She emerged through a cloud of milk-froth steam. The woman of my dreams. A face designed by a German brutalist, blue-black hair straight as a needle down her back. Katarina–she sang her name to me when we first met. Kah-taur-ray-na, each syllable flirting in the space between her tongue and teeth.
“It’s a beautiful name,” I fiddled with my apron as I spoke, “is it German or something?”
She laughed under her breath before bringing her eyes to mine, “Yeah, something like that.”
It had been a couple of weeks since our first shift together and our conversations had been similarly vague. It wasn’t like I expected her to fall head over heels. I’ve never been much of a lady killer or anything, just the guy making eye contact from the corner and then giving up. I’d given up on the typically beautiful ages ago. They never went for nice guys like me, just jerks. I wasn’t athletic, but I was smart. They just didn’t see that yet. If they got to know me, they’d see I’m actually really cool. I mean I play bass; I listen to Radiohead. My lack of game was part of why I’d become a barista. I thought it’d be a good excuse to talk to the artsy types, girls with bangs and nose rings. Of course, I needed the money, who doesn’t, but god I was 23 and I’d never really been with a girl. It’s not like I’m some total loser or anything, there had been drunken parties and stuff like that, nothing that felt like it mattered. Now I had a chance at perfection. If not a chance, at least I had proximity.
I want to say it was our 5th shift together. Maybe it was our 4th, but I do remember we were washing out the mugs we gave the portion of the customers that didn’t take everything to go. I got stuck rinsing a couple espresso cups which sucked. I hate washing espresso cups because the water always shoots back out and gets all over my arms and my apron, but that day I didn’t care. I was close to Katarina.
“So, you just got here right?” She was looking at me.
I nodded.
“Where were you before this?”
“I actually just moved here.” Our hands were so close in the sink. I struggled to keep the panicked glee out of my voice.
“Oh nice, where from?”
“Vidalia”
“Wow, the big city.”
“It’s actually pretty small if yo-”
“That was a joke.” Katarina laughed as she cut me off, and I felt like shit. “Gosh, you’re lucky you’re cute because you don’t have a thought in your head.” And suddenly I felt less like shit. “How long did you live there?”
“Oh forever,” I smiled unable to contain all my excitement, “have you always been in Savannah or…”
“Pretty much yeah”
“Then what’s with the name?” I only realized it sounded rude after I had already said it. “I mean like, I don’t meet many people with names that pretty around here.”
“It’s fine,” she rolled her eyes exhaling, “my parents came here from Romania if that answers your question.” It did. It seemed obvious, the song of her name, her pale and delicate skin, it all seemed to track.
The conversation lulled as we finished the dishes. She began brewing herself a glass of hot hibiscus tea. It was her drink of choice. Steaming and dark. My mouth watered as she brought it to her lips, ruby red against stark white skin. I had nearly given up on continuing our conversation when she looked at me from over her mug.
“Do you have plans later?”
“No,” Looking back, I think I did have plans. Grocery shopping or something but none of that mattered then. “Are you anything cool?”
“A couple of my friends are playing a show later you should come.” She grabbed a napkin from the bar and scribbled down an address.
The rest of the day was a blur. I couldn’t think about anything but her. When I got home, I must have changed my clothes 3 or 4 times before I settled on the perfect outfit. Jeans and a Joy Division T-shirt (goth bitches love Joy Division T-shirts).
The address she gave me was a mile and change from me on google maps, so I just walked. I don’t really know what I expected, but I thought there’d at least be a sidewalk.
After several minutes on the dirt edge of the highway, I started to hear music and I turned onto another unpaved road. The music itself was a dirgey combination of synthesizers and bass. The type of music I pretended to like so hot girls would talk to me. The joy division shirt was the right choice. As the music got louder, I saw the venue in the distance. It must’ve been a warehouse or shipping locker at some point. Now it was just a container of people. They were spilling out of every opening, there was even a girl sitting on the sill of a large open window. The closer I got the thicker the air became until I reached the crowd and was consumed by the smoke of dozens of cigarettes, menthols, and cloves too. It’s like they’re from the 90s or something.
In the masses of black hair and black clothes, I found Katarina immediately. I waited for a moment before calling out to her. Just to watch her. She was surrounded by a swarm of similarly pale, beautiful, black-haired girls. They could’ve been sisters. Then, she saw me–and she smiled. The girls winked at her and giggled. She shot down their jokes with an icy smile. Before I knew it, she took hold of my hand and was pulling me into the club. Suddenly the world was all lights and noise and people, but none of that mattered Katarina was right there, and we were dancing. Her arms circled the air like streamers in a wind tunnel. We swirled around the room and suddenly she was in my arms for one moment before spinning away. She continued this ritual, song after song, getting agonizingly close only to pull away before I could get a hold of her. I was running out of breath and patience when she swooped in, her lips and teeth millimeters from my ear.
“Let’s go have a smoke.” She spun around, hair whipping my face and lead me out of the club and into the wet Savannah night.
She was taking me back towards the woods, away from the crowd. We could be alone. I couldn’t believe my luck. We stopped right by a large oak. She squatted down leaning against its trunk and reached into a pocket of her massive jeans and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Golds. Who the hell smokes golds? I’d never met someone under the age of 50 who smokes Marlboro Golds. She looked up at me carefully placing the filter between her lips before handing me her lighter. I knelt to her level, knees on the wet leaves of the forest, and lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply before blowing smoke into my face. I had her right where I wanted her. We sat there for a moment. Passing it back and forth, I took one last drag and leaned in and suddenly we were intertwined. We hit the floor with a thud. Kissing her was unlike anything I had ever experienced. She kissed me like her life depended on it, breathing me in, biting my lip, grabbing fistfuls of my hair. Suddenly fear hits me in the stomach. She’s relentless. Not a quiet soft spoken girl work but an all-consuming force. During that pause, Katarina rolls over and rises above me. I had never seen how dark her eyes were. Dark, black, and empty. I breathe sharply, a scream caught in my throat before Katarina’s mouth smashes into my own. I’m caught again in her spell. I let myself relax again as she moves her focus toward my neck. I am the happiest I’ve ever been. And then she bites down.
