Chapter 19 - December's End

What Jeremy saw the next morning was Liliana, lying in bed next to him. She had never spent the night before, and he had just about convinced himself that she couldn't exist in his world during the daylight. But there she was, sleeping peacefully.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and she woke up and smiled at him. "Good morning," she said.

"I'm full of questions," he said. "But I won't ask any of them. I'll just enjoy the fact that you are here."

"You're learning," she said.

He went to work with a spring in his step, happier than he'd been in a long, long time. He caught himself whistling and humming several times during the day. He laughed at himself. He rarely shushed anyone, and the library he worked at didn't have a policy of silence, but he still thought it was pretty funny that he was so going against the stereotype of a librarian as to actually be whistling in the library.

When he got home, Liliana was still there, and she had cleaned his entire apartment. She'd even washed the silverware. He thought of asking her how, but then he saw the heavy latex gloves lying next to the sink. He had bought them for doing some paint stripping on some old furniture he'd bought at a yard sale that he'd intended to refinish. He wondered where she had found them -- he'd forgotten he even had them, and had no idea where they had been.

They made love that night as if it was the first time. No, far better than the first time because their bodies knew each other, knew what felt good and what felt better and how they fit together best. Jeremy discovered that he had only imagined he had known ecstasy before. This night was more than he could ever have wished for. He thought it was the beginning of a long succession of wonderful nights, that now Liliana had moved in with him and would be with him forever.

But when he woke up in the morning, she was gone again, and he didn't see her after that for more than a week.

At first, he thought they had merely lapsed back into their old routine, that he had misjudged her overnight stay, but he would surely see her in three or four days. When five days passed and she had not showed up, either at the park or in his apartment, he began to worry.

Would he ever see her again? Was he someone she had merely played with, and now would abandon? What did he know about her, except that she was not really human and had relatives who were decidedly less so and lived in a world of beauty where time flowed differently?

Christmas came and went and he didn't even notice. His mother called him Christmas day, wondering where he was, and he realized he'd never even told her that he'd planned to have Christmas up here with Liliana, and of course that plan had never made much sense in the first place, because how can you plan anything when your plans depend on someone whose very essence is undependability. And he couldn't really explain any of this to his mother anyway, so he was surly, and then immediately sorry about it, and the whole exchange wasn't very satisfactory for either of them.

New Year's Eve was approaching, and the only notice Jeremy gave it was the sour realization that it looked like he'd spend another New Year's Eve without someone to kiss at midnight after all.

Yet still he went to the park every night. Still he walked around the pond, hoping to see her, hoping since she wasn't at the park that she'd be in his apartment when he got home. And every night he got home to a cold and empty apartment that seemed colder someone for the emptiness.

But then, on New Year's Eve, there she was. Waiting for him in the park.

His heart leapt. He was overjoyed to see her. But he was annoyed, too. He remembered what her sister had said, and realized there was a certain amount of truth in it. He was angry at the way Liliana came and went from his life, at the fact that he not only had no control but not even any knowledge of when she would or wouldn't be around.

She smiled and held out her arms, but he didn't rush to her. She stood there, arms out, and the smile faded from her face and she looked uncertain.

"Aren't you glad to see me?" she asked, her voice sounding on the edge of breaking into tears.

He relented and went to her and hugged her. "Of course I am. But I must admit I'm a little hurt and angry that you keep disappearing from my life and I never know whether or not I'll see you again and you just are gone for days and days and then suddenly show up again and . . . well, it's hard to take."

She squeezed him. "I'm sorry that I've hurt you," she said. But he noticed that she didn't promise not to do it anymore.

They walked to his apartment with their arms around each other, but they were quiet. In the past, they had chatted along the way about this or that, Jeremy's day at work or something interesting in the park that Liliana had seen while waiting for Jeremy. Tonight, neither of them spoke. There was a wall between them, Jeremy felt, even though they were touching and hugging each other.

He knew his words had created the wall between them. No, he suddenly thought, it had been her actions that had caused his words, after all. He wasn't going to take the blame for this.

They got to his apartment and sat on the couch, still quiet.

"What are we going to do about this?" Jeremy finally said.

"About what?"

"It's tearing me up to have you come and go like this. You don't even leave me a note saying when you'll see me again. You just leave. I really thought . . ."

"Yes?"

He sighed. "I thought the last time when you stayed the night and were still here the next day that you were going to stay for good, that you wouldn't be coming and going anymore. And then suddenly you were gone. And not only that, but you've been gone for longer than you've ever been since I first met you. I've always seen you within three or four days but it's been a week -- more than a week. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"I see."

She sighed, stared off into space a moment. She straightened up, folded her hands in her lap. "Would you rather have my sister?"

"What?"

"My sister. Would you rather have her here instead of me? She would allow you to control her, insofar as she was able, come and go as you pleased, and if she could not obey your commands, she would let you punish her, give your anger a vent that some men find arousing in itself."

"I don't want your sister," Jeremy said miserably.

"Or is it me you'd like to punish as my sister suggested that you punish her. Oh, yes, I know what she said to you. She couldn't wait to repeat it to me, and I knew that sooner or later it would come up, because once a man has had her voice whisper in his ear he can't forget her words, no matter how he tries."

"This has nothing to do with your sister. It's about us. Before I ever met your sister this bothered me. It bothers me more now because I thought we were past it, and because the wait has been longer than ever this time. That's all. It has nothing to do with her."

Or did it? He couldn't deny that her sister's voice had been insistent in his ear, had in fact aroused him and influenced his thinking, that he had, in fact, just two days ago fantasized about punishing Liliana, when she finally did show up -- if she showed up, which of course two days ago he hadn't been quite certain that she would.

"Jeremy, I cannot stay with you always. I have to come and go. I do not know myself when I can see you again, nor can I get a message to you in between times. You must accept what we have or send me away."

He reached out for her and she came into his arms. He held her tightly, afraid that if he let her go she'd vanish into the night, knowing that sooner or later, she would indeed do just that, again and again and again, and that each time she'd break his heart, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, because he wanted her and needed her too much to send her away.

At midnight, they kissed, the first time Jeremy had ever kissed a girl at midnight when he'd believed there really was a chance he'd spend the rest of the year with her -- the only other times had been girls he'd met at parties who were as lonely as he was. This time was special, this time was magical, and Jeremy whispered to her just before the kiss that he wanted to be kissing her next New Year's Eve and the next and the next.

And that was how the year ended, with Jeremy happy, but knowing that his happiness was a transitory thing that would come and go with Liliana. He was worried about it, knew that it wasn't wise to be so dependent on her. But he was not wholly in control of himself, and could not help but be in love with her.

He knew that she would be gone again soon, either tomorrow morning or the next day or the next, and that he would be sad and angry and frustrated until she came back, and he knew also that it might transpire that some day she would not come back, and he would be bereft and unable to cope with her absence. It would be sensible to make a clean break with her now, to be glad for what he already had and savor the experience and get back to the real world and real women, now that he was over the hump of having rid himself of his troublesome virginity.
But instead he held her close, and kissed her like there was no tomorrow, and told her he would love her always, and promised never to send her away, and to always wait for her, no matter what.