by Zara Zenia
He disappeared into the back room and closed the door.
With a trembling hand, I pulled the book over to me and flicked through the pages. There was no sign of an Ethan anywhere. Not over the last month anyway. My heart began to race. Beneath my coat, I was started to sweat with nerves. What was going on?
Then something jumped up at me. A name that could almost be Ethan.
"Etha Zol?" I said to myself. "Could that be him?"
I looked closer, analyzing every spot of ink in a bid to analyze the handwriting.
"Hey!" I called over the counter.
The manager opened the door but didn't come back out.
"What?"
"Is this him?"
He huffed and lifted his lumbering body off his armchair. Stomping back out, he looked at the name I was pointing at and nodded.
"Yeah, that's the guy. Never really paid much attention to the name before but now that I look at it, ain't Zol a weird surname?"
"Almost sounds made up," I observed.
"It does," he said with a frown. "But he pays for his room and causes me no trouble. Unlike some of the folk around here."
He snatched the book out of my fingers and placed it back on the pile.
"Now is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked, caustically, a look of irritation wrinkling up his forehead.
"No... Thank you. You've been very helpful."
As I walked out to my car, I could feel his eyes on the back of my head. I wondered what he thought about me, probably assumed I was some lovesick drama queen.
"Etha Zol..." I mumbled as I sat back in my car.
Had he accidentally misspelled his name and missed out the last letter? Not likely...
My headache worsened and reached into the glovebox for the vial of aspirin I kept tucked away for emergencies. I needed to feel better soon because there was no way I was going to bed now.
Back in my room, I opened my laptop and typed his name into the search bar. He must have some sort of presence online. Even the shiest most reserved people had a social media presence or at least a dormant account sitting somewhere.
With no results appearing with Ethan Zol, I deleted the N that had now become so mysterious. There were still no results. It was as though he never existed.
"What the hell?"
My worst fears were that I would discover the real him and find out he had a secret family or I'd stumble across a news article about him being a wanted criminal. But finding nothing at all brought me to the conclusion that he either didn't exist or the name he gave both me and the hotel was fake.
He must be running away from something, I thought. Who lives in a hotel and is virtually untraceable?
Closing my laptop and lying back down on my bed, I noticed the sun was beginning to rise, its soft glow spreading out across the horizon.
Pulling my blinds shut, I closed my eyes to sleep but it was impossible. My stomach and mind were churning, my head racing with so many thoughts. Every logical part of my brain was telling me to forget about him.
He has a sketchy past and he lies about who he is. And he lives in a hotel!
But no matter how many times I tried to forget about him, I was always drawn back to the memory of his eyes and the way he touched me. I had fallen for him hard and chastised myself for being so naive.
Pulling the covers up over my head, I tried to let the warmth and darkness encapsulate me.
"Who are you, Ethan?" I whispered. "And, where are you?"
Chapter 7
Ethazol
When I stepped off the train, the early morning sunshine was blistering its way through the streets. I hadn't slept all night and my head hurt. I rubbed my bloodshot eyes and ambled down the platform. Luckily, the Ligotti was only a few minutes’ walk and my bed was calling me.
When I arrived at the hotel I was pleasantly surprised by how quiet it was. There was nobody out on the street causing trouble and not a single beggar sitting on the steps. You'd almost be forgiven for thinking it was a semi-respectable establishment.
I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a voice from the main desk.
"Yo!"
I turned around and saw the manager, Eugene waving me back down.
"Everything okay?" I asked, worried that I'd maybe forgotten to pay him.
"You tell me. A girl was sniffing around here last night asking questions about you."
Confused and sleep-deprived, I leaned across the counter and yawned.
"A girl?"
"Yeah, a real pretty thing with red hair, big green eyes. Seemed to be keen on you."
Demi... What was she doing here?
"Questions... What questions did she ask?"
Eugene cocked his head to the side as he remembered.
"I dunno... Like some basic stuff about what your name was, what did I know about you, yadda yadda..."
Suddenly, I was wide awake with panic.
"What did you tell her?"
"Why? You worried I let something slip?"
I stood up straight and tried to think of everything I told her about myself. Is she onto me? Does she realize I’m not from Earth?
"No. I'm not worried," I said and did my best to look calm. "I was just wondering."
Eugene nodded at the sign in book.
"She just looked at that then left."
"That was it?"
"Yeah."
That wasn't so bad.
"Cool, well catch you later."
Upstairs, I was pushing my key into the lock when I realized the name I'd signed in with.
"Shit!"
After arriving at Benzen's apartment I'd turned my phone off, not wanting to be distracted. It was a serious occasion and I didn't want to be interrupted. Now, as I sat on the bus across town, I saw a dozen messages from Demi that got increasingly angry as the night progressed.
"This is a nightmare," I mumbled under my breath as I scrolled through the messages.
Stepping off the bus on Demi's street, it felt as though I was a million miles away from the hotel. Here the streets were clean and the lawns were manicured. Shiny, new cars drove sensibly and children played out on the sidewalk. Of course, Demi lived somewhere like this. I, on the other hand, was more suited to the mysterious, though dangerous, Ligotti.
As I arrived at her house, my stomach tightened like a rubber band stretching itself across my body. Was she going to yell at me? Or was she going to fling her arms around me and kiss me? There was only one way to find out. I pressed the doorbell and waited. Inside, I could hear the sound of padded footsteps and a moment later, the door opened to reveal Demi standing in her pajamas.
"Ethan?"
She didn't yell or hug me. Instead, she just stared up at me in shock with her hair wrapped in a towel and her face fresh and dewy.
"You look beautiful as always," I said.
"Sorry, I just got out of the shower,"
She pointed to her hair and took a nervous step back.
Ushering me inside, she led me to the kitchen where a pot of coffee was brewing on the stove. There were flowers on the table and kitchen utensils I'd never seen before. The floor was polished to perfection. I felt as though I was making the place dirty just by being in it.
"Here," she handed me a steaming cup. "You look like you need it."
"I do," I said as the smell of the coffee revived me.
Sitting down in front of me, she clasped her fingers around her cup.
"I thought you weren't coming back," she said.
"Really? But I told you I was."
She looked down at the table and her pale skin turned pink. Tapping her fingernails along the side of her cup, she chewed on her lip and wriggled in her seat.
"You were snooping around last night," I said.
She looked up, her mouth dropping open.
"What were you doing, Demi? Eugene said you were asking questions about me! And all the messages, Demi? Why so many? I told you I was coming back, didn't I?"
"
Well y-yeah," she stammered, "But I didn't..."
"Didn't what? Trust me?"
Her expression changed in an instant and now she was as angry as I was.
"Trust you!" she spat. "How the hell am I supposed to do that? You know, I felt guilty for snooping around but I'm glad I did because I found out you lied to me. You're not even called Ethan, are you?"
It sounded like more of a threat than a question. "
"Who the fuck is Etha Zol?" she yelled. "Who are you?"
I didn't know what to say. There was no way I could tell her the truth.
Pulling a loose piece of string from my sleeve, I focused on twirling it around my finger, watching the way it cut into my skin.
"Hello? Are you even listening to me?" she waved a hand in front of my face. "Don't ignore me."
I let out a long exhale and pulled on the string until it snapped.
"Okay... My real name isn't Ethan."
She shook her head and scrunched up her face as she began to cry.
"I knew it, I knew it! You're just at-"
"But!" I raised a hand and she fell silent. "I only told you it's Ethan because it's more... You know, American. My real name is Etha Zol... It sounds weird to you, right? I wanted to fit in and well, I didn't want to put you off with my strange name so I came up with Ethan. I'm sorry, okay? If lying about one letter of my name to impress a girl is such a crime then go ahead, lock me up."
She pursed her lips and hesitated.
"I understand," she nodded and sat back down.
Reaching across the table, I moved to take her hand and hoped she wouldn't pull away.
"I get it," she continued. "But it's not just your name... It's the hotel, you leaving town, the fact that I don't know anything about you."
I remained silent.
"So, what do you want to know?"
"Everything!" she stretched out her arms. "I mean anything. Where were you born? Where do you work? Where is your family? How old are you really? Why do you live in that God forsaken hotel?"
I didn't have an answer to any of her questions and looked down into my coffee in the hope that a solution would present itself in the murky depths.
Looking across the table, I saw she was doing the same thing, her forehead creased into an intense frown.
"Can I ask you one thing?" she said, eyes still cast down to her cup.
"Anything."
She pressed her lips together as though she was afraid of speaking her mind, her knuckles turning white as her fingers clutched her coffee.
"Am I the only one?"
I looked up, surprised.
"What do you mean?"
"Am I the only girl you're seeing?" she asked, this time with her temper cutting an edge to her voice.
"Of course!"
Jumping up to hug her, I held her tight.
"Why would you ask something like that?"
She pushed me away but held me at an arm's length as she looked into my eyes.
"Promise I'm the only one."
"Yes!" I insisted. "Why are you asking this?"
Satisfied I was telling the truth, she stroked my face and relaxed into my arms.
"I was just so afraid you had a double life or something. I thought you had a wife and children and I was just your bit of fun on the side."
Shocked, I sat back down and scrubbed my hands down my face.
"How could you think something like that? Is this what it's really all about? You think I have a wife and child?"
She nodded as she rubbed her eyes.
"Whoa... That's crazy. No. I most definitely do not have some sort of secret family although I always hoped that one day I'd marry and have a child."
She gave me a faint smile and let out a long exhale of relief.
"And you're not some sort of secret agent?" she asked.
"Okay, now you're just being paranoid."
Standing up, she placed her empty coffee cup in the sink and walked over to the window. The morning light made her skin look as though it was shining from within. Despite not wearing makeup and standing in her threadbare pajamas, she'd never looked more beautiful.
"I just don't understand where you went," she said as she stared out into her garden. "It doesn't make sense."
For the most fleeting of moments, I thought about coming clean but that would only make her think I was insane. There was no way she would believe the truth.
"Look... Okay, I didn't tell you everything," I said.
She remained turned toward the window but the muscles in her back tensed up.
"Some friends of mine... They've gotten themselves into some trouble, some really bad trouble and I had to go help them out. I didn't want you involved and so I didn't tell you. It's some real nasty business and at some point soon, I'll have to go back to see if they're okay."
She turned around and folded her arms across her chest.
"What kinda trouble?"
I opened my mouth but didn't know what to say.
"They're not, like, bank robbers or anything, are they?"
I laughed and shook my head.
"You have a crazy imagination, you know that?"
I stood up and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"You need to stay away from all those detective novels."
She rolled her eyes.
"What kind of trouble?" she asked again.
Thinking quick, I said, "Money trouble but it's almost all sorted. Now, will you stop with your inquisition, please?"
She slumped against the window ledge.
"Fine..." she relented, "But you have to understand where I was coming from."
"I get it," I said and kissed her. "Now can we just have some fun?"
She nestled into my chest and wrapped her arms around me.
"Sure," she replied and squeezed me tight, "And since it's your first time in my house I assume you'll be expecting a guided tour. We can start with the bedroom."
My heart raced as she led me upstairs. As we entered her room, she led me to the bed and smiled as she lay down beside me but even though she seemed to have forgotten our argument, I could still feel that she was angry.
“Can you hold me?” she asked as she pressed her back into me.
I held her close and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re not still angry about me leaving town, are you?” I asked.
“I’m over it,” she replied, a little too fast. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
But I knew full well that she wasn’t.
Chapter 8
Demi
The bar was packed out and I was starting to become tipsy. I sipped on my Cosmopolitan and bobbed my head as the jukebox played behind us.
"What kinda music is this?" Ethan asked.
"What? Don't you know who Journey is? Oh, my God!"
It wasn't the only thing he hadn't heard of. Over the last few weeks, there were so many people, so much music and so many movies he never knew existed. Not to mention his knowledge of basic history left a lot to be desired. It was as though he was raised in a vacuum.
"Okay, so what music do you like?" I asked.
He thought for a second and sipped his beer.
"There are symphonies played back home on instruments that are not like anything I have seen here."
The straw made a sucking noise at the bottom of the glass and I popped one of the ice cubes into my mouth and crunched away.
"Go on," I said. "What kinda instruments?"
"Erm... Strange ones. They're long and made of a rock that is not native to America."
"Rock? Like, how do you play it?"
Behind him, a group of girls in a bachelorette party approached the bar shrieking and laughing. Ethan looked pained by their presence and scrunched up his face as they screamed and knocked back shots.
"Play it?" he repeated.
"Yeah, like do you blow into it, strum it like a guitar or what?"
He looked confused then eventually said, "You whisper into it like a lover."<
br />
We both just blinked at each other before he eventually slid off his stool.
"I need to go to the bathroom," he said and disappeared into the crowd.
Ethan was by far the strangest person I had ever met and I absolutely loved him for it. He was also the smartest and most gorgeous man and could make love to me for hours until I was cross-eyed and felt as though I was on the brink of passing out.
I craned my neck to see him over the top of the crowd but saw nothing but the top of the door to the gents’ swinging open and shut. For some reason, although I knew he was just in the bathroom, I had the strangest idea that he was up to something. I knew I was being paranoid, but I couldn't help it. The guy drove me crazy and had turned me into a paranoid lunatic. I'd never felt this way about a guy before. It was as though he'd cast a spell on me. He consumed every waking thought I had and some of my dreams too. When we were apart, I thought I was going crazy with the fear that I'd never see him again and when we were together I couldn't stop the jealousy that rose within me when I noticed other girls looking at him.
Whenever we made love, I felt as though I could never get enough of his body. No matter how rough the sex was or how hard he kissed me, there was no way we could be close enough. Often, when we were on the cusp of reaching climax, I'd press my body into his in the hope that I could merge with him.
We became closer with every passing day and I knew, although I tried to rein in my feelings, I was falling in love with him.
But I still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something going on with him. He remained secretive and distant and there were so many things he didn't seem to understand about American life, so many ways he didn't fit in. Despite his assurance that there was nothing untoward taking place, I couldn't keep my thoughts from running away with themselves. Who were his friends and what trouble were they in? Was he some sort of criminal? A fugitive? I was always on edge waiting for the moment he'd have to leave town again but would he come back?
He was taking his time in the bathroom. Was there a queue in there? Or had he run away? Maybe he was on some sort of secret mission and was now in the midst of a sting operation.
"Whoa, calm down," I told myself and reached for a glass of iced water.
