter, had apparently grown up reading it, and she had read it to Diamond when he was young. She turn to the second page and read the first part of a sentence: <i>And when little Diamond-but stop: I must tell you that his father, who was a coachman, had named him after a favorite horse, and his mother had had no objection-</i>; she remembered Diamond saying once "My mother named me after a favorite children's book character, and my father had had no objection," and smiled. <p>For the moment the bed was made up with his old sheets, though it would be made up with Sheila’s after they grew dirty. The blanket had a pleasant blue and green pattern; the sheets and pillowcases were a simple white. It would feel strange to sleep in these, in what still felt like his bed, though according to his parents he’d hardly slept in it the entire month. It was a level of intimacy the two of them had never touched. Her being in the room like this was, too. <p>It was strange. She thought no two people could have been closer than the two of them. He knew, better than Pamchenko did, maybe even better than the doctors had, how her eating disorder had wrecked not only her body, but even her mind, and how she still felt like a recovering addict, facing a trial every time she sat down to eat. She’d dried his tears every time in the past four years he’d had one of his breakdowns, seen every struggle he’d had on the ice, at least when she hadn’t been in treatment. She knew his moods so well she could tell just by how he blinked when there might be trouble and she might have to intervene to help him keep himself together. <p>She even knew his body, maybe better than she knew her own, for his body she had no fear of, and he certainly knew hers better than she did, knew just by looking at her whether she’d gained or lost even the slightest amount of weight, even could tell when she was sore. <p>Yet here she was, sitting on his bed, holding one of his old books, feeling completely out of place. <p>There was a knock on the door, and she heard Mrs. MacAddie call, “Sheila? Dinner’s ready.” It made her feel like she was fifteen again. <p>The rest of the house, ironically, felt less alien, because she’d been there a lot more often. She’d even eaten before at the table she now arrived at-except that as sat down, she deliberately recalled another house two centuries ago, for while she did not usually differentiate between herself and Elinor, she had recently discovered it was easier to eat if she pretended she was back in her lifetime, with no memories of anything that might come afterward. <p>It felt surreal, sitting there, asking for various things to be passed, eating alongside this couple as if she was their daughter. She had never been one for participating in her own parents dinnertime conversations back when she’d still been living with them, so at first she said no more. <p>It was not particularly jarring, perhaps, when Mrs. MacAddie asked her how the skating was going. Her father had often demanded to know similar. She told her about their long program run-throughs, about the changes Mrs. Mosley was making to their spinning, about their growing consistency with the throw triple lutz and the hope they might be able to include it in Paris. <p>What was more unusual, to Sheila’s mind, was when Mr. MacAddie asked, “What’s this city Skate America’s taking place in like, Sheila? Spokane, Washington, was it? Wasn’t the 2010 American Nationals there?” Noone had ever bothered ask about cities at the Russo’s dinner table. In fact, her mother had tended not to ask about much at all. Or even say very much, when it came down to it. <p>“Yes, and 2007 Nationals, besides,” said Sheila, “where I won the junior title.” An very remarkable achievement, in retrospect, but back then she hadn’t appreciated it properly. “They loved us, there. They gave us a huge welcome at the airport and there were large audiences-I think the senior events all sold out.” <p>“But what about the city itself? Did you see much of it?” <p>Sheila shook her head. “I didn’t see much, back then,” she said. “Even in the foreign cities. And in Spokane’s case, my father said, ‘Why bother?’” <p>“I’ll make sure to take some pictures for you, dear,” said Mrs. MacAddie; she typically attended their events, while Mr. MacAddie usually couldn’t manage it. He had promised, however, to make the Olympics, if they did. “There’s a full day between the pairs long and the exhibition; we’ll have time to go out.” <p>“We were on the US west coast, once,” he continued. “Down south, in Los Angeles, back when Diamond was six, remember, Lauren?” <p>“Oh yes!” She said. “I know you trained in Los Angeles once, Sheila.” <p>“For a few weeks, back when I was trying to pursue only singles, yes. I really wish I’d seen more of that city.” <p>“Oh, we saw it all! Well, maybe not all of it, but a lot.” And as Sheila listened, the conversation moved off skating all together, into the spectacles and experiences that was a young Scottish family’s trip to Los Angeles, at least, Sheila thought, before their son had started skating and left them with much less money. By the time she was six, her own skating career had been well underway. Though then again, her father was considerably richer than the MacAddies. <p>“The air was terrible, though,” Mrs. MacAddie was saying. “I don’t understand how anyone could stand to train there, how they could even have held a Worlds there, even. But then again, they held the Olympics in China, didn’t they? How do you think they manage it, Sheila?” <p>That, a simple question, was what truly threw Sheila. Her father had never asked for her opinion in that manner. <p>“I don’t think it’s as bad where I was,” she managed, “in El Segundo. It was another reason to stay out of most of the city, I’m afraid. I don’t remember where exactly Worlds was held anymore, though I don’t think there were any complaints.” <p>“Of course there weren’t,” said Mrs. MacAddie with a sigh of disgust. “This is figure skating we’re talking out. People could be poisoned by the catering and noone would dare make any complaints where the public might hear them.” Another thing her own family would never have said. Her father was the kind of person who contributed to the phenomenon Mrs. MacAddie had just denounced. <p>After dinner Mrs. MacAddie asked Sheila to help her with the dishes, and Sheila happily did so. She liked the MacAddie’s kitchen; the floor and counters were a charming white-a little chipped in multiple places, and one of the counters was a little cracked, but it did not truly destroy the aesthetic effect. They washed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher, then Mrs. MacAddie’s eyes fell on the clock. “Past eight! Shouldn’t you be in bed?” <p>“Why, yes!” laughed Sheila. “Goodnight!” <p>Back in Diamond’s bedroom, she changed, then turned down his sheets, then turned to the bedside table, where she’d set up her own old lamp and alarm clock. The latter she set for 3:30 A.M., then she turned off the former and settled into his bed, and slept in his house. <h4>Wednesday night</h4> “So Camille went skidding five feet, more probably, and somehow she managed to grab the boards and avoiding whamming into them, and she promptly yelled something about a horse!” Diamond was telling George the story while doing two dozen crunches, and here he had to stop the catch his breath. “She said later Fanny Bertram rode regularly for her health, and she had flashed back to that.” <p>“She was still lucky,” said George. “If Rudy had brought her down with much more force, she would have suffered far worse than a memory flash.” He was currently standing on one foot with his other foot pressed over his thigh and his hands over his head, in what was known as the tree position. <p>“Don’t we all know that,” said Diamond. “I think it would be best if they didn’t compete at Nationals. Mrs. Mosley keeps expressing disapproval of both their technique as well, so to have them ready may take her even longer.” He finished his crunches and fell back on the floor with a groan. “But I fear it may not be easy for Camille to take. Sheila thinks she’s putting too much pressure on herself.” <p>George had just home out of the tree position, and he decided this meant he’d had enough of this conversation. He knelt down by Diamond and lightly covered his open mouth with his own. Diamond’s arms wrapped around him as they kissed. <p>Then Diamond pushed him away, and he said, “You know what I want, George.” <p>“Yes,” George breathed. “I told you, I haven’t done it much-not as myself, that is.” It was a little ironic, George thought, that Christopher Brandon had so much more experience with sodomy than he did. But then again, he had lived in an era before birth control, and as Marianne had grown older, she had found pregnancies to be more harrowing, and they had needed to find a way to avoid them. Meanwhile, anal had never been George’s thing. He hadn’t even had supplies in the apartment before Diamond had quietly purchased them and placed them in the drawer by the bed. He was more into mutual blowjobs. But Diamond did not suck cock(had such an aversion to it he seemed reluctant to even be on the receiving end), and he loved to be fucked, and he felt strongly enough about both of these things that he had managed to overcome timidity and tell George them very distinctly. <p>“Then it is time you started increasing your experience,” said Diamond, and stood up. “If they prove privy, well, we are privy to their memories. It may only make things more fair.” <p>They climbed up onto the bed together, and George could fell the tremor in Diamond’s body as they kissed again; he wasn’t going to keep control for much longer. Under his shirt his skin was hot, his nipples hard. <p>When their erections brushed Diamond moaned and started bucking underneath him, then started clumsily yanking at their clothes. George did most of the work of getting them undressed, and by the time he was done Diamond was getting more excited, and from the way he was rubbing up against George it looked like their earlier conversation wasn’t going to matter much. <p>But when George slid his hand over Diamond’s prick, much to his surprise his lover batted it away. Squirming his way out from under George he went for the drawer. “We’re doing this,” he whispered. “Now.” <p>He handed George the condom and took charge of the lube himself. George got the condom on and let him prepare them both as he tried to remember the last time he’d done this. It might have been with Ilia. <p>Diamond wanted to do it face to face, of course; he had pulled his legs almost up to his shoulders, which made George automatically glance around for a pillow, before remembering that Diamond probably wouldn’t need one. “Please,” he whispered. <p>It took George several moments of positioning himself before he finally managed to push in. Diamond sighed, closed his eyes, and breathed out a soft, “Yes...” <p>His first few thrusts were nervous, tentative. Then Diamond wrapped his legs around George’s shoulders and moved back. Within moments he had taken control of the rhythm, George rocking back and forth with him, letting Diamond draw him deeper into his body. He stopped thinking and let the sensation of being enveloped take him. <p>When Diamond’s hands urged George to change the angle George went with it-then his eyes went wide when a moment later Diamond yelled and convulsed around him. The next moment Diamond was pulling him down, shoving his tongue into George’s mouth, trying to rock them faster, hissing, “Move, George, please...” <p>George’s hips were moving of themselves. For a moment he was back in another bed, a woman’s passionate cries, a mass of curls about him. But Diamond was aggressive, his skater’s thighs clamping George’s body to his, his prick jabbing George’s belly, his voice low as he moaned and whimpered and begged, and George whispered his name as his plundered Diamond’s mouth, his neck, thrust hard into the blinding heat that was his body. <p>He felt himself grow close and reached down and grasped Diamond’s prick. Two strokes and Diamond came, his body spasming hard around George’s cock, sending him over. <p>Diamond giggled before George had caught his breath, causing him to pull away. “What?” he asked. <p>“Just that that wasn’t so bad, was it?” He stretched himself out and then pulled George back down for another kiss, but then he fell away, his eyelids fluttering. <p>“You still aren’t used to intense physical activity after your evening crunches, are you?” laughed George. <p>He wasn’t even expecting a response; Diamond was already half-asleep. But somehow he managed to whisper. “Love you, George. Love you so much you can’t imagine it....” <p>“Oh, but I can,” George whispered back, for as he looked at the calm bliss on Diamond’s face, the gentle rise and fall of his chest with his breath, he suddenly was aware of too much, of the rush of feelings that flooded through him, of the protectiveness with which he now drew Diamond close, loving how he softly sighed. <p>How many times had this happened to him? Why had he let it happen with someone who trained in his rink? It hurt enough with those men he hadn’t had to see every single day after it was over. <p>George knew only the general gist of Diamond’s sexual history, and even less about his romantic history, but he was pretty sure Diamond’s heart had been broken exactly once about two years ago, possibly by a certain Italian skater, but he wasn’t absolutely sure about that. This was Diamond’s second serious attachment. If they lasted until the new year, George could define it as his own second serious attachment as well. <p>But he couldn’t do that now. Not when between Ilia and Diamond there had been several young men just like this, whom George had looked at the same way, whom he had felt exactly this for. But he knew himself too well. It was strange, to think he could have been Christopher Brandon. Those men would have disagreed; they would have called him John Willoughby, and George knew he had behaved badly, neglectfully. They’d broken with him within four months, each and every one of them, tired of being the one having to do all the work. <p>It might be easier, he hoped, to have Diamond here all the time, to not have to do it long-distance. But the problem was, when he looked at Diamond, all he could think was that the boy deserved better than him. And George was sure that in the end, he would have better than him; a young man of his temper would, sooner or later, get fed up with George being a self-centered diva and go find a man more worthy of him. <p>That they had been married in a previous life didn’t even make any difference, to George’s mind. Not when he’d changed so much between lifetimes. <p>With his mind running like this, George knew it would be a long time before he slept that night. But when they weren’t doing choreography, George and Nessa didn’t practice until the afternoon on Thursday, so at least he was spared getting up at quite so early an hour; he would only have to get up to get to his Thursday morning job. Though he hoped to go for a run in the morning as well. <p>His eyes wandered around the room. The dresser was now overfilled, so that all the drawers stuck out. Diamond’s running shoes lay next to George’s by the closet door; they could run together, the three of them, him, Diamond, and Nessa. A small box of various of Diamond’s possessions not yet taken out was also in the room by the door. <p>“For as long as I can keep you, my precious Diamond,” he whispered, and reached to turn out the light. <h4>Very late Thursday morning</h4> Nessa arrived home tired and indignant, wondering if she truly needed to work the job she’d just spent the morning doing. Not bothering to eat, she went straight to her computer and loaded up her email. Seeing one from her mother, she clicked on it, and read. <p>Well, she thought, it could have been worse. <p>George was still at work, and couldn’t be contacted there, but Diamond could be contacted at the moment, so Nessa called him. She heard his cautious “Hello?” and heard voices in the background. <p>“Diamond,” she said, “I’ve just heard from my mother. She’s going to be joining us in about a month’s time, before Skate Canada, she says.” <hr> <a href="ankomlc11.htm">To Be continued...</a>