Atlantea

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.

I then watched as Calista sparred with two different fighters, both male. She beat the first one, a taller man with lean musculature, pinning him to the mat after a few minutes. The second opponent, a much stockier man who was slightly shorter than her, proved more difficult. Calista lost, eventually slammed onto the floor and unable to break the hold, but only after about twenty minutes of back-and-forth. Being an avid fan of UFC, I felt like she could have won, but could not put my finger on why.

“Were you holding back, there, against that last guy?” I asked my sweat-drenched companion.

“Not exactly. I am not as skilled in proper Jiu-Jitsu as he, and of course, at this gym one must follow the rules precisely,” she said. “Outside, it would be a different matter. His reactions are far too slow to best me.”

* * *

Calista was coming out of the master bathroom, her hair still damp from the shower. Strangely, she had put on a new set of exercise clothes, sports bra and tight shorts, rather than change into something more comfortable. I was sitting on her bed.

“Jason?” she asked, looking up at me with big eyes, “Did you once say that you have some expertise in performing massages?”

My pulse quickened. I liked where this is going.

“You have a good memory. Yes, I did an internship at the UFC, and I’m working on my masters in athletic training, so, yeah, lots of massaging.”

“I am feeling quite sore from that second match, I think I may have landed poorly during one of the throws. Would it be bothersome if I asked you to give me one?”

“Any time,” I said eagerly.

“Would now be acceptable?”

“Now would work. Do you have a couple hours? I can go faster, but to do a thorough job it will take some time.”

“You may take as long as you need,” she purred.

I was not boasting when I said I was proficient at massage. Between my degree itself, the rotations in the university hospital’s Physical Therapy department, and an internship, I had countless hours of training, including with martial artists. I ran out to a nearby pharmacy to get some massage oil, returned to her bedroom, and had her lie, face down, on the bed.

To be honest, I did not start out at my best. Every time I touched her skin, it felt like an electric shock would run up from my fingers. She did not seem to notice my clumsiness, however, and made appreciative grunts even during the first few minutes. By the time I moved down to her shoulder blades and arms, I was finally used to the sensation of touching her, and was able to pour every ounce of concentration into providing the best massage I knew how.

“Oh, Jason, that is divine,” she cooed, as my strong hands pushed along her forearms and across her palms, working knots out as I went.

I made my way down to her wide hips, and then, after a brief moment of hesitation, began to massage her large, sculpted glutes. Her ass rose in a beautiful, sharply inclined curve from her lower back. As I massaged the upper left area, I hit upon the first slightly injured area of her body.

“Just there,” she said breathlessly, “that is where I fell awkwardly.”

Familiar with the treatment of minor bruises in this region, I was able to alleviate much of her stiffness. Once again, maintaining concentration was difficult. Her sheer exercise shorts had been sucked deep within the cleft of her buttocks, and deeply into her vagina as well. There was no way she was wearing panties, and little was being left to my imagination.

In the boldest move yet, I massaged, using my thumbs, the areas on either side of her perineum, where her upper thigh and buttocks met. Holding my breath, I was sure I would be rebuked.

“Can you perform that with more force please?” she said, almost, but not quite, moaning.

I pushed harder, and now she did moan. A growing wet spot formed where the purple fabric of her exercise shorts was pulled into her pussy lips.

When, much later, I had finished with the back side of her body, she turned over, and I got a view of her large and unusually firm breasts. Even lying down, they rose up much more than I would have expected. She caught me staring, and I averted my eyes, but it was too late. She laughed.

“My cousins called me ‘missile chest’, if you would believe that,” she said with a grin, leaving no doubt that she’d seen where my gaze had lain.

“That seems a bit mean,” I said automatically, rising needlessly to her defense.

“That was just how we behaved all the time, growing up; there was much teasing,” she said, still grinning. “I had rude names to call them, too.”

Despite the unrestrained boob talk, I had no legitimate reason to massage there, instead spending an hour on her forearms, hips, quadriceps, calves, and feet. I kept glancing at her midsection, where, to my undying pleasure, the wet spot continued to expand.

“Jason,” she said, when the session was over, “I have never had a massage so expertly performed before. Would you be willing to do that again sometime?”

“Literally whenever you want,” I said, holding her hand.

“Oh, good,” she said.

Sweaty and oily from the massage, she returned to the shower. I simply sat on edge of her bed, my head in a fog, unable to think about anything other than her luscious, dark olive skin. She returned, this time wearing the green bathrobe that I had worn the night before last, and sat down next to me.

“I just want to say–“, she started.

She had placed herself so close to me that our arms were touching, albeit through a layer of fabric from my shirt and the terry cloth of her robe. I could no longer stand it, and before she could finish her sentence, cupped the back of her head and drew our mouths towards each other. Before our lips made contact, she grabbed my head with much greater force, causing a rapturous collision. We made out for I don’t know how long. There was no “foreplay”; we went straight into tonguing each other greedily. I felt like the room was spinning around me, and barely noticed when we fell onto the bed together, continuing our passionate embrace. Just as I began to reach under her robe to feel a breast, Calista sat up.

“Jason,” she said, once I had sat up too, “I need to ask you something.”

“Of course,” I said, although I doubt I could hide the disappointment in my voice.

“Do you wish to have vaginal intercourse with me?” she asked.

“Um, well, yes!” I stammered. “I might not call it ‘vaginal intercourse’, of course,” I added, trying to seem more casual than I actually felt.

“That is interesting; what would you prefer that it be called?”

“Well, people normally just say ‘fuck’ or ‘have sex’ in this situation.”

“No. I do not like that vulgar term, and ‘have sex’ is too generic,” she said.

“‘Bang’? ‘Get it on’? ‘Make love’?”

“I dislike euphemisms when it comes to sexual terminology. What about ‘coitus’, perhaps?”

“You know, let’s just stick with ‘vaginal intercourse’,” I said, taking her hand. “Do you want to have vaginal intercourse with me?”

“I do. More than you realize, most likely.”

“Well, that is possibly the best news I have ever heard in my entire life, and I am really not exaggerating. Is there some kind of problem, though?” I asked.

“In a way, yes, there is a kind of problem: we cannot engage in intercourse right now.”

“We can’t?”

“We both need to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. There is a clinic we can go on Monday morning, but we will need to wait until then.”

“That is very responsible, and I agree. We could use a condom, though, if we, uh, don’t want to wait?” I said hopefully.

Calista looked deeply into my eyes.

“Normally that would be my suggestion, as well. But with you, I will never use prophylaxis. Not even the first time. Especially not the first time, in fact.”

The many implications of this statement sent a wave of euphoria shooting through me.

“So you will have to leave now,” she said, bringing my mood crashing back down to earth. “Do you think you will be able to sleep well enough by yourself tonight?”

“I think I’m okay now… but why?”

“If we stay within each other’s presence for much longer, we will have vaginal intercourse, even if we try to avoid doing so.”

Although deeply disappointed, the moment she said this I knew the truth of it. She kissed me, then pushed me gently away.

“I will send you a text with the location of the clinic, as well as what time to arrive,” she said.

* * *

Driving home was fraught. The moment I closed the front door behind me, I began, irrationally, to miss Calista, even after so short a time apart. By the time I got to my apartment I felt mildly depressed, a feeling that was alleviated once I saw that she had sent me two texts rather than the one I had been expecting. The first was the address of the clinic. We were to meet there on Monday at 8:30AM.

The second text, thankfully, showed how much she missed me, too. “I enjoyed watching strictly ballroom, do you have any other suggestions? I am bored.”

I took this as an excuse to call her, so I initiated a video chat. She picked up immediately. We started off talking about movies. I thought she might like “Lawrence of Arabia”, and it turned out she knew far more than I would have expected about both the film, and the man who wrote the book that had inspired it.

“T.E. Lawrence is famous in my home country,” she said.

Somehow the conversation kept jumping seamlessly from one topic to the next. We never did decide which movie to watch, and when I finally thought to look at the clock, it was after 2AM.

“It is after two, you know, Calista,” I said.

“That is not good,” she said. “Humans need sleep. Perhaps it would have been healthier for us to have had vaginal intercourse, after all.”

By this time, I knew her well enough to recognize when she was making a joke, at least most of the time. She had a masterful poker face, and only by looking at the corners of her eyes could one get a sense of how serious she really was. I burst out laughing, and then, at last unable to maintain her decorum, she did too.

The following day, a Sunday, I became thankful I had an unlimited data plan for my phone. We spent most of the day on video chat with each other, neither willing to hang up, even when in the middle of the most mundane chores. We watched a movie together that night, synchronizing the playback, then somehow stayed up until after 1AM before finally breaking off for, in my case, at least, a fitful night’s sleep; the nightmare had not returned, as far as I could tell, but for some reason I kept waking up anyway.

* * *

The clinic was on the 12th floor of a medical/dental building which housed a number of private practices. It was less than two blocks away from three of the city’s largest hospitals. Calista had not given me the office’s name, so I only had the office number, 1269, to go by. I tried to find it on the large, wall-mounted directory near the security desk, but all the offices on the twelfth floor had numbers below 1250. I had to trust that Calista’s information was correct, and made for the elevator banks.

When the metal doors of the elevator slid open, I wasn’t sure where to go, so I followed the signs to office 1250, assuming the clinic would be located somewhere beyond it. This proved incorrect, and in fact office 1269 was about twenty feet past office 1210, on the opposite side of the building. The door, once I found it, was a sturdy, all metal affair. It had the office number embossed on it, and had no visible handle or doorbell. The telltale eye of a video camera was mounted a few inches to the right. I stood there, feeling confused, unsure of what to do next.

“Please state your name,” a melodious female voice intoned from an invisible speaker after a few beats.

“Um, Jason. Jason Walker,” I said nervously.

“Welcome to our clinic, Mr. Walker,” the voice said, and the door swung slowly open on silent hinges.

Inside was a brightly lit waiting room, and to my undying relief, the beautiful Calista. She got up and we embraced fiercely. She kissed me full on the lips before letting go. A doctor, whose name tag read, “Anderson Kirkpatrick, M.D., Ph.D.”, watched us fondly.

“Ah, to be young again,” he said, which struck me as odd; I would have believed him had he claimed to be thirty years old, or even twenty-nine, at a stretch.

The doctor introduced himself, and then explained the procedure. Calista and I were sent into different exam rooms. Surprisingly, Dr. Anderson himself followed after me. Another doctor, a dark-skinned, green-eyed woman with short curly hair, saw to Calista.

“This is going to be mostly quite quick,” he said, “Are you okay with needles? These are not very long, mind you.”

“I am,” I said, and he poked my arm with several square pads, each about an inch across, and each having a short needle sticking from one side.

“Great, just great,” he said, “And one last thing, we will need a sperm sample for the fourth test. I’m sorry, I know it’s awkward, but the alternative blood work would take several days to get through the lab, and my understanding is that you and Miss Corey would like results as soon as possible?”

He gestured towards a wide-mounted, graduated cylinder made of blue-tinted glass. It was on a metallic shelf next to a little door.

“When you’re, ah, done, please put the sample on the other side of that door and give a couple of knocks, would you please?” Then he added, “Also, the test works best with larger samples, so do try not to miss.”

I agreed, and he left the exam room. Ordinarily, I would have found it difficult to produce a semen sample under such odd and sterile circumstances. But in this instance, I merely needed to visualize what Calista and I, hopefully, would be doing soon. Three minutes of stroking and fantasizing later, my cock was shooting into the cup. I had been pent-up, and a surprising amount of fluid came out. I could not help but look at exactly how much before turning it over to whomever was on the other side of the little door. Once the sperm settled, it was hovering around the 23ml mark. Shrugging inwardly, as I had no idea if that was a lot or a little, I put the sample on the other side, closed the hatch, and then knocked several times.

Back in the waiting room, Calista and I began to make out again, heedless of propriety. There were no other patients around, in any case, so it hardly mattered.

“Ahem,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said after some minutes had passed.

We had not noticed him entering the room.

“I am so pleased to tell you that neither of you have any sexually transmissible diseases. And in fact, these tests rule out a number of non-sexual diseases, as well, but I’m afraid that I am not at present allowed to inform you of which ones, per FDA regulations.”

This last part made little sense to me. Why would the FDA not want me to know that I did not have some random disease? I hardly cared, though, as only one thing was on my mind. I turned to Calista.

“Yes, Jason.” she said.

“I didn’t ask you anything yet.”

“I know. Yes.” she said.

* * *

We both called in sick to our respective workplaces and drove back to Calista’s apartment. I had taken the bus, so did not have my own car. The ride to her place was equal parts agonizing, funny, and sexy as hell. The agonizing part was obvious; we were not having sex yet. The funny part was the matter-of-fact way she spoke about the topic, sticking to medically accurate terminology. And the sexy part hardly needs explanation.

“While we are driving to my home, perhaps we could discuss what sexual activities we like and dislike?” Calista put forth.

“Certainly,” I replied.

“I do not like any from of bondage, or anything of a similar nature; unlike your friend Phoebe, I am not… a submissive person.”

‘She’s jumping right into the deep end,’ I thought, although I was not really surprised by her bluntness.

“I also dislike anal intercourse, and would prefer you never touch my sphincter or even my perineum, although in the latter case I understand that occasional contact will be unavoidable.”

“No anal,” I said, “no problem. What, um, do you like best?”

“Vaginal intercourse,” she said without hesitation, then added, with an added lilt to her voice I had only recently been able to recognize consistently, “obviously.”

“Vaginal intercourse: check,” I said, and she smiled. “Do you like being eaten out?”

She looked quizzical. “Eaten out? Surely you are not asking about going to restaurants together?”

“Ah, no, I mean having your puss–, er, vagina licked. By a tongue. Mine, to be specific.”

“Oh! You mean cunnilingus. Yes, I like that.”

“A lot?” I asked, hopefully.

“To be honest, I am not sure. I have of course experienced cunnilingus many times, and have enjoyed it, but I would not say that any of my sexual partners have performed it for sufficient duration, or frequency, and I have not formed a definitive opinion.”

“Would you be up for trying it for much longer?”

“I would be open to the possibility, yes,” she said, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards. “Now, what do you like?”

“Cunnilingus,” I said, waited a beat, and added, “obviously.”

Calista burst out laughing.

“You are a humorous male,” she said, after recovering. “Do you like anything else?”

“Vaginal intercourse,” I said, and peals of laughter erupted once more.

“Anything else?” she said after regaining composure once more.

“Well, I have enjoyed anal sex with several women, but I would not say I seek it out specifically. I would not be okay with pegging.”

“Pegging?”

“That would be where you, uh, performed anal sex on me, with some kind of toy.”

“Oh yes, we have a word for that, too,” she said, without telling me what it was. “Luckily for you, that is not among my interests.”

“I’m also okay with light bondage, but nothing that hurts; no spanking for example.”

By this point we had parked in the garage at her apartment. On the elevator ride to her floor, we were unable to keep apart from each other, and embraced and kissed the entire time. Thankfully, no other passengers got on, leaving us to make out in peace as we were carried swiftly upwards.

* * *

In her bedroom, the first article of clothing to be removed was Calista’s shirt, a tight, purple silk blouse. She did not have a bra on underneath, and thus it was that I saw her breasts for the first time. Her rib cage was slightly narrower in width than her shoulders, although not by much, but also unusually shallow, accentuating the size of her firm breasts, which sloped down at only a slight angle from her collarbones. Her dark areolae were the largest I have ever seen, many inches across, and in the middle of each was a prominent, thick, conical nipple. Any intention I might have had to hurry things along fled my consciousness. All I could think of was worshiping this part of her body for as long as she would allow.

I sat behind her on the bed, and began to massage her chest, starting at the upper part of her breasts, and moving down slowly towards her centrally-located nipples. My body flooded with heat as my hands made contact with the firm, pliant flesh. Gratifyingly, she enjoyed this more than I expected, even before I reached her nipples her breath became heavier, and she started to make subtle moaning noises. When I began gently massaging each nipple, she could no longer hold back.

“That is divine, Jason,” she said.

This was an entirely new experience for me. While none of my ex-girlfriends disliked having their boobs fondled, and at times even sought it out, none of them had ever reacted so quickly to such a minor amount of contact. Calista’s breasts, her nipples in particular, seemed so sensitive that I began to hope she could have an orgasm simply from my attentions. Deciding to prolong things, I moved my hands upwards again to rub the less sensitive flesh there.

“Now you tease me, cruel man,” Calista whined.

“My deepest apologies, my lady,” I said, moving my hands back to her now swollen nipples.

I continued to rub and pull on her engorged flesh, in a manner akin to hand-expressing milk. Then, unable to contain myself, I lay her down on the bed and began to kiss and lick her breasts all over, while keeping up the milking motion with my hands. Her moaning became louder and began to take on an involuntary quality, and my heart soared as I realized she might lose control from this foreplay alone. Sure enough, a minute later her back arched, and she yelled out a few words in a language I could not understand. One of the words sounded like “mayer” and the other like “choplon”, and the rest I could not make out at all.

The wonder of her reaction to this relatively minor form of foreplay drove me wild with passion, and, frankly, I lost control. I began to suck on her nipples, first one and then the other, as if I were breastfeeding. I took each nipple in my mouth and levered it up from the bottom with my tongue, suctioning at the same time as if to withdraw milk from her breast. Then, some rational part of my brain kicked in, remembering just how much this occasional behavior of mine disgusted my ex-girlfriends, and withdrew contact.

“I’m sorry!” I said automatically.

Calista looked surprised and disappointed.

“Sorry for what?” she said.

“I have this bad habit of sucking, uh, like that when I get excited,” I said, “I try not to, but sometimes I lose control.”

“I do not understand the problem. What is wrong with that manner of sucking?”

“Well, it’s like I’m trying to nurse or something. It completely grossed-out Meg for example.”

“It does not ‘gross out’ me,” Calista said. “It is normal, where I come from. Is it not normal here?”

“Not at all.”

“Then why do you do it?” she said, now sitting up with curiosity.

Although disappointed that our love-making was being put on hold, it seemed like an important conversation to get out of the way early in our relationship. I explained that my mom had been obsessed with breastfeeding, ascribing a number of incredible health benefits to the practice, which I outlined to Calista.

“Your mother was correct,” Calista interjected, “we have research confirming her beliefs, and more, in my home country.”

I went on to explain that my mom had also read that, in many parts of the world, it was common to nurse children until age five. This she did with my four older siblings. However, when I turned one year’s old, she began to encounter difficulties, ones that even a lactation consultant was unable to resolve. Worried that I would not get all the same benefits my sisters had, she recruited one of my aunts on my dad’s side, who lived on the same block as us, and an older cousin of mine, who lived in the same neighborhood, to breastfeed me over the next four years. Both women had given birth recently, and, typically for my family, were producing more than enough milk.

“My mom feels that breast milk is more nutritious than any other kind of food, so she made sure I always filled up on that first before meals. I think it kind of messed me up.”

“How did it ‘mess you up’?” Calista asked, sounding annoyed now.

“Well, I am, like, obsessed with breasts, even for a guy, and when I don’t watch myself during sex, I start to suck on my partner’s nipples like I’m breastfeeding, which has always gotten me in deep trouble.”

“Well, of course, if someone does not like something, you are obligated to stop. And everyone likes what they like, and dislikes what they dislike. However, I do not think there is anything wrong with your behavior, as long as you do not persist with someone who tells you not to.”

“So,” I said, my heart soaring again, “you don’t mind?”

“More than that, I was enjoying the sensation to a significant degree. I wish only that my breasts could produce the milk you so obviously want, when you do that,” she said.

My heart started hammering in my chest at what she seemed to be suggesting, and I blurted out, “There is one way to fix that.”

I immediately regretted making such a rash statement. We had not even had sex once, and I was implying I could get her pregnant! Calista did not seem at all disturbed by this, however, and answered with a straight, sad face.

“I am afraid that is not a possibility.”

“Oh,” I said, dejected, believing she meant she had somehow changed her mind about having “vaginal intercourse” after all.

“I think you might misunderstand,” she said, reading me accurately, “I mean it is physically impossible for me. I have tried many times to conceive a child, and finally consulted with doctors, who confirmed that my conditions prevent any realistic change of pregnancy.”

I felt terrible for her at this moment, and gave her a big hug.

“I actually have two problems,” she explained, “one is known here as ‘lazy ovary syndrome’; I have a mild case, but it makes my cycles unpredictable. The other problem is that I have an extremely rare genetic condition where my sweat includes a substance toxic to sperm. Since the same substance coats my vaginal canal and cervix, it greatly reduces the chance of conception, and, combined with the other factor, effectively renders me unable to conceive.”

“Couldn’t you do, I don’t know, artificial insemination or something?”

“It is extremely uncommon, in my country,” she said, sadly, “and for me in particular, for reasons I cannot easily explain, it would be, shall we say, unacceptable.”

Calista started to cry, and I pressed her naked torso to me, stroking her hair gently. I lost track of time, and when her crying had turned to soft sniffles, and then her sniffles went away too, we disengaged.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I am, as you would say here, a mess, at the present moment.”

“You are not a mess,” I said, “life is just hard, sometimes, and there is not always an easy way to handle it.”

We hugged for a little while longer, then our stomachs began to growl.

“Would you like some lunch?” she said, her voice a little brighter.

* * *

Calista prepared a lunch of falafel and salad. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at her boobs. She had not put her shirt back on, and when she noticed I kept trying to avert my gaze, she chided me.

“I left my shirt off for a reason, Jason, I want you to look,” she said.

“You look like a radiant sun goddess,” I said, then added, “I know it’s cheesy.”

“It is cheesy, yes,” she said. “Do not, how do you say it here? Do not your job during the day to become a poet.”

Once we were eating, a new cloud seemed to pass over Calista’s face, like some dose of reality had just intruded on her otherwise pleasant thoughts.

“Jason,” she said, “I have… a delicate question. Would you please excuse me for a second?”

I nodded, and she went to her bedroom to fetch something. She came back with what looked like a hollowed-out, bumpy red rubber sex toy of some sort. There was a hole on one end. I had a suspicion of what it might be used for, and there was no way it would fit me, given my dimensions.

“Um,” she said awkwardly, “I have found this to be, well, a difficult subject to broach with males. I, well, to put it in plain terms, I have a large vagina. In my home country, where we are much more aware of these things, it above the 99th percentile in terms of length, width and malleability. While I have diligently developed my vaginal musculature, many males… why are you smiling, Jason? Are you teasing at me?”

The more she went on, the more I fell in love with her. For reasons I don’t claim to understand, the uniquely clinical manner in which she was talking about her vagina turned me on in a massive way. Also, it sounded like her pussy was a perfect match for my penis. Perhaps it was wrong of me, but I could not help teasing her just a little by letting the conversation drag on, knowing there would be a happy ending.

“Sorry, it’s just, are you suggesting I wear that? I don’t think it would fit.” I asked, pointing at the rubber sleeve.

“Why would I have it if it did not fit?” Calista asked, quizzically. “Did I not just explain the size of my vaginal canal?”

As I had hoped, she had misinterpreted whose sex organ I was referring to.

“No, sorry, I meant it wouldn’t fit on me.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly crestfallen.

Again, as I’d hoped, she now thought I had some kind of micro-penis that would not hold up the toy.

“Well,” she said morosely, “there are other options, I suppose. Perhaps you could use your hand? I realize that it is not the same…”

“Calista,” I said, “Just stop worrying about what percentile your vagina is, and take off my pants.”

We both stood up. Calista walked over, and I could see a battle play out across her face. She was trying to decide whether to be annoyed or not, and also whether the size of my member would live up to the expectation I had just set. She knelt down, unzipped my pants, and pulled down. My rock hard dick had gotten stuck down my pant leg, so when she freed it, it popped up and hit her under the chin. She said something in her own language again, I believe it was the same phrase as before, involving “mayer” and “choplon”. She slapped me lightly on the butt, without real conviction.

“You, Jason, are a very, very bad male. But, fortunately for you, your penis is truly beautiful, so I will forgive the bad male this one time.”

“Maybe my 99th percentile penis belongs inside your 99th percentile vagina,” I said, unable to restrain myself.

“Now I know you are jesting,” she said, “but you are not wrong.”

Despite this comment, she spent a few minutes simply stroking my penis with her hands and fingers, and occasionally kissing it lightly on the head. Then, she stood up without letting go. Much as Ruby had done at her apartment, Calista led me to her bedroom by my member. She pushed me onto the bed, and then continued to stroke my cock until I was almost ready to cum. Sensing this, she stopped and lay down next to me. We made out for a while, and her hand snaked down and began to stroke me again.

Next she got up, walked to the side of the bed where I could see clearly, put her glasses on the nightstand, took off her shoes, and worked her tight skirt over her wide hips, which flared out beautifully, a touch wider than her shoulders. The image of how she would look pregnant flashed through my mind.

“Can I taste you?” I asked.

She shook her head impatiently, and, instead, climbed on top of me. After briefly rubbing the head of my cock with the lips of her vagina, I slipped inside.

“That is not something I have felt before,” she purred.

Soon my entire shaft had buried inside her, our pelvic bones slapping together, and the head of my cock was stopping just as it began to push on her cervix. Only Rosalind had been able to take me inside her anywhere close to this easily. Calista’s vagina was markedly more open, however, and stretched to fit the length of my member without needing as much stimulation. Jane, one of the lesbians I had impregnated, had been wider, but also much shallower than either Rosalind or Calista.

“I can feel you right here,” Calista said, momentarily stopping so that she could point to a spot on her stomach.

It was the right thing to say, as a rush of blood filled my member.

“Ooh, that was wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Let me return the favor!”

It seemed, all of a sudden, as if a hand had gripped my cock and squeezed with all its might. I had thought Ruby was a master of this sort of contraction, but Calista’s vaginal muscles were far more powerful and better controlled. She began, impossibly, to clench and release in a rolling wave, which felt like it started near the tip of my dick and traveled towards the base.

“How… can you… do that?” I croaked out between moans.

“I,” she panted, “train a lot. I was… undefeated for many,” she gasped out, “years.”

“Undefeated?” I gasped, too curious to stop talking despite the waves of pleasure, “At… what?”

“Pubococcygeus… strength trials,” she said, eventually, between athletic hip thrusts.

“Is that… like Kegels?”

“I… don’t… know. Please stop… asking… questions.”

This seemed like great advice, and I began to thrust upwards with my hips, matching the rhythm of her body. Her vagina stopped contracting, as she needed to give it some rest. She was sweating noticeably already, even after this short time, and I saw a droplet forming on the end of and enormous conical nipple. I licked it off with the tip of my tongue, and was rewarded by a loud moan that was accompanied by a powerful squeeze from her pussy.

“Ooh!” we said, simultaneously.

Encouraged, I began to suck more vigorously, savoring the sweet taste of her moist flesh. It seemed like she was one of those people who sweat a lot, so while she was impaling her midsection on my cock, I resolved to try and lick all the bodily moisture off of her chest. I started with her left breast, then moved onto the right. She thrust her chest forward to make it easier for me.

At some point, around this time, I began to feel a unique sense of euphoria that I had never felt before during sex, even at its very best. Although I have no personal experience with hard drugs, I believe this experience that I had is what the best part of a pharmacologic high feels like. The room was spinning slowly, the light from the side table making a smear across my vision, and it seemed like Calista and I were melded together at the hips. Without realizing it, I began to suckle at her right nipple, which looked painfully swollen, in precisely the manner that my ex-girlfriends had disliked so much, while rubbing and pulling on the left with my fingers.

Calista’s entire lower body began to shake uncontrollably, and I felt wetness flood out of her, onto my midsection. She pushed down hard with her hips, pushing the tip of my penis firmly onto her cervix, then lay her torso down on my chest, her firm breast preventing her from resting her head.

“Did you ejaculate yet? I did not feel anything.” she said, giving my cock a squeeze.

“Not yet.”

“Good,” she said.

She let me flip her over onto her back, and I began to thrust. At one point I wanted to pull out all the way, so I could experience the sensation of my cock’s head going back in through her open lips. As the tip of my cock neared the opening of her canal, she made a whining noise.

“No,” she said, “Stay inside.”

I might have accidentally pulled out anyway, but she clenched tightly, trapping me a few inches deep. She relaxed as I pushed forward again.

“I need that… exquisite… fullness,” she explained between labored breaths.

After a few more deep thrusts, it was my turn to come, the head of my penis buried so deep inside her, I imagined it was forcing open her cervix and shooting semen directly into her womb. She held my buttocks firmly, so that I could not easily pull out at all, even after my cock stopped pulsing. We kissed, eyes locked together, but it was awkward due to the space created by her firm chest. Instead, I began to kiss nipples and lick the copious sweat from her boobs.

“Your sweat tastes… sweet to me,” I said, then began to suck her nipples vigorously.

Some time later, her body began to shake, and her pussy bore down strongly, so much that it almost hurt me. She was having another intense orgasm, entirely, it would seem, from nipple stimulation. My flaccid cock, which does not shrink much when soft, was still embedded deeply inside her. She had not let me pull out even slightly. After she recovered from her orgasm, I felt the rolling, squeezing sensation she was somehow able to create within her vaginal canal. I still was unsure how that was even anatomically possible. This coaxed my dick back to life, and I began making small thrusting motions despite her still firm grip on my ass.

“Jason,” she said, “I… really love that. Can you pull your penis out… very, very slowly… and stop when I tell you?”

I did as she asked. When about three inches of cock was still inside her, her vagina clamped down.

“Stop there,” she said, then had to pause to catch her breath. “Please do not withdraw your penis… any farther than that. And then push… hard… very hard… when you thrust forward.”

Holding myself above her with, now, minimal body contact, I began to rhythmically thrust, putting all the strength I had in my hips into each down stroke. She moaned each time my dick impaled her cervix, and, after a while, used a martial arts move to flip us around. She was on top of me again. Being by far the most athletic woman I had ever had sex with, she displayed amazing control of her hips, able to slide up and down my shaft with no upper body motion. For a while I stopped thrusting and looked deeply into her eyes.

I honestly do not know how long she rode me, staring into those gray orbs was almost more intense than the sex itself. She was sweating copiously, far more than any past partner I could remember, with large drops now falling from her engorged nipples onto my chest. Finally, she impaled herself fully on my dick and clamped down as hard as she could. As her thighs began to twitch, in the telltale sign of an orgasm, I also came. The entire time our eyes remained locked, and I had the sensation, no doubt just in my imagination, yet perfectly real-seeming at the time, of experiencing her climax along with my own.

Exhausted, she lay down on my chest, pushing her sweat-drenched breasts into me. As before, she was frustrated by the distance the put between us; she was not able to rest her head on my shoulder. After a while, I noticed that she had wrapped her legs around mine and that I was unable to move very far, especially since she was putting all her weight on me. It was the most wonderful sensation, and I could have stayed that way forever. But my bladder had other ideas. I tried to pivot my hips back slightly.

“No,” she whined, her eyes still locked on mine. “Do not tease me.”

“I’m sorry, Calista, it’s just I need to pee pretty badly.”

Her brow wrinkled in thought.

“Take me with you,” she said.

“What, you mean to the bathroom?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You only have to urinate, correct?”

“That’s right. But, uh, how do you want me to take you exactly if I can’t get up?”

“Carry me,” she said, “you are a strong male.”

She allowed me to sit up, never breaking our intense mutual gaze. As I pivoted my torso upwards, she switched her legs from wrapping around my legs to wrapping around my waist. She put her arms around the back of my neck. With some difficulty, I was able to scoot off the bed and stand up. Being only a shade shorter than me, and therefore relatively heavy, the flexible Calista made my job easier by applying pressure with her legs on the top of my buttocks. In this manner, I was able to carry her to the master bathroom that, as in the Twins’ condo, adjoined the bedroom.

“Now what?” I said, standing over the toilet.

Rather than answer, she made a frustrated, whining noise and leveraged her vagina off of my dick. Ignoring the semen streaming down her inner thigh, she let herself down to a standing position, took my slimy cock in one hand, and finally sat on the toilet.

“Once you declared your need to urinate,” she said, still holding on to my member, “I also felt the same urge.”

She let loose a torrent of clear, odorless fluid, intermingled with a few thick, whitish blobs. My cock pulsed in her hand, but did not get hard. Once finished, she wiped, stood up, and then stood behind me, pressing her boobs into my back.

“May I?” she said, peeking around my shoulder and putting her other hand on my shaft.

“Sure!”

I began to pee, and Calista giggled as she controlled the aim, hitting various parts of the rim with the clear liquid.