ST1.4 | "Siren Song"

PROMPT: Lust is a powerful motivator. It's fond of grabbing our hearts and masquerading as love, until everything lays around us in ruins. When all is unmasked, we find our thinking had been done by hormones, and what we did in the name of hormones can't be as easily undone. For April, give us your stories of love and lust gone awry, of people swayed by a pretty face and prettier words. There's a reason a rabbit is the mascot of Spring . . .

SIREN SONG

by Francelia Belton

I told him he was my Brandy, like that 70s song from the Looking Glass, the one you like. I said that to all the guys I slept with. And he believed me, ‘cause you know, I’m a sailor.

There aren’t many of us women who sail the seas. The captain of my own ship, I run a private international moving company. Took over the business after my father died. But you know that.

Was I promiscuous? Maybe. Still, I’d proven my nautical worth. I did what I wanted. How I wanted. And no one could take that from me.

So I told him he was my Brandy. It worked. It was the 80s; the song was popular and made a great pickup line. Corny, I know. Nevertheless, men ate it up.

I think most men considered me a challenge: reel in the sea loving mariner, tame her, and make her your wife sort of thing. Only that’s not how it works. You can’t ‘domesticate’ a seafarer. They love the salty wind in their hair, the cool water against their skin, the sound of the waves crashing against the hull of their ship. When I told men they were my Brandy, they never understood. Not really. There was no happy ending for Brandy. She wasn’t able to draw the sailor in with her feminine wiles. She just wasted her life waiting.

And I can say for a fact that no man could net me with his ‘masculine’ charms, either.

And yet with this guy . . . it was different.

I actually meant it when I called him that. I mean, there were so many similarities between our story and the lyrics. First, his name was Brandon, which wasn’t very common for a Black man back then. And I met him in a harbor town. Seaport Village. A facsimile of a harbor town, but close enough.

It was 1980, and the opening weekend of this San Diego tourist attraction. I had pulled into Point Loma Marina the night before and had a few days before my next shipment.

I strolled through the outdoor mall, contemplating dining at one of the many restaurants, or popping into one of the shops to peruse the overpriced wares. Nibbling on cotton candy, I passed artists drawing caricature portraits of teenage lovebirds, while little kids begged their parents for a balloon animal from silly clowns.

The guitar playing is what first captured my attention. I rounded the corner and saw the man who was playing my siren song. He was tall and lean, with curly black hair and eyes that truly could ‘steal’ me from the sea. They were vivid green, another unique quality for someone of color, and contrasted strikingly against the deep walnut brown of his skin. Much darker than my own medium brown. As I walked up to him, I noticed he had long black lashes. He didn’t sing while playing the guitar, merely smiled to himself as if there was a secret that only he alone knew about.

I wanted to find out what it was.

I spent the rest of the day sitting at the park listening to him play, and talking with him when he took his breaks. Many people walked by, some spending a few minutes listening, some dropping dollar bills into his guitar case.

So yeah, I liked Brandon. Did I love him? Probably. Maybe. I was close, anyway. However, one thing about the Brandy song was definitely true: the sea did call to me. The sea was my love, my life, and most importantly, my livelihood. A philosophy I learned from my father. He drilled into me: “Business comes first. Before love, before family, before anything. Because in our line of business, if you don’t take care of it, it will take care of you.” And I never deviated from it. Flings were one thing. In different cities and countries and ports. Never seeing any of them more than twice. I couldn’t afford to get attached or have any of them get attached to me.

My mother tried to trap my father by getting pregnant with me. She thought she could lure him in from the sea permanently. But she was wrong. Instead, she lost her life, and my father raised me to learn the business. Most importantly of all, to love the sea before anything else.

Except, I broke my own rule, and I saw Brandon more than I should have.

At first, the arrangement was fine. Brandon had other women, and I was off doing my thing at sea. We had agreed what we had was a casual fling. I would see him when my travels brought me to San Diego, meeting at Seaport Village, then spending the weekend in bed at the Westgate Hotel.

I always brought him gifts, beautiful things from exotic places. A fine Italian leather wallet from Florence. An authentic African mask from Ghana. And yes, even the requisite silver chain from the “North of Spain,” Castro Urdiales’ finest. Instead of my name in a locket, I gave him a pendant in the shape of the letter B made out of emeralds. Eventually, my gifts were not enough to appease him. He wanted more.

He just couldn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand.

He began asking questions.

What exactly did I do? I told him I was in the shipping business, which was true.

Why couldn’t he see my ship? Because it was a private business with upscale clientele who demanded strict confidentiality. I made that clear in the very beginning.

However, the question he always asked the most was, am I in love with someone else? I reminded him I don’t fall in love.

We were spending too much time together, even with long lulls in between my visits. Yet I couldn’t help myself. I was . . . hooked.

And then, the day I knew would come finally arrived. Brandon told me he was fed up. He was not like Brandy in the song. He wasn’t content to wait.

Maybe I should have taken his discontent seriously. Or maybe I should have broken it off then, but seafarers know the strength of a tide, and once again, I found myself back in Seaport Village.

On my last and final visit to San Diego, 19 years to this day actually, I brought Brandon a custom-built Ovation Balladeer guitar. I knew he’d always dreamed of one, and I wanted to see him happy one last time. Unfortunately, he wasn’t happy with it. What he wanted was me. He wanted us to be together. I told him this is the best I could do, take it or leave it. He took the guitar and left, and when he was gone, I was sure I’d never see him again.

But I was wrong.

I’d forgotten he was as drawn to me as I was to him, and though I didn’t see him, he followed me to my ship, where he saw everything I’d tried to keep away from him. He saw my crew loading merchandise that would never go through customs or be cleared by any port authority. He even saw some of my clients.

When my clients had gone, Brandon confronted me. Only not in the way you would have expected. He wasn’t mad. Wasn’t disappointed. He didn’t feel lied to. Instead, he told me he wanted to be a part of it. I wouldn’t have to hide myself anymore. We could be together. No more secrets. He’d go out to sea with me. “I’ll follow you anywhere,” he’d said.

I like to think of myself as a practical woman. Imaginative enough to envision all scenarios and my possible reactions to them, but I never saw this one. This wasn’t how the song went. Brandy always wanted the sailor to give up the waves. But I could actually have both. Brandon and the sea.

Letting Brandon think I was excited by the prospect, I encouraged him to go home to pack his belongings. However, from the moment he’d suggested a new life together, I’d known the idea was doomed. I didn’t run a legitimate business. I dealt in international smuggling and with all kinds of shady characters. If any one of them found out who and what Brandon meant to me . . . he would become a liability.

After a few hours, Brandon came back with a few bags and the guitar I bought him. I said nothing because I didn’t want to spoil the mood. But the fear of what would happen to us if we were found out was on my mind as I steered the ship out to sea.

In deep water now, I stood at the stern of the ship, looking at the moon and stars reflecting off the ocean waves.

Brandon came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. He whispered that our story was better than the Brandy song. We were getting our happy ending.

The waves rocked, and underneath them, I heard the song. Not Brandy, but the song I’d heard my whole life. The tide was changing. Pulling back. Drowning out the love I felt for him.

Sailors know it’s one thing to see a lover every two to three months, but it’s quite another to be around them day in and day out. Brandon was needy. He would always be in my hair. And I knew he would miss his life. He wanted to play his guitar to crowds, to maybe even record an album. He wouldn’t be able to do that with me.

I reached under the boat’s main panel, then turned in his arms as the tears ran down my face.

He was smiling when I stabbed him in the heart with the stiletto.

His eyes widened with shock and confusion. But it was the hurt on his face that pierced my soul.

His body grew heavy in my arms, and I stepped back, holding him and whispered, “There are no such things as happy endings,” just before I pushed him overboard.

My crew was loyal. Each of them felt the song too. Each of them knew, without me having to explain. One of them cleaned the blood from the deck, while another pitched Brandon’s bags into the sea.

Though not Brandon’s guitar, not right away. I held onto the Balladeer for a while, plucking a few of his favorite chords before casting it in the ocean, which was calm that evening.

The instrument made the last sound it would ever make—a disharmonious splash as it hit the water.

I watched it sink, a part of me submerging with it. I couldn’t keep it, even though I wanted to. Even though I knew the guitar had its own song.

I didn’t find out about you until later.

That’s why your name is Brandi Rose, after me and your father. And where you get your pretty green eyes and curly hair from him. And that pendant you’re touching. Yes, it was his.

Now you know why we never dock in San Diego when we come to California. Too many memories for me. Even so, I promised I would show you where I met your father. And I’m a woman of my word.

See that palm tree over there? It was at that bench. He was playing his guitar under the fronds.

His song was so beautiful.

He was so beautiful.

You told me your boyfriend plays the sax, right? I can see why you like that about him. I guess music is in your blood, too.

Now, you can run away with this boy if you want to, but you gotta ask yourself if you’ll really be happy. Because no matter what you tell yourself, the sea is in your blood. Just like it was for my father. Just like it is for me.

It never fades away.

Your father was the only man I considered giving up the sea for.

But in the end, the sea always wins.

Francelia Belton’s love of short stories came from watching old Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents television shows in her youth. She published a collection titled, Crime & Passion: Three Short Stories, and her fiction has appeared in various publications, including ""Dreaming of Ella"" in Denver Noir and ""Red Riding in the Hood"" in Bizarre Bazaar.

Her short story, “Knife Girl,” was a finalist in the 2020-2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition and a semi-finalist in the 2021 Outstanding Screenplays Shorts Competition. Her short story, “The Brotherhood of Tricks and Tricks” was a quarterfinalist in the 2022 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition.

She is an active member of Sisters in Crime and has served as President (2019-2021) and Vice President (2015-2018) for the Colorado chapter. She is also a member of Mystery Writers of America, Crime Writers of Color and Short Mystery Fiction Society.

You can read more of her stories at https://Francel.Be/Writing-Stories.