The Siren

by Katherine St. John

  Suddenly inspired, I extracted the nearly empty journal that was to be my memoir from the bedside table and opened it. I didn’t have to include it in the final version of the book, but I found I desperately needed to write it down. It could be cathartic, for my eyes only; no one ever needed to read it. I picked up a pen and began writing words I’d never spoken to a soul.

  The Love of My Life

  ,

  I wasn’t supposed to be home that day. I’d wrapped the film I was shooting early and caught a plane back to Miami without telling Cole, as a surprise for our nine-month anniversary. Oh, how things had changed between us in a few short months. We were caught in a vicious cycle of insults that could never be unsaid followed by flying plates and days without speaking. The makeup sex wasn’t even good anymore. I’d thought the gesture might help heal things between us, so I had planned a romantic dinner at a swanky restaurant, followed by a night of molly and dancing at our favorite club.

  He’d assured me that he’d be around all weekend studying lines for his next project, so I was disappointed when I arrived home that evening to find his G wagon missing and some kind of beat-up hatchback parked in the garage. The alarm was off as I entered the house; I called out and no one answered. I thought it odd, but the front door had been locked and nothing seemed amiss, so I ventured upstairs.

  The door to our bedroom was ajar, the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed. Atop the huge mahogany four-poster bed that presided over the mostly beige room someone had placed a red velvet blanket, upon which was resting the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her golden hair was spread across my pillow like a halo, her angelic face in repose; her naked body smooth and supple, as though she’d been airbrushed.

  My first response was shock; I yelped, but she didn’t budge.

  My second response was envy: who was this girl and why was she in my bed? It was relatively obvious why she was in my bed—after all, I did share it with one of the most notorious playboys in the world, and I knew about his sleeping fetish—but I hadn’t imagined he’d do it in our bed. And with a girl whose looks put me to shame!

  My third response was concern. Why was she still sleeping? Why had he left her there? Was she alive?

  I crept closer to her and gingerly placed my fingers on her wrist. I couldn’t find a pulse, but I was no doctor, and remembering that I’d once checked for breath with a mirror in a film, I extracted my compact from my purse and held it beneath her nose. I had to position my head right next to hers to view the reflection, but was relieved to see a faint trace of fog on the mirror as she almost imperceptibly exhaled. She smelled of jasmine.

  Next to the bed was a syringe, and the only blemish on her golden skin was a series of holes on the inside of her elbow. Heroin? My mind reeled. He was giving his sleeping girls heroin? I’d assumed sleeping pills were involved—or perhaps they pretended to sleep. But heroin? He could kill her. I’d never tried it myself, but I’d had friends disappear down the slippery slope of opioid addiction, and it was not pretty.

  I took her by the shoulders and shook her. She didn’t respond. I gently slapped her cheek, then harder, but she continued to sleep. I tried to pull her up to sitting, but she was deadweight and I was dead tired from a night shoot followed by flying all day without having slept. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call 911? But she didn’t seem to be having any trouble breathing, and I couldn’t have the press finding out there was a naked chick on heroin in my bed unless it was totally necessary. I went to the bathroom and filled a glass with cold water, then returned and threw it in her face.

  She gasped as she sat up, disoriented. Her wild blue eyes landed on me and her brow furrowed, a flicker of recognition spreading across her face. I had the urge to apologize to her, but I squelched it, seeing as she’d been fucking my husband in my bed. “You wouldn’t wake up,” I said.

  I threw a towel in her lap, but she disregarded it, continuing to stare at me with something akin to wonder. “Stella,” she croaked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You should probably get your shit together and get out of here. Where did Cole go?”

  She looked around, as if realizing where she was for the first time. “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  I glanced at the little silver clock on the bedside table. “Seven.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay, I knew…about his fetish,” I admitted. “I’m just surprised to find you here.”

  “I’m sorry to be in your space.” She picked up the towel and began to dry herself. “I wouldn’t usually go to someone’s home, but he’s paying me a lot of money.” She met my eye, and I could tell she really was sorry. “I have a daughter,” she added.

  “Where is she now?”

  “At home. She’s ten and she’s really mature, so…”

  I picked up the syringe. “Heroin?”

  A slight wince as she nodded. “His choice. I wasn’t a user before.”

  I assessed her big blue eyes, her pert little nose and pouty lips. I wasn’t jealous or angry with her, as I would have thought I’d been. Instead I found myself strangely drawn to her in a way I couldn’t explain, and I overwhelmingly felt the need to protect her from my predator of a husband. “Whatever he’s giving you, it’s not worth it,” I said. “You’re ruining your life.”

  She pushed herself off the bed and wobbly stood to her feet, but her knees gave out. I caught her and eased her back onto the bed. “Stay here,” I instructed.

  Her clothes were neatly folded on a chair in front of the fireplace, where blue flames danced behind the glass—an unnecessary feature in a place where the temperature rarely dipped below seventy degrees. I deposited her little pile of belongings on the bed next to her, and she shimmied into a short silver party dress that hugged her every curve.

  “Does he use condoms with you?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered quickly, then paused, thinking. “He’s supposed to. But I’m asleep, so…”

  We sat in silence for a moment, both of us realizing that he wasn’t using condoms. “I’m trying to get a down payment for a place for my daughter and me,” she offered. “I’m mostly a dancer, but that can’t last forever, and I thought if I had a nest egg, it could cover the thin times while I learned to do something else.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Her story was trite; I’d heard versions of it the handful of times I’d been in strip clubs, and always supposed it to be something the girls made up to get the guys to give them more money. But as it passed her lips, my heart went out to her, and I felt like a total bitch for having assumed all those other girls were lying. Well, probably some of them were, but I didn’t think this one was.

  Again she tried to stand, this time becoming so dizzy she dropped to her knees on the plush carpet before I could catch her. “You shouldn’t drive yet,” I said as I helped her back into the bed. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “You’re so nice.” She smiled. “I always thought you’d be nice.”

  Downstairs I made us a flatbread and texted Cole that I’d found his whore in our bed and he should plan on sleeping elsewhere tonight. I poured myself a glass of wine and lit the half a joint I found in the ashtray, both of which I finished while the pizza cooked.

  When I came back upstairs, I found her dozing again. I couldn’t help but notice how long her lashes were as I shook her shoulder, realizing I didn’t even know her name. She roused more easily this time and smiled when she saw me. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Iris.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Don’t tell Cole. He thinks I’m Barbie.”

  I laughed. “Barbie? Really? He can’t possibly think your name is really Barbie.”

  She shrugged. “You wouldn’t believe how many guys have Barbie fantasies. It must be something left over from childhood.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Men.”

  “Tell me about it,” she agreed.

  We talked lightly as we ate on my bed with the tray between
us, and she seemed to feel better with the food. It was odd though. I’d been working since I was so young that I’d never had many female friends, but this wasn’t like getting to know a new female costar or the girlfriend of one of Cole’s friends; there was something charged about our interaction. After dinner, we watched a show on HBO that turned explicitly sexual in a matter of minutes.

  “I wonder if they get off sometimes,” she said, watching two girls and a guy fondle one another on a bed bedecked with furs.

  “It’s usually pretty awkward with the crew in the room—and lights and privacy covers and getting the right angle,” I said. “Plus, for some reason, they always seem to shoot love scenes in the first days, before you’ve even had a chance to get comfortable with your costar. But when you have chemistry with the other actor, it can be…different.”

  “You looked like you were into it with Cole. I got turned on watching that scene where you’re in that hotel. You were so sensual.”

  The heat rose in my cheeks. “Yeah,” I admitted. “Cole and I…Well, back when we first met, we were superhot for each other and we didn’t always wear the protective coverings when we did our love scenes. Sometimes…well, it wasn’t totally professional. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  Her gaze rested on me. “Naughty.”

  I felt flushed. “I’ve been traveling all day,” I said. “I could use a shower.”

  “Why don’t you make it a bath?” she asked, her eyes locked on mine. “I could use one as well.”

  There was nothing innocent in her suggestion. My breath grew shallow. I’d had threesomes with Cole on occasion and enjoyed it more than I cared to admit, but I had never been with a woman solo. This was before it was cool to be something other than straight, especially for a known actress. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to her, and what would be the harm? It wasn’t like I was cheating, really. My husband had been with her this very afternoon. It would be like a threesome, only at different times.

  “Okay,” I breathed.

  I got up and walked to the bathroom, and she followed. Nervous, I dimmed the lights, started the water running, and went around lighting all the candles I’d put out as decoration and never used, as a way of distracting myself. When I turned around, she was again naked, standing before me in all her glory. “First time?” she whispered.

  I nodded. “Are you…often with women?”

  I cringed at how inexperienced I sounded, but she was unfazed. “I prefer women.” She smiled. “Men are work.”

  She approached and grazed my body with hers as she untied my wrap dress and pushed it off my shoulders. I was glad I’d worn my La Perla, in anticipation of seeing Cole. But it didn’t stay on for long. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured before she touched her soft lips to mine.

  The next few hours were a revelation to me. I’d always liked sex just fine, but I’d never known it could be what she showed me. Where I’d thought I would hook up with a woman to see what it was like, I discovered a whole new side of myself I didn’t even know I was missing.

  When she left at midnight to go home to her daughter, I asked her to please stop using the heroin, promising I would pay for rehab if she couldn’t. “I know Cole’s paying you a lot, but please…” I begged. “I’ll pay you more.”

  “I don’t want you to pay me,” she said. “And I’ll stop seeing Cole altogether if it means I can see you.”

  We got lucky: Cole left for a shoot in New York, and I was between projects, so we had the house to ourselves for the next few weeks. She detoxed from the drugs, which wasn’t as horrible for her as it could have been, because she was so new to them. She was protective of her daughter and didn’t want me to meet her until she was certain that I’d be in her life, but we spent every hour she wasn’t with her daughter together, and I fell for her hard and fast. I’ve always been one to fall hard and fast, honestly, but she was different, and not just because she was a woman. Being with her was easy; there was no ego, no hidden agenda, no land mines waiting to be stepped on. I felt more myself with her than I’d ever felt with anyone in my life.

  “Okay,” I told her one night as we sat on the edge of my pool with our feet dangling into the water. “Let’s do it. I’ll leave Cole.”

  “But, Stella,” she balked, “your career.”

  “It’s the twenty-first century. It’s okay,” I said, trying to convince myself.

  “It’s one thing to say you like women as well as men,” she pointed out, “or to allude to having had sex with women. Men, who you’ve said a million times are still the majority of the ones making the decisions in Hollywood, find that sexy. But to have a woman as a life partner is a different thing.”

  “Yes, darling, but you’re gorgeous,” I teased, stroking her beautiful face with the back of my hand. “How can they fault me?”

  “Even if you identify as bisexual, when you leave Cole—the Sexiest Man in Hollywood—for me and they see us together in a relationship, all of a sudden you’re gay, which makes you unfuckable, and therefore uncastable.”

  I recoiled at her harsh words.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to have a little thicker skin if you really want to do this,” she said gently.

  “What a screwed-up world we live in.” I sighed.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “There’s no such thing as normal when it comes to sex—believe me, I’ve seen it all—but you have to understand most people don’t even share their fantasies with their partners. Americans have these puritanical ideas about what sex is supposed to be, inherited from our prudish ancestors. My parents think that being gay is a sin. Of course, they also think sex before marriage is a sin. But so does a lot of our country, a lot of your fans.”

  She was right, obviously, and I’d never been brave. It wasn’t in my genetic code. But she emboldened me. I’d learned more about sexuality in the few weeks I’d spent with her than I had in my entire twenty-seven years. I loved her. And if I couldn’t be with her, then what was the point of any of this? “Maybe it’s time to do something about it,” I suggested. “We could set an example, show people it’s okay to be different.”

  “Cole won’t make it easy to leave him. You know that, right?”

  I waved away her concern. “He’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

  “Maybe.” She bit her lip, thinking.

  Later that evening, she spilled wine on her dress while we were cooking and went upstairs to borrow one of mine. I came up shortly afterward to find her standing in a thong in front of Cole’s dresser, staring intently at something in her hand. “What is it?” I asked.

  She dropped whatever it was back into the drawer. “Nothing. Wrong drawer.” She turned and gave me a sexy smile. “But now that you’re here and I’m already almost naked…”

  She spun me around and slowly unzipped my dress, whispering in my ear as she did. “I have an idea, to make sure Cole lets you go without a struggle.”

  “I’m telling you, he’ll be glad to be rid of me,” I said as my dress fell to the floor.

  “Divorce is never pretty. And the other women Cole’s split with haven’t fared so well.” She pressed her body to my back and reached her hand down the front of my panties. “Remember the sex tape of Bar Salmaan that surfaced shortly after they divorced? And Keri Kline never worked as an actress again after the rumors about the racist slurs.” The movement of her fingers made it difficult to concentrate. “I should let him sleep fuck me one more time and tape it, just in case he tries anything on you.”

  “Iris, you can’t do heroin again. I won’t allow it.”

  “I’d do it for you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  We tumbled to the floor as one and never finished the conversation. But once she left, I opened the drawer where she’d stowed whatever she’d held in her hand earlier and took out a rainbow rabbit’s foot. The initials “CS” were burned into the paw. I asked her about it a few days afterward, and when she didn’t know what
I was talking about, I opened the drawer to show her. But the rabbit’s foot was gone.

  A week later, so was she.

  I closed the journal and spread the final drawing on the bed before me. It was the two of us holding hands, our shoulders squared, feet firmly planted upon a miniature globe. At the bottom in her handwriting was scrawled The world is ours. Only, the drawing was unfinished. Our bodies were filled out and colored in, but our feet and the earth were only a pencil outline, a perfect metaphor for the dreams that, with her death, evaporated like mist in the sun.

  Taylor

  I sat at the table in my bungalow keying the passport numbers of our crew into the form on the jet charter company’s website while Francisco paced with the phone to his ear, trying to find a decent hotel in Georgetown, Guyana, with a big enough block of rooms to accommodate everyone. We’d chosen Georgetown because the jet charged by the hour and it was the closest city that was definitely out of the path of the hurricane, but so far it looked like we were going to have to do three different hotels. Not ideal, but better than the alternative of going through the paperwork necessary to fly everyone elsewhere.

  It felt odd to be doing all this work to avoid a storm when the day outside was sunny and clear. I gazed through the glass wall across the mottled sea toward the verdant slope of Saint Ann. Out on the water I spied Rick’s fishing boat cruising toward the resort pier, hidden around the bend of the island where Cole’s giant new yacht was docked. The asshole could buy a yacht, but he couldn’t fly his crew to safety. No surprise there.