There's a darker side to mermaids, Virginia. Yes, there is! As I've found out since I started work on goal #3 for the Write-a-thon, creating a few new short stories. My romantic love story started out with the paramour of the main male character being a mermaid and he discovers this, after imagining what the woman attached to the beautiful singing voice looks like. But then, without warning, my darker side struck. And now I'm writing a mermaid murder noir! LOL It's very different from anything I've written thus far.
And yesterday, I was visited by my muse. She gave me the perfect names for the two female leads. As I woke up, I heard a female voice whisper, "Magda. Delphine." I rushed to look up the meaning of both, knowing the former is a religious name, but discovered it also meant: One who comes down from the tower. Now this is absolutely perfect symbolism for a succubus, but completely unplanned. As is Delphine, which means "dolphin" in French and is the name of the lovely murdered mermaid. Splendid! Thank you, my muse! Thank you!
As promised, I'll share with you my work in progress, unedited. Here's an excerpt from my untitled short:
“There’s a dead mermaid in
the bathtub. N-not in my apartment, but in the one above mine. I didn’t even
know there were such things as mermaids, until today. And I-I’m still not sure
what I really saw, but I took a picture of it with my phone.”
He slid his phone to me across the desk, which is when I
saw his perfectly manicured nails and that got me thinking about other things,
but I didn’t have time for that now. I had a client to serve, not myself,
though if I had my way, he’d end up in my bed before this investigation was
over. I stared at the photo of the young mergirl curled up in a fetal position
in a dirty white bathtub filled with water and what looked like sea salt,
pounds of sea salt soaked in blood, but it wasn’t hers. There wasn’t a mark on
her. Her dark brunette hair spun through with streaks of bright poppy, had been
trimmed recently, it looked, from her blunt bangs. Though judging by how
translucent her skin looked and the fact that I could see her veins and tendons
and muscles, she’d been out of the sea for more than three days, so perhaps,
her killer had cut her hair after abducting her.
"You say you took this photo today?”
“Yes. She’s in the apartment above mine.”
I raised one arched eyebrow at him.
“I know what you’re thinking and I don’t normally
go sneaking around my neighbors’ apartments, but she was special.”
“Special how?”
“She had this voice. This amazing singing voice.
And I heard her singing.”
“And you fell in love.” Typical story. Guy hears a
little mermaid sing and instantly she becomes his paramour. I nodded my head
and pinched my lips together, trying very hard not to focus on the intoxicating
heat rolling off his body and the sound of his heartbeat in my ears. I needed
an energy boost and soon. I shifted in my chair, tucking my tail tighter
beneath me. It was almost undetectable in the skirt I wore. I don’t even think
this delicious human recognized me as a succubus, he was so shocked at
discovering a mermaid in a bathtub. Better to not reveal myself to him. This
poor whelp had seen all he could handle for today.
“She’s dead.”
“Yes, I can see that.” I set his phone down on my
desk and took another sip from my mug. “I’d offer you some coffee, but as you
can see, I can’t afford a secretary and there’s no coffee machine in my office.
My apologies.” I flashed my best apologetic smile and uncrossed my legs. “Have
you shown this photo to anyone else? Your friends? The police? Your girlfriend,
perhaps?”
“No. No one. I live alone and I thought about
going to the police, but I-I wasn’t sure they’d believe me. Since that
mockumentary on television and everything …”
I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Tune in to see what happens. I'll be posting more excerpts as I continue. If you like what you've read here, please consider sponsoring me for the Clarion West fundraiser. It runs through August 1st. 100% of your donation goes to keeping these wonderful speculative fiction workshops by Clarion West going. Just to be clear, I am not participating in a workshop, this is just me plodding away at my keyboard and raising a little money for a foundation I believe in.
http://www.clarionwest.org/members/sekhautet/
As always, happy writing and happy reading!
