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With my head tucked deeply into my chest, I slung my favorite black leather messenger bag over my shoulder and made my way to baggage claim. The masses of people at Heathrow in early afternoon swarmed around me, carrying on the chaos that large crowds created. I weaved a path of least resistance through, anxious to remain ignored, anxious to get home, anxious to find her.
Three months I had been away, shooting in perpetual night for Only Lovers Left Alive in the United States, Africa and Germany. I was bone tired from living out of suitcases and hotel rooms, craving nothing but familiarity. A sense of ownership and comfort that became noticeably lacking using generic shampoo, sheets and even mugs.
This life that I had created for myself was everything and nothing that I wanted. I was living the dream, but also living the nightmare. The work, the actual acting part of it was so rewarding, doing what I loved to do. I’d forgotten the traveling, the being away from home, and the creature comforts.
There’s the proverbial saying on the outside looking in with your face and hand pressed up against the glass. The proverbial forgot the isolation of that predicament in reverse. I felt like that sometimes, on the inside of a glass sphere watching life happen on the outside. Grocery shopping, letters to the post, shopping for clothes, attending concerts, just living in general. All things that I wasn’t a part of anymore because my chosen career didn’t allow the time or the energy for that. All those were provided with a phone call or a text to someone else.
I was grateful for all I had, truly, but this life was a double edged sword. The exuberance, eagerness and zest that I poured into being on all the time was draining. I couldn’t be an actor without a character to play or an audience to watch. I was ever so thankful that others found what I did worthy of getting billed above the title and that people liked seeing what I had to offer. I loved all that, but I missed curling up on my couch, in my house, under my blanket, in front of my telly, with my girl tucked under my arm with nowhere to be.
Being there for others as Tom Hiddleston actor meant not being there as son, brother, friend or lover. The smiling for pictures, the numbing autograph sessions, the excitability of celebrity, the hours in makeup and hair, the loneliness of a high-end trailers, the math required for figuring out the time difference was all tiring. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to be home.
Gathering my cumbersome suitcase from the claim area, I crossed to the exit to hail a taxi. As luck would have it, I glanced at the line of hired drivers to a sign that read ‘William Hazeldine.’ God bless Luke for anticipating that I would need a ride and using a character I’d played to tell me. He knew of my recent restless and was probably just as keen to get me home as I was to get there.
“Hazeldine, thank you,” I said to Smee look alike driver. The driver absconded with my big case after shaking my hand steadily and led the way to the black Mercedes.
Smee expertly navigated the London traffic to take me home. The healing power of being back in London already felt restorative, breathing in the English smog, surrounded by well-known landmarks. I watched the scenery pass by in a blur of green and brown, trying to reacquaint myself with being back in Great Britain. I sent of one text to my friend and publicist: ‘Thanks, man.’
Luke’s response: ‘Welcome home. Don’t talk to me for at least two days.’
The want to call all of my family and friends was ever present, like the raindrops that slid down the window as Smee whisked me to my house. I knew I should let everyone know that I was safe and sound, but I didn’t want to talk. I had weeks of life to catch up on, and that seemed far too daunting for the hour long journey from the airport. I couldn’t face that mountain yet when all I could concentrate on was unwinding.
The maddening pace of everything and nothing being about me and my actor persona was still weighing heavily on me. I wanted to drop it and turn my back on it for a small amount of time, rejuvenate.
Smee left me at my house after midday to reorganize my life once more, reconnect, reestablish, and reunite with the life prior to all I knew before. The formidable task seemed demoralizing and utterly intimidating. Stuck in the glass sphere like a mime, beyond the reach of human contact.
And then she was there, in my arms.
I dropped my bags, heard her surprised call from my kitchen, and in a blink of an eye she was in my arms. Her beautiful, calming and all together wanted presence was in my embrace, her legs wrapped around my waist. Soft, supple and thoroughly engaging woman in my life. My constant in my ever changing world.
Abigail.
My heart.
My home.
She squealed and ran into my arms and my heart. “Tom, baby, I wasn’t expecting you until this evening.” I grasped at her harder than I probably should have, but she was there. I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in, trying to bring her warm aura into me. She was my healer, my balm, my sanctuary from all the worries.
“I can leave again if it’s inconvenient,” my voice broke with the swamp of emotion that engulfed me. Scalding, bitter, frustrated tears burned down my face and threatened my voice and my very sanity. I pressed my Abby closer to me as an anguished sob ripped from my soul.
Poor Abby had no idea how to respond to my apparent breakdown. She tried to pull back to look into my face, but I wouldn’t allow it. I needed her close and close as she could get as I cried.
A tear for every moment away.
A tear for every fan I wasn’t able to please.
A tear for every wasted take on set.
Desperately, I clung to Abby, bringing her into my own personal glass case so I wasn’t alone. “Oh, Tom… Tom, baby… what’s the matter?” Her small, delicate hands were in my rain wet hair, stroking my back, her legs gripping my hips with all her might. “Oh, Tom… I’m here. It’ll be okay. Please talk to me.”
My tears soaked into her hair and her sheer thin white nightgown. She smelled faintly of lemon cleaning solution, peach lotion and femininity. The woman in my arms shushed me and tried to calm me, her voice soothing. As unsettled as I had felt, Abby was my buoy in the sea of turmoil. I carried her to the couch in the living room and sat with her securely in my lap.
Separating enough to look into her eyes, I whispered reverently, “Abigail.”
She cupped my face within her hands, her face displaying a depth of concern I’d never witnessed. Her thumbs swiped at my tears as they creased down my face, gently and tenderly. “I’m here, baby. My beautiful man. What’s all this about?”
My hands caressed her back, committing the soft feel of her to my memory. Every pore in my being burned for her like never before, knowing that she was the salve I so hopelessly needed. The tension and the stress of being away, the excruciating fear that I had abandoned everyone I held so dear, the ambition to be the expectation for strangers and coworkers stole my voice and I couldn’t say any more than her name.
In an attempt to console me, my girl kissed my forehead, my cheeks and my lips with butterfly kisses, fleeting but reassuring. “Tom, talk to me. I’m not sure what to do or what to say, but I’m here.”
No conscious thought was made, but suddenly my lips were on hers, seeking all the comfort she offered. Abby squeaked quietly in surprise at the affectionate assault. Finding some alleviation of my desolation and my worry within her affection for me, my tongue dipped into her mouth, drinking from her. There was an undeniable desperation in the slant of my mouth on hers, but I didn’t care. She made me feel better, and I had been without her touch for too long.
Hungrily, my hands held the back of her head, pulling her to me as close as humanly possible. Lips massaged lips, teeth clashed with teeth, tongue tasted tongue. I could tell she missed me as much as I had her, our mutual passion sizzled between us. Abby’s pelvis moved against me in a rotating motion, stirring and hardening my cock. I groaned lowly, my pelvis propelled up into hers letting her know my intentions.
The soft material of her nightgown came away from her body easily, leaving her in only her knickers. Only my Abby cleaned in so few clothes, and I adored her for attempting to make my homecoming as stress free as possible. She always dusted and cleaned for me, leaving me to concentrate on personal relationships instead of chores.
Her hands sought and found the belt of my trousers, frenzied as much as I. She freed my buckle and my zipper to reach in and touch me intimately. She stroked the length of me, causing me to twitch and buck into the stimulation. I was mad with desire, my blood coursing through my veins in her name. Flipping her onto her back, I landed perfectly on her with her legs still locked around me. My cock roughly brushed against her damp cotton-covered center in the movement. My lover gasped and moaned in a gorgeous sound of sensuality.
Like a magnet, my mouth took possession of her breast, my teeth raking over her nipple. Her back bowed into the provocation and into my mouth. Abby’s breath rasped from her open mouth, music to my ears. The unoccupied breast was covered by my hand, her flesh filling my palm. I squeezed, plucked, twisted, pulling every noise from her lungs that was humanly possible.
Unable to contain the overwhelming lust consuming me, I moved the scrap of cotton to the side to fill her. Her hot slickness welcomed my intrusion with a delicious clamp. Like Romeo exchanging his sin with Juliet through kisses, Abby and I erased the negativity that had invaded my soul and psyche. With every stroke of my body within hers, she healed my spirit.
Hooking her legs over my arms, I placed my hands on the couch effectively morphing our position. I knew I could hit that elusive chaos point inside her with the angle. From her strangled cries, I’d found it. With all the angst I’d carried with me on the journey home, I poured into my joining with her. My thrusts were relentless and demanding, chaos for chaos. With every meeting of our hips, I replaced pain with pleasure, and Abby encouraged me.
“Abby, darling, look at me.” I needed her with me, completely. She brought me back to her, back home. She met my stare and wrapped her hands around my neck.
“For you. Always,” she whispered. Her body shuddered under me and came undone suddenly. She didn’t look away or close her eyes, keeping me as her focus. I slowed but didn’t stop my undulating pelvis, bringing her back down to earth. As the clenching around my cock subsided, I yearned for that response again.
With renewed vigor and vehemence, my hips ground into hers. Abby understood that this was comfort and a release. She caressed my cheek, “I’m here for you.”
It didn’t take much more, with our eyes locked, Abby’s body taking my merciless thrusting and her words. “I love you, Tom. I love you.” My orgasm pushed into me, and spread like wildfire through my entire body. All the pent up tension and stress went with my release into her. The grief, the inadequacies, the hurt all spent with my climax. Her words, those words soothed all that away with every twitch of my cock within her.
I untangled Abby from her position and collapsed into her sweat slicked body. She held me in her caring embrace, willing away all the bad. One of her hands tangled in my hair and the other stroked my back lovingly. As my breath returned to normal, she asked, “Do you want to talk about all of this?”
“Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Sentimental. Guilty.” Putting my weight on my elbows, I met her eyes once more.
“All of that?”
“Three months is a long time away from family, away from home, away from you. Every step closer to you, I felt this crushing disappointment for being away. That disappointment led to guilty because I love my job. Sometimes I doubt the trade off, if the sacrifice is worth the success.”
She ran her hands down my face again. “No matter what you choose to do, I’m immensely proud of you. Ease up, let go and forgive yourself.”
“You are amazing. I love you.”