Chapter 9 May

2:01 AM

Sometimes you can be with someone for years and fail to build a lasting relationship. The configuration of similarities and preferences prolongs the mutual fascination but it’s not enough to picture a lifetime together. And then you meet the right person with whom everything clicks. You can get married on the day you meet. You are a perfect match, two halves of the same fruit, a part of the pair of destined soulmates.

Phillip didn’t believe in any of the above. He believed in relationships formed with a purpose of procreation, saving on taxes, paying off a mortgage and having someone to have sex with as a part of the deal. He believed in work. Improvement. Movement. He had seen it throughout his life: the progress of medicine, the industrial revolution, advancements in technology, improvement in work conditions, fewer deaths, longer lifespan. He saw it and he believed in it with all his heart.

He also saw a number of betrayals, men losing their heads over the wrong kind of women (or just like our Christopher for love falling into financial ruin). He saw me mourning my husbands along with the thousands of widows, crying over lost partners who either were shot during one of the military conflicts, disappeared somewhere on the way during relocations, died due to incurable diseases or left for younger or more beautiful women. He also saw men abandoned for richer and more handsome men, family members, best friends or even their own fathers and sons. He knew how it went with love. It was a lottery in which not everyone was about to win.

But Phillip focused on the wrong side of the coin. He was so used to his loneliness that he didn’t see a woman who simply ignored his habits and prejudices. She didn’t even take into account his two hundred years of observation and life wisdom. She took one look at Phillip and decided in her mind that he was a man for her. And whatever she decided on usually came true while Phillip’s opposition wasn’t even considered as an option.

She was one of the nurses who worked in Phillip’s operational team. She prepared the tools, cleaned them, wiped the sweat from Phillip’s busy forehead and spent hours at the operating table amazed at his skills. She observed him carefully. She noticed the disappearing stains of blood, she was astonished at his craft and paid attention to every unusual habit that he had. She also noticed the lack of signs of him ever getting older and she simply added pieces to the puzzle. That revelation, however unexpected, didn’t discourage her at all.

Her name was Gina. She was a short-haired blond active woman who learned to take things into her own hands since she was a little girl (including making her parents sell the house and move to the other end of the country when she was four). Probably this attitude made her take a kitchen knife, cut a hole in Phillip’s car’s wheel and cause a flat tire. When Phillip noticed the malfunction, Gina gently drove by in her own car and offered to give him a ride home, which he accepted, not suspecting anything unusual.

‘Would you like to eat something?’, she offered, having in mind that it was a busy day of bloody surgeries and Phillip had consumed quite a lot that day.

‘No, thank you. But if you want to eat something, you can...’

‘I’m starving!’, she announced and decided for both of them to go to a restaurant in the city center.

Gina enjoyed her dinner. Phillip watched her eat. They knew each other for a couple of years but it was the first time Phillip looked at her without the nurse’s uniform and noticed that she was a woman. Gina made sure that on that day she was wearing a tight red dress which highlighted her voluptuous figure.

‘Shall we go to your place? We could watch a film together.’

‘My place is... messy.’ Phillip wanted to make an excuse, remembering that a lot of body parts from his dissecting experiments were lying everywhere ranging from the floor to the kitchen sink and bathtub.

‘Mine it is.’

It was a strange experience for Phillip to lose all the control. He felt like watching a film in which he played the main part and there was no remote control to switch the channel or turn down the volume.

He found himself in Gina’s flat. He was sat in front of the TV to watch a film (Gina chose Die Hard with Bruce Willis to make him unaware of her intentions). After the last scene disappeared from the screen, Phillip was taken to Gina’s bedroom and undressed before her. The last thing he remembered was Gina’s naked tights around his waist and her jumping breasts squeezed into his face.

After a month of sleeping with Gina, Phillip decided to be honest with her and waited for the worst possible reaction.

‘I have to tell you something. I am...’

‘A doctor?’, she was playing with him.

‘Yes. And...’

‘A workaholic?’

‘Yes. And...’

‘A poor boyfriend? You forgot to buy me a birthday present last week.’

‘Well, yes. I want to tell you that above all this I am a vampire.’

‘Ah, this. I know. I noticed how you lick the blood from the operating table. Coming back to my present, I would like something romantic. Maybe a bracelet. Or flowers. You always appreciate a red rose.’

‘A red rose? But you can’t even eat it.’

‘Why would I eat it?’

‘I was thinking about something practical. I can buy you some medical tools. I could teach you a thing or two about cuts. I noticed that you are pretty accurate.’

Gina rolled her eyes and rolled over Phillip with her entire body.

‘Flowers and a bracelet. Thank you very much.’

Phillip was seduced. He didn’t search for love. It found him. He was the last one among us to form an emotional connection with a human being. Being so hard-working himself, he didn’t even have to raise a finger to find the woman of his life. He didn’t admit it but he was happy in Gina’s headstrong embraces. We were all happy in our complicated lifepaths and experiences, happy in our sins and frailty. And these were the last days of happiness we all were about to experience.