Atlantea Ch. 05

It was a dark, moonless Thursday night. I was parked outside Calista's apartment building, waiting for her to come downstairs. I felt strung-out, as if hungover, although I had not been drinking. The 48 hours since we had parted outside the Caps bar had been a special kind of agony, with visions of her face and voice drifting endlessly through my mind, no matter what I might be doing at the time. Sleep had come only fitfully. It had taken all my willpower not to contact her prematurely, so badly did I need to see her again.

I had chosen to drive us to the salsa club; it was in a bad enough neighborhood that there were few taxi or Uber drivers who would be willing to go there. It was even less likely anyone would pick us up. My car, also, was old, cheap and beat-up, making it an improbable target for theft.

Calista appeared, and my bad mood melted away, as if by magic. I got out and walked around the front of the car to hold the passenger door open for her. She was wearing a red, floral-print dress that, while not especially daring, showed off her statuesque figure. I was as awestruck as I had been the first time we had met, and barely managed to greet her properly. She touched my shoulder and smiled.

"Hello, Jason," she said, then added, "I must apologize if I seem a little tired just now, I have not had the best sleep."

My blood raced as I considered she might have suffered from insomnia for the same reason I had.

* * *

The salsa club did not have a name. There was no sign outside, only a large Latino man standing guard in front of a rusty metal door. He wore an over-sized black leather coat, and kept his right hand tucked inside, as if ready to draw a weapon. Like the Caps bar, the club was in another industrial neighborhood of the city. This area, however, suffered from a high rate of violent crime. It was the perfect locale for the club, however, as many of the musicians and patrons did not have visas, and wished to keep a low profile. All that said, Meg and I had met here, and, of course, had danced here frequently after becoming serious. We had never, ourselves, been victims of crime.

I found a parking space around the corner from the entrance. Calista and I made our way to the front door, passing several junkies shooting up in darkened doorways. The bouncer, Gil, recognized me, and let us in with a slight nod.

Calista was enraptured by the ambiance inside the club from the moment we crossed the threshold. It was dimly lit, and somehow smoky even though cigarette smoking was disallowed. A particularly good band from Colombia was in town, already in full swing. They were obscure, but I had heard them play a few times before. She wanted to get straight to the dancing lesson, so we went out onto the floor without stopping by the bar, and I started to teach her the basics of salsa. As it turned out, she was an excellent dancer. Whatever she had learned back home was indeed similar, and before long we were doing twirls and other advanced moves, as if we had been partners for years.

After one particularly flamboyant move, we bumped accidentally into a familiar-looking female dancer. It was Meg, my ex-girlfriend.

"Hi Jason," she said, expression pinched. Turning to Calista, she said, "And is this another one of your 'lesbians'?"

"Jason," Calista said, her face devoid of obvious mirth, "you did not inform me that I was supposed to be a lesbian! Miss, perhaps you can give me some advice regarding how best to effect that?"

Meg's dance partner, a man named George whom I had seen there many times, sensed conflict and slunk away. In an attempt to lower the temperature of the situation, I decided to ignore Meg's insulting greeting, and introduce the two women to each other properly.

"Calista, this is Meghan, we used to go out," I said, "Meg, this is Calista, we met at..."

Here I trailed off, as it dawned on me that saying we met at a mass gender reveal party, where I was the biological father of all nine children, probably was not the best way to ease the tension. For better or worse, Calista finished my sentence for me.

"We met at a gender revelation ceremony. Jason was there as the biological father of the nine fetuses, and I was with an acquaintance who had suggested the conceptions in the first place."

Calista said this in her near-monotone, although I could just perceive some tension along the sides of her eyes. Meg stormed off. Although I did not realize it at the time, it was to be the last time I ever saw her. Once she was out of sight or hearing distance, I burst out laughing.

"Oh my God, you are perfect!" I said.

"Your former partner is handsome, and also strange," Calista said, still keeping a straight face. "Why is she so agitated? And why did she imply I am a sex worker, and that I am being paid to feign homosexuality?"

I explained the incident at my apartment where Meg met the Twins unexpectedly, and then how she rashly concluded that they were faux lesbian call girls. Now it was Calista's turn to double over with laughter. Once we had both recovered, she touched my shoulder, and we went back to the salsa.

The evening passed in a daze. We only had eyes for each other, barely noticing the surrounding throng of dancers. During a slow number, she pressed her body to mine, and I clasped my hands about her waist. This resulted in an electric jolt shooting through my body; I felt like I had touched the third rail on a subway track. For her part, Calista seemed preoccupied with trying to rest her head on my shoulder, and eventually gave up. She was frustrated by her prodigious bosoms, which created too much space between us, even when she pressed in on me as hard as decency would allow. We did not leave until the other patrons had departed, all the lights were back on at full illumination, and the musicians were cleaning their instruments.

Calista went over to them and asked a question in fluent Spanish. I could tell this only because I had taken enough of the language in high school to recognize her flawless pronunciation.

"How many languages do you speak?" I asked her.

"Seven," she said.

"Amazing! Which ones?"

"English and Spanish, as you know. Then Modern Greek, Japanese, Bengali, Swahili, and Egyptian Arabic. I guess the correct number is actually ten if you include my native language, Latin and Ancient Greek."

"When did you learn all this?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"I was a diligent student," she said modestly.

On our way out, Calista asked, "Since we are discussing the subject of skillfulness, how is it that you are so proficient at dancing, Jason? My understanding was that in this country, males with your... background... are, usually, poorly skilled at that type of body movement."

"You're right, in general," I said, "but I come from a weird family."

As we walked to my car, I explained that, although my oldest sister, a team sports fanatic who was on two varsity teams in high school, had no interest in dancing, the next three sisters were all passionate about ballet, and, later, other forms of dance. As the youngest child, this limited my options greatly. By the time I was five, my exhausted mom insisted that I enroll in classes at the same studio my sisters attended. She was willing neither to drive me to another type of activity, with three kids already doing dance lessons all week, nor to allow me to sit around being idle while my sisters were busy. I did manage to get into the tap dancing class, which reduced the level of ridicule I received from my peers, albeit only slightly. By the time I hit puberty, and had some say in the matter, I decided to stick with dancing, and even branched out to other forms beyond tap, partly because I had grown to like it, and partly out of a realization that it was a good way to meet girls. This move paid off, as it was how I met both Sarah and Meg.

My exposition completed right as we were nearing one end of the dark street outside the dance club. There was not a soul around; even the junkies had found somewhere else to crash for the night. We rounded the corner and my forehead ran right into the end of a cold, metal object.

"Don't make a fuckin' move, asshole!" a quavering male voice said.

I could not see the man clearly, but I did recognize that he was holding a pistol, shakily, about an inch above the bridge of my nose. I started to reach for my wallet, under the assumption, and fervent hope, that all he wanted was my money. Before my hand had moved more than a couple inches, however, the weapon was gone from my sight, replaced by an image of Calista's fingers flashing by, wrapping around my assailant's wrist and twisting. Moving faster than I could follow, she soon had the skinny man on the ground, and was holding his right forearm in a painful, near-breaking position between his shoulder blades. With her left hand, she was aiming the assailant's gun squarely at his partner, another emaciated, pale-skinned male in an over-sized, dirty yellow bomber jacket. In my panic, I had not noticed this second man. He must have thought the two of us would be easy marks; his gun hand was still in the process of rising high enough to take aim.

"Drop your weapon now, or I will shoot you," Calista said loudly, without a trace of emotion.

The man paused, his half-raised revolver still pointing towards the asphalt.

"Fuck this dude, I ain't gettin' shot for your ass!" the yellow-clad man shouted at his partner, dropped his gun, and ran off down the street, quickly fading into shadow.

Calista calmly hit her captive on the back of his head with the butt of the pistol, knocking him out cold. She rolled him over and patted him down, and pulled his wallet from an inner jacket pocket. Using her phone, she took pictures of the man's face, and then his driver's license. Based on the tapping motions she followed up with, I think she sent the pictures to someone. The whole time, I was standing there, my mouth open, in a useless daze. I did not even think to call the police, and simply assumed the Calista would. All I could think about was that I had come microseconds from possibly having my brains blown out.

"Give me your keys," Calista said firmly, "we have to get out of here; there could be others."

Mechanically, I fished the keys from my pants and handed them to her, then plodded after her to the car.

"We will go to my apartment, Jason," she said as she started my car and swiftly pulled into the street, "You are about to experience shock when the adrenaline wears off, and it will not be good for you to be by yourself."

Still in an impaired cognitive state, this seemed like overkill to me, but I was in no position to argue. Calista drove swiftly, and had no trouble with the stick shift in my car, even though most people would have; it badly needed a clutch job, one which I could not afford. After a few blocks, she stopped and threw the pistol into a dumpster, but not before ejecting the chambered round and clip. The remainder of the journey home went by in a haze.

"Are you a ninja?" I asked groggily as we pulled into a guest space in her building's underground parking garage.

Calista thought this was hilarious.

"No, Jason, I am not a 'ninja'," she said, barely able to get out the words between guffaws.

* * *

Once in her apartment, the adrenaline faded, and I devolved into a shaking, quivering mess. Calista fetched a dark green bathrobe from her bedroom, laid it out in the master bathroom, and directed me to take a hot shower. I disrobed, and stood, shaking, under the hot stream of water. Once I felt halfway human again, I got out and put on the comfortable terry cloth garment. Being only slightly taller than her, it fit me well. Calista took my bundled clothes from me and started a load of laundry, then brought me some steaming hot ginseng tea in the living room.

"It will help with any nausea, and calm you down."

Still wearing the green bathrobe, I sipped at the tea. We tried to make conversation, but I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, so Calista led me to her bedroom and tucked me in to her king-sized bed.

"I will sleep in the living room," she explained.

Sleep took me in no time, but I awakened, screaming, after what seemed like only a few seconds. In reality, about an hour had passed, but all I could remember, as I bolted upright, was the final scene from a nightmare: a vivid, third-person view of a nervous drug addict blasting my brains out from point-blank range, my head turning into a slow-motion red starburst. Calista came running in and sat down next to me. I was still shaking badly, and she hugged me until the tremors subsided. She was wearing a thin, over-sized t-shirt, and without embarrassment pressed my head to her large bosoms.

"I am sorry, it was a mistake to leave you by yourself," Calista said.

Once I seemed calm enough to sleep again, I am not sure how much later, she lay down behind me and wrapped her arms around my chest, pushing her firm breasts into my back.

I fell asleep swiftly, yet, once again, the same nightmare returned instantaneously, or so it felt. I was screaming again. Calista turned me around and hugged my head to her chest once more, until I was ready to attempt to rest again. The same routine repeated a few more times during the night. To this day I cannot be sure, and I have never asked her, but I have a vague memory that after one of the screaming sessions, she lifted her t-shirt and brought my mouth to her bare nipple, allowing me to suckle as if nursing.

* * *

On the afternoon of the following day, I was still in her apartment, by myself. I had been there all day. Calista felt like I should be alone as little as possible, but she had to go in to work that day, so I would be alone until around five in the afternoon. I was feeling terrible, partly due to sleep deprivation, and partly because of my recent near-death experience. For most of the morning, I lay on the couch and binge-watched TV, barely taking in the action on the screen. Later, after scrounging up lunch, I got up enough energy to look around the place. I was curious about this mysterious woman who had captivated me so completely.

I did not want to be nosy, so limited myself to looking at things I could see without opening drawers or cabinets. There wasn't much; she seemed to live a Spartan existence. In the end, the only notable items were her books, which occupied two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the living room. Most prominent were some thick electrical engineering textbooks, with titles such as "RF and Microwave Engineering," or "RF Circuit Design." I did some Internet research on my phone and learned that "RF" stands for "radio frequency", meaning she most likely worked on cell phones, or cell towers. Later she explained that her specialty was missile guidance systems and electronic countermeasures.

She also possessed a number of works of fiction, including "The Autumn of the Patriarch", one of my all-time favorites. Next to it was a slim novel by Akis Papanotis called "Karyotype". I had been meaning to read it for ages, but kept forgetting both the author's name and the book's title whenever I had enough extra money in my account to spend on non-essentials of that nature. On my grad student's salary, I had to be frugal. Resolved to finally remember to buy it when I could, I got out my phone and snapped a picture, zooming in first so that the title and author were visible. Then I noticed, next to "Karyotype", a foreign-language book, the only one I had seen so far.

On the spine of the book was some lettering in an alphabet that was at once both unrecognizable and oddly familiar. My best guess was that it was a stylized Hebrew font, but this was based primarily on the fact that Calista had said she could speak Hebrew. I flipped through the book, but it was filled with writing only; there were no pictures or illustrations that might give some clue as to its contents. When I heard Calista's key turning in the lock, my heart began to pound and my scalp felt tingly, solely a result of knowing I was about to see her again. Distracted, I left the book on the coffee table. Once the door opened, she rushed over to me and hugged me tightly, and I forgot all about the curious tome.

* * *

At the dinner table that night, during the simple meal she had prepared, Calista had a nervous look on her face. Only as we were finishing up did she give voice to her concern.

"Jason," Calista said, "I have to apologize for something."

"What could you possibly have to be sorry about?" I said incredulously, "You saved my life yesterday!"

"I know," she said, "But I am still not sure if I made the right decision. I was faced with making a serious 'call of judgment', I believe you would say here, in a limited space of time. Was it safer to incapacitate the attacker, risking an accident or mistake, or should I have waited to see what his demands were?"

"I think you made the right call," I said.

"Perhaps. I most probably did," she said. "His eyes were shot through with blood, and his hands were unstable. I estimated there was a high probability that he might shoot you accidentally, or even intentionally, if he was under the influence of drugs. But I cannot be sure. And I could not bear to lose you."

She looked embarrassed after uttering those last words. I do not think she intended to make it sound like I, practically a stranger, was so important to her already, but she also did not take it back or try to qualify her statement.

"Calista," I said, "I know, in my heart, that you did the right thing. I've only known you a few days, but already I feel I can trust you completely."

We just stared into each other's eyes for a time, both afraid of saying something premature that might end our nascent relationship. At last, I decided to lighten the mood.

"Have you ever seen 'Strictly Ballroom'? I think we could both use some good old-fashioned escapism right now."

"Is that a film?"

"Yes, and if you haven't seen it already, I am positive you will love it. It's about, well, duh, ballroom dancing. In Australia."

"That sounds wonderful," Calista said, a smile returning to her face for the first time since she had come home.

Calista adored the movie; I could not have made a better choice. Sitting next to me on the couch, she grabbed my hand and squeezed when the heroine's father demonstrated the Paso Doble, and hugged me spontaneously during the climactic, final dance number.

"Oh, that might be my favorite film now," Calista said as the credits began to roll. "Even better than 'The Black Panther'."

"The Marvel movie?" I clarified; I was not sure because the movie I was familiar with did not have "the" in the title.

"Yes, I believe so. The one about 'Wakanda'. Have you watched it? It is hilarious."

"I have, and it is very good. But I wouldn't say it was a comedy, exactly. Although there are some funny scenes."

"Oh, most of the movie was quite amusing," she said, then added, "Although, I suppose it would be hard to explain why."

* * *

The following morning, a Saturday, we decided to stick together all day. In retrospect, I believe this was because we had fallen in love with each other already. But neither of us aware of that, or, at least, neither dared acknowledge it; we had not even kissed yet. Our excuse for spending the day together was that I had not slept much better than I had on the first night, waking up screaming several more times, always from the same dream. When we got up in the morning, Calista suggested that I was not ready to be on my own just yet, and I readily agreed.

Despite the traumatic circumstance that led to my now being with her, I was pleased to spend all day with Calista. We talked non-stop, and even the most boring part of the day, shopping at the grocery store, was surprisingly fun. Our final activity, in late afternoon, was to drop by the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu studio where she practiced. We had picked up some of my clothes, including exercise apparel, at my apartment, so we were both able to work out on the equipment there.