Daily Life With A Lilim Chapter 36.4

Author’s Notes: This was supposed to be out a day ago but I am feeling so out of it right now. Anyway, enjoy.

-O-

Putting everything back into the storage unit proved to be much faster than taking them out. Part of the reason, a major one actually, was because Dana wasn’t included in the process. As much as a part of her chafed at being sidelined, the more reasonable and pragmatic part of her recognized the logic.

While Dana wasn’t quite old enough to have noticeable grey hair she was getting up there in age. The proof could be seen in how she witnessed the boy she remembered being the only one in the household to still look up to her even in his late teens, was now several inches taller than her and carrying around heavy crates with a frankly baffling amount of ease. 

She hadn’t noticed it before, if only because she wasn’t looking for it, but Stanley was very fit, with actual defined muscles on his otherwise small or rather compact frame.

‘When did that happen?’

She knew the answer to that.

‘Probably after he met her‘ Dana thought as she glanced at Ezraphel.

Dana didn’t really know what to think of her son’s girlfriend, in truth. Stanley was willing to vouch for her and while she could respect his loyalty, history has consistently proven that men could be led astray by a pretty face and lesser women than Ezraphel have managed to fool men who were in a better position than her son.

Natalie’s reassurances worked better than Stanley’s in that regard yet Dana would not let go of her skepticism until she properly assessed the woman. That said, after meeting and interacting with her for several hours Dana had to admit that she was having some difficulty there.

Her personality was overtly cheerful and agreeable. The kind that came off as fake, forced or patronizing and could be seen through by her discerning eye. At least it should have but to her shock she found that Ezraphel was actually quite earnest. 

More tellingly was the interactions she had with her son and his reactions that she recognized even after so many years apart. It made her realize that this wasn’t a situation where she was using a fake persona. Ezraphel was apparently just eccentric like that. 

She was just a cheerful and optimistic young woman who wanted to learn more about her boyfriend’s family because he hardly talked about his personal life. That’s what Dana learned about her from their time together in the storage unit. The older woman couldn’t find fault in her personality beyond being just a tad bit eccentric, which Dana found to be a little overwhelming at times.

But that was just her personality though and Dana couldn’t say the same about her appearance. Her gaze flickered to the other woman’s chest. Just looking at those things gave her phantom back pains and Ezraphel looked completely unbothered.

Now Dana Berkowitz was conservative, she grew up in a conservative household that espoused traditional values and she was very opinionated on topics of sexuality and how a woman expresses herself. So one can forgive her for feeling distinctly uncomfortable around Ezraphel.

The overtly voluptuous and shapely form of her body paired with her choice of wardrobe made her appear as if she were an adult actress or one of those social media ‘models’ both of whom, more often than not, gained their exaggerated figures through surgeries, cosmetics or just manipulated images.

Dana understood that times have changed and to her credit she had gained enough perspective to tolerate certain things. That did not mean she accepted them but she learned to mind her own business and keep her opinions to herself as long as it had no bearing on her personal life or the lives of her family that she cared for. 

Now her son had decided to start a relationship with one of those women and was taking a significant amount of effort not to make mention of or allude to her discontent with Ezraphel’s appearance. There’s no easy way to say it but Ezraphel looked like the kind of woman mothers post about on Facebook warning others to not let their children get involved with.

Of all her children Dana figured Stanley would be the least in danger of becoming entangled with women like that. 

‘Heh, shows what I know‘ She thought bitterly.

The proof was right in front of her packing the last bit of items into the storage unit before shutting it down. Every time Dana looked at Ezraphel’s appearance she would feel a well of distaste bubble up that she only managed to stamp down through sheer willpower and a focus on the other woman’s personality and conversation skills. 

It all came to a head when they were packing the last bit of containers into the car. She decided to actually help this time and picked a random box that she’s seen both of them handle without much seeming effort. Turns out the box was much heavier than she thought but she had already committed and so she soldiered on for a few more seconds until…

“Oh, let me help you with that,” she said as she bent down to take the box out of Dana’s hand.

The burden was taken from her without consent however the indignance never came as the way Ezraphel lifted the box made it push up under her chest, lifting the twin globes and giving Dana an up close pronounced view of her cleavage. 

Dana didn’t know what kind of expression she made but she could infer that her distaste showed. But more outrageous was Ezraphel’s response to this incidental faux past.

“They aren’t fake, you know.” Ezraphel informed in a low tone.

Dana blinked as she parsed her words before a look of incredulity lit her features and she stammered out “e-excuse me?” 

“Just so that we are clear, I have not nor will I ever have surgery, I am not in the adult industry in any form, I don’t even post on social media websites.”

Her words gave the older woman pause as the incredulity gave way to confusion.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I am well familiar with the kind of looks you’ve been giving me. People seem to almost always make those kinds of assumptions about me at first glance. I’ve received enough inquiries from the brazen and shameless sorts with unflattering insinuations about myself and Stanley.”

Dana’s mouth parted but no sound came out. She didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Honestly, I don’t really care for their opinions but it does bother me that you seem to believe me to be some kind of loose woman.”

Dana flinched “I…I didn’t mean to insinuate-“

“It’s fine” she verbally waved off her concern. She offered her a rueful smile as she continued “I just thought I would clear things up rather than let such misconceptions fester. I know such topics would be too awkward to be brought up otherwise so…” she trailed off with a shrug.

“…I understand.”

“Thank you.”

And with that Ezraphel left the older woman who had a complicated expression on her face. 

“That went a lot better than I thought it would.” 

The sudden voice had Dana flinch before turning around to find Stanley standing right there.

“You almost gave me a heart attack!” She breathes with a scowl.

He at least had the decency to look apologetic “sorry.”

After calming herself down she looked to her son and asked “how much of that did you hear?”

“All of it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I’m really hoping now you’ll stop giving Ez the judgmental side-eye every time you look at her.”

‘Am I that obvious?’ 

“Yeah, you were pretty obvious” he responded as if he heard her thoughts. “I wanted to say something about it but Ez didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“I didn’t know it would be that much of an issue.”

Even if Ezraphel did not just confirm this she struck Dana as the kind of woman who was too confident to be bothered by such things.

“You’re my mom and she’s my girlfriend,” he stated bluntly. “Of course she cares about your opinion.”

Once again Dana was rendered speechless but just then they were interrupted by the woman in question.

“Stanley, I’m finished packing.”

“Finally” Stanley muttered as he and Dana made their way to the car.

The car was a bit crowded inside. Ezraphel opted to sit in the back with Dana and a few containers stacked between them in the middle while Ezraphel had one resting on her lap. At the front passenger seat two containers were strapped down with the seatbelt and one was sitting at the footwell. 

Stanley complained about the silliness of it but was overruled by Ezraphel who wanted to talk face to face, relatively speaking, with Dana.

Once they drove out of the parking lot Dana wasted no time in asking the one question that had been sitting at the center of Her thoughts regarding her son and his girlfriend.

“How did the two of you get together?”

The moment those words were uttered Dana felt the slightest shift in the atmosphere. She saw Stanley’s shoulders tense yet he kept his eyes on the road. In contrast Ezraphel smiled at the question. 

“We met at an airsoft convention. I got roped by an acquaintance to be a model for one of the brands. I kept my face obscured with a full mask, not that it stopped me from attracting attention. The costume they had me wear was quite risqué but that was the point.”

An unfortunate truth of these things, Dana understood.

“Not that I minded the attention” Ezraphel added and for the life of her Dana didn’t know why she did so. 

‘This girl…’

“I first encountered Stanley when he approached my booth but unlike every other man I’ve met that day he was the only one who was genuinely more interested in what was being sold than in me.”

The way she said this came off as odd to Dana and for a moment Ezraphel had a complicated expression on her face. 

A moment later she seemingly shook herself from the momentary lapse and continued “anyway, we properly got acquainted after the convention ended when everyone was leaving. I found Stanley carrying some packages that were clearly too much for him to handle alone and no one was helping him. So I decided to be a good Samaritan. The look on his face when he saw it was me helping him was priceless” the taller woman suddenly  giggled. “He started looking around as if he were expecting someone to be taking a video.”

She laughed again and Dana could actually picture it and gave a little chuckle of her own.

“…wasn’t that funny” the topic of their conversation muttered but was ignored.

Ezraphel then went on to explain how she convinced him to give her a ride which was apparently difficult because he tried to make excuses but she wouldn’t budge. Eventually he surrendered to her persistence but the journey was not without its issues.

“It would’ve already taken time because of the traffic and yet he still decided to take a detour through a Popeyes drive thru.”

As she finished saying this Ezraphel glared at the man in question.

“I was hungry!” He defended himself.

“You could have ordered something when you went home.”

“I already spent hundreds that day, I wasn’t going to pay a markup on Uber Eats when the restaurant was right there.”

“There are restaurants in your area too, Stanley,” she said dryly. 

“I didn’t have the patience for staying outside more than necessary.”

“And yet you decided to do something that added even more time to our travel. Make it make sense Stanley.”

He said nothing in return beyond low grumbling noises.

Ezraphel turned back to Dana “I thought that was his way of spending more time with me but of course I know better now” she gave a dramatic sigh. “Turns out he was really anxious, especially since I was very talkative so he did the first impulsive thing he could think of to throw me off in order to get some modicum of control over the situation.”

Dana blinked in surprise at the assessment and asked “you’ve put some thought into his actions.”

“You have no idea,” she grinned. “Not that it worked, even when he was acting like a jerk it just made me more interested in him. Plus, I got a free meal out of it because even Stanley couldn’t dispute that his stunt unnecessarily inconvenienced me and felt it fair to compensate.”

Dana tilted her head a bit ‘she is surprisingly devious.’

The older woman internally scoffed at the thought. She’s only known Ezraphel for a few hours and here she was thinking she had a handle on all facets of her personality.

“Afterwards I was set on getting to know him but since he was so shy I ended up telling him more about myself. Still, I managed to squeeze some information out of him though. When we got to my stop we exchanged phone numbers. Well, I took his phone and put my number in it. I even made sure to take a selfie and programmed the picture to appear as the caller ID photo for my number just so he would know exactly who was calling him. The entire time he looked as if he were having an out of body experience.”

Ezraphel once again laughed at her boyfriend’s expense however Dana was not laughing, she was pensive.

“And what happened afterwards?”

“Oh, I pestered him with texts and a few calls and some pictures~” she added with a suggestive inflection that had Dana’s eyes widening at the audacity. “After about a month of me sending him the most obvious signs imaginable he finally grew the courage to ask me out on a date.”

‘At least one thing met my expectation’ Dana thought to herself.

“And how was it?”

“It was magical~” Ezraphel gushed with redeemed cheeks.

She then went on to explain their first date and despite the obvious bias and rose tinted lens of the person telling the story Dana found herself impressed. His first ever date and he chose a high class restaurant and conducted himself like a proper gentleman. She expected some embellishment and to her credit while Ezraphel also pointed out his failures she found them to be adorable and even endearing rather than as straight up criticisms.

Despite this Dana was hard pressed to believe that Ezraphel was lying to prop him up. And It was while the other woman was talking about the other dates they went on that it suddenly hit Dana.

Ezraphel was in love with Stanley.

Ezraphel was deeply in love with Stanley. 

Dana saw the signs all throughout in the way she told her tale. It was the little things, the sighs, glances towards the driver’s seat, the fluttering eyelashes, the tone of voice and even the little gestures made towards him. All of it screamed affection for her son and it bordered on surreal watching it play out in real time.

Dana couldn’t remember herself holding this much affection for her ex-husband even at the height of the halcyon days of their relationship. It was this above everything else that made Dana realize whatever secrets Ezraphel kept (and she’s reasonably sure the woman has them) she was otherwise not a threat to her son.

Dana couldn’t believe it, truly. 

Here she was wondering what her son did to attract such a woman when in reality Ezraphel was the one pursuing a relationship with him from the start. She’s the one who approached him, inserted herself into his life and kept pushing until he eventually caved in. 

Dana should be outraged or at the very least suspicious about the way Ezraphel forced things but she really couldn’t. It was an unfortunate truth that Stanley needed someone like this in his life. He was the type of person who would develop terrible habits and become stuck in his ways if he felt comfortable. 

Dana had enough experience dealing with him to know that subtlety and gentleness wouldn’t work on him at that stage. Stanley was both obstinate and intelligent enough to either ignore the attempts to help him or create seemingly reasonable arguments to support his choices and invalidate attempts to help him. 

No, at that point you needed to be insistent, nagging and maybe even a bit forceful to an almost unreasonable degree just to get through to him. At the same time going too far ran the risk of losing him, which could have disastrous long term effects. 

It’s a thin line one had to thread when dealing with Stanley in this manner and for the longest time Dana managed to walk that line. So did Collin and Natalie though the three of them had the benefit of being family and knowing him for practically his entire life besides. For Ezraphel, a stranger, she must have tremendous luck or was more intelligent than she otherwise let on.

Dana obviously believed it to be the latter.

As for Stanley it was clear that the man was smitten with her as well even if he wasn’t as obvious with his affection. Ezraphel made him a better person yes but she also made him happy which was a far cry from how he was when she last saw him or from what she heard from Natalie over the years.

And in the end wasn’t that all that mattered?

With that thought Dana felt another reservation she had filtered away. Not all of it though because while she could trust Ezraphel to have her son’s best interest it didn’t mean they wouldn’t face difficulty in a practical sense. Reality hardly conforms to expectations and she needed to see how well this relationship does in real life.

In this case Dana was always of the belief that the state of a couple’s relationship often reflects in their home.

“We’re here,” Ezraphel announced.

And as luck would have it Dana was now exactly where she needed to be to give a final assessment.

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