by J G Barber
“You don’t require an invitation.” She open the passenger door of the Gemballa. “You’re the guest of honor.”
Lorelei drives him to his hotel in silence. Paul tries to think of how to tell her he’s not coming to her celebration. “Don’t even think about it.” She grins. “You’re coming. Grab your things. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“I’m going to miss all these perks,” Paul says to himself as he packs his bags. He’s never had the luxury of a late afternoon Friday checkout at a premium hotel before. Everything Lorelei arranged had something special. “She knows how to impress.”
Paul waits at the curb. He spots the car he ordered as it approaches. I’ll be gone before she arrives. He feels a moment of guilt for bailing on Lorelei. I have no choice. Saved the deal, now it’s time to save my marriage.
An elegant black limo rolls up, cutting in front of the car, and stopping in front of Paul. Lorelei pops through the sunroof. “Hey, Sailor!” She shoots him a look of unimaginable fun and trouble. “What are you waiting for? Get in!”
He walks closer, so she can hear him over the street noise. “I’m going home, Lorelei. I did my job.” He bolts for the car he ordered.
She sings her siren song to call him back to her. “Yes, you did. You turned it around, Sailor. Now it’s time for your reward. Get in here.”
Every cell in his body begs for another taste of her. He defies the impulse. “No.”
“Suit yourself.” She turns off the seduction like a light switch. In a serious and professional demeanor, she says, “The least I can do is give you a ride to the airport. Please. Let’s celebrate our victory.” Lorelei peels back the foil on a bottle of Dom Perignon and shoots the cork Paul’s way. “As two friends and business partners.”
“No thanks.” Paul signals the car driver to wait. The driver flips him off and turns into an opening in the traffic.
Lorelei disappears inside. She opens a tincture bottle and empties three droppers full of dark liquid in each of two champagne glasses. Lorelei spits in one glass and licks the rim before pouring the Dom and mixing in the additions. She stands through the sunroof, lifting the glasses up the way the Serpent Goddess holds her snakes. “The wife doesn’t like you when you drink, does she? Well, I don’t mind.” She swirls the glasses, spreading the smells of her pheromones mixed with world-class champagne and cannabis.
The smell lures him closer. He wills himself to stay strapped to the mast. “What else do you want from me, Lorelei? You got what you wanted.”
“I’m lonely. You’re my only real friend, Paul. You’re my soul friend.” She bats the eyelashes of her emerald green eyes to finish luring him inside the limo. “Please share a drink with me. To celebrate our achievement.”
The limo driver gets out to stow his bags and open the door for Paul. Her soulful eyes and the biochemical concoction activate a primal response that Paul can no longer resist. Dude, you’re going to regret this, he tells himself as he slides in.
Lorelei hands Paul the infused glass. “Here’s to a union that will change the entertainment industry. New Century Digital Distribution acquires Advanced Digital Media Solutions to become the new market leader in digital content distribution to consumers around the world.” She leads with the first sip. One taste and he downs the glass. “Slow down there, Sailor. We don’t want to upset the little lady at home.”
“That ship has sailed.” Paul downs a second glass.
He sips a third glass, and a fourth to empty the bottle, as they drive in silence through L.A. traffic for an hour. Her eyes draw him in. He looks away. They repeat the silent dance a few times until they approach the airport.
Lorelei feels the cocktail take effect. Seeing it in Paul, she seizes the opportunity. “The celebration of desire serves an important purpose. You’ll meet our inner circle. My friends and I will seal the deal and strengthen the bonds between the players who will ensure New Century’s success after the acquisition. You and I made all this happen, Paul, together. You have to be there.”
Paul thinks about it as a full head and body buzz hits him. “Will Art be there?”
She grins. “I only invited his money friends.”
The limo arrives at the airport. “Public or business terminal?” the driver asks.
“Time to decide, Paul.” She turns on her siren song voice. “You’ve come so far. It would be a shame to turn away now.” Sliding next to him, she takes his hand and caresses his hair. “I have something special for you on the plane.”
Paul freezes in indecision as deep feelings of shame and desire overwhelm him. Her touch and smell dominate his senses and reactivate the process of change she started in his cells. She kisses him. Game over.
On the MaverickONE Jet, Paul and Lorelei connect in a moment of drug-induced, post-coital intimacy. Her features are soft and sad. Her sadness brings forward the debilitating grief he’s fought so hard to repress since his father’s death. In his moment of vulnerability, he catches another glimpse of the woman who hosts the siren Lorelei. Seeing her is more than he can process. Paul rolls off her and curls up in the fetal position. Within seconds, the cannabis puts him to asleep.
Lorelei grabs her tablet and goes to work on the final preparations for the sirens’ celebration. She checks her email, reviewing a manifest of imported items that arrives in Seattle and show as out for delivery. Excellent. Now we have everything we need. Thank you, Great Mother.
Paul dreams as Erik. Erik and Lorelei walk through the village square in St. Goarshausen, holding hands as lovers do, enjoying a sunny day of window shopping.
“She’s mine, Erik,” a surly sailor calls out to them.
“Lorelei, you don’t want that rogue, choose me,” a shopkeeper begs.
A villager jumps in front of them, holding out a short sword to Erik. “Erik, put a stop to this witchery.” The men of the village emerge from the shops and alleys until they surround the lovers.
“Stay with me.” Erik grabs Lorelei’s hand and leads her to escape through an opening in the circle. They run together as fast as they can into the hills. The villagers do not pursue them.
“We cannot continue this way.” Lorelei cries. Erik holds her tight and strokes her hair. “They do not truly love me. They are obsessed with me. Or they fear me and want to kill me.”
“They do not understand. You are not a temptress or a witch. I know who you are and what lives inside you. And I love you for it. Truly.” He kisses her hands. “Here’s how we’ll put an end to this.”
The part of Lorelei that was once human wants to believe him. “How?”
“I have collected a chest of gold and jewels over the years, as compensation for my merchant services. I will sail to meet you along the Rhine. I will exchange the chest for your hand and heart. You will purchase your freedom from the siren sisterhood. Then we shall sail away together to spend our lives in some foreign land, away from the madness of these villagers and the Rhine mermaids.”
“Yes,” Lorelei responds with genuine human emotion. Her old human identity and her Sirenian spirit wage war inside her psyche, filling her with doubt. She doesn’t want to know what the siren will do when the moment of the exchange comes.
Paul wakes up in the jet with Lorelei lying next to him. “You were talking in your sleep,” she whispers. “Something lovely about bringing me a chest of gold and jewels.”
Stoned out of his mind from the THC and the smell and taste of her sex, he responds in the Douglass tradition. “Well, I brought you enough money to buy a chest of gold and jewels,” he slurs. “Are you mine now?”
“Yes,” she replies, sealing the lie with a deep tongue kiss. This time, there is no war inside her psyche. Over the centuries, she embraced her identity as a Sirenian spirit and learned how to dominate her host’s human emotions with her will. Lorelei knows about what she and her sisters will do, as their destiny comes to pass.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leucosia and Lorelei use this secluded, gothic mansion o
n the shores of Cultus Bay to host the celebrations of desire. It’s the perfect location for a party only sirens could throw. Remote and mysterious, airport and ferry terminal nearby, close to the water and with few options for escape. The original owners built it in 1945 when the post-war prosperity expanded the westerners’ presence on Whidbey Island. The sirens purchased the property in 1969 with the proceeds from one of Lorelei’s business deals. It’s one of their many real estate holdings in and around Possession.
Paul follows Lorelei through the main entrance and up the grand staircase. The hike up gets his blood flowing. He feels that strange sensation in the cells of his body again, as he did after his first bedroom encounter with her.
She leads him into the master bedroom, a massive room with mirrors on the walls and ceiling, and a double king bed. Inside, a stack of packages await them.
“Time to play dress-up. We have an assortment of outfits.” Lorelei grabs one particular package. “For now, and later.”
Paul opens the packages and tries on their contents. A top of the line suit with shirts, ties and jewelry, custom fitted to his measurements. An elegant tuxedo transforms him to fit right in at his next party for the one percent. Boating casual wear for the wealthy sailor to make him feel at home the next time he visits Monaco or Necker Island. Lorelei watches the fashion show with genuine amusement. “Here, try this on.” She hands him a peculiar outfit with short pants. He studies it, trying to make sense of it. “Come on, Sailor.”
He suits up into a boy sailor’s outfit, with revealing navy blue short pants, a white shirt with navy stripes and a tie, and a white sailor’s cap with an anchor emblem on the front. White deck shoes complete the ensemble. “What the fuck? I look like a man-boy.”
“Nonsense. You look very sexy.” She sees he’s not buying it. “It’s a costume. The celebration of desire is a costume party.” She undresses while he watches. “The celebration of desire is a deep bonding and trust experience.” Lorelei dons her costume. “Secrecy is of the utmost importance.” She models her outfit for Paul: a pleated fabric version of the Serpent Goddess’s skirt, a gold-and-jewel adorned girdle that pushes up her breasts, a bejeweled golden headdress and bracelets, and a golden chain looped over her shoulders and crossing between her breasts. All that’s missing are snakes in each hand.
“Whoa,” is all he can say as he admires her, head to toe.
“We’re going as the siren queen and her sailor subject.” She holds up the last piece; a leather collar with ouroboros studs and an ouroboros loop for attaching a leash. Lorelei wraps the collar around Paul’s neck. He fights to take it off. She strokes his hair until he’s docile, then detaches the leash and removes the collar. “We’ll save that part for the celebration.” While the sensation around his neck distracts Paul, Lorelei pours a white powder into two glasses and mixes it with red wine.
Paul changes out of his costume and into the boating casual wear. She opens a package with a woman’s version of the same wear, undresses again while he enjoys her extraordinary body, and suits up to match him.
“This will be a weekend to remember,” she declares as she hands him a glass. As they empty their glasses together, Lorelei grins with evil delight
Lorelei and Paul walk hand in hand on the mansion’s private beach on Cultus Bay. She drugged me again, he realizes as everything around him transforms into a bright, vibrating hallucination. “Cultus Bay. Cultus. Cul-tus. I like that word. What does it mean?”
“Worthless, without a soul.” She strokes his hair. “You’ll feel right at home here, Sailor.”
Paul surrenders to the moment, connected to his hyper-stimulated senses. Lorelei shows him the water, the sand, a beached log, a plant, the grass. He takes it all in with a childlike sense of wonder. His mind overrides the moment. “What did you give me?”
“Something to help you remember.” She infuses her voice with siren song. “Relax. You’re in the hands of Great Mother now. Feel how she nurtures and provides for us.” He runs over to watch sand crabs burrowing.
Lorelei feels the delicious surge of pure MDA kicking in hard. She always preferred it to the Molly their younger familiars love; it offers her a stronger, longer lasting, more hallucinogenic experience with less of the touchy-feely. She’s learned to enjoy the experience without losing her mind, one of the many benefits of her mastery of the mental plane of existence. This is our time. The celebration of desire. The time our familiars beg for and our money friends long for. We will fuck all their minds and bodies to renew the bonds of devotion and slavery.
Alexei and Laura drive towards Possession, Washington. Moonlight illuminates their way. “Are you sure Paul will be here?” she asks.
“I am not,” Alexei replies. “The sirens could have lured him to any of their properties.”
She still can’t get her mind around it. “Explain it to me again. Why do sirens need to own property?”
“They have accumulated wealth ever since they arrived here,” Alexei says. “And on land, they need fortresses for self-protection.”
Laura still doesn’t understand. “Why don’t they just kill us all? Seems a lot more honest.”
“It’s not their way.” Alexei turns onto the same turnout Paul used when he broke into the sirens’ new mansion. “Why bloody your hands when you can seduce your prey to commit the act?”
All she wants to do is kill them. “I don’t understand the logic.”
“Sirens do what they do. As siren hunters, we must learn their ways.” Alexei parks the car and grabs his crossbow and a quiver of arrows out of the trunk. He leads her to his favorite surveillance spot.
Laura admires how his spot provides a line of sight to the backyard, pool and patio area, with a clear path down to the lawn. “I’ll go to the front door first,” she says. “I don’t want it to look like a home invasion.”
“No.” Alexei loads the crossbow and checks the aim. “Enter from the patio. Raise your fist if you get into trouble.” He secures the quiver over his shoulder. “Remember, a Sirenian’s vulnerability lies in its human desires and emotions. You must cause it to turn its siren song on itself.”
Laura makes her way to the lawn. Highlighted by the moonlight, she recognizes the faux turret from their day of sailing. Her eyes scan the visible windows of the mansion. No signs of occupancy. Laura skirts the pool and finds the sliding glass door unlocked.
She explores the mermaid furniture in the sitting room. The Serpent Goddess statue pulls her attention. She studies the exquisite detail and the quality of preservation. “Whoa.”
Lorelei emerges from the hallway, dressed in the red silk bathrobe she wore to seduce Paul. Sensing her presence, Laura turns and takes her in. She feels the same animal lust that Leucosia evokes in her. “You must be Lorelei.”
Lorelei takes in Laura, head to toe. Her breath quickens as her desire grows. “Here she is, the wife. Beautiful. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Ample breasts. Just his type.”
Laura stakes her claim. “Leave my husband alone. He belongs to me.”
Lorelei motions to the couch. “We’ve been expecting you, Laura. Please, make yourself at home. You and your little one are welcome here.” Laura remains in line of flight through the open patio door and line of sight of Alexei through the patio glass.
She checks Lorelei’s eyes. “You’re the shapeshifter, Leucosia!”
Leucosia removes the red silk robe. She morphs into the lovely redhead that set Laura on fire the first time she saw her. A shared moment of desire overtakes them. Leucosia moves in closer. Laura withdraws her knife and attacks. Leucosia dodges the thrust. Laura parries, drawing blood along her rib. It’s only a scratch. Leucosia squeezes Laura’s until she drops the knife.
Leucosia loosens her grip and slides her hand down to Laura’s wrist, but she does not let go. Laura tries to strike her with her free hand, but Leucosia grabs her other wrist. Laura tries to fight her way free, but she’s no match for Leucosia’s superhuman strength.
Leucosia p
ulls her onto the couch. She lets go of her grip to let Laura choose. “Come to me, my dear.”
Laura backs away. She checks her exit path. “Finish your business and let my husband go.”
Leucosia stands, positioning her body to tempt Laura. “Oh, my dear sister. You do not understand. We own his soul. You have no power here.”
The spyglass flashes in Laura’s mind. “You’re wrong.”
Leucosia’s laugh echoes throughout the room. “You do not know how to read it.” She cups her own breasts and fingers her nipples with her thumbs, watching Laura as she feels her own body tingle with desire.
Laura feels it as if Leucosia is touching her. Desire takes her breath away. “You don’t fool me. You’re a frightened little girl hiding behind all this supernatural bullshit.”
Leucosia moves at superhuman speed to stand in front of Laura. She strokes Laura’s face with both hands. “You do not understand what your kind made me into. My power over you is complete.”
Laura slaps her, drawing blood again. “You have no power over me!” Leucosia licks the blood away and wets her lips. Laura shoves her rune of protection in Leucosia’s face. “You have no power over me, nixe!”
Leucosia slaps Laura back. She rips the rune necklace off Laura’s neck and throws it across the room. Eyes locked, she takes Laura’s hands, caressing them before leaning in for a kiss. The kiss sets Laura on fire. Leucosia cradles her face in her hands and kisses her. In a fluid and taunting continuous motion, Leucosia’s hands lift Laura’s shirt and unclasp her bra. She slides her fingers across Laura’s breasts, circles her nipples, then slides her fingers down to unfasten Laura’s pants. Leucosia grabs her buttocks with one hand while the other penetrates between her legs. Before Laura can fathom what’s happening, Leucosia brings her to orgasm.
Laura swoons. Unable to control herself, shaking and consumed by desire, she allows Leucosia to remove the rest of her clothes. They devour each other, taking turns exploring each other’s bodies. Leucosia throws Laura down on the floor and mounts her in a 69 position, leading to an animalistic frenzy of multiple orgasms.