The Last Nymph

Rescuing the Nymph

The fact that Maera left Doc's house that evening sad and without a cordial "good-night," he totally understood. She was feeling once again her isolation as a creature not of human blood, but of such a dynamic facsimile that she could interact with them. To love them fully and eternally, she had learned once more, was sufficiently not possible.

Doc spent the next day hiking on the island—to get his mind back on the incomparable beauty he had chosen to live among—and off the current and equally beautiful distraction that had beguiled his imagination, and to some degree, his own reawakening heartstrings. Looking down the hillside, over a breath-taking cove where he would sometimes swim, he saw what appeared to be the photographer's boat. It was beached on the sandy shore, as he had seen it earlier in another inlet, when he had spoken to the diver.

Realizing the photographer was no doubt searching for the young woman he had practically made love to in the cave, he had come there to look for Maera. Doc questioned whether the young man was in the sea, searching the depths with his equipment, or on land somewhere nearby, scouring the headlands and forest for her.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him and turned around to find Maera standing a short distance away.

"It's his boat, I know," she said, barely audible. "He's looking for me . . . after I ran from him yesterday." She was still wet from the sea and wearing one of her incongruously feminine dresses.

"Possibly, yes," Doc replied, trying not to stare at her.

"Don't you see, Doc? He wants to finish what he started with me . . . in the cave. Just that. And only that!"

She walked up closer to the edge and stood next to the professor, looking down with him at the single boat in the distance.

"Or possibly," Doc offered more wisely, "he just wants to know you're alright, Maera. Didn't you tell me . . . you escaped him and swam very deep to hide?"

"Yes."

"Well maybe he's just concerned. With your well-being. Not seeing you surface or come into land. He has no idea you're a Nymph, you know."

"I don't want him to find me, Doc. I'm tired of men. All men . . . and their wandering hands and pushy ways. Their constant desire to mate with us Nymphs."

Doc only nodded.

The two stood together, still looking down—waiting to see some movement, either in the sea or on the surrounding landscape.

She turned then and faced Doc openly.

"You are the only one, Doc. The only man who has not tried those things with me. You care about who I am . . . you want to listen to me. You're interested in my past, and not care just that I have a female body."

Doc felt moved that she had granted him this distinction, yet felt guilt that she was only partially right.

"So you must help me to hide from him now. Other men . . . I could escape from easily. Under the waves. This man is different . . . he can chase me and follow me into my own world."

There was still no sign of the diver. Only his empty boat, beached on the shore below. Walking within the trees, back to Doc's house, the two were silent. Doc's plan was to allow Maera to stay inside his house until the young man tired of searching. Until he had taken his boat and returned to the other side of the island. Hopefully, he would eventually go all the way back to Lefkada, where he had told Maera his friends had already gone.

But this plan did not materialize. While they were passing through an exposed stretch of cliff, there came a voice from the forest.

"You! Hey. I've found you!"

Both Doc and Maera froze while Alexandros emerged from the trees, speaking Greek. He wore a pair of hiking shorts, trainers, and was shirtless, exposing his marvellous tanned build.

"Wait!" the young man shouted again while running toward them. And soon he was unavoidably in their presence.

"Maera . . . I was worried about you!" he said, out of breath. His long black hair was wet from sweat and his upper body glistened in the sunlight.

She did not speak, but rather seemed to be waiting for Doc to intervene.

"When you went back under the surface and didn't come back up . . . I thought the worst," he said.

This was understandable to Doc, that the diver would have been panicked by her descent into the depths.

"So, just to see you again . . . here, alive in the forest . . . and on this paradise. It makes me happy!"

Through his jubilation the diver smiled an infectious smile and waited for Maera to acknowledge his presence.

"I just . . . did not want to go on," she said coldly. "With what you were doing."

Doc felt awkward being in the midst of a conversation that was so obviously personal, for both of them.

"But . . . I thought you were OK with what we were doing," the diver said, somewhat innocently, and avoiding any look at Doc.

"No. I wasn't. And I'm sorry you believed that."

The photographer finally did look over at Doc, showing his own discomfort with the situation. The professor knew it was now his turn to try and put the whole situation to rest.

"Look, Alexandros . . . Maera, is actually my niece. I told you before she was just a neighbor, but we're actually family. I have to inform you, she's actually engaged to someone over on the mainland. She's been confused these past weeks. About whether to marry or not. She came here to the island to be alone and think about it all."

The young Greek was quiet and had a stunned look on his face.

Doc went on, as seriously as before. "She may have been confused by meeting you and the prospect of remaining single."

"Yes . . ."

"But I asure you, Alexandros, if she did not want to be with you any longer . . . the way you had thought . . . it's about her commitment to marry someone in Athens . . . Something she has promised to do."

Alexandros looked deeply into the face of Maera for confirmation of all this.

She simply nodded slowly and then lowered her eyes, avoiding a look at either at Doc or the diver any longer.

"Well," the young man said bravely, trying not to show his obvious disappointment. "If you ever choose not to be married. You can always be an Olympic swimmer. I've never seen anyone in my life who can swim like that!"

It was a comment intended for levity, and one which all should have responded to with smiles, but none did. Following another several awkward moments, the diver finally reached over and shook Doc's hand, signifying his honorable and definitive departure.

Both Maera and Doc watched patiently as the photographer disappeared into the trees. They then backtracked along the cliff to where he indeed reached the beach and his lone boat. Pushing the small craft into deeper water, the diver then hoisted himself over the side, into the craft where he started the noisy engine.

Once the inflatable boat sped into the distance and turned to make the voyage back to the other side, Maera put her arms enthusiastically around Doc and her head on his shoulder.

"Doc, I love you!" she exclaimed.

The professor remained motionless and for the moment, a prisoner in her arms.

"If there is any love inside me for humans," she now whispered, "it is only for you, Doc . . . and no one else."

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