Tuesday 8 August 2006

When I can't sleep at night and I just stare at the moon,
Listening to your beating heart,
To know that you're with me, and the love that you give me,
Keeps me from falling apart, I'm not scared anymore.

Chris de Burgh, I'm not scared anymore.

Sims2 story: The blues

My name is Semi. Yes, I know it is cheesy. I guess I could get it changed. But everyone around here knows me by this name now. And I am hard not to notice. After all, I am the only blue guy around here. There are more of us back in Paragon City, but I put all that behind me. I don't have any superpowers, not that I know of; and believe me, I took a battery of tests. The rest of my family are all supers, and they kept hoping. When they started talking about exposing me to various radiation to see if it would "trigger something", I decided it was time to look for another place to live...

The only thing, and I only found out later, is that I seem to age more slowly than ordinary people. I'm not sure if that is such a good thing really. Now that I have found love, and lost it, and found it again, I don't want to keep living without her. But that's what this story is about, I guess. The love of my life, and the mistakes I made on my way here.

***

My new life began when I moved into a modern dormitory at STFU. With large rooms – more like suites, really – and plenty of air, computers in each room and wireless broadband. It was a very free place too, girls and boys mingled and love was always flowing. But I was new there and a stranger and didn't really fit in. However I made a couple friends there: A brother and a sister named Manicheos. It is a pretty rare name, and this becomes important soon. Anyway, I couldn't take the hectic life there and got into a smaller place with only five students, where I completed my college years. But I was always alone. I kept contact with the Manicheos, though.

After I graduated I moved into this small house downtown. I had to borrow to the chimney, but I was young and confident. As an independent tech writer I could work from home. I don't quite have a social phobia, that would be an exaggeration, but I am not good with crowds. You would probably not be either if you were bright blue. Just saying.

One day I saw a dark, pretty teen girl who stood outside and looked at the house, as if not sure whether she had come to the right place. She looked pretty harmless, so I went out and asked if I could help her. She told me her name was Lissa Manicheos. Yes, she was – is – the younger sister of my old friends. She was just curious, she told me. So was I: She looked rather different from her older siblings. Turns out her parents is an interracial coupe. They also have quite a lot of children, with varying colors. None like me, though. She was very openly curious. Well, I guess she ended up seeing a lot more of my skin than I had planned. I know, she was like 8 years younger than me. But I was so very alone and she was so enthusiastic. And she kept coming back, and more and more things happened, and then everything.

I thought this was love. After all, that's what she said. And it felt good. She never made me nervous or looked at me like I was not really real. It was like family, only the games we played were not scrabble, to put it that way. So when she told me she was going to stay with me, I was all for it. Her parents did not understand her, they treated her like a child, they did not see the woman she had become. I wanted her here, and I felt that I was taking responsibility. After all, after what we had done, it was the right thing to do. No matter that she was still in high school. What can I say, I was an idiot. Luckily her parents did not call the police on me. Her older brother checked up on us a lot, and I guess he had them convinced that I wasn't some kind of predator.

***

Lissa sure had a lot of classmates, and they were all boys, and they came home with her from school. I was working a lot at this time, to pay the mortgage on the house. I had it expanded a little too, to make room for her. It was pretty small as it was. And I had bought her new clothes, lots of new clothes. It was a new life for her, after all, she had a new identity to forge. The clothes were generally quite sexy too. As could be expected when we bought them together. Anyway, it took its time before I started to wonder about all these friends, and just how friendly they were. And then I found her and one of them in our bed, in their underwear, kissing and fondling. At least they still had their underwear on... I doubt they all had that.

Lissa slept on the couch till I got a bed for her upstairs in the new loft.

It was at this time I met Ingvild and found out what love really is. I mean, I had thought I knew love. But this was something far more than anything I had felt before. It was an obsession. We just clicked, you know? Just looking at her made my head swim, and she felt the same way about me. We were meant for each other, soulmates from the beginning. We went on several dates at the Midnight Flows, and they were all dream dates, making us so happy we just wanted to scream with love and joy.

When Ingvild came home with me, she was a bit skeptical to discover that I had a teen girl living in the house. I explained that she had to get away from her fundamentalist parents and how her older brother was my friend from college etc, and Ingvild seemed to accept that. Since she and I could not bear to be apart for long, we agreed that she would move in with me. My happiness was complete. I still got some work done when she was at work – Ingvild was running a restaurant herself, she is a few years older than me but it is still amazing – but when she was home, we were always hugging and cuddling and sharing every thought and feeling. It was the best time of my life. And it ended so suddenly.

I was relaxing on our bed when Lissa suddenly came downstairs in her underwear. The teleporter is in my room, but she didn't continue to the bathroom. Instead she crawled up in the bed with me and tried to kiss me. I tried to push her away, tried to explain that things were not like that now, and then Ingvild came in.

Well, you can probably imagine the drama. I tried to explain but that certainly did no good. Lissa found this a good time to point out that she had me FIRST and Ingvild was really intruding. I apologized for not having told her the whole truth about Lissa. She claimed I had not told any truth at all about Lissa, but graciously allowed me a chance: Either the hussy had to leave, or Ingvild would. Well, that was an easy choice. I called the university and arranged for Lissa to move there. I would have to pay for her (I think I mentioned that her family had lots of children and had already put two of them through university) but she could move by the start of the next semester.

***

Those were some pretty long weeks to wait. Ingvild hated us both, it was all too clear, although she had calmed down enough to not use physical violence anymore. Lissa was unrepentant, but at least she did not make any more attempts to get into my bed. Neither did Ingvild, of course. By unspoken agreement, we either slept at different times of the day or took the couch if the other was in the bed. Since I can work at any time of day or night, given enough espresso, this worked long enough for Lissa to finish up and move out in a seemingly dignified manner (not having her stuff thrown out on the lawn).

Things did not suddenly improve when she was gone. Ingvild still either ignored me or glared daggers at me, and we lived our two different lives in the same house. We made our own food, we slept at different times and on different sides of the bed, and I had bought a second desk and a used computer. Sometimes we would sit and work back to back, not saying a word. I could smell her perfume but there was nothing I could do.

Weeks passed and became months. Sometimes we would eat our separate food at the same table at the same time, and talk about trivial things. Gradually we began to talk more. She still did not trust me, and certainly did not love me. But she accepted that I was a human and not a demon, evidently, and that's something. I had stopped being furious over her overreaction long ago, and I had never stopped loving her. There just wasn't anything I could do about it. So I played it cool, did not try anything even though she was always on my mind. Always I wished to talk to her, to touch her, to dance with her, play with her, to massage those stiff shoulders. But I always held back. And gradually she lost her anger. At long last she started to remember why she had been drawn to me when first we met. I knew it the day she suddenly started to tickle me. But when I tried to play red hands with her, she got upset and pulled away. She came back later that day to tickle me again, though. As long as I didn't do anything back, she seemed to enjoy it.

Since she works with food, she was watching the Yummy Channel one evening the next week. I was doing an article series on a related topic, so I went to the couch and sat down beside her. We commented on the program, and then on other things, and I could feel the last of the anger drain from her until we were leaning against each other like in the old days. We did not do anything more than that, though. But I was happy. I loved her as much as I had ever done, and now I dared to hope she would one day find love again, too.

The next evening I came out from the home office and my eyes were drawn to the couch. There was Ingvild, curled up and sleeping in her underwear. She looked so vulnerable, lying there like that. And so sexy, of course. I knelt beside her and started to sing a love song. She sat up and smiled at me. I took her hand and I could feel the spark between us. It was back! Quietly we clung to each other, running our hands over all the familiar places, just enjoying being back. "Don't catch a cold sleeping on the couch" I said. And then we went to bed.

***

She sleeps, but I am thinking. Tomorrow I'll be buying rings. We should invite some of her friends and some of mine for the wedding. I know Ingvild wants babies, lots of babies, at least half a dozen. I wonder if they will be blue too? I am going to be working hard, of course. Times are not easy these days. Wages are low and taxes are high. But together we will make it.

I lie here listening to her soft, deep breathing. I cannot bear the thought that one day it will stop, one day she will not be here with me. I don't know what I will do. But I hope we will have a bunch of grandchildren before that...