Chapter 29: A Lesson in Humility

As the days passed by Elliot and Suki became closer and the adolescent spent less time with Sylvia. One afternoon the teenager decided to visit Sylvia. Suki had a prior appointment and was unavailable for the afternoon. The relationship he had with Sylvia had steadily deteriorated. She had become less talkative and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. The most obvious thing was to break up with Suki but Sylvia had said she wasn’t interested in him so that did not seem like the logical thing to do.

When Sylvia opened the door, she seemed as difficult as ever.

“Where is Suki? Is she not with you?” Sylvia asked.

The young woman gave the impression that she knew more about Suki’s appointment than Elliot did.

“No. She has an appointment,” Elliot replied timidly.

“What kind of appointment?”

“I don’t know,” the young man replied as if he was conscious of Sylvia’s probing. “She didn’t say?”

“How do you know she’s not with someone else?”

Elliot didn’t appreciate being interrogated, but especially in this negative manner.

“Because I trust her,” he responded in frustration. “It’s what people do when they’re in a relationship”

“How often does she have appointments?” Sylvia asked once again. It seemed to Elliot as if inwardly she was extracting pleasure from the conversation.

“Almost every day,” Elliot responded in a bemused manner. “I guess she has hobbies.”

“And you’re not even curious?” Sylvia asked incredulously.

“Why do you ask?”

“Several times I’ve seen her with Kylots,” the young woman responded bluntly.

Elliot’s frustration was increasing with each uninvited question. Why is she so hard on me? he asked himself time and time again in his own mind.

“So?” Elliot responded with a hint of exasperation.

“Sergei says that she has a number of boyfriends that visit her.”

What depressed Elliot the most was the persistent questions that from Sylvia. She only seemed to want to believe one option, that Suki wasn’t genuine. It wasn’t simply the fact that Sylvia saw him as a wimp whereas Suki saw a young man with several grams of concealed muscle. When they first met Sylvia made him feel like he could walk on water. Now she was tearing him apart.

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t lie,” the diminutive young woman replied while making firm eye contact. “You should know that by now.”

“Well I don’t care what Sergei says. He’s full of it.” Elliot rarely lost his cool but this was about as close to venting frustration as Sylvia had seen.

“Maybe you should find out for yourself,” the dark haired woman replied. “There’s a thin line between trusting someone and being a total fool.”

Not content with irritating him, now Sylvia was making him out to be a total idiot and not being subtle about it either. That was the final straw.

“Why do you have to be so nasty. You never liked Suki. You weren’t always like this with me. I used to think the world of you but now I don’t know anymore.” Elliot turned and left the room. He felt hurt and saddened. He wanted to go somewhere where he could be alone. He went to his room and sat down on his bed. He wondered why Sylvia would say what she said. How could she be so cruel? Doubts started to form in his mind. What if she was telling the truth? After all Suki did have a lot of appointments. He didn’t want to be wrong about her, but there was only one way the issue could be resolved. He had to go to her quarters now and see if everything was true.

Elliot stood outside Suki’s door for ten minutes. He had beeped her several times indicating that he was outside. After the ten minutes had passed he felt bad that he had ever doubted her. She was probably at her appointment and would be back any moment. Elliot would be embarrassed if she was to find him outside her door.

Suddenly, however the door opened several inches and Suki poked her head between the slit in the door.

“What is it you want honey?” she asked with a hint of a smile.

“I’m sorry, Suki, I guess I must have missed you so much.” Elliot replied hesitantly. “Can I come in.”

“No,” she responded bluntly. “I’m busy.”

“What’s that?” Elliot asked upon seeing something unusual in Suki’s bed

“That’s nothing, now go home,” she responded dismissively. “I will talk to you later.”

“It looks like two six foot six inches tall Kylots concealed under a blanket.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Suki responded, using all her charm. “Don’t you love me?”

“What is it then?” Elliot’s curiosity was now getting the better of him.

“Ok I’ll open the door the whole way.” The door opened. “Are you satisfied?”

Elliot could see that the bedclothes had been removed from the bed and there were two huge mounds at its side which the bed clothes were covering.

“What is that?” Elliot asked.

“Those are my bed clothes,” Sylvia responded attempting incredulity.

Suddenly the bed clothes started to move and make grunting noises.

“Ok, so I was having a little fun. It’s not against the law, is it?”

Suddenly the tone of Suki’s voice had changed and she abandoned her effort to be charming.

“Two of them?” Elliot asked in horror. “How many men have you been seeing”

“Just you,” she responded.

“OK Kylots I mean. How many?”

“When I started it was just experimentation. Two dozen maybe?”

She delivered the line in such a casual, insensitive manner that broke Elliot’s heart into a thousand tiny pieces. He had believed for a substantial period of time that they had a special relationship but now he realised he had been delusional.

“How many is it now,” he asked in a shocked manner.

“I don’t know,” Suki responded flippantly. “I’ve lost count.”

As bad as Sylvia made him feel, Suki was making him now feel like the least important piece of thrash in the universe.

“I didn’t even know that Kylots would cheat on their wives,” the devastated young man replied

“In their world,” Suki responded, “technically it’s not cheating.”

Elliot couldn’t make any sense out of that line. It was as if he had been hit by a freight train.

“Don’t you feel bad? Even guilty?” he asked, desperate for some semblance of affection.

“Our relationship was petering out anyway. Kylots are more fun. Now if you don’t mind, I’m busy,” she declared as she started to close the door again.

Elliot hung his head and walked away. Could she have been more unintentionally insulting, he wondered? Passing by Kylots in the corridor, made him uncomfortable. He was afraid that they would see how downbeat he was, and it just made him want to disappear. Maybe the majority of them knew all about Suki and her experimentation phase. He wanted to go somewhere where someone would listen to his troubles and console him. He couldn’t think of anyone. Even Sylvia was likely to tell him that she warned him, and she would probably make fun of him and his huge bulging biceps. Instead he went to his room and started to cry like a baby. For some strange reason it only made him feel worse.

On the upside the next few days weren’t too bad. Class mates didn’t mock him and passers-by kept mainly to themselves. He knew however that he would have to face Sylvia eventually, the one person on the space station who he knew, would extract pleasure from his humiliation.

Whereas for several days Elliot had sat at one end of the group of earthlings and kept to himself by the fourth day he decided to sit beside Sylvia.

“Hi,” he said in a tentative manner.

“How are things?” she responded

“Alright,” he responded sheepishly.

“Are you not sitting beside your one true love,” she mocked him without a semblance of a smile.

“We split up.” The last few days of anguish were now being revisited once more. Why couldn’t she leave things lie and let him overcome his humiliation, he asked himself?

“I had noticed that those bulging biceps of yours were looking a little flabby. You must be easing off the gymwork.”

Now Elliot fully realised how he had been manipulated by Suki. Initially he wanted to believe that everything Suki said about him was the truth but now he couldn’t help but think how foolish he was. He had told himself that Sylvia was being spiteful, but now he was embarrassed to admit that he was wrong.

“I guess it’s true what they say,” he conceded. “All men are idiots.”

“No, just you,” Sylvia responded without breaking into a smile once more.

“Have you found a Kylot of your own then?” Elliot asked in an attempt to change the subject.

“No,” the diminutive young woman responded, “but I’m sure Suki could spare one or two dozen.”

“Have you heard absolutely everything?” Elliot asked in exasperation.

“Sergei told me,” Sylvia informed him. “He thought he was the last to know. He heard from Elisa and Marty”

Elliot looked up. The two Canadians waved at him. “We’ve all been there my friend,” Sergei declared, “Even half the Kylot population.”

All Elliot was thankful for was that Suki wasn’t present. She was probably too busy with her hectic schedule.

Four days after his complete and total humiliation, even Elliot wanted to retreat into a black hole.

“They make out that Kylots are basically angelic, but they’re worse than humans when it comes to promiscuity. Most Kylots do it, three times a day, every day at least and they don’t see it as being unfaithful. They don’t see anything wrong with it. I wish my wife had taken the same view. Haven’t you also noticed, that their also more flatulent than humans.

They also fall out from time to time and have duels, but unlike humans they have competitions like coaster flipping or arm wrestling or their version of ping pong. Totally innocuous stuff. No Kylot has ever been killed on this space station. You’d think with their levels of promiscuity there would be a few heated arguments or falling outs but not here. The only fights that have occurred happen in the underworld but Kylots generally don’t go there.

They even have betting here but no money exchanges hands. They have pets like gerbils only three times larger and faster. They race them against one another and just bet for the fun of it.

They are highly intelligent though. Their technology is superior to ours and they can master a hundred or more different languages.

Alcohol is their achilles heal though. Most of them don’t drink the stuff but those that do reverse all the benefits of Dukateca amongst other things. I tried to avoid the odd Kylot in the bar. They crack off ten times more than humans when they are drunk. Its unbearable. They also put on weight, feel sorry for themselves and become less intelligent.”

“That does seem familiar,” Sylvia responded.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself,” he asked Sylvia in an attempt to change the subject once more.

“A lot of reading about different worlds and cultures. Apparently the Terra Terra people from the planet Basheron can eat dirt. They find it very nutritious apparently.”

During the entire conversation, Sylvia never made eye contact with her long time friend. Most of the time she gazed downward at the table. It demoralised Elliot and he felt as if his confidence and ability to impress her was ebbing away.

“Anything else?”

“Finding ways to get off this planet,” Sylvia responded.

“That’ll take about eight years of flight school,” Elliot informed her despondently. “And then you’d have to obtain a space craft.”

“They told me twelve.” Sylvia quipped. “I guess they suckered you huh?”

“And Averneen said four,” the flight student responded despondently

“Do you dislike me now, Sylvia?” Elliot asked her.

“Why would I dislike you. Without you making a clown of yourself this place would be completely dull altogether.”

“That makes me feel better,” Elliot declared unconvincingly.

“You’re still the same guy I met a few years ago and I’m still the same girl. Just don’t get any ideas.”

There was a lack of emotion in her voice. Elliot held out a remote hope that she was holding something back. He wanted to believe that deep down she felt something for him and one day her defences would crack open.

“You’re harder to read that War and Peace or Ulysees or the Great Gatsby,” Elliot replied in a frustrated tone. “They’re like a walk in in the park compared to you.”

“Say if you’re into books,” Marty interrupted enthusiastically, “They have an awesome collection here. Of course it’s all digital which can take some time to get used to. Myself and Elisa love them. That’s what brought us together.”

“We met in a library,” Elisa continued, “He approached me and tried to pay me compliments but I told him to be quiet. I was reading Dickens at the time, but he cornered me outside the doors. He was so nice and so persistent that I eventually gave in and we started from there. We’ve gone from strength to strength.” As she said this they both put one arm around each other and looked at each other in a happy and contented manner.

“There are loads of titles we can recommend,” Marty suggested, looking up once again. “Whatever you are into.”

Moments later after Sylvia returned to her room Marty and Elisa offered to give Elliot their own tour of the space station. Elliot thought he had seen it all before but they managed to bring him to a few new places. The young American didn’t realise for example that there was an aquarium filled with exotic fish from around the universe. One fish looked as beautiful as a jellyfish but more beautiful and more mobile. Another had a face similar to that of a Labrador.

They also had museums filled with unusual objects. Among them were an ancient abacus, an ancient dart thrower and an old fiddle. Other objects were so unusual that neither, Elliot, Marty or Elisa understood what exactly they were used for. One of them looked like an old kettle but instead of having one spout it had several different attachments one of which looked like a short spout. It looked like a cross between a kettle and a swiss army knife.

When they stood outside Elliot’s room, at the end of their tour, the couple repeated their warm reassurance that if ever Elliot needed anything, he need only ask.

When Elliot closed the door of his room behind him on that day he couldn’t help but feel happy that he had found two new friends who would do their best to look after him. He had felt let down by Suki and Sylvia. The former was easier to deal with. He could always accept it when a girl simply wasn’t interested in him. In relation to Sylvia however he did not fully understand where he stood. He didn’t know what she thought of him. He didn’t know if she liked him. He didn’t know why her mood had changed. It was as if she wasn’t the same person anymore.