The Three Sirens

by Irving Wallace

  “Marc, you made love alone, you did not make love with me.”

  He forced a grin, to give himself a face. “I get it, you’re having fun, more teasing. I know that’s the big sport here. Look, we’ve both had it. The sample was great and we’ll have some big times ahead. Now let’s have ourselves some sleep, and we’ll hit the road.”

  He had begun to turn over on his side, away from her, when she sat up, and grasped his arm. Wearily, he came back to her.

  There was a naked female urgency about her that nauseated him. “Marc, please Marc, it is not done yet—for you, yes, for me, no—here, when it is not done for both, one tries to make the other happy in other ways, until it is done for both.”

  “Send a letter to the Social Aid,” he said with annoyance.

  “You know that I cannot,” she said seriously.

  “Tehura, relax, will you? I’m whipped. We both need rest. I promise you, as we go along, know each other, our love will get better and better.”

  She refused to release him. “What if it does not, Marc? I will have no Social Aid Hut in California.”

  “You’ll have my love, that’s enough.”

  “Enough?”

  He had turned over to rest again, fatigued by the long day, the fishing, the hiking, the drinking, the orgasm.

  She was on her knees over him. “Marc,” she beseeched him, “if we are to be lovers, you must learn to love. It is not impossible. Tom Courtney learned. You can learn. Our people learn how to satisfy, and you must try to be like them. I will teach you, I will help you, but we must begin now, right now.”

  When this insult had penetrated the alcohol and exhaustion upon which he was cradled, his heart went berserk inside its cavity. He pushed himself to a sitting position. “You’ll teach me?” he shouted. “Who in the hell do you think you are, you little colored chippy? You’re nothing but an ignorant animal, and you’re lucky I’m even doing you the favor of trying to make a human being out of you. Now you keep your dirty trap shut, or you’re going to be in real trouble with me. If there’s any teaching to be done around here, I’ll be the one to do it. You remember that. I’ll forgive you this once, but there’s no second time.”

  It surprised him that she was already on her feet, going to retrieve her grass skirt, then fastening it to her hips with deliberation as she stared back at him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I have had enough of you,” she said. She had finished with the grass skirt. “Your wife is right about you.”

  “My wife?” he said. “What in the hell does that mean?”

  Tehura was not intimidated by the rising temper in his tone. She stood her ground. “It means that she came here to see me today, late today, and she told me about you.”

  “Here? She was here?”

  “She learned, through some photograph, you had given me the diamond necklace. She came here. She told me about you.”

  “That silly bitch. And you listened to her?”

  “I did not. I thought she was a jealous wife, that is all. I did not even mention it to you. Now I can tell you, Marc. She is right.”

  He scrambled to his feet, and his manner was ugly. “She’s right about what?”

  “She did not know if you wanted me for mistress or wife, but she guessed it would be one or the other, and in either way she said it would be bad for me. She said you lied about your life back home. She said you have no interest in anyone but yourself. She said you are incapable of pleasing a woman. She said you are a poor lover. I laughed at her, but tonight I want to weep. Now I know for myself. She is right in everything.”

  He had lost his faculty of speech. He was nearly blind with rage. He wanted to choke this colored chippy. He wanted to strangle her until she was still forever. What restrained him from violence was a flashing remembrance of Garrity’s advice: bring tangible evidence of the Sirens’ existence. Tehura was such evidence. Marc knew he dared not lose her.

  Relentlessly, she was going on. She would not stop. “Once, I told you that I knew what was wrong with you. I do know now, as your wife has always known. Why were you angry when she showed her breasts the first night? Why are you always angry with what she does? You are angry because you know that some day she might find men who will make her happier than you can, in bed and out of the bed, and you want to prevent it, even to prevent her from thinking about it. You know you cannot give her what other men could, and so you are always afraid. You are ashamed of your sex, so you want to keep it away from your woman and yourself, and to do that you make sex a bad thing, a sin thing. You are always afraid because you are not virile. You do not know that is not wrong. What is wrong is that you could learn, but you will not learn, because that shows someone else and maybe the world you are weak, and you want it to be your secret. It is not a secret to your wife. Now it is not a secret to me. Good-by, Marc.”

  She turned away and started into the front room, but Marc pursued her, and jumped in front of her, blocking her path to the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

  “I’m going to Poma,” she said, eyes smoldering. “I am going to stay with her.”

  “And tell her you’re not leaving here with me, is that what you are going to do?”

  “Yes,” she said, “that is what I am going to do.”

  “And have her hold back her brother and alert the whole village, you little whore?” All hopes of conciliating her had left him. “Do you think I’m going to let you do that?”

  “No one will stop you. No one cares about you. Go ahead and do what you want, and leave me alone.”

  He remained solidly between her and the door. “You are not leaving here alone,” he said. “You’re going with me to the beach. Once I’m in that outrigger and gone, I’ll turn you loose. I never wanted you on the boat anyway. I only wanted the boat, and wanted to fuck you.”

  “Get out of my way!”

  “No, damn you!”

  She hurled herself at him, trying to push past him, groping for the door. He had braced himself against her, and now he had her shoulders and thrust her off. She staggered, and then, her face contorted, she tried to force her way past him once more. He intercepted her again, and her nails went to his cheeks and ripped downward.

  The pain of his torn skin made him cry out, and he lashed at her with his hand. She sobbed, but kept grinding her nails into his face. He balled his right hand into a fist, even as he tried to fend her off with his left, and then he swung at her face. The smashing blow caught her high on the cheek, lifted her off her feet, and sent her reeling toward the corner. She went over backwards, falling hard, and the impact of the base of her skull on the stone image in the corner sent a cracking sound through the room.

  For a split second, lying there, her eyes rolled uncontrollably, and then they closed. She slumped sideways to the matting in the crunched, grotesque posture of so many mummified bodies found in the ruins of Pompeii.

  Marc hung over her fallen body, winded, gasping for breath. When his chest had the air he needed, he knelt and bent his head close to her face. She was unconscious, but exhaling faintly.

  Good enough, he thought, she’ll be out for hours, the ignorant little whore. There was time enough, and he would be well rid of her. He decided that he hadn’t needed her person at all. His photographs would be evidence enough of the Sirens. He must go for the beach and the boat as fast as possible.

  On unsteady legs, he made his way to the rear room. The impression of her figure was still deep in the matting of her bed. It pleased him. He had had all he ever wanted of her anyway, the means of escape and the piece of tail.

  Quickly, he pulled on his shorts, and began to dress… .

  * * *

  It had been one more of those strange evenings for Claire Hay-den, one where she lived almost entirely oblivious of her surroundings, and was instead deeply inside that part of herself which was furnished with the bric-a-brac of her past. More and more, since she had be
come transformed all but officially from Claire Hayden to Claire Emerson, did she go back to remember what had been Claire Emerson’s life and not Claire Hayden’s. It had not been the perfect life, anything but that, yet it was far, far away and therefore comforting.

  This digging into the past—her archeological evenings, she thought wryly—was not healthy, she decided, after an unusually long uncovering of ruins. There was no book or doctor to tell her these retrogressions were bad, but she felt that they were, because they represented some kind of running from reality. This gave her guilts, so similar to the guilts that had been imposed upon her by her mother, when her mother used to say, “Claire, how long are you going to keep your nose in those books? It’s not healthy for a growing girl, being a bookworm. You should get out more.” Dutifully, she had always left the better world for the worse one. The echo of her mother’s voice caught her again, this alone night in the Pacific, and so she removed herself from the better world to the one that she must contend with.

  She refused to think of her morning scene with Marc, so mean that scene, or the other, six or seven hours ago with Tehura, so unfortunate. What she hoped, through the evening, was that Tom Courtney would drop by, as he had promised he might. There could be sensible talk, some candor and unburdening, and it would be a more attractive world of reality. She wanted to tell him a little about Marc, and of the entire meeting that she had suffered with Tehura, and afterwards her own feelings and position might be more orderly in her mind.

  In fact, she recalled, it was Tom who had suggested that he would try to call upon her. He had known she would see Tehura, and he was anxious about the outcome of their confrontation. He would be busy, he had said, for most of the evening. He had promised to take Sam Karpowicz and Maud to some kind of dinner with the members of the Hierarchy, and he was to help Sam prepare another photographic layout of the Hierarchy holding one of its decision meetings.

  Waiting for Tom, wondering if it was already too late for him, she realized that thinking of her mother had created a desire to write her. They corresponded occasionally, but Claire had not written to her mother once from the Sirens.

  Thus, with pen and tablet, she used up much of the remaining time before midnight. She wrote three pages to her mother. That finished, she was impelled to write several more letters, to girl friends and married couples she had known before marrying Marc. When her hand began to cramp, and she completed this sudden correspondence, and covered the envelopes with her scrawl, she wondered what had made her write her mother and these old friends. Then she knew. All of them were Claire Emerson’s people, and it was Claire Emerson who was reaching out for them, to revive them in her life against the immediate future when she would be single once more.

  Finally, it was after midnight, and she gave up on Tom. That was disappointing, but there was tomorrow. She decided that she had better take her sleeping pills now. By the time she had undressed, she would be drowsy and not think too much. Before she could go for the pills, she heard the sounds of conversation in the compound nearby.

  She stepped to her front door and opened it, to find Tom Courtney approaching. He waved.

  “I didn’t think you’d be up,” he said. “I was going to see if your light was on.”

  “I hoped you would come by. Were you with someone just now?”

  “I came back with Sam and Maud. Sam got some good shots tonight. He’s thrilled as a child.” Courtney shook his head. “Wish I had an enthusiasm like that.” She still held the door wide, and he said, “Mind if I come in for a few minutes?”

  “Please. I’m not a bit sleepy. I’m in the mood to talk.”

  He went past her into the living room. She remained at the door, then said, “I’ll leave it open a little while, to air the room.”

  He smiled. “And to keep from being compromised.”

  Claire came away from the door. “I’m in the mood to be compromised,” she said. “Take a good look at me.” She pirouetted before him, her skirt swinging above her knees. “You see the ex-Mrs. Hayden.”

  Courtney’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious?”

  “The most ex-Mrs. Hayden the world has ever known.”

  Courtney fidgeted. “Well—” he said.

  “You were a divorce lawyer, you know all the questions, but you don’t have to be embarrassed about asking them. In fact, you don’t have to ask a thing. I’ll be only too glad to tell you, if you are interested.”

  “I am interested, of course. Is it Tehura?”

  “She’s the least of it,” said Claire. “Let’s be social. What’ll you drink?”

  “I’ll have a light Scotch and water, if you will.”

  “No sooner said than done.”

  He sat, and watched her thoughtfully as she brought out the bottle of whiskey, the two tin cups, and the pitcher of water. While she made ready the drinks, he said, “You appear quite gay for an ex-anybody. They were never that way when they came to my office. They were always angry.”

  “I’m just relieved,” she said, sitting down. “I’m good and relieved.” She handed him his drink, and could see that his face was uncomprehending. “I’ll tell you what it’s like, Tom,” she said, picking up her own drink. “What it feels like, I mean. It’s like that ugly meeting you hate to undertake, waiting for the hour to fire someone, or better, to tell someone you’ve learned the truth about how they’ve been swindling you, and the anticipation of the meeting gnaws at your nerve ends, drives you crazy, and suddenly there it is, and you have it out, and everything you wanted to say you’ve said, and it’s over and good-by. You are relieved. That’s how it feels.” She lifted her tin cup. “Toast?”

  “Toast,” he said, holding up his cup.

  “The fifth freedom,” she said. “Freedom from marriage, bad marriage, that is.”

  They drank, and she observed him over her cup. His eyes would not meet her eyes.

  “I’ve embarrassed you, Tom,” she said suddenly. “I see something now. You are very conservative about the holy wedlock—”

  “Hardly.”

  “—and you think I’m being frivolous about it, and you are secretly disappointed, maybe offended.”

  “Not a bit. I’ve been the route many times, Claire. I guess I’m surprised, that’s all.”

  “You’re better than that. You knew we weren’t getting along, you knew that.”

  “Maybe I—I thought about it, yes.”

  She took another sip, and she said with earnestness, “Tom, don’t make any mistakes about me, not at this late date. Some women are made for careers, and some for being alone, and some for tumbling into a hundred beds, and some are made for being wives and mothers. I’m the last category. I was made to be a wife and have a billion kids and the hearth and home and pumpkin pies and his slippers ready. Maybe that is dull to you, but that is the meaning of life to me. It is all I ever wanted. Small ambition? So I thought. I was wrong. It’s wanting too much, I guess.”

  “Not too much, but a lot.”

  “It takes two, Tom, to make one wife a wife.”

  “Yes, I believe that.”

  “Marc couldn’t help. He couldn’t help himself, let alone help me. We’ve been married two years, and we’ve had no contact. He never grew up, so how could he have children? Or a wife? Well, don’t let me go on. I won’t give you two years’ worth of that. I’ll simply say we’ve been having it out every day, and this morning was the blowup. This morning he said he had enough of me for the rest of his life, and he said more, and I hit him, and he hit me, and the final bell rang. Fight’s over. For him it was two years ago. For me, today.”

  “And Tehura had nothing to do with it?”

  “Not really. Had I weakened, that shameful incident would have been the capper. You know I went to see her, don’t you?”

  “You said you would. I didn’t know if you had. What happened?”

  “Have you seen her lately, Tom?”

  “Not much, no, not actually. I’ve been too busy.”
/>   “I realize she was your girl once, and I know, for myself, what she was less than a month ago. But she’s changed. I tell you, she’s not recognizable. And I blame it on Marc, her friend Marc. She must have been susceptible, but it took a Marc to transform her into one of us, the worst of us.”

  “In what way?”

  “No more the guileless half-primitive. She’s shrewd, she’s feline, she’s bursting with ambition. In short, civilization’s tot. As for my diamond pendant—yes, she has it. She did not steal it. We both knew that. Marc gave it to her. Part of the grand seduction, I suppose. The point is not that he would give it to her, but that she would want it and accept it. I read her the book on Marc. You know what that made me? I quote her. Jealous wife who mistreats and is unable to keep a husband.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Sorry, Tom.”

  “It’s just that—” He kept shaking his head. “I know her so well. You understand. No one here knows her as well as I do. When you speak of her, I don’t recognize the same person.”

  Claire shrugged. “Your client. See for yourself.”

  “I may,” he said. “In fact, I will. I don’t want to tangle with Marc, but I feel a responsibility for her. If she’s off the straight and narrow, I’ll try to set her right again. I’m troubled by that whole necklace episode. Do you mind if I discuss this openly with her?”

  “I told you to see for yourself, go ahead. But if you are thinking you want to pry her away from Marc, to save Marc for me, forget it. You won’t be doing me a favor, but a disservice. If you really want to see her for her own sake, to help the poor girl, that’s another matter. I’m with you.”

  “That’s all it would be,” said Courtney. He rose abruptly, and paced restlessly about the room. “There has to be more to it than a mere affair. I tell you, I know Tehura’s mind. She, none of them, make anything of an affair. That’s as natural as kissing is to us. But when a girl changes so drastically, wants diamond necklaces that are not her own—I don’t know—something is going on, something more than an affair. I’ll find out, you can be sure. Tomorrow morning-”