Wake, Siren

by Nina MacLaughlin

  H: I don’t have them.

  S: And very lucky was the wet-nurse whose tits you tongued and sucked, whose breasts you emptied. And here I moved my hand down and absently touched my own, felt my nipple firm against my palm, just the way I wanted it. And I saw his eyes follow my hand, just the way I wanted it.

  H: I don’t remember—

  S: Luckiest of all is your girlfriend or your bride-to-be, because I can only assume you have one. It’s all right. Oh, it’s all right. Don’t worry. We can love each other secretly. No one will know except the birds and the squirrels and the leaves, and they’re voiceless when it comes to this sort of thing, I promise.

  H: This sort of thing?

  S: The blood rose to his cheeks. And I suspected that blood was gathering elsewhere as well. And my stomach dropped into my hips in that expectant throb, that heated pulse that precedes the best thing.

  H: I watched my mother butcher a rabbit once. She punched its head to break its neck and the lights went out of its eyes, and then she knifed it open and tugged out all its guts, all those dark wet interior parts. She tossed them to the dogs. They lapped the floor for so long. I didn’t like it. I was seeing more than I should see. I didn’t want to know. I had a queasy feeling. Now I felt this way again.

  S: Here. Don’t worry. Here. Just a small kiss.

  H: I hadn’t seen looks before like the ones she gave. They reached into my guts with fingers on the inside that tickled. It didn’t feel right. And also at the same time it felt like something I’d been approaching, maybe since the beginning, and I had a sense somehow that this is what I faced, this was what was coming for me, this new realm was opening to me, these looks and swells and smells. But I wasn’t ready.

  S: Like this. Here. Just a small kiss. Like a sister. Like this.

  H: I don’t think I—

  S: Here. Just quiet. You don’t have to worry. Like this.

  H: I took steps back.

  S: He took steps back. Though the hunt had begun as soon as he stepped into the clearing, now in earnest it began. They don’t know it, and I don’t tell them, but the naiads’ pleasure in the hunt is the same as mine—tension and the release of it. That’s all I’m ever after. They chase and stalk and aim and shoot and if they do it right, they catch their game and kill it dead. Thrill born out of effort. If in the woods you were to pause on the path and a deer emerged from the trees and instead of leaping away in frighted flight, it walked toward you, brown dew eyes glittering all fearless, and it offered itself to you, displaying its flank in easy range—where would be the challenge? And therefore, the satisfaction? Better to leave the eager deer standing there offering itself and try to find one that will make you earn your pleasure. I’ve never wanted the ones that offer themselves up to me, who beg to touch my beehive breasts, who tell me they want to lose themselves in my soft thick curves. Too easy. No eventual moment of surrender when the fight leaves them and they’re yours. This is what I live for. I do not need a quiver or a bow.

  H: I kept stepping backward away from her touching and kissing.

  S: Those steps back, that resistance, it heated me and made me juiced more than any sort of beauty, more than any sort of sculpted form or shining smile or brains or smell.

  H: She just kept coming.

  S: He stepped back and I felt the wet between my legs. You don’t want it? I will make you want it. Here. Just let me—doesn’t it feel good? There? Doesn’t that feel good? Like this? So gentle, so slow. Let me—

  H: Listen, if you don’t stop I’m going to leave.

  S: Okay, okay, okay. I stepped back.

  H: She stepped back.

  S: It’s all yours. Enjoy the spring. I leave you to it. I slipped away. He thought me gone. He couldn’t see me and that was fine. I crouched like the naiads do, my knees on the leaves, waiting for my meat the way they wait. I opened my robe and felt the weight of my breasts in my hands. I peered between the leaves. He paced the lip of the spring.

  H: I paced the lip of the spring. I tried to calm down. She left. I was glad when she left.

  S: He paused, dipped his foot into the water, I could feel him feel it.

  H: I touched the water with my toes. I wanted to be in it.

  S: He wanted to be in it.

  H: I pulled off my shirt.

  S: He pulled off his shirt and folded it and placed it on a stump. A pimple on his right shoulder, raised and red. Young men, their oils.

  H: I felt the sun on my shoulders. I missed my mother.

  S: He bent and he undid his pants and he slipped out of them and I saw all of him.

  H: I took off my pants.

  S: My teeth clenched to trap the moan.

  H: I dove in.

  S: He’s in! His whole naked self. Now was the time. I let my robe fall and dashed waterward and slipped in.

  H: There’s a rippling in the water.

  S: I swam quickly.

  H: What’s there?

  S: I wrapped myself around him.

  H: She’s wrapped herself around me. All at once all around me. I didn’t want it. Get away. I tried to get away.

  * * *

  S: He was everywhere against me, and he was trying to get away. I moaned to feel all his muscles tensed against me, fighting me off, trying to swim. I wrapped round tighter. Like this, just still, like this, I’m yours, be calm.

  H: She’s all around me and I felt sick. It’s too animal. I didn’t want to know. It’s as though she’s all tentacles, some massive octopus, pulling at me, tugging me in toward her, her legs knot themselves around my legs and she opens herself and is rubbing all over me. I don’t want this. STOP.

  S: STOP, he said, and I held him tighter. I pressed myself into him. We both breathed heavily. I knew any second would come the surrender. I have to hang on a little longer, a little tighter. I’ve been here before. They always surrender. They always give in. Like this, like this. Just relax. You’re going to like it. I know you’ll really like it. Trust me, you can trust me. Relax, it’s all right. Just give it to me.

  H: No no no no no. Stop. STOP.

  S: I rubbed and rubbed myself on him and I was so close, I was so so close, and his arm was pressed against my breast and trying to push me off and I opened and tightened and all the muscles in my hips were tight and clenching and it was almost I can feel it almost there there there there oh god, I cried out, oh god please, let us be joined forever, please let us never be apart.

  H: What’s happening?

  S: Oh he’s in he’s in. I’m all around him.

  H: She’s everywhere.

  S: He’s in. I’m in. He’s entered me I’ve entered him, the gods gave exactly what I’d wanted. We’re swimming in each other now.

  H: I’ve entered her. She’s entered me. Some strange combining.

  S: Entwining.

  H: And entwined.

  S: Our bodies joined in the deepest way.

  H: We’re one.

  S: We’re both.

  H: This changed home, two forms one body. A she becomes me. Becomes him. I a he become her.

  S: We fondle ourselves

  H: Our self

  S: Like this

  H: Wait I like that

  S: Just like this

  H: Touch me

  S: There

  H: Keep touching

  S: My beehive breasts. His waist-down manhood.

  H: We are both,

  S: Blurred and joined,

  H: And neither.

  EGERIA

  People think they know. People think they know all sorts of things. People want to tell you what they know, like all of them have PhDs in being alive. One thing to know: no one knows shit.

  It doesn’t matter what my husband’s name is. You don’t need to know. It doesn’t matter how he died. It doesn’t matter the way he cooked lamb with garlic and rosemary on special days. It doesn’t matter that the word we had for caterpillar was fur worm. It doesn’t matter that sometimes he cried out in his sleep and that I�
��d reach for him. Not to you it doesn’t. You don’t need to know. You don’t need to know very much at all, actually.

  He died. That’s all anyone needs to know. My grief was bottomless. I cried and cried and cried. People at home said, Okay, it’s okay, stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying. So I couldn’t be home and I left and I cried in the woods. Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, said everyone and everything that lived in the woods. It’s okay, it’s okay. Stop crying. It wasn’t okay. I couldn’t stop crying.

  I kept crying in the woods and a man came to me, you don’t need to know his name, it does not matter because he could be any man. And he said, Oh jeez, oh dear, wow, gosh, I’m so sorry for your loss, I’m so sorry your husband passed. He’s in a better place. Don’t cry.

  I kept crying.

  And he kept talking, this man.

  “You’re not alone,” he said. “You’re not the only one who’s gone through this. Other people have had things happen that make them cry. Hard things have befallen a lot of us. Maybe if you think of those people, the ones that have also lost someone, or maybe had something worse happen, you’ll stop crying as much. I have a sad story myself. Maybe it’ll give you the perspective that you need?

  “My stepmother told my father that I tried to seduce her. She told him I tried to climb into her bed and touch her. I didn’t even do this. I didn’t even think about what she looked like when she got out of the shower and I barely ever noticed when she’d come into the kitchen in the morning in her silk robe and she’d let it open while she looked in the fridge for the orange juice and then turn and her nipples would be all hard under the silk. I barely noticed that at all! She was the one who wanted me! She was the one who wanted to climb into my bed and touch me! She was the one who noticed all the time about my pants! I have no idea whether she did what she did because she was mad that I told her get out of my bed, or if she was afraid I was going to tell Dad myself. Who knows. But already this was a shitty situation. So I left my home, I got out of there, and on the way, riding off into exile on my chariot along the coast, a giant storm came, and this huge bull rose out of the waves, snorting seaspray and flinging his horns back and forth and crashing toward us at huge speed. My horses freaked, of course, and went galloping off in all different directions. I didn’t care about the bull, all I could think about was getting away from home and my stepmother and the way her hair fell over her shoulders which she wanted me to smell and like, but I didn’t even like. My horses went nuts and I tried to steer and rein them in, and I would’ve been able to because I’m strong enough by far, but that’s when one of the wheels hit a tree and cracked off the axle and I got thrown out of the chariot. And I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced something like this, I doubt it, but time dilated. I flew through the air and it felt like I was in the air for two weeks, and I had time to think about being a kid and my real mom and wanting to marry her and how we’d hold little pretend weddings until Dad got pissed. And I thought about the day he married my stepmom and how it rained so hard that day and I had to play with my cousin who was damaged and couldn’t talk but drooled a lot and how I wanted to make him talk to me instead of drool on his small chest. But he didn’t. And I thought about the way he waved at me as we were leaving the wedding. And I thought about the color of my stepmom’s robe, a deep blue that you only get to see in the sky the twenty minutes before dawn. And that’s the last thing I remember because I was ripped apart. My bones snapped. My guts were torn out from in me, some landed in a pile like a gray-red heap of earthworms, my sinews tangled themselves around a tree, one leg got ripped off by the reins, all my parts were strewn. I was completely unwhole. One big wound. Blood and bone bits and dark snags of entrails. I think about that, and then I think about you, and yeah I’m sorry for your husband but really? You cry? You cry and cry about this? You think you have it bad? Imagine having your pancreas land fifteen feet from your shoulder. Imagine seeing your pancreas. If you have a stepdad, imagine him accusing you of wanting to suck his dick. You’re crying? I saw the underworld. The bright blue of the robe gave way to the lightless dim where the shades go. And the only reason I’m here talking with you today is because Diana took pity and restored me, though not to what I was. She put some years on me and changed my name and deposited me far far far away from my stepmother looking for juice in the morning. So that’s just something you should know and maybe it’ll make you feel a little better about your own life. And maybe it’ll convince you that all the boo-hoo-hooing is out of proportion to what’s happened. I was a pile of guts. I’m not crying. You don’t see me crying.”

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know a goddamn thing. Anyone wants to tell me how much worse it could’ve been? Don’t you know: not a single person in the history of the world has ever felt better hearing “it could be worse.”

  I went on crying because that was the form my grief took. I didn’t apologize to him, and I won’t to you. I lay on the leaves and the twigs and I cried for my husband because I loved him. He was part of me and when he died, I died, too, and you know what? That’s sad. Having your guts ripped out of you, that’s not sad, that’s bad luck, that’s gross. Wanting to fuck your stepmother, that’s natural. Getting brought back to life by a goddess, you’re lucky and of course you shouldn’t be crying. I wept, wept, wept, and Diana took pity on me, too. She turned me into a spring. I was only tears anyway. She made me what I was. Come dip your feet in, drink. But if you tell me how bad it could’ve been, I will drown you.

  NYCTIMENE

  The crow will tell you it’s because of a monstrous thing I did. The crow will tell you, with its charcoal-throated caw, this tree-branch gossip, that I’m an owl because, well, because—please, closer, come closer, I need to whisper, it’s not the type of thing I can say to anyone—because I convinced my father to—because I seduced—because I convinced—because I lured him—here, closer—the crow will tell you that I fucked my father and then retreated to the woods to hide away in shame, which is where Minerva took pity on me and changed me to an owl, exiled to fly in darkness when sleeping eyes won’t see me for the foulness of my act. She turned me into a wide-faced feather barrel, flight as silent as the grave, and she pulled me in under her wing, so to speak, and made me her bird.

  Don’t listen to the crow. It’s jealous. It’s the one who used to be Minerva’s favored bird. The crow had been a beautiful girl, walking on the beach; Neptune saw her and had instant heat. She tried to flee and Minerva heard her cries and turned her into an ink-black crow to keep her from the violation that was coming. But the crow was talky, a gossip, always spilling the wrong secrets, and Minerva downgraded her, didn’t want such a servant of rumor riding on her shoulder anymore, and I took its place. Jealousy came to live in the crow, eating it from the inside out like maggots in meat, and so it tells the story a certain way. It wants to make me look like the monster. There’s more than two sides to a story—the doers, the done-tos, and the ones who interpret who’s who.

  Closer, here, in under my wide wing. Let me be the one to tell you what happened, horrific as it is. My father arrived in my bed, at night, in the shadows, so that each night I lay shaking in my bed hoping not to hear the stairs protesting his weight as he climbed them toward my small pink room. And each night when the stairs cried out, it was as though a bees’ nest broke in my brain, and they all started stinging. They buzzed loud and stung, and—here, closer, let me tell you—their honey was bitter on my tongue. I did not go to the woods in shame. I went to escape. Minerva helped me more. Now, an owl. A feathery movement between the trees. A flurry and then form. I’m the movement. Then the owl. To see that wide squall of wing, that blur, is to see a state of mystery, to witness the moment before a form becomes what it is.

  LEUCOTHOE

  The sun sets. Bands of color spread themselves across the sky. Violets, fuchsias, peaches, golds, and even some strange faded green. The whip-poor-will trills from a branch nearby, evening song. Night comes. The first star has just emerged, shy at fi
rst, gaining courage as day retreats, more and more outgoing as darkness deepens. Sky fangs of the crescent moon. With the last blast of color on the horizon, it’s as though Helios brags: Well, I did it all again, and here’s the full spectrum of my skill before I do it all again come morning.

  Some things belong in darkness, better never brought to light. What is pressed down gets darker, gains force, and rises from the shadows, knuckled and fork-tongued.

  Now it’s not a secret, but it was: Venus and Mars. The flowing-haired goddess of love, the armored god of war, pressing together in a passion they tried to keep hidden from everyone. Helios arrived on the chariot that brings day to the world, and saw the two entwined, and told Venus’s leather-skinned husband, Vulcan. He relished the telling, and juiced it with detail. Vulcan, thick with muscle, turned weak to hear the news. The swage he gripped seemed to take on more weight and he dropped the tool on the floor of his forge; the sound echoed up to the sky. With a clang that rattled the walls of heaven, his shock and hurt gave way to anger, which steered him toward revenge.

  He worked by night in his darkened forge, and the heated glow of metal lit his face as he bent over his work. He fashioned chains of bronze into a net so fine no eyes could detect it. He positioned it on the bed where his wife had opened herself to another man. And like a spider catching a fly, Vulcan caught Mars and Venus in the midst of their coupling.

  He kept them trapped there, joined and pressing like two thrashing fish pulled from a pond, and he opened the wide bedroom doors and invited all the gods to look. They gathered, pointed, laughed. Venus turned her head away and tried to shift her hips to bring some modesty to the scene. Her maneuvering only made it seem that they continued their press and grind regardless of being exposed.

  Once amply shamed, they were released. Thin lines of netting marked their flesh. Venus, furious in her embarrassment, aimed her wrath at Helios for shining light into a place that belonged in darkness.