Siren Song

Thanks to darkniciad for helpful editing.

Michael passed through the kitchen, dropping the order of service on the table without much thought. In the bedroom he took off the black wool suit and hung it in the closet. What a useless gesture. He would never wear it again.

The phone rang. It was his daughter, Emma.

"I'm fine," he told her. "I'm just going to take a nap."

He dreamed he sailed his mirror dinghy out to sea. This made no sense at all, but dreams don't make any sense. When was the last time you dreamed you had an ordinary day?

In the dream, he had a long day of thirst and sun. He splashed water on his face, being careful not to drink it. He thought maybe he was going crazy.

The ocean made him think of a length of silk he had once purchased as a gift for his wife. The rumpled waves were the same green-blue. He remembered the look on her face when she opened the package -- her excited delight had been his reward. He indicated the crinkled texture. "How will you cut into it? I mean, how can you sew a straight seam with it all wrinkled like that?"

"Don't worry. I know what to do." Her beaming grin was full of confidence. The fabric aloft in her arms made a dark shimmering path. She played with it, making loops and shapes. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Thank you so much for thinking of me."

"You're welcome." He smiled into her hair and folded her into his arms. "I love you, Lucy."

"I love you, too," and she kissed him with a heartfelt grace.

That night she wore the fabric to their bedroom, draped around her body like a sari. The creased fabric rode over her like ocean waves, encircling her hips, gliding diagonally over her chest and dropping in a graceful waterfall over one shoulder.

"Like it?" She turned in a pirouette so he could see.

"Hmmm...." he ran his hands over the silk, the weave feeling like a living thing, and found his wife's silken skin underneath. He caressed the place just below her waist, where the curve of her hip began. "You wear this well."

Her aquamarine eyes glowed into his. "I couldn't do it without you."

"Gee, I almost hate to take it off of you."

"Don't, then."

He bunched the forward-slash of silk between her breasts. Then he pulled her near, so she stood between his legs. His mouth descended to her left breast. Lucy moaned and hitched her back into an arc. She pushed her fingers into his hair.

The silk made a rustling noise, not unlike a soft booming of waves. Waves. Michael dipped his fingers into the softness of the green-blue skirt. The smoothness was like touching water. He lifted the yardage by the fistful, the way he had done in the fabric store when he chose it out for her. Up, up went the makeshift skirt, until he came to her wet musk. His tongue lapped at her saline tang.

The room spun. They fell back on the creaking bed, and it gave like a boat on the ocean. Something else shifted. The air was too warm. He was rocking, but his body was not moving, and his cheek pressed against something hard.

His eyes fluttered open. He was at sea. Apparently he had fallen asleep in the late afternoon sun. The waves made a rustling noise, like amplified silk.

Another noise twitched somewhere, higher in pitch. It was like the cry of seagulls, only -- musical. What was it? He scanned the horizon but saw only blue, sky against ocean. There weren't any clues. The tones came again, a bit louder this time.

He started rowing toward the flute-like sound. The liquid silver noise called to him. Slowly it grew louder. The more he heard it, the more he wanted to hear it. It was irresistible.

"I must find you, I must find you," he thought. He rowed on. After a few minutes there was a flash at the place where the sea met the sky. Then it was just a grazy dot -- then it sparkled again. Toward this lonely feature he labored, and steadily he drew near.

The dot became a lump and the lump faded into a vertical shape. Michael's eyes were hazed over with exhaustion. His vision blurred. "I am crazy," he thought to himself, "but that looks like a woman, sitting on a rock."

The glitter turned out to be the mermaid's iridescent scales. The rock on which she perched was the height of a man, one bumpy knoll sticking out of the sea. And it was her song, lovely and clear as from a flute made of glass, which drew him relentlessly.

She was naked. Her slender torso rose in a crescendo to a lovely pair of breasts. As Michael got closer, he could see that the cool breeze invited her nipples to point at him. But that wasn't what got his attention. What got his attention was her face.

It was Lucy -- his Lucy. And though his arms were exhausted, though his muscles cried out as if he had thrown 150 pitches, he rotated the oars as fast as he could.

His boat bumped over the waves, toward the rocks. "Lucy! Lucy!"

The mermaid Lucy quit combing her hair. He fumbled toward her. "Lucy..." Tears tore at his throat. Now he could see that it wasn't salt spray that shone on her face -- she, too, was crying.

"Michael, you must go back," she wept.

"No, no. I want to be with you." He had never been one to cry, but now his tears flowed freely.

She lifted her hand and the wind kicked up, pushing him away from his heart's desire. "You must live!"

"Not without you, Lucy! Not without love!" He rowed hard into the slamming wind. "I never want to be without you again!"

Lucy lifted her head in a loud wail of anguish. The waves rose ferociously and threatened to capsize the valiant sailor.

But the tumult could not last. Her grief tumbled into a series of sharp heaving gasps. The ocean's roil moderated down, reflecting her lament.

"Lucy! You know we are meant to be together!"

"Then crash your boat on the rocks!" she sobbed. "God knows I miss you, too!"

He sited the sharp black rock. With all his might, he aimed straight for it. His aim was true.

* * *

Emma found him holding the old silk dress.

She ordered him buried at sea.