Becoming Mermaids Read online

  “It’s wet.”

  “I took a shower.”

  He ran his hand along on his own now. When he lingered on a side fin, she wiggled it and he snatched his hand back. She was smiling. He feigned a smile, too.

  “What’s this?” he said, finding the end of the necklace in the shadow under her breast and turning it over in his fingers.

  “Don’t look at that,” she said, trying to take it from him, but her arms were unavailable because she was supporting herself with her hands and elbows.

  “Why? What is it?”

  “I told you— magic. Just be careful, it’s—” She never finished the sentence because Andrew was staring deep into the gemstone, which glowed red against her breasts. A jerking motion took hold of her and she blurted, “oh no.” Her shape dissolved.

  Andy, for his part, was completely unprepared. The change struck him stiff as a board so quickly that he fell and hit his chin on the floor. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. Sam rode the transition back to human gracefully while Andrew thrashed and fluttered, with choking sounds in his throat.

  It was almost like a werewolf transformation, with all the straining and tearing of clothes. Andy had the misfortune of wearing pants when it took him, and naturally, they were in the way. But also his shirt ripped under the strain of a dorsal fin that grew from his back, all the way from his shoulder blades to the stub that was forming of his tail. Shoes burst and belt snapped. Sam couldn’t tell when it was over because the tatters of his clothing were still flailing wildly.

  She plugged in the lamp and the room flooded with light. Her legs had fully returned and she scrambled in the buff to comfort Andy, who was now a stiff, blue fin covered in Hulk-shreds. She had to rip off what remained of his clothes just to get him out of them. The dorsal fin was in the way of everything— he lay on his side, couldn’t roll over. She got his shirt all tangled up looking for his arms before realizing that he had none.

  Andrew’s transformation was more extreme than Samantha’s or Coquette’s.

  While she was still trying to figure out what she was looking at, Andy thrashed more violently. She cupped his head in her hands and repeated, “shhh, shhh, shhh” until he calmed for a moment. His whole body was deep blue— even his face and chest had a bluish tint to it. His eyes were darting this way and that. They didn’t look right— they seemed to be made out of something harder than human eyes. But the real difference was in the transition between man and fish. It was not a smooth band at the hips but an all-body thing. His front features were more human-like and his back features were more fish-like, but that’s about all that could be said. He had arms, of a sort. Alternatively, you could call them fingery fins. His neck had become as wide as his head, which was inclined to look up more than straight— forward for a fish, not a man. The muscles of his chest were inflated to fish-girth, and no region could be clearly called his waist. His tail was not a flexible one. It was tight and spring-loaded for speed.

  “My God, Andy, you’re a swordfish!”

  Samantha meant that as a compliment, in the sense that his inner fish was an exciting one, but Andy didn’t take it well. His eyes darted faster and he flapped and even tossed himself airborne, like a marlin on deck. “Shhh, shhh, shhh,” Sam cooed, but she could hardly hang onto him to stroke his face. He stopped when the neighbor joined the protest, knocking on the ceiling downstairs.

  Given his reaction, Sam decided not to scare him by telling him more about what he looked like. After all, he couldn’t even see. “Shhh,” she repeated, “We can fix this. Just calm down.” She continued to stroke his face and pull off torn clothing. “I’m just going to get your legs free,” she said.

  The remains of his jeans were pinching him. She had to rip it to let him out. A wallet and half a dozen coins clattered on the floor. He was laying on his side, breathing deeply. It was probably some relief to be out of his pants, though. She gently stroked his dorsal fin, which edged back and forth on the floor as he breathed. It was still, almost as stiff as bone. “Oh Andy, I’m sorry,” she whispered, and laid her hand on his chest.

  Inside, a human heart beat rapidly. His torso still had the feel and smell of his skin, though rippled underneath with muscle. She pressed the whole length of her body against his and kissed him between the breasts.

  Samantha’s overwhelming urge did not go away when she regained legs. She had been preoccupied by Andy’s suffering and terror, but even as she comforted him and said soothing words, her teeth were on edge. Now that he was docile, she could hardly stop her hands from running the length of his body and clenching. When he lifted his tail tentatively, she pounced on it and squeezed it between her bare legs.

  The extra fold that had hid her vagina as a mermaid had its analogue on Andrew. Sam found it and quickly aligned herself to mount while he gasped and flitted his eyes across the square of floor that was visible to him. Though normally as tall has he was, Sam’s face could only reach the middle of his chest. She took his altered member into herself and gorged herself until she was bleary eyed and sore with effort, and then fell asleep.

  * * *

  She woke when Andy wormed in discomfort, still unaware of his true form. He had no ability to speak, but he could make a clucking sound in his throat.

  “Oh!” The horror of what she’d put him through hit Sam the instant she realized she’d been sleeping. The clock said 7 a.m. For six hours, he’d been writing on the floor in complete confusion, in a body that wasn’t his and didn’t move as it ought. Without a second thought, Sam gazed into the stone around her neck and reversed the process.

  For the third time, her legs softened and zippered up into a mermaid tail, but she was more focused on Andy. He shrank in all dimensions and the hard fins disappeared under his skin. Body hair and his original color returned, as well as all his limbs. But he didn’t get up right away. He continued to jitter on the floor as though he were a fish, not entirely sure of what had happened. When the change completed, Sam opened her arms to him and he darted.

  Still with an animal look in his eye, he scampered like a terrified chimpanzee, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the mermaid. “Andy, do you want to talk about it?” she said softly.

  His voice clucked the way it had while he was a fish, but eventually he got words out. “You! What? You! Did you—?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She was on the verge of tears.

  He tore across the apartment again, shrinking into the other corner.

  “It’s this.” She held the stone up, but covered it with her fingers. “Only one of us can have the tail at a time. When you looked at it, it transferred to you.”

  He stood on legs now, but was still bowed deeply. He raised a jittering finger. “You!”

  “It was an accident. You shouldn’t have taken such a deep look.”

  At that moment, the door opened to the rosy light of dawn and Coquette stumbled in, laughing. Her hair was short— it was now spiky white— and she’d traded in her skirt and blouse for a leather jacket and faded jeans. “Hey Sam,” she said, “Can you believe they still have Lent?”

  “You!” Andrew the hairy ape-man pointed at Coquette, then Sam, then both. “WITCHES!” he cried, and knocked Coquette over to race through the door.

  As Coquette stumbled to her feet, she saw Samantha, a forlorn mermaid tugging her locks in tears while a naked-ass man ran howling into the morning light. She just about split her sides laughing.

  Chapter 7: So Far Away

  Coquette sat in a corner of the room that she thought would make an excellent breakfast nook. Samantha was doubled over, folded in half, with her face smothered in the lower underbelly of her tail and her hair splayed out like a dead woman.

  “Coffee’s getting cold,” Coquette said, taking a sip.

  “I’m a monster,” Sam moaned.

  “Technicalities.”

  “No really! You don’t know what I did to him.
”

  Coquette perked up. “Do tell!”

  Sam gave her a sour look and folded her arms as she leaned across the tail. “I’m a rapist,” she said with the dry throat of sobriety. “That’s what I am.”

  Coquette couldn’t contain her amusement. “In my day, we’d say ‘seductress.’”

  “No, it wasn’t like that!” Sam insisted, sitting up. “He was helpless. Scared. Pinned by his own body. And instead of helping him, I... I...”

  “Helped yourself.” Coquette blew steam from her coffee mug.

  “How can you say that? What if it happened to you?”

  “A lot of things have happened to me,” she said, darkly.

  Sam’s lip stiffened. Once again, she was reminded that she really didn’t know this woman.

  Coquette brushed it off and said spritely, “I had an exciting night, too!”

  “I don’t care.”

  Another moment passed between them. “So then... tell me: how was Mr. Swordfish Steaks, anyway?”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s a relevant question. Did you get what you wanted?”

  “I wasn’t even thinking. I just—” She squeezed her fist like she was crushing an orange.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “It’s the tail, isn’t it? It’s changing me.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t wearing the tail when it happened.”

  Sam thought for a moment, then groaned and crushed her forehead into the floor. “You’re right. It’s me!”

  “There’s powerful cunt magic in that jemstone. Just wait’ll you start singing.”

  Sam remembered that the gem was still tied around her neck and yanked it off with her fist, snapping open the latch.

  “Don’t you dare lose that.”

  “Where did it come from anyway?” Sam pressed its sharp edges into her palm.

  “Dunno. Coquette— French Coquette— she said there was seven of them. She and her six sisters each had one. By now they could be anywhere. The sisters drifted apart, and the last time Coquette encountered a mermaid, her sister’s gem had been passed on to somebody else. That’s why she gave hers to me.”

  “Have you ever seen a mermaid? Other than, you know?”

  “Not even once. The ocean’s huge. And who knows? Maybe they’ve been eaten by sharks.”

  “But you live forever...”

  “It gets dull.”

  Just then, there was a knock at the door. They both propped up, and Coquette stood to answer it while Sam fished for blankets to hide her tail. “Wait!” she said, not soon enough.

  “Well, hullo, stranger!” Coquette said, greeting Andrew. He was still completely naked. He said nothing; pushed her out of his way to quietly get his stuff. He put on his work uniform, collected his wallet and change from the floor— one coin at a time— and then briefly investigated the burst-open pants and shirt. He let them fall back on the floor.

  Sam followed him with her eyes, stock-still and half-hidden in her own hair. Only the tail moved, slightly. He occasionally cast a furtive glance in her direction.

  Coquette blocked the door. “Well?” she said, directing the question to both of them.

  Sam mouthed the words, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” but no sound came out.

  “I’m late for work,” he said, and squeezed his way out the door.

  Once he was gone, Sam blinked and said, “Ohmigosh! I’m late for work, too!” and flopped toward her crumpled Starbucks uniform.

  “The both of you!” Coquette said in exasperation. “I swear!”

  * * *

  Sam was hours late for work. The morning rush, which had started at 5 a.m., was all but over by the time she dashed in, tying the apron around her back. Her manager, Jamie, was four years younger than she was, still in high school, and didn’t feel any irony in lecturing her on the dignity of responsibility and hard work.

  The morning to mid-afternoon shift passed in a haze. Whenever she wasn’t filling orders, Sam stared at her reflection in the curved mirror of the espresso machine. She didn’t recognize what stared back.

  Her friend Stacy could tell something was wrong, but only skirted the edges of Sam’s black aura. It had been a bad week for her, too. She had problems with debt and a sick aunt, and didn’t think she could take on any more. Donny was oblivious, as usual.

  Samantha’s guilt and sadness took form in the tones of a deep, minor key melody that she thought she was only humming to herself as she wiped tables and cleaned the countertop. She realized she was singing aloud when she saw everyone in the store gaping at her. She stopped and a customer clapped. Then two. Then all of them.

  Her manager glowered. “Would you like a piano?”

  Sick with embarrassment, she untied the apron and chucked it at him to clock out an hour early.

  “This is coming out of your paycheck!” he yelled.

  * * *

  Sam came home to find Coquette laying on her back, her head over the edge of the bed to watch soap operas upside down. She propped up. “Are you early?”

  “What’s happening to me?”

  Coquette shook her head like, “you tell me.”

  “I’m singing. I didn’t even know I was doing it. You said I’d start singing and then I did. It’s like I’m not in control of my own body anymore.”

  “I sing from time to time. Gets lonely on the rocks.”

  “No. What is this? That gem is changing me even when I don’t have the tail. It is, isn’t it? Did you know this would happen?”

  “Hon—”

  “No, you listen to me. I’ve figured it out, you know. You haven’t made it a secret that you want legs and you’re just baiting me with reasons I should take the tail. You probably knew it would have this effect on my mind, didn’t you? You say it’s just temporary, but it’s seeping into me— taking me over from the inside— so that I’ll have no choice but take it forever!”

  “So you don’t want to carry the tail anymore?”

  “Ha! Not on your life!”

  “Then we’ll find somebody else. It’s a pity though, I wanted to show you what it’s like to swim. I’ve been making arrangements.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t really given the tail a fair shot until you’ve tried swimming in it. On land, it’s limiting, but in water, it sets you free.”

  The thought dribbled into Samantha’s mind.

  “You’re right, though— I don’t want to go back to the ocean forever. I was thinking of forming a secret society of tail-bearers. We would each take turns, to feel and taste everything it gives us, but then still lead normal lives. Maybe we could even try to find the rest of the gems and make a collection. You know, so we have options. I don’t want to be a full-time mermaid, but I don’t want to give it up, either.”

  The thought was dripping even deeper into Samantha’s mind. She blinked. “No. I can’t. It’s messing with my head. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  Coquette rolled over to talk to Sam face to face. “Have you ever thought that it might be desire? Nothing mystical, just ordinary desire. You want something badly, but you don’t want to want it. So you make the ‘want’ not-you, call it an evil impulse or something. If you look deeply, though, I think you’ll find that you’re made out of these scraps of conflicting desires. It’s not the stone.”

  Sam was lost in thought.

  “I know,” Coquette said. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about these things.”

  “It’s not that— I just quit my job,” Sam said absentmindedly. She tried to believe the words she just said. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my boyfriend.”

  “You want that old spearfish? Honey, we can get him back.”

  Sam turned her hands over and over, as though she wasn’t sure what she might find attached to her wrists. “I would never do these things. Never.”

  “Maybe it’s a good thing.”<
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  “Randomly singing is not normal,” she continued. “That’s a mermaid thing to do. Not me.”

  “I usually sing when I’m in love,” Coquette offered.

  “I’m going out,” Sam said and stepped through the door.

  Chapter 8: Let Your Lights Shine

  She walked aimlessly through the neighborhoods of La Jolla. It was the first time she went on a long, pensive walk since she made up her mind to drop out of college a year back. Moving her feet helped her think.

  The land was hilly and full of hidden enclaves. She wandered a bit through the university, but then into the Latino neighborhoods. It was just chilly enough that she would have been cold in her sweater and sandals, if she hadn’t been climbing so many hills.

  It was early evening. The sun was beginning to set, but you couldn’t see it through the blanket of clouds. Sam’s feet must have turned this way because of the music— it carried on the air over the next hill, through the scant trees. Long before she could see that there was a street festival, she could hear it. It was a Lenten fish fry.

  Back home in Wisconsin, the neighborhood fish fry was a very different thing. Never open air, always in the tiled basement of some church hall, with big aluminum trays of fried dumplings, more batter than cod, served by the scout leader dads. Here, the sounds and smells spilled out into the community. There were chile rellenos, poblanos, tamales, fried quesadilla, refried beans, beer, styrofoam plates, fold-out tables, and little girls dancing in leafy, brightly colored dresses to the sounds of a Mariachi band.

  Someone tapped Sam’s shoulder. She turned in the crowd and was handed a plate. “Oh, no, I’m not here...” she started to say, but the lady with the apron and gloves was already gone. Sam turned the styrofoam plate over in her hands and decided to remain in line.

  While the band played and the little girls twirled, her stomach growled. The scents and the cold air conspired to make her ache with hunger. The line wrapped all the way around the parking lot. Kids tried to sell her raffle tickets— the same group of kids, three times— but she only had enough cash for the cover charge. By the time she reached the buffet table, she was so hungry she scooped more than her plate could hold, with lots of sauce. A voice in the back of her head said it was funny she’d be lusting over a church thing.