Men Seeking Women Read online

  “Have you ever had French food, Carlos?”

  “Will I like it?”

  “You seem to like everything else. Besides, there’s somebody I want you to meet.” He took the boy’s hand, and together they started for the door.

  CALISTA X

  Alexander Parsons

  “She send you any naked pictures?” Xavier asked.

  “Don’t talk about her like that,” Jake said. “It’s disrespectful.”

  “Disrespectful.”

  It sounded as stilted to Jake as it did to Xavier, but he meant it. Calista was a private matter. He picked at the label on his bottle of Bohemia.

  “Oígame, pendejo,” Xavier said. “Disrespectful is when I drive three hours to get your ass to your date and you won’t tell me shit about her.” Xavier had deep-set eyes and pale skin that stretched tautly over his severe features. Ten years older than Jake, he treated him with the aggressive condescension of a loyal and cruel elder brother.

  Put that way it did seem rude, though Jake knew anything he told Xavier would just be used for ammunition in some later conversation.

  “Where the fuck is the entertainment?” Xavier said. They’d been sitting in Prince Machiavelli’s for an hour, killing time before Jake’s date with Calista. Jake was afraid Xavier would make him late getting to the hotel where they were to meet. When Xavier drank he got very enthusiastic over women, and so a strip club was likely to be the last place he’d want to leave, especially early on a Friday night. Jake didn’t want to be here, not alone and especially not with Xavier in the hours before he was to see Calista for the first time. But his Impala had needed a new clutch and the use of Xavier’s truck came with conditions, the primary one being Xavier’s company. They worked together for the highway department in a small New Mexican town three hours north of El Paso; Xavier had been as eager as Jake to escape for the weekend.

  “Maybe there’s a stripper’s union: no thongs until after five. Those things can’t be comfortable,” Jake said. He wanted to get to the hotel and change out of his work clothes, which were covered with the asphalt they’d tamped into potholes that morning. “Or maybe they’re on strike,” he added, hopeful.

  “I ain’t going to keep paying five bucks a beer if we don’t get to see no titties.”

  Jake didn’t point out that it was his debit card paying the bill. He rearranged the bottles on the table like a glass picket fence. He was already anxious even though Calista wouldn’t be free from work until after seven. She was a buyer for U-Wear, a company in Manhattan that made clothes—mainly T-shirts and underwear. (“Fruit-of-the-Loom-type stuff,” she’d written. “Don’t get your hopes up.”) They were looking to establish contacts with one of the maquiladoras in Juárez and had sent her to El Paso for the week. She and Jake had met two months earlier via an eBay exchange when he’d bought some comics she’d inherited from a cousin. This was to be their first face-to-face encounter.

  “So you don’t even know what she looks like,” Xavier said.

  “She sent me a picture.”

  “Let’s see.”

  “I don’t have it here,” Jake lied. He carried a portrait of Calista in his wallet, but the computer printout gave her face an orange tint and the resolution wasn’t sharp. Add to these the quality of the paper, and it was more a photo of the idea of her than any real likeness. Still, he loved to study it, imagining the variations of emotion and expression that might play over her features in his company, at his comments.

  “I bet you got it taped above your bed,” Xavier said. “And I bet she’s naked and has big tits.” Xavier had been prying for details all afternoon and such unrelenting and vaguely proprietary interest had made Jake paranoid. He was protective of Calista in a way he couldn’t explain to Xavier, not so he’d understand.

  “It’s not that kind of picture.”

  “But she’s hot,” Xavier said.

  “Fuck,” said Jake. “I don’t know. Yeah. Sure. I guess.”

  “Don’t pretend with me, ése. This is all about sex. You don’t talk to some girl for two months just so you can meet and have a conversation.”

  Jake wanted to deny it, but there was truth to this. Since he and Calista had started e-mailing there had been a lot of flirting, and he had been undeniably relieved when her photo showed her to be attractive, if a little gaunt. On the nights he corresponded with her a sexual charge crackled through the ritual. He would call up the exchanges of the past weeks and then begin to read, pausing to repeat certain phrases, compliments, and observations aloud, pondering the implications of endings that read “yours” or “love,” his lips moving slightly as he murmured this liturgy, his face rapt as he wrote to the woman he imagined. Had they been sending actual letters, he would have smelled the pages for hints of her perfume, touched his tongue to the envelope flaps, perhaps carried them in the breast pocket of his shirt.

  This, then, was the remove from which Jake experienced his romance. When he’d first encountered the Internet, many of his evenings had consisted of rote masturbation before the wanton gazes of various naked women: white, Hispanic, black, Asian, thick-limbed and thin, a wide variety that quickly took on a shallow uniformity as they played across his screen.

  Which was not to say that this time was without its value. While initially convinced that his interest was a singularly unhealthy obsession, that he was fast becoming a watery-eyed pervert bound to haunt playgrounds and public restrooms or get caught fucking the neighbor’s Doberman, his interest began to flag. He began to view the experience as a more-or-less-harmless voyage into the seas of his sexuality that had, at this point, left him stranded on the shores of normalcy. In the wake of many fears, he’d come to the conclusion that he was depressingly average and predictable in his tastes: no latex, fat, amputee, or foot fetishes; no interest in the elderly, the juvenile, or the pregnant; no interest in the neighbor’s dog. It was true that his eyes skipped from photos of naked men with a rapidity that belied comfort, but there didn’t seem much more to it, or at least nothing that wasn’t easily repressed. He had discovered an indifference to breast size (he more or less liked them all); to hair color, to panty and bra style. In sum, these many hours spent in the taboo waters of the cyber world had left him with the less-than-profound realization that he was a legs-and-ass man. What was less clear, but beginning to emerge from the murk in the course of his explorations, was that he needed more than this superficial sexual reckoning with the female. Calista, in the form of her enduring electronic presence and interest, had stimulated in him an overwhelming appetite for substantive romance.

  Three of the strippers entered through the smoked-glass double doors. That, Jake thought, or they were attractive women who’d gotten very lost. All of the men turned to look at them. Xavier stood and clapped his hands. “Hey, what are you doing dressed?” he said.

  Two looked annoyed, but one flashed their table.

  “You make me a happy man!” Xavier shouted over the smattering of applause from the other men.

  “We should get to the hotel,” Jake said.

  “Fuck no,” Xavier said. “Those women will be naked soon.”

  “So what?” Jake said. “It’s not like you’re going to get a date out of it. They won’t even kiss you.”

  “You better hope you’re wrong,” Xavier said. “Otherwise I might end up in bed with your woman.”

  Jake walked out to the parking lot to get his duffel, which held his clothes for the weekend, irritated that Xavier could annoy him so effortlessly. The lot of Prince Machiavelli’s overlooked eight lanes of rushing traffic on I-10 and, farther afield, the endless sprawl of Juárez. The club was a stucco structure with towers and crenellations like oversize Lego blocks. Jake hoisted his duffel, resigned to changing in the club’s bathroom.

  In the men’s room he practiced saying Calista’s name, settling on a tone that, he imagined, implied he was meeting an old friend and confidant, an ex-lover with whom the romance was ready to spark again. In the face
of such expectations, any doubts over the fact that they had, in fact, never met were easily ignored. He wondered what she’d think of him. The light dusting of acne and his startled eyes accented his youth without detracting from his looks. He wet a hand and pressed it to his tousled blond hair. He hadn’t aged much in the ten years since finishing high school.

  When he returned he found that Xavier had ordered them another round. The bass thump of techno racketed against the walls and made him wish he’d brought aspirin. He looked around, unhappy to be grouped with the losers sitting near them. Windowless and dimly lit, Prince Machiavelli’s smelled of air freshener, smoke, sweat, and male desperation. Most of the men were stationed around the stage, where a chunky stripper now performed a desultory bump-and-grind against a chrome pole.

  Near them a man sat enduring a lap dance. There was no other way to phrase it. A woman in a thong gyrated her ass inches from his nose. He sat motionless, his hands on his thighs, his face like a wood mask, as if his impassivity would somehow distance him from the vulgar, public spectacle his libido demanded. The dancer’s face was equally impassive, though with a genuine lack of interest. She popped her gum, chewing to the repetitive beat of the music, perhaps organizing a to-do list in her head.

  Jake began to laugh, realizing how nervous he was. He pointed at the pair when Xavier looked at him.

  “An ass in your face ain’t nothing to laugh at,” Xavier said with mock solemnity.

  Jake admitted that there were moments when Xavier was all right. He toasted his companion, feeling for a moment generous and superior. The prospect of the evening insulated him from the lonely apathy of the club. It was possible to believe he had nothing in common with these other men. Xavier seemed to sense this and immediately went on the offensive.

  “Maybe she’s a man,” he said. “Some fucked-up dude, you know? Just pretending.” He grinned at this, liking the story. “And then, ése, you know, you think something’s not right, but it’s not until you’re reaching down there,” he grabbed his crotch, “when you realize she’s, you know, all man. And better hung than you!” he added with a flourish.

  “Is this your date?” Jake asked. “Is she your girlfriend? Are you having drinks with her tonight?”

  “I’m just saying,” Xavier said, draining his beer and reaching for Jake’s.

  “I already know her,” Jake said. “She isn’t some chick with a dick.” He wondered how late he’d be for the date he’d been anticipating for more than a month.

  Two hours later Jake exited the bathroom of the Camino Real Hotel with his attention fixed on his crotch. He’d leaked a little while zipping up and had tried to dry his pants against the hand dryer, but this had been painfully hot and he’d been afraid someone would catch him at it. As he walked down the hall wishing the sconce lights were dimmer, he saw Calista: he uttered her name without thinking.

  She was on her cell phone and didn’t seem to hear him. He repeated her name, but it was the fact that he stood in her path to the bathroom that got her attention.

  She held up her hand and turned away for a moment, trying to refocus on the call. She hunched a shoulder, shielding the phone from him.

  Nonplussed, Jake let his hand fall to his side and stood witnessing the first of the evening’s collisions between the hoped-for and the actual. There was an unsettling mix of the familiar and strange about her. He recognized her face, minus the orange tint of his photo, but her kohled eyes and the complex knot of her dark hair, which looked to have two chopsticks stuck in it, were exotic, part of a style wholly unfamiliar to him. When she turned to face him, he saw in her neck that she was older than he had supposed, older and tired, with pallid skin that accented the smudged sleeplessness beneath her eyes.

  She smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said, “but no one’s called me that out loud.”

  “Calista?” he asked.

  “It’s my nom de plume,” she said. He didn’t know what this meant and didn’t ask. She shook his hand in an oddly formal manner that made him feel as if they were both at work.

  Xavier caught sight of Jake from the main room and headed for him. He moved with the slow deliberation of the very drunk. “Hey,” he said, “you see if they got condom machines in the bathrooms?”

  Jake was mortified. He shrugged. Xavier seemed not to notice Calista as he moved toward the bathrooms. “I shouldn’t loan so many out,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Do you know that guy?” Calista asked.

  Jake shook his head. “I mean, we work together, but that’s it. I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

  Calista nodded, unconvinced. “I’m sitting at the bar. Why don’t you wait for me there?” And with that she brushed past him and into the bathroom.

  Jake sat at the bar, eager to leave with Calista before Xavier showed up again. Xavier liked to goad him and would be impossible to get rid of once he realized who Calista was. Goading was a basic component of their difficult friendship. Jake absently patted at his pocket, feeling the two condoms Xavier had flipped to him when they’d arrived at their room.

  The bar of the Camino Real was square with high stools, set directly beneath a vaulted ceiling, the apex a dome of Tiffany stained glass that bathed the room with blue light and made the patrons look as if they were underwater. The walls were faced with polished marble, the floor carpeted. The space felt like old Mexico with an undertone of Motel 6. Jake sat near a heavyset man who gripped his wide-mouth Bud Light fiercely, as if it were a cleat attached to an unsteady boat deck. On the TV screen fixed atop the low shelves of liquor and glasses, a parched Clint Eastwood stumbled over a series of dunes and through the script of a bad spaghetti western, the sun tilting crazily above.

  He turned to watch for Calista, seeing her as she entered the main room. Her stride was quick and efficient, not at all similar to the sensuously languorous sway he’d imagined. He was trying to decide whether he found her attractive when he noticed that the guy beside him had spun around.

  “Did you two meet?” Calista asked. “Bernie, Jake. Jake, Bernie.”

  “Bernie,” Jake said. It came out like a question. Bernie’s suit was tight in the shoulders and thighs. He was swollen with middle age and too much beer. He had on spectacularly ugly cowboy boots that looked to be made from a bumpy reptile the orange of Gatorade.

  Bernie inclined his head the barest amount. “You want another Manhattan, Miss New York?”

  “She likes gin martinis,” Jake said, “without the olive and with Tanqueray Malacca gin.” He thought she’d be impressed that he’d remembered this detail, but she looked taken aback, as if he’d said something indelicate.

  “Manhattan?” Bernie asked again.

  “That’s a nice ring,” Jake said, pointing to the nondescript wedding band on Bernie’s ring finger.

  “Keep pushing,” Bernie said, taking a moment to stare hard at Jake.

  “I’ll take a rain check this time,” Calista said to Bernie, her voice soft. She gave him a small smile.

  “You sure?” Bernie looked askance at Jake.

  Calista nodded.

  This time, Jake repeated to himself. He wasn’t particularly attracted to Calista but he felt keenly jealous. As he touched her shoulder to guide her toward the street exit a look of annoyance briefly creased her face and he dropped his hand. She’d said in an early e-mail that she liked it when a guy would take charge on a date: “Forget all that sensitive 90s crap,” she’d written. “I want someone to take care of me when I go out. I want to relax.” But here it was and he couldn’t even take her arm. The night had been derailed and he had no idea where they were heading.

  “How do you know that guy?” he asked, keeping an eye out for Xavier as they exited.

  “He’s no different from the friend you brought from work,” said Calista. “A little protection.”

  “I was just using him for his car,” Jake said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Calista said. “I might have been someone you wanted to avo
id.”

  The Stanton Street Bridge into Juárez, only a few blocks from the hotel, was thick with traffic. Scraps of Spanish floated by as people passed them on the sidewalk. Jake was more aware of his surroundings. Shredded plastic bags fluttered in the light wind, caught in the concertina wire strung atop the walls and fences abutting the road. Idling cars waited to pass through customs, their exhaust washing through the air. He paid a quarter for each of them at the tollbooth and they headed up the bridge’s incline.

  “Scenic,” said Calista. She adjusted her purse, one hand firmly gripping the strap, the other buttoning her light jacket. In dress, at least, she was what Jake had expected: lots of black. She wore leather pants, a billowy blouse of some darkly iridescent material, and wobbly shoes that looked hard on the ankles. High-rent and urban, she probably hadn’t planned on walking into Juárez for the night.

  Beneath the bridge the dark, sluggish trickle of the Rio Grande gleamed in its concrete channel. “So that’s the mighty river,” Calista said, pausing to look down at it. “The Rio Grande,” she said with an exaggerated drawl.

  “Scenic, right?” Jake said, a little hurt that she seemed set on resisting the night. He’d been mulling over her silence and her comment. Scenic. The sarcasm of the statement, of the lack it implied, seemed to be an indictment of him as well. Even her faux drawl seemed aimed at him. “Sarcasm is the refuge of the cynic,” he said.