Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

When he studied the picture closer he could see death in there too.

There were the symbolic skulls, obvious to any culture. He noticed that these were arranged in casual piles with exactly four skulls to each heap. There were shapes of pale light which might have been severed hands scattered throughout the undergrowth of the jungle, secreted in pockets of dead leaves. White flowers and white feathers decorated the floor of the rainforest. Rib bones curling out of rotten logs, were hung with hair-moss, dripping with a substance that might once have been human skin.

Necrophilia?

“We’re having none of that sort of thing,” he murmured to himself, half-jokingly. “She’d better be alive when she comes in here.”

It was then he turned his attention again to the walls, floor, and ceiling.

It was all mirrors, mirrors everywhere: on floor, ceiling, and all four walls.

Reflections of the bed went into infinity in all directions. When he stepped further into the room, a thousand-thousand Walts went with him, like a curved line of soldiers. When he stood still, he was the hub of helicopter rotary blades made of Walts, which whirled gracefully away into light years beyond. It was while he was thus experimenting with the simulacra that he was aware of another presence. She suddenly appeared by his side in the mirrors, startling him.

“Did you just come in?” he said, looking at the closed door. “I didn’t hear you enter.”

“I am very quiet,” she said, smiling.

She was an enchanting, delicate young woman whose very form and beauty took his breath away. He was not just astonished but shocked by her loveliness. He felt inferior to such a woman. She could not possibly want to stay in this room with a clumsy oaf like him. If she did, there must be something wrong with her, something hidden and perhaps vile.

“Are you—well?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you,” she breathed, misunderstanding him. “I am perfectly well, thank you very much.”

Her breath smelled of oranges and mint, as the words came out of her mouth like invisible bubbles. Suddenly, he did not care. She could be riddled with horrors for all he worried at that moment. He knew this was his one chance to have such a woman, for he would surely never get another. There were drums in his loins. Heavy metal music coursed through his thighs and belly. This was happening to him. Two hours ago he had been just another seedy passenger on a plane. Now he was a king with the most exquisite concubine in the land. He watched as she removed her scant clothes to reveal small breasts with brown tips, a smooth flat stomach with a neat dark triangle below it. Walt swallowed hard and began trembling.

“Shall I—shall I undress now?”

Once Walt had stripped himself, she took his clothes and put them in a box under the bed, as if they were tainted things. Then she lay beside him on the bed, where he was studying himself in the ceiling mirror, his erection somehow larger and more formidable in this looking glass. Thousands of curved penises went sweeping away in a crescent, like a palisade of sharpened stakes on a medieval battlefield, ready to pierce the chargers of rash knights. Then her rosebud mouth was on his breast and he could feel the dry silkiness of her breast beneath his armpit. A lump came to his throat. He began to cry soft tears. He did not know why. They just came from somewhere deep inside and flowed down his cheeks. She licked the tears from his eyelashes, saving they were deliciously salty.

Then, when she reached for him down below, he felt her fingernails graze his abdomen.

“Ouch,” he said, looking down.

“Sorry,” she replied, smiling.

But he was astonished. He had not noticed before now, but her fingernails were about an inch long, and very sharp. Her hands were like those of a goddess from some dark jungle religion. If she wished she could pierce his skin with those claws. It was not a thought that rested lightly on his mind.

“Good God,” he said. “Don’t you ever cut those?”

“My people believe it is beautiful to have long nails,” she explained in a disappointed voice. “You not like them?”

“I—well—they just look a little dangerous, that’s all.”

But then, looking down on her, he forgot about the nails.

They made love not just once, but three times in the next two hours. This was remarkable enough, since Walt was normally a once and then roll over and go to sleep man. But even after the third session he was still ready to go again. He guessed it had something to do with that smell of musk.

Then he found the gun.

He had thrust his hand under his pillow accidentally during a moment of passion to find a pearl-handled revolver there. He whipped it out to study it. It was an automatic, manufactured in Japan, an exact copy of one of the Colt .38 models. On checking it he found it loaded. A magazine of twenty-seven rounds. Having been a sergeant in the army, he knew how to use it. Its presence in the room gave him concern.

“What’s it doing here?” he demanded to know. “Why?”