Work Text:
Megan has to go away for work. “Honey, you’re fine,” she says. “Go on that app. Get cute girls to fuck you.”
Chappell puts new pics on her profile. She taps the heart and there are girls. Girls come over. There are lots of girls.
But it’s not super fun. It’s okay. She spends a lot of nights on the shore.
#
It’s late, Megan writes, while Chappell watches the waves. I ordered tteokbokki. For you it’s yesterday.
It is yesterday; it’s a long time ago. Because look who's back, stepping out of the water. She’s come back.
Not like she used to, the whole schtick with knowest not the hour of my coming and sudden Siren girlfriend at four am. This is a soft evening at a beachfront bar where Chappell has been waiting for her date. The date said that she would be wearing green, which she is. The date said her name was Betty, which it isn’t. She said she might bring flowers, if she could find them. They’re red anemones. Chappell doesn’t know where she found them.
“Is it safe for you to be here?” she asks. It’s the right question, not of every girl, not of Megan—it’s other people who aren’t safe, around Megan—but of some. Of those who might be seen by the wrong person and get put in a zoo. Or who might just be afraid.
Yes, the Siren says. I made sure that no one saw.
Chappell nods, understanding. Soft waves lap against the sand, steady like a heartbeat. When it’s dusk here it’s dawn in Korea, which is where Megan is. That red sandy slick could be the setting sun.
“I’ll get us drinks,” she says.
The Siren nods. She still likes tequila. Chappell gets wine for herself. They eat bar snacks, drink and talk. So you made an app profile, haha, how funny. Are there like mermaids and werewolves on there too now. Do they all want humans. Not that you did, in the end. Haha.
Haha. Another couple of drinks. The Siren gets them. The heat of the day evaporates and she gives Chappell her leather jacket. It’s new, that leather jacket. Sexy over scales. It’s getting late. (For you, it’s yesterday.) It’s really late.
“You wanna go for a walk?” Chappell asks, when the sea is a silver sliver against the depth of night. The Siren holds out a hand to her, soft and sweet. She says she’d like that.
#
I love long walks on the beach!! 😍💞 says every basic lesbian on the apps though actually they mean Brooklyn or London and the nearest beach is sewage reclamation or garbage. But Chappell has this, northern California, this braid of white sand and shore. She and the Siren walk along it together in a deep pelagic silence. When they get to the yellow house on the boardwalk Chappell rummages in her bag for her keys. Any minute now she’ll kiss the Siren goodnight. This was fun. Good to see you. It was fun, it was good. Maybe see you again soon. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t.
But the Siren asks: can I come in?
A pause. It's funny, Chappell thinks, that that was how they always talked. The Siren placing her words directly into Chappell’s head. In retrospect, she doesn’t know how she thought their wedding ceremony was going to work.
She drifts away for a second, remembering that, all of that. Love, desperation, a fantasy about a fishtail dress. But then she comes back to herself and the Siren is still there, in her thrift-store jacket that Chappell just gave back to her. She stormed out of this door. She wants to come in.
“Sure,” Chappell says. Uncertainty looks odd in the lines of the Siren's face. Chappell lets her in.
The house will be how the Siren remembers it, mostly. The granite countertops, the windows open to let in the salt night air. The second bedroom is still pretty, with the bright paint and all the dangling chiffon. But it’s Megan’s now, where she keeps her clothes and her pinball machine. Her Grammy. The Siren looks around with her eyes wide.
“Coffee?” Chappell asks, without waiting for an answer. She switches on the coffee maker, finds a filter, while the Siren sits on a barstool and swings her legs. She has legs. She’s not a mermaid. But her hips and thighs are scaly, lined with irridescence, and the gap between them is different. She has a slit, maybe a cloaca; a human can put their fingers into it, touch all the lips and layers deep inside. It feels kind of like a cunt, and kind of like reaching for the pearl in an oyster, which also feels kind of like a cunt. It tastes like dark and salt. The Siren used to like going down on Chappell, too. They kept a salt shaker next to the bed, for it to taste right.
"I guess some things have changed," Chappell says, anodyne. No answer. She gets out cream and sugar without asking. The Siren sips from her cup.
Do you want a good time? she asks.
It’s the wording from her app profile, Chappell realises. Show me a good time while my girl is away. Her fingers tapped it out without her brain really thinking it. No one writes what they mean on apps; they write, a good time, or I’ll be your baby, or ropes watersports safeword pineapple when what they mean is see me. Be with me. Cross my shoreline, and though the tide turns, stay.
Chappell stands there for a long time, thinking. It would have been fine, if this evening had ended when she saw the bloodied tide. This was fun and a kiss on the doorstep would have been fine. The Siren left and Chappell doesn't have to want her back.
But here they are, anyway. A nice evening: wine, tequila, cream. Somewhere, a man's blood in the surf.
“You weren’t a good time,” she says. “But you can stay.”
#
The pool in the backyard is still topped up and clean. The Siren goes out there barefoot and eager. Chappell slips into the bedroom and opens the top drawer of the dresser. Megan loves cute, anime-pink toys with tie-in branding and adorable glitter. Chappell’s toys are waterproof. She heads out into the backyard with a plain strap and harness, and some lube. Lube was always hard. Three different brands, trial and error, painstaking application; anything to stop it all washing away. It was Chappell who used to buy it, of course. Tried all the brands. In the end everything washed away.
But it’s nice, to have sex with the Siren again. Chappell helps her buckle the harness around her hips, because she’s not always good with her hands, and slicks the toy up with lube. It’s nice, too, to float naked and embryonic in the water, half on her back with her legs spread, with the pool light glittering off the blue nail polish on her toes. The Siren gets the harness in place after some effort and the strap pushes gently at Chappell’s inner thighs. It’s a tease of a touch, at first. The Siren kisses her to punctuate it, her mouth sticky and metallic. She nips at Chappell’s lips, doesn’t break the skin.
And it shouldn’t be nice, really. Everything tastes of chlorine, there isn’t enough lube. Chappell is tired, wine-tipsy and sad inside in a way that feels oceanic and profound but is just her missing Megan, the girl who’s really her girl. But her body remembers this, regardless. Her body wants it, hungers for it, feels cracked open with the savagery of that hunger. She understands now, even if she didn’t back then, why the Siren kept going back for the fishermen and the sailors; and perhaps she did always understand why a woman would want to tear and bite and eat this world alive. Right now, fully submerged in clear water and kept from drowning only because the Siren has that knack for her lovers, she wants to be consume and be consumed.
I missed you, thinks an old pathetic part of her; her real self says: “Fuck me.”
The Siren pushes forwards. The toy slips inside Chappell’s body with no resistance, making her gasp with the rightness of it. It hurts a bit, in a good way, like real things do. The Siren pulls back out and pushes in again, this time as far as she can, and Chappell gasps again, let herself be pushed back and forth, steady like a heartbeat in the water. It feels good to be pulled in and pressed against the Siren’s body, to feel the strangeness of her against the skin. The Siren is warmer than another human would be down here, rough and ridged and solid. That deep strange beauty is what Chappell used to want so badly: to own, to put with a ship in a bottle and keep. Now, it’s just a brief pleasure, a passing moment.
The Siren fucks her till she’s dizzy with it. Then she pushes Chappell lightly away and dusts scaly fingers across her clit. Chappell comes in a second, her mouth opening and water flooding down her throat. It’s okay; with the Siren’s skin pressed against her she can’t drown. The Siren is still solicitous, careful about pulling out, pushing her to go up and take a breath or two before coming back into the water. Chappell pushes her hair away from her face, places her hands on the Siren’s hips and goes down on her. Her feet and hair rise, like this is a supplication or a descent. She puts her tongue inside that alien slit and lets it become familiar to her again, exploring layers like knife-edged gills and skin the green of lime zest. The Siren comes with the usual little gush of freshwater. It sweetens Chappell’s mouth like the fizz of soda. And then they’re drifting up to the surface, shuddering at the temperature change, clambering up the sides and getting dressed.
“That was nice,” Chappell tells the Siren, in the kitchen while she makes some more coffee. It was really nice. But Megan will be home in a week. “Thanks for coming over.”
I am ashore for some days, the Siren says. I can come over again.
And then you can leave like you left me before, Chappell thinks sharply, and considers. The Siren did leave her before. She came back. She lent Chappell her jacket, brought her flowers. Maybe killed a sailor. But Chappell is older now, and it’s easier to forgive. Harder to fault a woman who does violence to men.
“Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know.”
#
Late that night, Chappell sits by the window to watch the dolphins breach and frolic, far out to sea. She wonders if the Siren is out there too, playing in the froth and foam. Here in the house it’s cosy and warm. She’s reading, checking the time difference, when Megan texts. Megan always texts when she says she will. miss you don’t pine hope you got girls.
Remember the one I told you about? Chappell writes. Green.
You fucking your ex???
Yes, Chappell says. No. Not sure yet.
Megan takes a long time to answer. When she does, it’s just: be careful honey sleep well.
Heart emojis, a thousand of them. Love as encompassing as the tide. Chappell goes to bed and dreams of the tide. That flows and ebbs, washes things smooth and away. This time, it’s different; this time it will be different.
When Megan gets back you won’t see me as much, Chappell writes to the Siren on the app, the night after. But maybe you’ll see me a little.
Her girlfriend will be home soon. With kisses and make-up and candy, and the Blackpink merch she wanted, because when Megan says she’ll do a thing she does it. Chappell will try on the lipstick and smudge it kissing, and they’ll laugh and close the drapes and dance.
But that’s not tonight. Tonight the sea calls and echoes in its planetary bottle, seems to ask her a question. Chappell blows a kiss through the window in answer to it. She throws a couple of beers in a cooler, some strawberries and two types of lube, and heads off down the beach. She doesn’t worry that the Siren won’t be there, that she’ll be left standing there bereft on a wide lonely shore. The Siren will be there. And If she’s not, there’s still cute girls and flowers. Hearts and flowers and all that the sea gives back.