The Girl with the Lyre Tattoo

by Dennis the Menace

Let's Pretend It's Love

"Wanna get something to eat?"

Lyra seemed satisfied, and nodded. "Sure."

"There's a shack over there. I'll go get us something," he told her.

"I'll come with you," she insisted.

It was strange how he'd become accustomed to having Lyra by his side. He anticipated that she would hook her arm around his and reacted accordingly, keeping his arm loose and walking at a slow pace.

What on earth was he really doing there in his tacky shirt and shorts? Right. Lyra had asked him to take her someplace nice, and he'd said yes. It dawned on him that he didn't know why as he began to consider the entire purpose of their expedition to the beach. Something about research, or memories?

"You okay?"

"Fine. Just thinking. Remember anything?"

"Not really," she said, sounding a bit discouraged. "But I'm learning plenty."

"About?"

"You know, people. All about people."

"Really." It was less of a question and more of a statement.

"Yeah!"

"Really?" he repeated.

"I never realized how important looks matter," she stated. "And we all have to look a certain way if we want to be attractive."

He wryly added, "Yeah, well, if you ever want to see humanity at its lowest, look no further."

"How so?"

"The beach is the place where you can see how we judge, because we all have to take our clothes off and people get to see what we hide underneath," Adrian said. "Sort of, I mean. You know what I mean. We all have to meet some standard that's virtually unattainable."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

He shrugged. They stooped underneath the hut. "I guess. I guess not." He gave a small laugh, leaning forward to hand the man a dollar. "I can't do anything about peoples' attitudes. I'm only human—excuse me, two please?" He received two Popsicles.

Lyra took one from him. "Thanks." She gave it a lick. "Mm, green apple. My favorite."

"I guessed," he said, giving his cherry treat a lick.

They started to walk back. It was about four o'clock.

"It shouldn't matter how we look," Lyra said as she sat down.

"It shouldn't. But it does."

"Do you judge people?"

Adrian faced her, arching one eyebrow slightly. She seemed so...innocent, almost child-like in her perception of the world. Maybe it was the amnesia or memory loss. Part of him wanted to lie through his teeth, the other wanted to be honest.

"Yes."

"You do."

"I do. I don't pretend not to," he said. "There's nothing worse than a hypocrite. You know. The ones that say that looks don't matter, and say that they don't have any prejudices at all. Looks do matter, and I might judge people in my head even before they even say a word to me."

"But why?"

He sighed. "I don't know. It's how it works. It's how you're raised, your experiences. And what about you?"

"What?"

"Do you judge?"

"I think I forgot how to judge."

He let out a laugh.

"Don't you feel bad for thinking that way sometimes?"

If her questions were bullets, they could pierce armor.

"Sometimes. No one can stop you from thinking." He gave a lick. "People aren't perfect, you know."

"I'm starting to realize it," she said quietly.

He cleared his throat. "Your Popsicle."

"Huh? Oh!" She began to lick at the juices on her hand. "Melting already?"

"Better eat faster."

Lyra took this to heart and began attacking the Popsicle with her tongue, giving long sensual licks and flicking her tongue around the tip, pursing her lips and swallowing some of it down her throat, sticky juices beginning to get on her face, dripping down and falling onto her chest as she gazed at him with wide, curious eyes—

Adrian slapped himself.

What is wrong with you?

"What?" Lyra mumbled, half a green Popsicle sticking out of her mouth.

He covered his face with his hand, unable to contain himself.

She spat the treat out, her lips and tongue green. "What?" She began to laugh along with him. "What? What's so funny?"

For those first few days he'd harbored a sort of crush on Lyra, never really asking himself why he liked her beyond her obvious physical appearance, though her "assets" would have sufficed. A relationship, a real relationship, couldn't be based purely on physical attraction, after all. It certainly did help, but now he was trying to think of the reasons why he liked her as a person.

Lyra was quirky, no doubt about it. A bit of an oddball at times. She laughed a lot and smiled tons. A bit ditzy, but she was intelligent, and...

She was nice to him.

So what?

Lots of people were nice to him.

Perhaps it was when he looked into her eyes, studied her face, her body language, he saw nothing but honesty. There was no deceit to be found. She didn't feel the need to hide some hidden agenda. Her motives behind the day spent there were...strange, but not malicious in any way.

"I...dunno." He shook his head with a grin. "I'm trying to figure out what a girl like you is doing hanging around a guy like me."

Adrian was not naive; he held no delusions of his physical appearance. She did say he was cute, but maybe she was just teasing. He racked his head, trying to think of the reasons why Lyra continued to hang around him.

He was nice. Anybody could be nice.

He was kind, sure. Most people wouldn't think to save someone off the streets.

He was funny? He'd tried telling some jokes at the mall, ones that were, in hindsight, in poor taste. Lyra always laughed at his jokes, even when they weren't jokes. And when they were jokes, she still laugh even when he told the punchline wrong.

He was smart? Again, debatable. And being smart didn't always mean you were attractive. Lyra didn't seem like the type to go for an airhead.

And that hug. Not just a simple hug, but something more. It lasted much too long, and she was the one holding onto him, not the other way around. He had saved her. So maybe she felt as if she owed him? Or did she actually like him?

His head was starting to hurt.

"Why not? You're a great friend."

He didn't show his disappointment.

Just friends, huh. Well, at least that's settled.

Still, the potential was there. Friends first, girlfriend later.

Take it slow.

"Adrian?" She cleared her throat. "Your Popiscle."

Red sticky juices ran down his hand and arm. He grinned sheepishly. "Oops."

Into the water, out of the water, rinse and repeat. They played in the water, making sure to thoroughly splash each other until the two of them emerged dripping and shivering and laughing until they wrapped themselves up in their towels. He showed her how to skip rocks across the surface of the water, and how to swim. On the shore Lyra spent some time combing the wet sand for shells or rocks or anything that caught her eye. They took a nice long walk along the shore as he pointed out kites and seagulls, and they wrote each others' names in the wet sand. He drew a big heart around them for fun.

Night approached. The sun, now an orange disc in the sky, was beginning to dip below the mountains across the ocean. It cast a rather haunting glow across Lyra's features as they watched the sun set. There were several loud hollers and music began to play. A certain song began to play, worthy of a cringe.

"A party!" Lyra jumped to her feet, bouncing around. "C'mon, let's go dance!"

He resisted as she began to drag him to his feet. "Ahaha, I-I'm not much of a dancer, Lyra..."

One Direction? Really?

A rather large crowd of people, some young and some old, had gathered, and people began to dance in all forms. Elderly couples held hands and swayed back and forth. Teenagers flailed their limbs haphazardly, and some grinded. Children jumped around, unsure of how to join in but still wanting to be a part of it all. Lyra seemed to meld into the crowd as she danced, much, much better than he ever could. She took no particular style and had no form whatsoever, just copying whoever was around her. He reluctantly moved his shoulders, put his hands up in the air like he just didn't care even though he did.

Lyra had caught onto the lyrics of the song by the second verse, and sang along with everyone else. Adrian too had joined in, no longer self-conscious about his dancing. It was no wonder his friends seemed like they didn't have a care in the world when they went to Homecoming with their dates. They danced like fools, there was no doubt. But now, he truly understood what it was like to have a dance partner. With them, you had all the confidence in the world, and the only person that really mattered was them. It didn't matter whether it was a rave or a nightclub or a formal dance.

"Live while we're young!"

So Adrian danced. The people around him didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except the girl of his dreams right before his eyes.

The dead of night. Empty streets, flickering street lamps and neon signs reflecting off the wet road and a fine mist on his windshield. Soft piano music played on the Honda's radio. A storm was due tomorrow and it seemed that it had come early to crash their little beach party at around eleven. Lyra wrapped her beach towel tighter around her body, shivering slightly. Adrian didn't have to be told to turn on the heat. Despite the fact that he could have recklessly shot down the road at eighty, he cruised along at a safe speed, using his turn signal and making complete stops to give Lyra a comfortable ride. It was amazing, how it took the affections of one girl to make him accommodate.

Adrian pulled into the lot of the high rise and like a gentleman, opened the door for Lyra and shielded her from the rain as they both scrambled inside. She wrapped the towel around her like a blanket. The ride up to the penthouse seemed like an eternity as they both stood in silence, unsure of what to say to each other. No words had been spoken; were they really necessary?

Lyra gave a sneeze as they entered her flat.

"You should dry your hair. Don't wanna get sick," he said with a smile.

Lyra took his advice, and went into the bathroom. Seconds later he heard the sound of her hair dryer blowing. He scrambled toward her desk, searching for her passport. Upon finding it, he immediately whipped out his phone and began to take as much pictures as he could. He had to work fast.

The hair dryer stopped, and he hid the phone and put the passport back in its place.

She emerged seconds later, her hair a bit messy. "Thanks for taking me out today."

Sure, he felt like a cold was coming on and he had sand between his fingernails and toes and in all sorts of places sand wasn't supposed to be, but it was worth it.

"No problem. I had a great time."

She leaned in and gave him a hug. He gladly returned it, feeling the dampness of her bikini seep through his shirt. His heart raced slightly. The entire ride home had been spent in silence. Lyra was beat, tired from cheering and dancing, and was content to listen to the radio croon. He'd thought about all the ways he could do it.

Now. Kiss her now.

He considered just swooping in. He thought about doing it like the movies. Just one, right on her cheek. All he had to do was turn his head and brush his lips there. Not even a kiss. It was a peck. Even less than a peck. He could do that, couldn't he?

Do it, you wimp.

"Bye!" He waved as the elevator doors shut.

He wanted to. He really did.

His hair still damp, Adrian sat down in his chair and opened his laptop, attaching a USB cable running from his Nikon to the computer. Much like his room, his desktop was cluttered with various files and programs. His mouse clicked twice and he copied the images in a folder.

He'd taken a snapshot of Lyra's passport, and now, he had a good look.

"Born in Washington..."

He printed the images out in color and put them inside a portfolio. He went online and did a Google search for the process to look for birth certificates.

Something continued to bother him: Lyra's identity. Her passport was simply too brand new to be issued nearly a decade before. His passport's stitching was starting to fall apart, and the pages were yellow. Lyra's, issued around the same time his was, looked like it had come right off the press. It was just a hinting suspicion, but the journalist in him told him that he should investigate. Plus, he would be able to track down Lyra's parents.

Sets of pushups, sets of curl ups until two in the morning. Every time he wanted to stop, he kicked himself to keep going. The pain was worth it. The end result was worth the effort.

He went to bed sore.

Lyra sat slouched on her couch, idly flipping through the channels on her TV. She balanced her iPad on her lap as she browsed the cornucopia of information to be found on Google and Wikipedia. Her coffee table had an open psychology textbook and an encyclopedia. Humans had all the information in the world at their fingertips, or even just a short walk to the library away. Volumes of encyclopedias and textbooks had more than enough information to satisfy their needs.

So why am I here?

Yes. Why was she the one here? Why couldn't they just do it themselves? Why was she the one having the condense it all into some sort of university research paper?

Of course, she was thankful for this opportunity. This was her dream. She knew there was some sort of caveat. Call it a hunch.

Lyra pushed those thoughts out of her mind, and began reading up on gender roles, and found herself absorbed in what seemed to be polar opposites with her home.

Here, it seemed that men typically dominated. The stereotypical roles of males were to be the breadwinner of the household, while the females remained at home and cooked and cleaned and tended to the children. Efforts to acquire women's rights were a battle for equality, and only recently had there been advancements.

Nudity, at least in the United States of America, seemed to be a taboo. In other countries such as those in Europe, which were much more liberal in some aspects, a topless woman taking a stroll was barely spared a glance.

Social norms, as they called it, had their place in America.

For example, the foreign concept of personal space. There was a time and a place for certain distances of comfort. In a musical concert it was acceptable to be nearly brushing up against another person, while waiting in line or walking on the street, it was not. A simple nuzzle that she thought was normal was considered intimate. Holding hands was reserved for couples and female acquaintances. It boggled her mind.

Human psychology, she found, was especially fascinating. Their minds worked in mysterious ways that psychologists still struggled to understand. At the same time, ponies and humans shared many things. She had started with development from conception to birth. She studied Piaget and Kohlberg and Erickson and delved into theories of human behavior.

Lyra flipped through the pages, finding herself uninterested. While it was interesting enough, the part she needed was to be found in another chapter.

This part was the most crucial in her research.