Heart of Power: Awakening of the Siren

by S. L. Giger

  I pulled him back down to kiss me while also lifting up his shirt. He smelled good, too, manly. Plus, I could see and feel his muscles on his stomach and in his arms with every move he made.

  Alex took my bra off and dedicated all his attention to my naked upper body. Then, he kissed his way down to the brim of my pants, which he then opened and took off, too.

  His turn again to lose some clothes until he was only wearing boxer shorts. I could see that he was excited which turned me on in return. We kissed with a more intense passion than ever and hugged closely for a while. The inevitable followed and we also magically lost our underpants. Alex actually had a condom in his pants pocket, which made me raise an eyebrow and he just shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how long I could keep my distance up, I thought better be prepared.”

  I can’t even describe the explosion of feelings I felt during sex with him. It made me feel so alive again.

  “Ohmygod, jesuschrist.” Alex said shakily. “This felt so good.” He collapsed to the floor next to me. “We’ll have to do this again later!”

  I hugged him across his chest which was raising and sinking in an even interval and put my head on the arm which he stretched across the blanket. Now he smelled even better. This distinguished perfume of sweat and endorphins together with his normal body odor. I kissed him on his flushed cheek.

  “I love you, Alex,” I whispered.

  He hugged me closer. It was the perfect mix of body heat and evening breeze.

  “I might like camping after all,” I said.

  “You better like camping. This is not the last time I’ll want to take you to the great outdoors. It’s good to feel like a tiny, fragile human once in a while.”

  We stared up at the sky. You could even see a few stars straight above us, through a hole in the trees.

  “So, what were you saying about doing that again later?” I said after a while. I propped myself up and started kissing him. He wasn’t opposed to the idea. At some point, we retired into the tent. We cuddled up and used the sleeping bags as a big blanket. His chest was a very comfortable pillow. While I was listening to his even heartbeat, my whole chest filled up with happiness. That must be what true love was about. I felt more alive than I had ever felt when I was human. That’s how I wished to spend the rest of my time. Or his at least.

  When the sun woke us up the next morning, our bodies were still entangled in each other.

  “Happy Birthday.” Alex kissed me on my mouth. I had pretended that I had dozed off. I smiled at him in surprise.

  “What, you didn’t think I had remembered?” He grinned, shading the few rays of sunshine from my face. “Well, I did. Close your eyes.” He ordered, and I did as I was told, holding the sleeping bag to my chest. Now with daylight, I felt a little more self-conscious about being naked next to Alex. He still carried on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I felt something cold at my wrist, and he was fumbling with it.

  “Ok, you can open your eyes again.”

  A small silver heart was dangling from my charm bracelet, next to the chocolate bar and the bicycle.

  “I know, not the most original gift ever, but it comes straight from here.” He touched his chest where his heart was supposed to be.

  “It’s perfect, thank you.” I kissed him. The silver heart had already adjusted to my body heat and felt as if it belonged to no other place but there.

  “Now that you are awake again, I have to ask you something.” He then said.

  “Okay.” I looked at him questioningly.

  “Is everything normal with your pulse? When you were sleeping, I thought for a moment that you were dead since I couldn’t feel your heart. And now, I still couldn’t feel a pulse on your wrist.”

  Great, this conversation had to happen sooner or later.

  “Yes, I do have a really low pulse. That’s why often, when I get up, I see stars. But don’t worry, everything is normal. Your heart, therefore, compensates mine.” I pushed him back to the ground and smiled. “Yesterday evening your heart was beating so fast as if you’ve just ran a marathon.” I chuckled and hoped that I distracted him enough from his observation.

  The remaining day and night we spent hiking, swimming and with more private quality time. I was glad that I had survived two nights in a tent and really, camping wasn’t so bad after all.

  Chapter 24

  The day had come when I couldn't make excuses anymore about Alex coming out to our house on the Cape. Keeping him away from my fictive college dorm was easy. I used the excuse that no strangers, let alone men were allowed there.

  However, since the one time I had let slip out that my family had a house at the beach, he kept pressing to see it. I didn’t worry too much about Melissa and Luke’s personalities meeting with the one of Alex. The thing that worried me more was that Luke might throw a spontaneous temper tantrum around a human. Or that Alex wouldn’t buy the story that they were my parents. Other than that, what could go wrong?

  For instance, we could easily have died in a car crash on the way there. Melissa came to pick us up in her colleague’s Subaru since going there by public transport would have been a real pain. Plus, Melissa and Luke didn’t want to pretend that we were an American family without a car. Now, Melissa hadn’t driven a car in about twenty years. If that hasn’t said enough, let me put it this way: I didn’t know that it was possible to drive an automatic car as bumpy as she did. But she insisted on driving.

  “And you drove extra to Boston to pick us up? I’m sure we could have found another way.” Alex pressed through his teeth trying to be polite, as he was being thrown around in the back seat.

  “Ah no, it’s my pleasure,” Melissa said, stepping on the brakes way too hard, as we approached a red light. “When our only daughter finally decides to visit her old folks, it would be a reason to mention it in a letter to the president. She thinks the beach town doesn’t offer enough for young people and rather spends her weekends up here. There might be another reason for her not coming home so often, too.” She winked at him through the rearview mirror and swerved dangerously close to the curb while taking her eyes off the road. She pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary and continued. “Plus, I had to do some shopping in the city anyway. It is nice to get away occasionally.”

  Never had I been gladder to see our driveway. When the car came to an abrupt halt in front of our house, each of us sighed with relief.

  “Wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be,” Melissa whispered to me so that Alex wouldn’t hear.

  “You don’t say.”

  Alex was already out of the car, stretching his back and looking at the house.

  “Looks pretty. And so close to the beach that you can hear and smell the sea. Why again did we never come here during the summer?” Alex expressed disbelievingly.

  “I have to keep some secrets that I can reveal as a bonus one at a time, don’t I?”

  We entered the house. Seeing, how Alex took it all in with big eyes made me realize again what a small treasure we had here.

  A table with coffee was set out on the deck where Luke had been sitting a moment ago. Now, he got up and was coming toward us to meet Alex, too. He was wearing sunglasses and the way he greeted Alex was very formal. I don’t know whether it was because he felt uneasy around a human or whether he felt threatened by another guy in the house. Anyway, it was quite a funny observation.

  “I would have come to the city too, but I had an appointment at the eye doctor this morning and wasn’t fit to drive. Hence, the sunglasses.” He shrugged.

  “No problem. It was nice of Melissa to pick us up anyway.” When Luke turned his head away, Alex quickly threw a glance at me that I interpreted as ‘I hope we can go back by ourselves.’

  I gave Alex a quick tour of the house. It seemed like a normal home to me; we had everything humans need.

  “It’s a nice home. You live in what others call a vacation house. I can’t believe you choose to t
rade this for the city.”

  “Well, evidently, there aren’t that many opportunities out here. And perhaps I’m taking a vacation from the vacation. I could see myself living here for a long time.” I smiled.

  We lingered in my room for a while, and Alex was having a look around.

  “So, where are you hiding all your embarrassing baby pictures?” Alex then asked.

  “Somewhere, where you will never find them. Plus, there are no embarrassing pictures of me anyway. I was a cute baby.” I placed one hand on my hip.

  “I have no doubt about that.” He leaned down and kissed me on my lips. This still took my breath away.

  “We should go back out,” I said, slightly flustered.

  We had coffee and cake, and Melissa and Luke were perforating Alex with questions about his life. I really pitied that poor guy. At last Luke and he found a common interest in European soccer and discussed their favorite teams and players. I heard many familiar names from the time when I still lived in Europe. There, I was surrounded by that talk almost every day because soccer is very big with the boys in Switzerland. When it turned back to more questions after that, I thought I had to jump in and save Alex.

  “Give that guy a break; he already has a hoarse voice from talking so much. Besides, I have already told you most of that anyway.”

  “We are just interested in who you are spending your time with. Now we finally get the chance to make up our own picture.”

  “Which I hope is good.” Alex joked half nervously.

  “So far so good, young man.” Luke flashed a smile at him.

  And then I paid for wanting to help Alex. Now the conversation turned into the other direction and Alex was asking about our life.

  “Once, when she was three, I lost her in the supermarket,” Melissa said. “I frantically looked for her everywhere, and other people helped to call your name.” Melissa looked at me. “Finally, we found her behind the meat counter. She wouldn’t leave until the lady gave her a slice of cold cuts.” Melissa laughed. “Gosh, I had never been more scared in my life.”

  “I remember how wrought up you still were in the evening,” Luke said to her. Melissa and Luke were inventing stories about me as if it were the easiest thing.

  “I remember when she started school, Nathalie went through a phase where she had an imaginary friend called ‘Captain,’” Luke said. “She might still talk about him if Melissa hadn’t enrolled her into all kinds of after-school activities, where she had to make real friends.”

  “Uh hu, thanks for bringing that up now.” I played along. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”

  “Hah, we’ve only just started,” Luke said. They invented all kinds of other stories of which none were true. Still Luke and Melissa seemed to enjoy debauching in these non-existent memories. I thought they exaggerated with some things, which made me nervous that it wouldn’t seem credible anymore. And then it started to go downhill. Suddenly, Luke gripped the table, and our attention was automatically drawn toward him. He shot up so that his chair fell over backward.

  “Migraine attack,” he pressed his hands against his temples and backed away. “I’ll lie down.” He pressed through his teeth and disappeared inside the house as if it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  “He gets them very seldom, but if he has one, they are really bad,” Melissa said apologetically. I gave her a worried look.

  “We better leave, so that it’s quiet here,” I said.

  “Yes, that might be better. Too bad, I really would have enjoyed to cook for more than the two of us for once,” Melissa responded.

  “I will drive us back to the city and return the car the next time I’m off from work.”

  “Yes, that’s fine, we can use Luke’s work car in the meantime.”

  All these unnecessary formalities, to keep our secret a secret.

  As we were driving back to Boston, I slightly relaxed that nothing worse had happened. Obviously, Luke couldn’t deal with Alex’s human presence anymore.

  “So, Captain, huh?” Alex broke the silence.

  “What can I say, I always liked strong men.” I rolled my eyes but kept them on the road which was lit up by street lanterns in even intervals. The road was pretty quiet at this time in the evening. When I was human, these moments always held some kind of comfort for me because I was driving toward a cozy bed. Now it was just fun to have something to do and above all, to be sitting next to the man I love.

  “I hope you haven’t inherited this migraine. I wouldn’t want our children to have bad genes.”

  “No, no, I’ve never had one.” I felt guilty about the fact that we needn’t worry about children anyway.

  He put his hand on my thigh, and I put mine on his hand and like that, we drove toward his apartment in a comfortable silence.

  Since Brendon was back now, I couldn’t sleep at his place. So, after I dropped Alex off, I returned the car to Melissa’s friend and then walked back to our house.

  “How’s Luke?” I asked.

  “I don’t know; he isn’t here,” Melissa said, worry written all over her face. “But he’s probably at the library, where it’s quiet, and he can calm down,” she said more to her own reassurance.

  “How did you come up with all these stories?” I asked while we waited.

  “Believe me, I have had enough friends who had babies. I always had to listen to their stories, now it was my turn to pass these stories on. At least I didn’t proudly squeak and tell how you already got your first tooth when you were five months old.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what did you think of him?” I looked at her.

  “I could tell he loves you. He often glanced at you when he thought that nobody was looking, and I saw how he always tried to find your hand somewhere.”

  “Maybe he was scared to face the two of you with all your questions.”

  “Hey, better I use words than my teeth.” Luke appeared in the living room and gave a fake snarl.

  Melissa and I waited for an explanation.

  “I was fine at the beginning and somehow could concentrate on other things. But all of a sudden, I couldn’t ignore his heartbeat anymore. If I hadn’t left right away, I would have silenced it; it was so annoying.”

  “Good that you could turn away,” Melissa said.

  I would have enjoyed this evening much more if I had known that it was the last peaceful one I’d have for a long time.

  The next time I saw Alex was just for a quick lunch at his place, where he had brought some sandwiches from his deli. He said that the deadline of his project was coming up and he had a load of work to do. We ate the sandwiches in his bed, but somehow Alex seemed distracted. After lunch, he wasn’t feeling well and said that he needed some rest. So, I left him alone after making him a fennel tea for his stomach.

  How are you feeling, my dear? I texted him later that day.

  Better. I have to be since I need to work. Was his reply.

  Shall, I come over today? I texted the next day.

  I’m sorry, I really don’t have time now.

  His short replies and the fact that it was always me who contacted him were very odd. In all the months before there hardly passed one day when we didn’t see each other or him writing me some cute message. On the third day, I called him.

  “So, how’s your work going?”

  “Okay,” he sounded annoyed.

  “Maybe a little distraction would do you good,” I suggested.

  “No, I need to focus,” He said curtly.

  “If you have troubles, it might be good to clear your head for a while and then start working again with fresh energy. And you clearly are stressed. I wished I could help you somehow.”

  “I am stressed but you really would be a distraction.” He sighed. “I have to go back to work now. Talk to you later.”

  He didn’t call back. That was the first time he said he would call but then didn’t. Was he avoiding me? The
worst thing was that I had no idea what was wrong. It was so hard not to see him and not to be with him, but the biggest torture of it was the thought that he wanted it this way. While I, on the other hand, wanted to spend every minute with him. Hadn’t he just told me the same thing? What could possibly have changed? I thought everything was perfect.

  I wondered whether he was seeing another girl.

  When he still hadn’t called or replied the morning after his deadline, I became seriously worried. I decided that I had to go find him and confront him directly about what the hell was going on.

  Chapter 25

  The human mind is a very developed, genius machine. It goes to depths I can’t even imagine. It comes in many layers, so that we can deal with a million small things at the same time. We always keep other matters stored somewhere close to the surface, so that we can pull knowledge or memories out when we need them. Our subconscious is one of these layers. Sometimes, things that are too overwhelming to deal with stay hidden in our subconscious. It starts treating a problem before we even realize that it existed. Humans have the big advantage that they can deal with a problem in their dreams. They can fight fears and relive traumas while safely waking up the next day until there is a solution. Dealing with problems in your dreams takes a load off your mind during the day, I can tell you. I now realized what a blessing it was to be able to dream. Because the only time I dream is when I’m awake and fall into a daydream. I don’t sleep. I don’t have a subconscious that deals with my fears and pains while my body and mind rests. I have to go through everything in reality. Perhaps this is why so many Sirens are driven into suicide.

  When I couldn’t bear the silence any longer, I went to Alex’s apartment, but of course, he wasn’t there. I went to the uni but couldn’t find him either, so I returned to the apartment, where I found his sister. She told me that he had been acting weird and said that he would go camping. She had thought I knew about this and the fact that he hadn’t told me worried her. Of course, he hadn’t told her where exactly he went camping. Thus, I started to search all the forests around Massachusetts. Like I already mentioned, there is a lot of forests around Massachusetts. Like I already mentioned, there is a lot of forests here.