Chapter 37 - Just Like The Old Days
I came back a few days later, uncertain of what I wanted to say to Lila. It would just have to come to me in the moment. I entered the library from the front door instead of the “basement” box it all originated from. It looked empty, but I knew it was not. The fact that it was still around, meant that the Rahin had not come back to destroy everything. This meant that Fyntn was still hanging around, with Kelio.
“Hey,” a voice took me by surprise from behind me. It was Lila, at the open door to the darkness. “I was just sitting on the stoop when you arrived. Did I surprise you?”
“Yeah, a bit,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone past the confines of the library. I should be aware of that though, seeing as there are void leeches out in the dark.”
“Most of them are lost, aimless,” Lila said, sounding so sure that I wanted to ask if she was ok. “I— I’m sorry about before.”
“No, it’s ok,” I said. “It’s my issue. I’ve suppressed my urges for a very long time. I’m too afraid of just letting go sometimes. It comes out in sexually themed situations, and sometimes where passion is involved for other goals.”
“That sounds difficult to manage,” she said.
“I guess I don’t need to tell you about that, remembering the past that put you in here,” I said, and got angry at myself for bringing it up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.” Lila sat down on the second stair, then patted the space next to her. I sat beside her, afraid of what she would say next.
“The past is the past,” she said. “I’ve done some horrible things back there, but I’m better off, and that’s thanks to you. Thanks to Kara, I’m able to express myself sexually again, and tried to push that on you, but I shouldn’t have.”
“Like I said, It’s my issue,” I said. “It’s about beast after all. I’m afraid of letting him roam free, but he’s also the key to being passionate about things, so I can’t just lock him away entirely.” Lila held out a hand, and I held it. The warmth felt welcome, but the mental aspect of skin contact was not there. I remembered skin contact from the past, and tried to recall the chemicals it released, but I had not been close with anyone for a long time. Because of this, I felt tears well in my eyes, and it somehow happened that I was already crying in the untethered space.
“Jack?” Lila asked. “Are you ok?” I put a hand up to wipe my eyes, erasing the moisture from existence.
“I’ve kept away from people because I’m afraid,” I said.
“There is nothing to fear in here,” Lila said.
“I’m afraid that you'll one day leave me just like Rebecca,” I said, then met her eyes. She looked surprised for a moment, then grimaced.
“Right,” she said. “Well, that’s unavoidable. The Rahin can’t abide this place existing. The Nth Goni want to reset it. Kara wants to take Tarne and go on the run. I’m partial to it, but either way, there is an end to this, Jack. It’s coming sooner than the ten years I was supposed to be with you. Besides, isn’t it about time for you to move on to something else, something you can actually share with them? Finn, Rebecca, and I, we’re a sort of coping mechanism instead of coexisting in your reality. Aren’t we?” I let go of her hand.
“The freedom available here is… very useful,” I said. “You can take an idea of mine and make it visible, tangible, interactable. Losing this freedom of bouncing ideas off another person who tries them out is… quite a loss.”
“Oh,” Lila said. “So you’re saying it’s not that you’ll miss me, it’s that you’ll miss your mannequin for new ideas.”
“You are one of the ideas,” I said, and regretted it.
“I’m NOT an idea,” she said, standing abruptly. “I thought we’ve interacted enough for you to realize that I didn’t come from you. I’ve lived my own fucked-up life. I’ve killed my world, then went on to kill the universe. That’s what I did. You didn’t do this. Don’t make me regret knocking on that wooden box in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be down there.” She pointed to the wooden room below.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to doubt you.” If this was a fabrication of my mind, it was a damn good one to get upset when questioned. We had discussed the philosophical nature of this, but this was the first time I had seen Lila angry.
“If I don’t exist,” she said, “Then Tarne isn’t real. And that’s something that I can’t even begin to imagine. You know what I mean?” I nodded, but had no idea of the powerful emotion behind it. If I could be Tarne in that moment, I would hug her, my mother, assure her that everything was going to be ok with the innocent unknowing of a child.
“You’re real,” I said. “I believe it, but now I’ve got to go. I will be back tomorrow. Let’s have fun like the old times, huh?” Lila smiled, then patted my back, launching me like a rocket into the darkness where I vanished out of the untethered space.
break
I came back two days later, read over the last paragraph, and felt like absolute shit. There I went saying I would stop by and we would have fun like old times. I promised. I remembered sitting with my device that morning, deciding not to go in. I did not remember what I said the day before. Other thoughts absorbed me, of work, or something new I watched, and plans for the weekend.
I entered the library from the bottom room, and ascended the spiral staircase into the open area where Lila was waiting for me, sitting on the second stair.
“I’m sorry,” I said. She met my eyes with a disappointed look, and sighed.
“Like old times it is then,” she said. “You never have a lot of time here. It’s like you’re rationing yourself or something. Do you dislike spending time with me?”
“No, that’s— You’re a fun person,” I said. “Too fun even. It’s crazy that you can entertain beast and JJ at the same time. You make me want to be a singular mind. It’s a bit hard to be here too often with work and other things I want to do, or sometimes need to do. While you entertain JJ and beast, they do still have physical representations in my reality connected to my body, and want to feel things that keep them satisfied.”
“Oh? What kind of things?” Lila asked.
“Well… naughty things for beast,” I said. “And fun things for JJ.”
“And for you?”
“Calm things.”
“I can be calm with you for a bit, if you’d like,” Lila said.
“Calm, solitary things,” I said. “It’s a bit like, if you’re with someone, you’re always going to have a thought in the back of your mind of kissing them, or holding them, or having sex with them. At least humans do. They want closeness and that can snowball into a stressful situation while seeking something naughty to entertain the beast part of their brain. In solitude, however, you can be relaxed with yourself, judged by nobody, straddled by no one, thinking of someone, but calmly.”
“You can do naughty things by yourself,” Lila said, then shifted her whole outfit off herself into the air where they dropped to a small pile beside her. “Case and point.” She moved a hand behind her back for a moment, then crouched slightly with a gasp that must have been the most rushed climax I had ever seen. Soon after, she clothed herself back up with a swipe of her arm and took a leap into the brown couch. She patted the surface next to her, and I sat down with her.
“But you obviously did that because I’m here, to maybe get a rise out of beast,” I said. “In solitude, a stray thought may tune into that mode for a bit, but then you relax and just be with yourself, no eyes on you.”
“As if there is ever a moment when eyes aren’t on me,” Lila said. “I was put here as a prisoner, lest you forget. Not to mention you can stop by any time, and choose when you are visible. For all I know, you’ve watched me and Kara every time we’ve had sex, and got off to it to entertain beast. —Which is fine. I’m not saying I care. I’m just saying that it’s hard to have ‘privacy’ in my case.” I wanted to assure her that I never watched her and Kara together, but that would not be true. I was sure there was at least one instance that I had seen more than I intended.
“I guess you won’t get it until you leave here with Kara,” I said, imagining them having really loud sex in some random forest of another world. I grimaced as beast snickered at the thought he pushed at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s just beast pushing sexual thoughts into my head,” I replied.
“Oooh, what was it?” Lila asked. “Was it about me, or Kara? Or both?”
“Both,” I said, feeling stupid entertaining her interest. “You were— you made a lot of noise in a forest, let’s say.”
“A forest, huh?” Lila asked. “What’s a ‘forest’?”
“A large gathering of trees,” I explained. “You know what a tree is, right?”
“Yeah, we call those traes,” Lila said. “One tree, two traes, and then a tree without a count is a gathering of traes. Language is weird sometimes. Not to mention that we’re not even speaking the same one, so some things no doubt get lost in translation.” I was glad Lila was smiling, though I missed when she was pretending to be a kid. When she was a child, I showed her the stories I wrote to entertain her. When she was grown up, JJ was less interested in those moments of wonder, and beast was more interested in exploring her anatomy.
“Looks like I’m out of time,” I said. “Next time we’ll definitely have fun like the good old days.”
“Is that a promise, Jack?” Lila asked, holding out a hand with pinky outstretched. I didn’t know where she learned it, but I pinky swore on it. There it was, that sensation of looming doom. I couldn’t shake the thought that we’d never get to have that fun we scheduled. I looked toward the garden, and flipped over the back of the couch to disappear.
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