Her Deadly Harem

by Savannah Skye

  I told her that mine was Sienna, and we both thought it was funny and somehow special that our names both began with a 'S'. Sienna and Saorise, Saorise and Sienna; friends from the moment we met, friends for the rest of our lives. That was what we decided that afternoon, as we played endlessly in the sand and sea, clambering into rock pools to discover scuttling crabs and darting fish, slipping on sea weed, digging holes in the sand and, above all, playing in the sea.

  Saorise loved the sea; that was evident from that first afternoon. She was brave enough to venture out way further than I was. I preferred to stay in the shallows, or if I was feeling especially bold, I might go out to waist depth.

  Not Saorise, though. She went so far, her head was a mere speck in the distance. She’d duck beneath the water, vanishing from my view and then pop up suddenly in front of me, laughing, her red hair plastered to her forehead.

  I would have liked that afternoon to last forever, but as the red sun dipped into the Atlantic, I heard my mom calling me, and my pleas for 'five more minutes' fell on deaf ears. I looked at Saorise.

  "Will you be here again tomorrow?" she asked.

  I looked desperately at my mom.

  "We did have plans…” But to my delight, she shook her head and said, "But if this is what you want, I guess we can come back again tomorrow."

  I waved goodbye to Saorise as we walked away from the beach and she frantically waved back, not moving from where she stood, her feet washed by the incoming tide.

  "I wonder where her parents are," my mom murmured. "Should we have done something, do you think?"

  But my dad just shrugged. "It's Ireland, not New York. People can afford to be a bit more easygoing here."

  Saorise was there again the next day. Still no sign of her parents or any other family, but she certainly didn't seem to be in any sort of trouble. Her accent betrayed her as a local, just as mine proclaimed me to be a tourist. We tried out each other's accents, laughing at our abject failure. We played all day in the sand and the sea and the sun, and sundown once again came too quickly.

  I suppose we must have done other things on that trip, but I don't remember any other part of it. I know that some days we went elsewhere then back to the beach so Saorise and I could play for a few hours before bed, and on others we'd meet in the morning before going someplace else.

  It never struck me as odd at the time that Saorise was always there. As far as I was concerned, she lived on the beach. Looking back on those two weeks now, I remember them as two weeks spent with Saorise, the days and games all blur into one happy memory.

  With one exception.

  It must have been on a day towards the end of the trip when, tired with Saorise's ability to swim out farther than me, I decided to give chase.

  I could swim well enough, they taught us at school, but swimming in the clear, chlorine-flavored water of the pool was very different to swimming in the green, rolling waters of the sea. I don't think Saorise had noticed that I was following her as she struck out for the horizon, swimming like a fish. I guess my parents hadn't noticed either, they were now so used to me playing with my little friend that their attention could happily drift elsewhere.

  But as I swam, a strong wind blew in, making the waves billow and swell. I vividly remember the first pang of fear as I realized I was out of my league. The waves overwhelmed me, burying me, and I tasted salt water with the sharp aluminum of adrenalin. I flailed beneath the surface, desperately trying to claw my way back up, but suddenly my strokes didn't seem strong enough to move me, as if the water was drawing me down, closing around me with darkness.

  Panic flooded me as I sank, and I felt unconsciousness beckoning, though I tried to fight it.

  I might have died there that day, but in the next moment before I blacked out and surrendered to the void, I felt arms about me, cradling me and pulling me upwards. My face broke the surface and I gulped in precious lungsful of air. Saorise bobbed in the water nearby, her face wracked with anxiety. Only, she hadn’t been my savior.

  My savior was a boy. One who still supported me in the waves as I recovered. I have no idea who he was or if Saorise knew him. All I knew was that, when Saorise and I arrived back on the beach, my legs trembling and unable to hold me up, he was gone. Like a puff of smoke on the wind.

  "Are you okay?" asked Saorise, genuinely worried.

  "Don't tell my mom and dad," I replied. I didn't want them to worry and, more importantly, I didn't want them to stop me from playing with Saorise.

  For whatever reason, I have no memories of the end of that vacation. I guess my mind chose to block out what must have been a heartbreaking separation. I'm glad I don't remember it, because if I did, then perhaps my abiding memory of that wonderful time would be sadness rather than joy.

  Among all the photos in my mom's albums, all the pictures that were taken on that trip - and my mom is a serial family photographer - there is only one of Saorise. She's smiling - as she always seemed to be - but, as she squints at the camera through the permanently wet strands of her red hair, there is also a strange, haunted expression on her face that always tugs a chord within me.

  Almost twenty years had passed since that idyllic vacation and, whether all my memories of it were real or not, I still dreamed about Saorise maybe once a month. I guess that was an indicator of how strong an impression that period left on me. Sienna and Saorise, Saorise and Sienna - friends forever.

  We never saw each other again.

  I don't know if attempts were made to stay in touch or if that seemed futile given the literal ocean between us. Maybe our parents felt that trying to stay in contact would ultimately end up being more hurtful, enhancing the pain of not seeing each other. I guess I must have been very sad about that, but time had been kind and I was still glad to have the memories. I felt that Saorise was one of the most important people in my life, and when things turned to shit, as it’s wont to do, it was to those memories that I would turn.

  Like now…

  "But, babe..."

  My throat ached as reality came crashing back in again and I swallowed past the knot lodged there.

  "Don’t babe me, you piece of shit. We’re done."

  I made a move to slam down the phone but stopped just in the nick of time. Of all the things we have gained with the advancement of phone technology, I do feel that no longer being able to slam down the phone on people in a rage is a major loss to humanity. Slamming down the phone on Benny the Bastard was something I felt a deep need to do to make a clean break. Something I should have done long ago.

  But the lying prick wasn’t worth the cost of a shattered screen.

  With a groan, I curled up in my big, cozy armchair and stared out the window as the sun went down over New York City, and contemplated life without Benny. It would be better in a lot of ways, but it would also be lonelier.

  For all his faults - and there were many, including mouth-breathing, his love of televised bowling and the fact that when he ate garlic, it oozed from his pores for a week- Benny had been very good at being there, an attribute that is grossly underestimated.

  To come home after a hard day at work to find that he had let himself in - Dammit, I had to get my key back from him - and that he had made dinner. Maybe even lit candles and run me a hot bath on a few precious occasions? Had made him seem like a keeper.

  He was there as a shoulder to cry on, as someone to listen and someone to snuggle up to in the long comfortable silences.

  Yes, Benny had been very good at being there. Unfortunately, he was equally good at being other places, as well. Most specifically, inside other women’s vaginas.

  In fact, he was so good at it, this had been the third time that I had caught him cheating on me - I doubted very much that it had been the third time total.

  Per his usual MO, he had been almost desperately apologetic, but 'she meant nothing to me' had lost its efficacy at the third time of asking. I was confident that ‘she’ - in this case, a blonde who worked in the co
rner bar - had meant nothing to him, but I was equally confident that I meant the same, otherwise he wouldn't have kept doing it.

  The truth was that I shouldn't have taken him back after either of the first two transgressions, but along with 'being there' Benny had also been very good-looking, very sexy and very charming. He was good at getting what he wanted from a woman, good at saying all the right things and making you feel special - which is probably how he got to be such a successful serial philanderer. He was also quite proficient in the sack, and while I don't like to think of myself as shallow, there is something to be said for a man who can make your toes curl.

  Was it really so much to ask to find a man who could do that and not be a pathetic shit who couldn't keep it in his pants? Was that really asking the earth?

  "Jessie," I called for my dog to come and join my pity party, "here, girl."

  Jessie didn't move, which wasn't surprising, really, as Jessie was a stuffed toy given to me by my parents when I was little, and who had been a constant companion ever since. Yeah, it’s kinda sad, and yeah, I don't care. She makes me happy and is better company than unfaithful men.

  I got up, crossed the room to pick up Jessie, and brought her back to my chair to sit with me and watch the rain. I talk to Jessie exactly as you would talk to a real dog, but she has the advantage of being maintenance-free and doesn’t shit on my carpet. People often asked why I didn't have a pet of my own - I was a veterinary nurse for goodness sake, it seemed ridiculous. In fact, my job was the main reason why I didn't have a pet. You can only watch so many weeping owners before the idea of having a pet in your life palls. Pets die. I would rather stick with Jessie.

  For a while, Jessie and I watched the rainfall and my mind drifted to its default happy place; a beach in Ireland. I smiled involuntarily as the memory of playing in the sand and surf with Saorise tugged me out of the funk into which I had slipped. So long ago and yet it still made me happy.

  "Want something to eat?" I asked Jessie. "Something to drink?" Without meaning to do so, I looked at the box of Benny's stuff that I had placed by the door. The contents were mostly broken and shredded but that was half the fun of returning them. "I'm thinking beer with Ben and Jerry's."

  So sue me. That was my post break-up meal. And unless New York started stocking a better quality of man, then that was going to be my diet for a little long while.

  "You stay there."

  I left Jessie to keep the chair warm while I went through to the kitchen. I wasn't really that sad about losing Benny from my life. Even when he had done nice things for me, I had always secretly felt that he was doing them to keep me happy rather than to make me happy. Maybe I had stayed with him because then I could pretend there was something in my life. It didn't have to be a man, although men were good, it was just that...

  Whenever I talked to my parents, which was quite regularly, or my brother, which was less regularly, I always over-emphasized how happy I was. I was living in the city, doing the job I had always wanted, I was comfortable and had a great family and great friends. It wasn't that I was unhappy. I was just... empty. Which was somehow worse.

  Worse still was that I didn't know how to fix it.

  I had returned to my chair and made myself comfortable with Jessie on my lap, ice cream to my left and a bottle of beer off to my right, when there was a knock at the door. It was not the most confident of knocks - as if someone wasn't sure this was the door they wanted but it would do until a better one came along - and I thought about leaving it. I wasn't up for company tonight, and I definitely wasn't up for someone trying to sell me encyclopedias, double-glazing or Jesus. On the other hand, what if old Mrs. Guzman had locked herself out again? I had her spare key and I didn't want her to spend another night on the couch in the lobby.

  I sighed, put Ben, Jerry, Jessie and Bud to one side and went to the door as another knock sounded. My building had no peepholes in the doors - though the building manager had been promising that he would 'get to it' for at least three years now - so I just had to open it and be surprised by whoever awaited me in the hall.

  I was surprised, although, in the event, I didn't get a good look at the face as the figure outside collapsed on top of me.

  "What the hell...?" Although the person was very light, I still floundered under them in shock.

  I was more than ready to push whoever this was back out into the hall - I liked to think that I was a decent person but you had to draw the line somewhere - when a voice emerged from the crook of my shoulder where the figure's face was buried.

  "Sienna..."

  It was not that the woman knew my name - she could have gotten that off my mailbox - but as she spoke I felt a rush of familiarity. Readjusting my load, I pulled back the tangled mess of red hair on my shoulder that hid the face, and as the woman's eyelids fluttered uncertainly open to reveal vivid green eyes staring wildly back at me, I drew in a sharp breath.

  "Saorise?"

  Chapter Two

  She looked different. Leaner. Older. But I knew it was her as sure as I knew my own name.

  Kicking the door closed, I helped her inside. Although, 'dragged' might have been a more accurate word.

  She seemed barely conscious and there was not an iota of strength in her body. Her limbs were limp, her legs not supporting her at all. I managed to get her to the couch and unceremoniously dumped her in a tangled sprawl. I straightened her limbs and then pulled back the hair, wet from the rain, from out of my way to look her in the face. Maybe there was still some resemblance - enough that my unconscious mind had made a connection that my conscious was unable to follow. Or perhaps the fact that I had been thinking about her had made me jump to a conclusion that just happened to be correct. Yet none of that could adequately explain the certainty I felt that this was Saorise.

  She had grown. Obviously - it had been almost twenty years. And she had grown into the woman that she had always promised to be, pretty, wild-haired, white-skinned, slim and waif-like. And yet, I was not seeing her at her best. Her naturally pale skin had an unnatural pallor, her cheeks seemed sunken and her face lacked vivacity. It worried me.

  With no way of learning more until she woke, I set to work to make my surprise guest as comfortable as I could for the meantime. Her clothes were wet so, with a little anxiety, I undressed her and covered her with blankets, turning up the heat in my apartment to coax some life back into her. As I did this, Saorise stirred and I heard her mutter something that sounded like, '...took my skin'.

  With a start, I wondered if I had scratched her by accident or if the blankets were itchy in some way, but checking, I could find no rash or mark. She made no more complaint, in fact, by the time I had tucked her in, she already looked better, color returning to her cheeks. She seemed to be sleeping naturally now and I decided that it would be best to leave her to it. As an afterthought, I placed Jessie on the couch beside her to watch over her as she slept.

  I headed for the bedroom but could not help turning back as I reached the door.

  This wasn’t a dream. Saorise was sleeping on my couch.

  The hectic panic of her entry and the necessity of looking after her had not given me time to stop and process the actuality of what had happened. It was like a dream had taken on flesh and fallen through my door. She had clearly been in some sort of trouble and had come to my door. We hadn't seen each other for twenty years and, though I would never have admitted it to myself, it should have been far more likely that she did not even remember me.

  Not only had she remembered me, but when she was in trouble, it was to me she had come.

  I went to bed, but I slept only fitfully. My dreams, which I had expected to be filled with images from that Irish vacation, were instead dark and violent. I felt trapped. I felt rope and chain against my skin, I felt a tremendous sense of loss. I saw ugly faces looming in on me and strange creatures as trapped as I was. I felt danger, I felt naked, I felt fear, I felt the overwhelming need to escape. Where these dreams came from I
could not say. During the night, I got up to get a glass of water and passed Saorise. I heard her turn over sharply, as if flinching away from something, and heard her moan in her sleep. Apparently, she was having nightmares, too.

  Sleep eventually came and when I woke, the rainclouds of the last night had cleared and early morning sun was streaming through my window. It took a minute for my brain to put itself back together and recall the night before. Had it all been a dream? It hadn't felt like one but surely Saorise could not be sleeping on my couch? Perhaps it had just been some homeless person in need of help and I had let nostalgia and my melancholy over the break-up with Benny overwhelm my better judgment. My childhood friend could not be in my living room.

  Had it all been a vivid dream?

  One way to find out. I got up quickly, tucking my feet into slippers, and tip-toed across the room - whoever was on my couch, assuming someone was, I didn't want to wake them. I need not have worried. The couch was unoccupied, though the blankets remained. At the window, a figure stood, naked and so light-skinned that the sun seemed almost to shine through her and made a red halo about her hair. She turned her head on hearing my door open and I saw green eyes, full of life, and a quick smile that sprang to her lips as easy and natural as I remembered.

  "Saorise..." I breathed, any lingering doubt forgotten.

  "Sienna." She ran across the room and I met her halfway to embrace her. "I found you."

  "I can't believe it's you."

  After a long minute of hugging, we parted. "I should find you some clothes."

  "Okay." Saorise shrugged, apparently not that concerned by her nakedness.

  When I came back with clothes for her to wear, I found that Saorise had tidied the couch and folded the blankets.

  "Thanks."

  "Seems like the least I could do in the circumstances." She grinned as she took the clothes from me.

  "Yeah." I didn't want to push her on the subject if something traumatic had happened, but I had to at least broach it. "What were the circumstances, exactly?"