Sea-foam eyes

Rose petals swept off the white deck, scattering across the soft surface like drops of blood. The same wind whipped at her hair, knotting the blonde strands like conspiring fingers. Her pink painted toenails glinted in the electric light. Each bulb dripping pools of white light across the waves. Bleaching the deck in the absence of candles long since burnt down to stubs.

This was not the plan.

The plan was perfect. Had perfect timing, a life mapped out.

She brought her fingers to her lips tasting iron blood as she bit down to the bed. The Champaign bottle sat in a pool of melted ice, the liquid in the two crystal flutes long since gone flat.

This was not the plan.

She needed a new one. The wind picked up and she pulled her cashmere sweater closer. The chill sending shivers across her skin. There were stories about these waters, Sirens and Sea monsters and all manner of mysterious creatures. Stories you told children about bad men getting just desserts. Fairy tales. But in this thick fog she was starting to believe them.

How would she tell the police? How could she begin to explain? Tears swarmed her eyes.

“He’s-“ She tried, her voice breaking, “He’s dead.” Her hands trembled as the tears spilled down her face. “He’s gone,” she whispered again.

“Why so sad?” She jumped at the sound. The voice came from the starboard side. But she was alone in the quiet salted air. Wouldn’t she have heard a boat approach? A dangerous thing to be that distracted.

A head appeared above the teak boards of the deck. Dark curls with salt washed tips. Olive skin and piercing sea-foam eyes. But just a man all the same.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, pressing herself back against the Port side railing. Like a startled rabbit she curled in on herself. “This is private property -” she began

“You own the sea?” he cut her off.

“Well no,” she faltered, “but this Yacht, belongs to -“

“Ah,” the stranger said, “but I am not on your yacht.” His head disappeared below the line of the deck before reappearing at the bow. His boat made no sound.

“My Fiancés Yacht,” she finished, as she stumbled to the table. Away from the stranger that interrupted her.

The strange man propped his elbows on the deck, resting his chin on his arms he tilted his head.

“Rose petals?” He asked.

“My husband being romantic,” she said.

“Your Husband? On your Fiancés Yacht? That sounds crowded,” He smirked, ducking below her line of sight again.

“I – I misspoke,” she stuttered to the air.

“Backtracking. You’re getting sloppy Ms Shaw,” said his voice from somewhere on the wind. She spun, trying to track its source as a cold dread unfurled in her stomach.

“H-How do you know that name?”

“Should I call you something else?”

She spun back. He lounged on the deck chair behind her. Long sun darkened limbs contrasted against the pristine white fabric. A faded shirt and torn jeans, wet and clinging to his strong lines. He could overpower her in an instant. Her brain began to tick.

“Miss Nelson?”

She twitched at the old name.

“Forrest, Turner?” he continued. Tilting his head again, as if he was addressing an invalid.

“I don’t know what you’re- I don’t know who-“ she started.

“And then there is that,” he said with a wave of his arm.

“What?”

“The blood on your sleeve. Oh, you washed your hands, but you missed one drop.”

She searched her arms, finding the one lone smear. With a choke she fell to her knees.

“My Fiancé” she cried, a hand to her mouth, “It was terrible, she was so angry and-“

“Save your tears for the sailors,” he hushed, moving towards her. He knelt down to stare into her tear reddened eyes.

The next words he whispered. “Be careful when you drop things in the water, there may be someone waiting underneath.”

He produced a gleaming kitchen knife from thin air. A better sleight of hand then she had ever seen. Her blood went cold and then with a spark, it began to boil. She reached to snatch it away but he vanished the knife again. Like with a flourish of his hand he was able to pluck it from reality.

“So, was it the husband or the Fiancé?” He asked, “And who was the girl?”

She began to stand as he moved away. Her eyes now dry.

He picked up the glass of Champaign with the red lipstick stain and held it to her face.

“Hmm,” he mused, his eyes lingering on her blush pink lips, “Not your colour.”

She straightened her shoulders, rolling them as she shook off the scared little disguise. The one that men were usually so apt to believe. She found her spine where she hid it. Stretching it out, her head now high.

The man took in her transformation with a gleam in his eye. A smile twitching on the edge of his lips before blooming over his face.

All flutter dropped from her voice and was instead replaced with a measured calm.

“You were watching.” It was a statement not a question. A witness. She couldn’t have a witness.

“Wife finds man in bed with other woman, a bit cliché,” he critiqued.

So, he’d seen everything.

The fog that surrounded the boat seemed to seethe. Billowing closer it started to stretch its tendrils across the deck.

“She wasn’t meant to be here,” She admitted. She was meant to arrive later, discover them together. The following would flow like clockwork. Divorce, quick marriage, endure wedded bliss long enough to change the Will. And then he would die, some form of heart attack or tragic accident. She would be a wealthy young widow for the third time.

But even she couldn’t swing this. Not when she arrived late, not after the message he left breaking it off. Not after she saw the rose petals. Red, all her plans lost in a haze of ten red minutes. He chose his wife. He chose his Wife?!

A new plan formed in her head. A better story. A more believable villain.

“I do want to avoid cliches, but,” she mused, “Attacked by a stranger, a pirate,” it had a certain satisfying ring to it. She moved around the small table as she spoke. Taking the glass flute from where the stranger had left it.

Sneering at the ugly lipstick she brought the flute down to the table top with a gratifying smash. Glass shattered across the deck, as she rose what was left of the crystal stem to her face.

His eyes tracked her hand. He licked his lips.

“Fought in self-defence,” she said and she slashed the glass across her face. Red blood welled on her cheek, dripping down her neck. Stark against her white skin.

The man’s eyes followed her every move with feverish anticipation.

She took hold of the pillows on the deck chair, discarding them into the water before breaking its wooden frame against the deck.

With every moment advancing on the man. One step at a time.

He backed away, each step bringing a bigger smile to her lips. He reached the railings, nowhere else to go. She still held the shattered crystal stem in her hands. Already bruised from the evenings previous exertions. But it wasn’t enough.

“Do you plan to attack me?” He asked, “Embed my skin under your fingernails?”

She lunged for him, falling though empty air and onto the deck. How did her move so fast? She spun, around and around. He was gone, like the fog itself had stolen him.

She breathed heavy ghosts into the air.

He stood beyond the bow, bare feet in the water no. She scrambled to the railings.

On the water. With easy languid strides he walked back to the boat, feet gliding across the ripples. Her mother’s voice came back to her then, stout Catholic bitch that she was.

“What on God’s green Earth?” she muttered.

“Come now, Ms Shaw, you know the stories.”

Tendrils of fog caressed him, engulfing him like a cloak. Again, he fell from her sight.

“A siren?” she called to the mist “With no tail?”

“Mermaids wish they were as alluring as me.” His voice came from the Starboard side. But there was nothing but mist.

“I thought sirens were meant to sing,” she called back, searching the fog for odd shadows.

“If I wanted to lure you to your death I would,” now it came from Port.

“Then what are you doing?”

There was a lull. Just her and the sounds of waves breaking against the hull.

“Recruiting,” his hands captured her from behind, hurling them both over the edge. She shrieked. Pressed against him. One arm curled under her shoulders and back, the other clasping her hand. They waltzed across the waves. His feet gliding across the water like it was a ballroom. Hers slipping beneath with nearly every step.

Step. Slip. Step. Slip.

She was going to fall.

She was going to drown.

Her hands knotted in his shirt, supporting her weight with no more than her fingers and his body against her.

“To them murder,” he whispered against her temple, “to me, an audition.”

“I can’t sing,” she scrambled against him, her feet desperately trying to balance on top of his.

“But you can weep on command,” he laughed as she struggled.

“And what makes you think I’d want that life,” she could barely see, the boat now distant shapes in the fog. He took her hand and spun her across the waves. She was sure she would drown. But she didn’t. Connected to him now by just his outstretched hand her feet found purchase on the waters surface. She stumbled as it moved. But she stood.

“To never grow old?” He advanced, spinning her back into his embrace, her back against him. “Have any man so enthralled with you, he would drown himself at your feet?”

She thought of the corpse below the decks of the yacht. Thought of him swimming through the waves towards her, further and further, desperate. Thought of how she would forever stay out of his reach. Not only that old man but others. All the men that turned her down. All the men sneered at her acrylic nails and bleached hair. How she would bring all of them to their knees. All the people that called her a monster.

The fog encircled them like a blanket. Like there was no-one else in the world. No-one but her, and the man that looked at her like the vengeful goddess she was always meant to be.

“You have all the most attractive traits of a woman,” he kissed her wrist. “Violence,” Blood Lust.” He kissed her shoulder and, so close to her hear she could feel his soft breath, he whispered, “psychopathy.”

The Yacht drifted back towards them through the fog. He twirled her back onto the deck. The wooden boards warm beneath her feet.

Still standing on the waved he held out his hand. A choice.

“Greatness or gallows?” he asked.

She stretched her bloodied hand back to his and stepped off the deck.

But found no solid ground.

And as she fell through the water and disappeared beneath the waves at his feet he did nothing but smile.