We danced several waltzes, and pretty soon it was becoming natural to me. I certainly wasn’t good, but I was no longer awful.
Finally, Lara said, “This has been wonderful, Yuri. I look forward to our next meeting.”
And with that, she squeezed my hand and turned and left the living room and headed back to her bedroom. No kiss, not even a hug. What the hell had I done wrong? What was going on?
* * *
The next morning, I made breakfast again, and waited for Ellie to show up. Breakfast was almost ready when she appeared. She was smiling, and acting as if nothing at all was wrong.
She got herself a cup of coffee and let me serve breakfast. When were done with breakfast, she refilled her coffee cup and sat back at the table.
“Let’s talk, Brandon. What happened last night was beautiful. It was magnificent. It was the most romantic and exotic experience of my life. And I don’t want us to mess anything up.
“So here are the rules. Brandon and Ellie are brother and sister. They love each other, but they don’t mess around. Yuri and Lara live in a world of epic landscapes, and epic love. Those two worlds are completely separate. When you become Yuri, that’s who you are. When you are with Lara, the two of you are in your own universe that knows nothing about us, about our jobs, or our lives.
“If you slip up, it’s over. I might even need to move out. But if you can stay with it, we will have our own world that’s more amazing than anything either of us has ever known. Is that clear?
“Also, we both have jobs and need to be able to operate in the real world as well. So probably, most of our Yuri and Lara time will need to be on the weekends. The other days, we will just be us and we can hang out and do regular things together. Do you agree to those terms?”
I nodded.
Then she added, “Now, one more thing, I just want you to know, about last night, I’m not trying to be a tease. It was wonderful, in a lot of ways. But… Well, it still felt like… Like we were just reciting our lines. We weren’t really there. I mean I didn’t come up with this idea just as a way to sneak around the rules. That would never work for me. And in the end, it wouldn’t be enough for you either. It has to be real. I don’t know exactly what it will take, but both you and I will know when it happens. And we’ll know why we waited.
“So for now, we both need to keep thinking about it, and Yuri and Lara can meet again next weekend.”
I suppose that made me feel a little better about what happened last night, but at the same time it left me feeling kind of stuck. What did she want? You know, it’s like that old whine by male comedians, “What do women want?” As if it’s some kind of total mystery. (Which in this case it was.)
But at the same time, I kind of felt like I understood what she was talking about. If it was going to be a classic romance, we weren’t nearly there yet. I wasn’t nearly there yet, and I knew it. I just wasn’t sure of how to get there.
* * *
Monday morning, after breakfast, Ellie headed out to catch the bus to go to her office.