Calliope returned to the living room just as the first song was rising in the speakers. "Oh, I love this tape," she said. "I've always wanted to make love to this tape. I'll be right back." She left the room again and returned in a moment with an armload of pillows and blankets, which she dropped in the middle of the floor. "Grubb sleeps in my room and he won't be asleep for a while." She began to spread the blankets out over the floor.
Sam stood by, trying to fight the objections that were rising in his mind about the speed at which things were progressing. She just assumed that he would say yes; it made him feel like — well — a slut. Then again, if this beautiful girl wanted to make love with him, who was he to object? Okay, so he was a slut; he was a tough and adaptable slut. Still, there was one thing that bothered him. "What if Yiffer and Nina come home with the pizza?"
"Oh, I don't think they'll be home that soon. This first time will be pretty fast."
"Hey." Sam thought he might have just been insulted, but on second thought he realized that the girl had just voiced something that he had really been worrying about, without even admitting it to himself. On second thought, she had relieved the pressure on him to perform.
Calliope finished fluffing the pillows, then unlaced her dress and let it drop to the floor. She stepped out of it and went to the stereo, where she turned up the volume, then she crawled naked under the top blanket and pulled it up to her neck. "Okay," she said.
Sam sat on the couch, stunned. She was stunning. But where was the seduction, the deception, the sweet lies and tender posturing? Where was the hunt, the cat-and-mouse game? Sam just stared at her and thought, This is entirely too honest.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yes, it's just kind of…"
"You want me and I want you. Right?"
Who did she think she was? You can't just go around blurting out the truth like a prophet with Tourette's syndrome. He said, "Well, I guess. Yeah, that's right."
"Well?" She threw the covers back to make room for him.
Sam leapt off the couch and fought his way out of his clothes. He was under the covers, taking her into his arms, before his shirt settled to the floor. At the touch of her skin, her warmth, he felt every muscle in his body tense, then melt against her. He kissed her for a long time with none of the fumbling or awkwardness that he expected. He entered her and they began to move together in slow rhythm to the music. Calliope let out a long, low moan and dug her fingers into the muscles of his back. He joined her in the moan and pushed deeper, losing suddenly any thoughts or images or reservations, damn near losing consciousness to the warm, dark rhythm. A door slammed, violently shaking the windows of the apartment.
Sam pushed up on his arms. "What was that?"
"Nothing," she said, pulling him down.
Another door slammed, louder than the first. Sam pushed up again. "They're home."
"No, that's downstairs. Please." She wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him tight.
Distracted, Sam began to move again and Calliope moaned. A door slammed, glass shattered, and J. Nigel began crying in the front bedroom.
"What in the hell was that?"
"Nothing. Not now. Make love to me, Sam."
The house shook with the impact of a slamming door, then another, and Grubb began to cry as well. Sam winced, and came completely without pleasure. "Sorry," he said as he rolled over onto his back. Calliope stared at the ceiling for a moment as if she was bracing for the next impact. When it came she leapt to her feet and stormed naked out onto the balcony.
She bent over the railing and shouted, "Why are you doing this?"
Sam turned down the stereo and listened. Another door slammed, shaking the house, then a pathetic male voice came from below. "You've got someone up there. You slut."
"Don't talk to me that way. I don't act this way when you have someone down there."
Sam wanted to join her on the balcony, come to her defense ("Hey, buddy, she's not the slut here!"), but he couldn't seem to locate his pants.
"You whore!" the male voice said. "I'm taking my son."
"No, you're not!"
"You'll see," the voice said. Another door slam. Sam flinched. He was getting a little shell-shocked trying to put the pieces of this mystery together between slams.
"Jerk!" Calliope screamed. She stormed inside, slammed the door, and breezed by Sam on her way to tend to Grubb and J. Nigel. Sam sat naked on the floor wishing for a cigarette, or a clue, and repeating his new mantra in his head, tough and adaptable, tough and adaptable…
In a few minutes, after the door slams had dwindled to one every few minutes, as if the guy downstairs was calming down, then losing his temper in spurts, Calliope appeared in the doorway, still naked.
"We need to talk," she said.
Sam was dressed now, desperately yearning for a cigarette, but he'd left them in the car and he wasn't about to pass the maniac downstairs without more information. "That would be good," he said.
Calliope picked up her dress and slipped it on, then sat down on the couch. "You're probably wondering who that is downstairs."
For the first time she seemed really uncomfortable, and Sam felt for her. "It's okay. I've had some trouble with my neighbors recently. It happens."
She smiled. "I used to be with him. He's Grubb's father."
"I gathered that."
"I was doing a lot of drugs then. He was exciting: riding his Harley, tattoos, guns."
"Guns?"
"I left him when I found out I was pregnant. He didn't want me to have the baby and he didn't want me to quit getting high."
"But why move upstairs?"
"I didn't. He moved in downstairs. You're the first man that I've had over since the split. I didn't know he'd act this way."
"Why don't you move?"
"You know how Santa Barbara is. I couldn't even pay rent here if it weren't for Nina, let alone come up with first, last, and a cleaning deposit."
Sam could see that she was still embarrassed. "You could ask the landlord to remove his doors. It would be quieter."
"I'm sorry. I really wanted it to be nice."
"Maybe I should go." Despite the weirdness, he didn't want to leave.
"I wish you would stay. When Grubb goes to sleep we can go in my room. If we're quiet…"
"I'll stay," Sam said. "He won't come up here and shoot us, will he?"
"No, I don't think so. He keeps talking about getting custody of Grubb. Killing us would look bad with the judge."
"Right," Sam said. So what if she had been involved with a psycho. At least it was a psycho who thought ahead.
Calliope led Sam down a hallway to her room at the back of the apartment. "I'll get us some salad," she said, leaving Sam to sit on the twin bed next to the crib where Grubb was drowsily gnawing a pacifier. The room looked like it had been decorated by a Buddhist monk from "Sesame Street." On top of the dresser sat effigies of Buddha, Shiva, Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster, as well as an incense burner, a small gong, and a box of Pampers. A stuffed Mickey Mouse on the dressing chair wore a necklace of quartz crystal and a rawhide ring that Sam recognized as a Navaho dream catcher. The walls were hung with pictures of the Dalai Lama, Kali the Destroyer, and the Smurfs.
Looking around, Sam felt tempted to construct an excuse and bolt. Now that he'd had a moment to think about it, his tough and adaptable veneer was feeling pretty thin. If he could just get back to normal for a while he'd be okay. Then it hit him: there was no normal to return to. The controlled status quo that had been his life was no longer there; it had been shattered by Coyote, and Coyote was out there somewhere. Calliope, and all the chaos around her, had made him forget. Even with Smurfs, psychos, and kitchen pals, the forgetting was worth staying for.