Nymphaea

Chapter 34: Back to everyday life

Lissy flew into her daddy’s arms when he entered the house. He embraced his little girl while Anne came out of the kitchen where she had been cooking an early dinner to greet him as well.

“Hasn’t Ayve come with you?” she asked after hugging him quickly.

“No, he had something to take care of,” Stephen replied shortly. “New hair cut?”

Anne threw a grateful look at him for noticing. “Yes. I’m not entirely happy with the colour though. I think I’m going to re-dye it soon.”

Lissy immediately started telling him about an art project they had started in her class.

Anne calmed her down. “Let your daddy get rid of his luggage and refresh himself first, darling. I’m sure he’s exhausted from the long flight. You can tell him when we’re having dinner. -Which is in about fifteen minutes,” she added, looking at Stephen.

He smiled at her and ascended the stairs.

He took a brief shower, turning the water cold for the last thirty seconds of it to requicken his tired body and mind once more and put his dirty clothes into the laundry basket.

When he entered the kitchen, Stephen handed Anne the small present he had bought for her. He’d give Lissy her gift later since the twins would have been disappointed otherwise not to receive anything.

Paul was away to take part in the UK Championship and so it was only the five of them. Lissy reported about her school project and he had to give an account of his trip (which naturally wasn’t very accurate since great parts of it weren’t supposed to be talked about). When Stephen finally agreed to take care of the children the next afternoon, Anne was very relieved because her nanny had cancelled the appointment on short notice.

Stephen spent the rest of the evening on the couch in front of the TV with Lissy who enjoyed her presents. At some point he dozed off.

Stephen was positively surprised to receive a call from Ayve already the second day after they had parted. Hearing the roar of the sea in the background once more he wondered if Ayve had been truthful when claiming he had no permanent residence. But the coughing that came through the speaker erased such thoughts.

“Are you alright?” he asked concerned.

Yes, it’s just a cold, nothing serious.

“Are you sure? You can come by anytime you like if you need someone to look after you…” A window was shut on the other end of the wire.

Don’t worry, I’m fine, Ayve assured and switched the topic. I’ll have to go back in a few days and probably won’t have time for several weeks after that. I thought you might want to meet before I go.

–“Of course I do,” Stephen confirmed immediately. “But are you saying that we’re not going to be able to see each other for a month or the like after? I thought we’d agreed to increase the frequency of our meetings?”

Ayve coughed again. Stephen heard him gulp down something to drink, in his state probably tea.

Stephen, I can’t change it. I can hardly cancel an important meeting explaining my lover would be mad at me otherwise.

“I’m not mad at you. I just hoped we could spend Christmas and New Year ’s Eve together.”

Ayve ended that thread of their conversation. Let’s meet when there is time. I’ll need two days to get back on the track but we could meet on Saturday, if you like, and do something with your daughter.

“Of course. But you stay overnight,” Stephen stated decidedly.

Fine, Ayve agreed.

They said their good-byes and he hung up.

Three days later, Stephen opened the front door to be startled anew by his changed looks. Even though they had spent weeks together, his mind had not fully replaced the picture of Ayve it had gotten used to in the last decades with a picture of his actual appearance. The two men embraced and exchanged a not-too-formal oral greeting before Ayve stepped in and closed the door.

“How are you going to handle this now anyway?” Stephen asked puzzled. “I mean, with your altered complexion…” Paul, Anne and the children knew him with his ‘old’, scar-free face after all.

Ayve took off his coat. Yes, that’s a messed up situation. I’ll have to make them believe I haven’t changed. That I’ve always looked like that.

Stephen wasn’t sure what to think of that. It left him feeling uneasy. “You want to meddle with their minds?”

Ayve smiled indulgently. I want to undo the mind-meddling I have done so far without unsettling them.

That silenced Stephen. Ayve was right: pretending to look different than he truly did had been worse. And it didn’t hurt, did it? It was only unpleasant information, knowing that someone could make you believe anything. It left him always a little with the feeling that he could never be entirely sure of Ayve. A feeling he had to push aside. Ayve was honest, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered with all these not-so-comfortable truths.

They went up and Ayve followed Stephen into the kitchen. He sat down in one of the cane chairs whereas Stephen started preparing tea.

“So, are you feeling better?”

A little, yes. I’m not yet through but it gets better, Ayve answered honestly.

“Where have you been staying?” Stephen wanted to know as he placed the cups on the table and went back to the cupboard to fill the tea strainer and put it in the pot before the water started boiling.

Ayve hesitated for a second but decided it wouldn’t help to hide the truth. The sooner Stephen learned to handle the situation the better.

I stayed at Pheus’ house.

Stephen slowed down in his motions for a moment and took up his old speed again then. “With or without the occupant?”

Ayve smirked. That wasn’t exactly the point but he supposed it would be soothing for Stephen to know he hadn’t spent much time with Pheus.

He was only there the first evening.

“And what was so important that you had to see him right after we had arrived?” Stephen enquired.

Oh, no, I did not leave to see him. I visited Alannah first. She’s getting closer to her fertile phase and needed consolidation since her hormones start running wild… He directed an amused smile at Stephen who carried the tea pot over and sat down opposite him.

“Is it that bad?”

Ayve only nodded with slightly raised eyebrows.

Stephen checked the table and got up to retrieve sugar. His heart pounded a little faster as he sat down and put forth the next question because he feared the answer a little. “Pheus and you, how close are you these days?” It was strange, they were together barely five minutes and already discussing the most serious topic between them.

I’m not sure, Ayve pondered. After a moment he specified: After hardly ever seeing each other for a few decades, we’ve been meeting more regularly in the past few years. It started after the two of us, he looked at Stephen, broke up. We had business together and I have to admit, I didn’t only visit him to discuss politics. I don’t know. It felt good to have someone to turn to. A friend who knows you inside out. I know that’s hard for you to accept, that I still trust him after what he’s done to you.

Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “It is.”

Rumbling came from the stairs and a short time later Lissy entered the kitchen, completely out of breath and grinning and flung herself into Ayve’s arms.

After a heartfelt greeting she stormed off again to get rid of her anorak, boots and gloves and came back within a minute to occupy Ayve’s lap. Meanwhile Stephen had fetched another cup and provided a few biscuits, despite it only being late morning.

They sat and chatted a lot more lightly than they had before and the two men provided the wannabe-artist with tips and ideas. It was strange to ‘hear’ Ayve speak, Stephen mused. His lover still kept to that pretence. And when he did that, when he ‘talked’ to someone, he didn’t air two different voices – the one Stephen heard in his mind when they were alone and the ‘three dimensional’, so to speak, that imitated the natural reaction of a voice to the room (reverberation and the like). Stephen ‘heard’ the fake voice as well then. And it was a perfect illusion.

He sat in silence watching this enigma of a man draw lightly away in a manner suitable for Lissy to follow his explanations and leaving his daughter in awe. By all rights, Stephen thought, he shouldn’t be able to handle him. Or the situation. They led so different lives, had so different cultural backgrounds and probably moral values… -it shouldn’t work. And it hadn’t for a long time. So much had happened between them. And yet here they were sitting and getting along and having feelings for each other. Stephen had just swallowed the fact that Ayve was still enjoying the company of a man who had tried to kill him. Wasn’t that insane? It didn’t leave him cold, no. But he knew he wouldn’t try and make Ayve cut his connection to that man. Stephen was certain that would lead to nothing. He couldn’t enjoin on a man of Ayve’s age and experience whom to meet and what to do.

But it bothered him still that Ayve seemed to have drawn absolutely no consequences out of what had happened in the summer. He’d stayed in the house of a murderer. He’d openly admitted that he still trusted this man. Hadn’t he even gone as far as saying he’d trust him with his life?

The two in front of him had just finished their drawing. “Lissy, sweetheart, would you mind to go down for a bit? Ayve and I need to discuss something,” Stephen asked her to leave them. She wasn’t happy and protested but gave in in the end.

Ayve watched Stephen expectantly. “Why does it leave you so cold, what he did to me?”

Ayve adopted a confounded look. It doesn’t, he defended himself with furrowed brows.

“I know you are sorry for what has happened to me,” Stephen acknowledged, “and as far as I can tell you even felt guilty at the beginning. But I don’t understand why you don’t put blame on the person who is responsible.” His voice had gotten more excited than Stephen had meant to in the course of the two sentences. It wasn’t only Ayve who hadn’t properly dealt with last summer’s events.

Ayve folded his arms. Stephen wasn’t sure whether he didn’t know the answer and thought the matter through or whether he was merely weighing out whether to tell him or not. Ayve sighed. He’d obviously made up his mind.

Stephen, Pheus has seen me. He’s seen what I looked like after the humans had finished with me. Because of his upbringing, the tutoring of his father, his opinion of mankind had never been positive but from that moment on he loathed it. Can I blame him? He let that sink in, locking his eyes with Stephen, and then went on.

He can hardly tolerate that most of his kind live door to door with humans and have taken up parts of their culture (including doors). And I told you that he still hopes we might start a new relationship someday. It’s not that he is generally jealous of every man I bed. He has affairs himself. But he never liked that I let humans lay hand on me. They are filthy in his opinion, disgusting.

I couldn’t provoke him more than I did when I had an affair with you – for which he sharply reprimanded me but that he did not meddle in – split up with you, swearing I had realised my mistakes and would never put up with you again, and then broke that promise and shared a very passionate night with you, something I had denied him. I had been slaughtered and humiliated by humans only to turn to one of those monsters for affection then…, Ayve broke off and inhaled deeply, a hand held in front of his mouth as if shocked by what he just had thought.

He closed his eyes, concentrated on his breath and at the precise moment Stephen wanted to lift his voice, went on. He clearly believed – besides other less noble motives I do not deny he definitely had – that I was not capable of making my own decisions, that I wasn’t seeing things properly and that it was better to… - sorry for calling it by its name – …that it would be better to get you out of the way before you could harm me.

“That’s absurd,” Stephen said without much thinking. “How could I harm you? I hardly have the body to overpower you.”

Ayve shook his head. You don’t need physical violence to harm me. There are much more effective ways. Pheus knows me, inside out. He knows my weaknesses. Which by the way is one more reason for me to trust him because if his intentions weren’t pure, he could’ve gotten at me already. He’d find a way to bend me to his will.

What he feared was not your physical strength, what he feared was that I might develop feelings for you and you would prove unworthy of them. As – in his eyes – he knew you were. He feared you might shake me emotionally, mentally.

“-Sorry to say so but I have my problems thinking he would care about such things. He always looked ice-cold to me,” Stephen replied dismissively.

I wouldn’t know why he should smile at you. Ayve glanced at Stephen indulgently. And I don’t say you have to adopt my view on Pheus. But you asked me why I acted the way I did and do and that is the answer.

I’m split between three worlds: his, the nymph world and yours. And I can adapt my thinking to all three views. Of course I understand yours. Your moral values tell you that what he did was wrong. Not that humans hadn’t done that all the time during the past but it’s generally disapproved of by them and therefore you. Not to speak of your personal, very natural desire of survival.

Pheus on the other hand is a hunter. And you are a lower animal. Rotten, corrupted, the lowest of all since humans know what’s right and what’s wrong and disregard it, seeking their own advantage only. Perhaps he hates that trait in humans even more because his family is one of the few in his kind who suffers from the same disease and made him suffer for it, us. You are not on the same level and so you are prey. He doesn’t eat humans, they’re even too filthy for that but he doesn’t value their lives either. One could say mankind is the lowest species in his regard because he neither values its life nor its death.

“And you let someone like that lead negotiations between his kind and mankind? Isn’t that bound to end in a disaster?” Stephen enquired.

Ayve shook his head. He has long since accepted the difference between his worldview and that of his people. He is aware that at this point we are standing no chance; that we need to cooperate in order to maintain our existence. Pheus hates that but he is smart enough to act accordingly. And he cares about my opinion.

Stephen sighed and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He studied his lover. Pictures of their trip, of Ayve’s tribe, appeared before his inner eye and mixed with what Ayve had just said. So different, they were so different. Instinctively Stephen knew that it wouldn’t do any good for him to try and become a part of Ayve’s world, of Ayve’s culture. He wouldn’t be able to fit in. If they wanted to go on, they’d have to do it as they had so far. It was important that Stephen knew what Ayve’s world looked like in order to understand him but their meetings would have to take place in Stephen’s world. Ayve got along in it. Stephen wouldn’t get along in Ayve’s.

But where to draw the line? Could he fully avoid any contact with Ayve’s family and kinsmen? –Hardly. Ayve was going to become father. Not in the near future but still: he was obviously rearranging his priorities – finding a bond-mate, starting a relationship with Stephen, cementing his friendship (or whatever that was) with this Pheus – in favour of personal relations. If other people grew more important in Ayve’s life, Stephen might encounter them. But he still had to see and apprehend that his roots lay somewhere else. He still was human, he had a family and friends of his own. Paul and Anne had even declared him the guardian of their boys in case they died. Stephen hat threatened to get lost in the idea of sharing his life with Ayve, of losing himself in it, in the last decade. Now he realised he needed to accept the differences between the two of them and focus on his own life in order to stay the Stephen Ayve probably valued.

That of course meant he had to let Ayve lead something like a double life. With a (soon to be) pregnant ‘wife’ and a huge political responsibility on the one side and him as secret lover, secret haven, on the other. Did Stephen want to play that role in Ayve’s life? Did it matter to him if he was the prominent man at his side or the dark figure in the shadows? Stephen couldn’t say that it did. Ayve the person was what he loved, not the idea of promenading head held high at the side if the nymph leader.

And he wouldn’t be completely secret either. To the public, yes, to Ayve’s nymph tribe he’d never be his lover. But Anne and Paul knew and – even though he didn’t like counting that man into any ‘positive’ statistic – this Pheus knew as well. And as far as Stephen could tell from what Ayve had said he had confided to Alannah, Ayve wouldn’t try and hide the fact that he had a lover beside Alannah. That wasn’t what Stephen wanted either. All that he resolved upon was that he did not intend to push with all might into Ayve’s life. He’d ask for a fair share of his time and that would be it.


Ayve stayed until Monday morning and they spent an unspectacularly peaceful time together, the three of them. Lissy being in school, Stephen accompanied Ayve to the airport.

“When will we see each other again?” he asked.

I’ll make the trip as short as possible. Call me in ten days, I should be back in Scotland then, although I won’t be able to meet up with you.. Ayve kissed him good-bye.

***


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