I just sat there, staring wide-eyed; any other reaction I might’ve had was delayed, naturally, by the shock. However, if you were to have asked me what had shocked me so badly, I could only have said it was a combination of several things. Firstly, outside my window loomed the hulking figure of the stranger that had just knocked on it. Secondly, said stranger held a sturdy-looking metal pole, flecked with rust, in the opposite hand. Finally, the stranger’s chiseled face sported a thick layer of makeup, and a flashy dress clung to...his?...muscular frame.
Our eyes met and the stranger’s free hand rose again to tap on my window lightly. My frazzled brain, running on autopilot, sent a signal to my right hand, which wound the window down. The assembly squealed as it descended.
“Sorry for stopping you so suddenly. Who are you, by the way?” the stranger asked in a practiced falsetto, speaking with a feminine lilt.
“I feel like I should be the one asking that...”
“You have a point there. Well, okay, I’m Paula.”
“Right... Paula.”
“Yup, Paula.”
Silence fell between us, until a sudden thump on the door cut through it. I jolted upright in shock.
“We’re introducing ourselves, right?” Paula prompted. “You’re just a tad slow, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
“I’m Keisuke...” I eventually managed.
“Right. Okay then, Keisuke. What did you come to that village for?” Paula asked, eyes narrowing under purple eyeshadow.
“I didn’t exactly have a reason, just came across it on the road.”
“So you’re just a traveler?”
“Guess so. Though I’m doing some peddling on the side.”
Paula looked steadily at me for a long moment, before eventually nodding and tossing the metal pole backward. It landed with a clatter.
“We’re all good, then. Sorry ’bout that. Must have been a shock, huh?” Paula said in a much cheerier tone, waving a hand around.
“Yeah, it sure was...or more like a string of shocks... Um, do you live around here, Paula?”
“Sure do, right in that theater.” With a wave of a finger, Paula indicated the big building I’d just driven past. “Why not stop by if you’re free? We’ll give you a combo welcome and apology performance.”
Paula gave an intense wink that more or less wiped out any courage I might’ve had to refuse. At the same time, I was actually really curious to learn more about this unusual stranger.
“Sure, I guess.”
“That’s perfect, then. Guess I’ll take the passenger seat.”
Paula jogged around the car and opened up the passenger door, climbing in. I was the shorter of the two of us by a lot, and there was quite a bit of muscle on those arms. Even so, a feminine, almost citrusy, scent wafted forth from Paula, making my mind go just a little fuzzy. I gave Paula a searching look and he...no, she shyly put her hands on her cheeks as if to hide her face.
“Oh my. It’s rather rude to stare at me like that.”
“Sorry,” I apologized after a moment.
Earlier it was the oversized guinea-pig person, and now it was this burly man...or woman. With an internal comment about how many unusual new faces there were here, I turned the Kettle around and headed for the theater. I was still trying to think of something to talk about when we got to the entrance a few moments later. Paula opened the door and got right out, and I followed suit from my own side of the car.
The space behind the theater’s glass doors was dark. It felt even more like an abandoned ruin than the normal houses, and yet Paula looked completely at ease opening the doors and heading inside. Through the front doors was a small entrance hall. A reception desk stood directly in front of us with a door on either side of it. Both of them were wide open, but the darkness shrouding whatever lay past them was thick enough that I couldn’t see where they led.
“This way,” Paula guided, heading through the right-hand door.
I could smell dusty cloth inside as I followed. The light at our backs—the only source of illumination in the room—fell in a rectangle on the floor, our shadows stretching across its center. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness and I could barely see anything else. Paula strode off, while I progressed more carefully. I found a row of chairs and grabbed hold of one, feeling around for the chair in front of it. Moving row by row, I clumsily headed forward.
Suddenly, I heard a noise—the rasp of something metal sliding across a surface. Eventually, it morphed into the sound of castanets tapping out a rhythm. My confusion shifted into concentration. As I listened, a beam of light hit the far wall and brought the stage in front of me into focus. It shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen from a lantern, sparkling across the stage. Layered over the rhythm of the castanets came a more distorted noise of something thumping out across the stage.
Paula leaped in from the wings, dress fluttering as she landed in the center of the stage and twirled in place. The dress left shimmering trails in its wake as she spread her arms toward me, crooking a finger invitingly. The music got faster and more intense, and Paula’s dancing followed suit. She swung her massive frame around, tracing out feminine, almost alluring, curves with her arms and hips. I was shocked, of course, but before I knew it, her dance had me enraptured and tightly gripping the back of the chair.
Eventually, the music stopped, and so too did the dance. Her arms and legs came neatly into place at her sides, and I started applauding. Loudly. Paula’s shoulders were heaving, but she bowed toward me with a smile, then vanished off stage and reappeared from a door at the side of the seating area.
“So, did you enjoy it?” she asked, still breathing heavily; she was giving off enough heat that I could feel it just from standing next to her.
“It was incredible.” Those were the only words I could find to express myself. “So you’re a dancer, then?”
“Well, more accurately, I wanted to become one, yes.”
“You didn’t use to dance here, then?”
Paula hid her mouth behind her hand and laughed cheerfully. It was a dainty, feminine laugh, with only the slightest hints of masculine roughness showing through.
“I’d never have been able to dance in a place as high-class as this. I came here to... Well, let’s call it the end of my version of your journey.”
“Huh... The end of your journey was dancing in this theater?”
“Well, I haven’t got anything else to do, have I?” she asked, waving a hand at me. “I’d always wanted to do this, and yet my wish could never have been granted before... It ends up rather boring dancing to no audience, though. I’m glad you showed up, Kei. I finally got myself fired up again.”
Kei?
The look in her eyes was somewhat alluring, but also somewhat devious, and I felt a chill run down my back. I quickly shifted to put more space between us.
Paula giggled teasingly and murmured, “How innocent.”
I wanted to argue the point, but in the face of the somewhat mature mood she’d created, my relative immaturity stood out, so she wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Right. I need to introduce you,” she said, apparently having just remembered something.