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Fish, The
"I've got
to attend a meeting today," Doctor Eckert said. "You
folks are
welcome to visit the North Lagoon, though. You haven't been
there, and
it's got some nice deep pools not too far from shore."
"Want to?"
Mary asked, after we waved to Doctor Eckert as she pulled away
from the dock.
"Sure,"
I said, watching the small hydrofoil pull out of the water and
skim through the gap in the surf where the channel through the
reef led
to the open ocean.
June Eckert was
an old friend of Mary's, and when she'd invited us to
visit her island lab, we'd jumped at the chance. The island
was a small
atoll in the Florida Archipelago, about 80 kilometers west of
the Miami
Polder. The atoll had three lagoons separated by a low sandy
island;
what dry land there was, and it wasn't much, was anchored against
the
ravages of the frequent tropical storms by palmetto scrub on
the higher
ground and mangroves in the low spots.
Half-an-hour after
Doctor Eckert left, we were walking along the path to
the North Lagoon. We'd been there for a week, and Doctor Eckert
had
taken us around the island and given us swimming tours of the
other two
lagoons. We hadn't been into the North Lagoon yet, but it sounded
like a
good way to spend a day. Our swimming tours with Doctor Eckert
had been
fun; she made a hobby out of subsisting on raw seafood, and during
our
tours, she'd made frequent stops to let us taste one or another
of the
delicacies in her lagoons.
"It's a pretty
place," I said, putting a hand around Mary's shoulders as
we stood at the edge of the North Lagoon.
"It is,"
she said, and then kissed me on the shoulder. "Kent, this
has
been a great week, but with June around all the time, I've felt
a bit
inhibited. Want to make love before we go swimming?"
I answered her
question with a kiss, holding her to me as our lips
joined, and then sliding my hands down her long back to her fanny
and
massaging it as my penis hardened against her. She slid her
hands over
my back and then up over my shoulders to the back of my neck.
I paused
to finger her soft brown breasts as she leaned back, hanging
from my neck
and grinding her hips against me, and then I slid my hands down
to
support her fanny.
"In the water?"
she asked.
"Sure,"
I said.
We continued kissing
and touching as we worked our way down the sandy
shore into the water. When the water was up to mid thigh, she
lifted a
leg over my hip and took me in before lifting the other leg.
Mary and I
loved making love that way. When the footing was good, I could
dance
while I carried her, but on the sandy bottom of the lagoon, I
just stood
there and swayed as she rode my hips.
I cradled her with
my hands laced together behind her chest, and her
hands were free to finger my nipples. She smiled as she rocked
gently
against me, and I admired the look on her face and the shape
of her
breasts while I savored the feeling of my penis in her and her
fingers on
my skin. After a while, she reached up to lock her fingers behind
my
neck and let me take a turn touching her.
I slid my hands
up her sides to her round brown breasts and across her
dark brown nipples, and as I gently circled her nipples with
my thumbs, I
could feel her contracting around my penis. As we made love,
the velvet
of her body slowly sliding up and down my penis drove me to the
edge of
an orgasm, and she held me there until I had to kneel on the
sandy bottom
to avoid loosing my balance.
The feeling of
the water around our joined bodies set me back, briefly,
and then she let go of me and let the water carry her weight.
Her brown
face rose from the water a yard from me; she was smiling, her
short
straight hair glinting in the sun, and her dark nipples alternately
rising above the placid surface of lagoon and sliding back under
as we
made love.
I could feel it
as she came; her vagina clamped down on my hard penis,
her ankles clutched at my bottom, and she leaned back and gasped.
After
her initial gasp, she began massaging me, pumping with her pelvic
muscles
in rhythm with the waves of her orgasm, driving me over the edge.
I
pulled at her hips with my hands, straining to drive myself deeper
into
her body as the explosion swept through me, and then I could
feel surge
after surge within her as I pumped myself dry.
"I love you,"
I said, a long time later.
She answered with
a lazy kiss, and then drifted free of me and stood up.
"I'll go get the swimming stuff," she said, walking
away from me.
I watched as she
walked back to where we'd left our stuff and picked up
our masks, snorkles and flippers. She was a trim, muscular woman,
built
for running and swimming, and her bare brown skin looked beautiful
against the white sand and green scrub behind her.
We swam out into
the lagoon, beyond the sandy beech that was renewed by
the frequent tropical storms. There were bright colored fish,
green and
brown seaweed, and broken coral formations, some white and dead,
some
brightly colored with life. We passed over a deep dark pool
where it
looked like the bottom dropped out from under the lagoon for
a few
hundred meters, and as the bottom rose to meet us and there was
more and
more coral. We were approaching the reef.
I got Mary's attention
and then pointed to the surface and stood up,
treading water. I pulled out my snorkel as her head surfaced
beside me.
"We've got to be careful of the coral," I said. "We
really ought to have
worn gloves, at the very least."
"Right,"
she said. "Let's stay away from the main part of the reef."
Suddenly, there
was a swirl of water. "My legs!" she screamed, and
then
went under.
I ducked my head
under the surface in time to see some kind of huge fish
lunge at her. A shark? What ever it was, it got Mary and swam
quickly
away with her body sticking out of its mouth. She was gone.
I bit my
snorkel, blew out the water, and then looked around, my heart
pounding.
Should I try to rescue her? Should I run away? Was there anything
I
could do?
Then I noticed
a slight cloudyness in the water and saw something
floating nearby. I almost wretched into my snorkel when I saw
what it
was. Mary's legs were hanging there in the water, supported
by her
floating swim fins. Her legs up to mid thigh were there, cleanly
severed
by whatever fish had attacked her.
And then it happened
to me. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A
grey-green shape came at me like lightning and then a searing
pain ripped
through my body. My legs! The jaws closed around my hips, and
then I
felt them chewing, drawing me in as I was torn through the water
into
darkness.
--
I wondered if I
was dead. I felt cold, water surrounded me, my skin
itched, and I knew that I was deep below the surface. I was
only dimly
aware of the daylight above, and then my consciousness faded.
I was aware again,
still cold and wet, and it was dark. I was hungry,
and then I remembered the shark attack. I wanted to panic, but
I didn't
have the energy. I passed out.
I had a long series
of disjointed memories like that, and then I awoke.
The light at the surface was bright, and I ached for air. My
head was
pounding, my whole body hurt, and every movement made it worse.
I needed
air! I struggled, swimming for the surface, my lungs bursting
with pain
as I thrashed through the water, and then I broke the surface
and gasped
for breath.
I lay on my back
gasping for a long time, and then I remembered. Mary,
what had become of her? The image of her torn-off legs hanging
from her
floating flippers was burned into my mind. What had happened
to me? I
remembered seeing the fish, I remembered feeling the pain in
my legs, I
remembered the teeth ripping into my hips. How had I been rescued?
I was so hungry
I could hardly think, and I'd lost my mask and snorkel.
I had enough sense to orient myself, and then I began swimming
for the
beach. I could tell that my legs were injured, so I swam on
my back,
using my hands and favoring my legs. With what rational thought
I could
muster, I hoped to be able to crawl from the beach to the house
to get
some food.
I didn't realize
I was at the beach until my bottom brushed the sand. I
rested for a moment, and then gingerly pulled myself up onto
my elbows so
I could see what my legs looked like. I still had feeling in
my heels; I
could feel them dragging on the sand, so I thought that my legs
hadn't
met the same fate as Mary's.
The fish was still
there! It's jaws gripped me around the hips, and its
pale metallic green belly extended into the lagoon. Two fins
broke the
water at about knee level, and the the tail was down beyond my
feet.
I couldn't sit
up! The fish's jaws prevented it. I leaned back into the
water with a moan and reached down to see if I could get the
thing to
loosen its grip on me. I slid my hands down to my waist and
onto the
slick skin of the fish, then tried to work a finger into the
joint
between the fish's jaws and my hips. I couldn't do it. I slid
my
fingers around my hips following the line of the fish's jaws,
and I found
no hint of weakness except for a gap over the sunken flesh of
my belly
where I could feel water flowing in with each pulsation of the
fish's
gills.
Something was very
wrong! As I slid my hand down over the fish's side, I
could feel my fingers as if I were sliding them over my own skin.
I
swore as I tried to peel the fish loose, but there was nothing
to peel.
On the sides of my hips, the fish skin was level with where my
own skin
ought to be, with no hint of jawbones except over my groin.
The fish seemed
to be merging with me! I cursed the fish in blind rage,
terrified of what was happening. After I'd vented my rage, though,
I
discovered that I was curious about what was happening to me,
and
eventually, I calmed down enough to investigate.
Fifteen minutes
later, I knew that my worst fears were true. The fish
and I were becoming one creature, something like a mermaid, human
above
the waist and fish below. The fish still had working gills,
which
probably explains why I was still alive after spending I don't
know how
long at the bottom of the lagoon. It might have been a long
time; I was
thin and hungry enough that I could believe that I might not
have eaten
for weeks.
The amazing thing
was, I could control the fish. When I tried to wiggle
my ankles, the fish's tail moved, and when I tried to bend one
or the
other leg at the knee, the fish flopped from side to side. It
didn't
seem likely that anything was left of me inside the fish; the
fish could
bend from side to side in a way my legs never could, and if my
legs were
whole, I was sure that they'd block the fish's gills.
There was no point
in staying on the beach, and there was no way for me
to leave the water, so I turned away from the shore and pulled
free from
the sandy bottom. I was hungry, and after Doctor Eckert's introduction
to living off the bounty of her lagoons, I knew that I could
find plenty
of satisfying food in the shallows on the back side of the reef.
--
It was on the third
day of my recovery that I saw her. I only saw a
fleeting fish-like form, green and brown, but I knew that it
was Mary,
and I knew that she'd suffered the same fate as I had. I was
lunching on
some sea urchens I'd found, but I broke off my meal and swam
after her.
I wasn't sure which
way Mary had gone; it's amazing how big a few tens of
acres of lagoon can be when you're exploring it at water level.
It took
me fifteen minutes before I found her, resting on a secluded
bit of beach
between the roots of the mangroves that grow along the shore
in the more
sheltered areas.
"Mary!"
I said, swimming onto the sand beside her. "Are you OK?"
"Kent!"
she called, and then grinned wryly. "I'm not sure about
being
OK. God! I see you're in the same boat though."
"You don't
know how awful it was when I found your legs hanging bloody
from your flippers," I said, hugging her.
"You mean!"
she said, and then paused, looking sick. "I remember my
legs
hurting like hell just before I blacked out, but É"
She looked down at
her tail and drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I'd sort of
imagined that I
was still there, inside."
"Sorry,"
I said, feeling lame. "Let me look at you."
She rolled onto
her back in the shallow water and relaxed while I
explored her body. She was as thin as I was, not as bad as a
few days
ago, but thin. The fish half of her was noticably longer than
her legs
had ever been, with a dorsal fin on the back and a pair of pectoral
fins
below her gills. Her buttocks were gone, merged into a rounded
mound of
fish, but when I looked for evidence of the fish's eyes on what
must once
have been its face, all I could find was a pair of small scars.
She took a turn
looking at me, and I noticed that I could feel her
fingers on as much as half of the fish's body. The other half
of the
fish was still alien flesh, mostly near the tail and down the
middle of
my front. The touch of her fingers on the fish's body, when
I could feel
it, was very pleasant, but it was disturbing when she slid her
hands over
the numb areas because I could still sense movement but I couldn't
tell
where she was touching me.
"God, I wish
I knew what was happening to me," she said, tracing the
line
where my flesh joined that of the fish.
She began to cry,
and I hugged her, trying to comfort her, and at the
same time, trying to draw comfort from her. I was scared of
what was
happening to me, and I had no answers to offer, only questions.
She held
me tightly, her head on my shoulder as we rested at the water's
edge, and
then, after a long pause, she giggled softly.
"You know,"
she whispered, "if it weren't for this damn fish, I'd be
feeling a bit romantic. I could get really horny right now."
I was doing my
best to ignore the hint of an erection in my loins. I
wasn't sure I even had a penis anymore, and I was scared of what
I might
find if I let myself feel anything sexual. Mary kissed me gently,
and
then her tongue entered my mouth and drove away my inhibitions.
I returned her
kiss as the pressure of an erection grew between where my
legs must once have been. We began fondling each other, kissing,
touching, and licking. I kissed her breasts fiercely, she kissed
my
chest, and then she worked her way down to the fish's jawbone
where it
still gaped open slightly above my pubic bone.
We were incredibly
excited and incredibly frustrated, and eventually the
frustration won out. We hugged each other chastely while we
cooled down,
and then we rested. I guess we fell asleep where we were, half
submerged
on the beach in the warm Florida sun.
--
I was startled
awake sometime in the late afternoon, and when I opened my
eyes, I found that I was lying a few inches below the surface.
For a
moment, I forgot about what had happened to me and tried to sit
up in the
shallow water, and then I fell back onto my elbows. I almost
passed out,
but after a few deep breaths and a bit of swearing, my eyes came
into
focus and I saw that someone was leaning over me.
I focused my eyes
on a pair of chocolate brown breasts with almost black
nipples, blinked, and recognized Doctor Eckert. "Glad to
see that you
two are up and about," she said. "You really shouldn't
sleep on the
beach like that, the warm shallow water hasn't really got enough
oxygen
for your gills, and you could be stranded if the tide was on
the way out
instead of coming in."
It took me a moment
for what she'd said to sink in. "My gills?"
"When you
fell asleep, the tide was on the way in. Your oxygen demand
falls enough when you sleep that you naturally stopped breathing
when the
water covered your mouth, but it's not good for you. If you're
going to
sleep under water, you should choose well oxygenated water or
a cool deep
spot where your body temperature can fall to lower your oxygen
demand."
"June Eckert,"
Mary said. "How the hell do you know so much about what's
happened to us."
"I guess I
should explain," she said, stepping back out of the water.
She put her hands on her brown hips and smiled at us. "Fifteen
years
ago, I began to dream about how humankind could reclaim the continental
shelves that we've lost since the polar caps melted. Ten years
ago, I
realized that my work on genetic engineering could support that
dream,
and I set out to solve the problem. Five years ago, I bred my
first
experimental simbiotic catfish, a little one, just right for
making a
mermouse, if you'll pardon the name."
She paused to look
us over, and then went on. "There were a few bugs,
but I worked them out, then did some experiments on dogs and
worked out
more bugs. As you see, it works. You're the first functional
merman and
mermaid in human history."
Mary coughed and
then spoke in a bitter voice. "It doesn't seem
particularly legal or ethical to do this to us without asking
first."
"It's too
late to worry about ethics," Doctor Eckert said. "As
to the
law, on this island, I'm the law; the government ceeded the atoll
to me
personally a decade ago. What's done is done! Right now, you
need to
know a bit more about what's happened to your bodies so you can
face the
future, right?"
"I'll admit
I'm curious," I said.
"You're half
fish, half person," she said. Over the month or so that
you
were out after the fish got you, your body has merged with that
of the
fish. The changes aren't over yet, but the big changes are done.
Your
circulatory systems merged the fastest, within minutes of the
time the
fish tried to swallow you. Your skeletal systems merged more
slowly, and
your nervous systems will take the longest to finish joining
to that of
the fish."
"Do you mean
to say we were out for a month after the fish got us?" Mary
asked, her voice tinged with anger.
"Yup. The
fish instinctively recognized you as its target, from your
smell, bit your legs off, and then lunged, trying to swallow
you whole.
When it couldn't get any more of you in, it instinctively sought
the
deepest coldest place it could find so it could digest its prize
at its
leisure. Of course, my fish didn't know that you weren't ordinary
food.
Your circulatory systems were linked to the fish's through your
legs, and
the fish's gills kept you alive for that month."
I was about to
ask a question, but she interrupted. "I really must be
going! I've got visitors from the institute! See you tomorrow."
--
She didn't see
us the next day. That night, a storm blew up, and the
normally calm lagoon was a chaos of spray and waves. I was scared
that
we'd be smashed against the coral by a wave if we stayed near
the reef,
and I was afraid of being driven up onto the beach if we stayed
near the
shore.
"Stay over
the deep pool," Mary yelled, trying to be heard over the
roar
of the surf. We were holding hands so we'd avoid getting separated
in
the dark "Stay under as deep as you can, and come up only
for air."
She was right,
so I took a deep breath, tightened my grip on her hand,
and dove for the bottom.
In normal weather,
it's fairly quiet underwater. Now, it was noisy. The
sound of the storm wasn't the same as it was on the surface,
but it was
there. I could hear the impact of the surf on the reef, I could
hear the
whitecaps blowing on the lagoon, and I could hear the groan of
coral
boulders torn from their resting places by the storm currents.
In the cool depths
of the lagoon, the sound of the storm lost its terror,
and I held tightly to Mary's hand in the darkness as I listened
to it.
As I relaxed, I began to grow puzzled. I didn't feel anxious
for air. A
slow trickle of bubbles escaped from my mouth while I wondered
what was
going on, and then I realized that I didn't need to breathe because
of my
gills. They really were mine! I hugged Mary to me, and we fell
asleep
there at the bottom of the lagoon while the storm raged over
us.
I woke up sometime
during the next day. Daylight shone through the
water, and the lagoon was calm. I felt lethargic and cold, but
I swam
slowly to the surface and looked at the weather while I drew
a deep
breath of fresh air. We were in the eye of the storm! A wall
of storm
clouds towered around the horizon, obscuring all but a circle
of hazy
blue sky above.
Mary surfaced beside
me and drew a deep breath, and then grinned at me.
"Good morning Kent," she sighed, and then drew another
deep breath.
"What a night!"
"I think our
gills barely provide enough oxygen," I said.
"That must
be it," she said, and then yawned. "Still, it's nice
being
able to stay under so long."
"Especially
during a tropical storm!"
She kissed me,
pressing her breasts against my chest, and we hugged for a
while before I pulled free. "I need some exercise and a
meal," I said.
"Let's take a swim."
"Tag, you're
it," she said, laughing as she lunged away from me.
We took turns chasing
each other for what might have been fifteen
minutes. By then, I'd learned enough about swimming with my
fish tail
that I thought I was pretty good, but it took work to catch up
with Mary.
She cut through the water, and I followed, using my arms mostly
to help
manuver and pushing myself forward with a strong undulation of
my tail.
Mary broke the
surface and leaped high into the air, and I followed,
diving back into the water behind her. She landed with a belly
flop, and
that slowed her down enough that I was able to tag her. I lunged
away as
she turned to give chase, and I dove deep and then tried another
leap. I
did better than on my first leap, and after a few more leaps,
we both got
pretty good at it.
Eventually, we
quit the game and began gathering meals for ourselves. I
got two good handfulls of a delicious seaweed while Mary went
after
urchens, and then we rested on the beach and ate our breakfast.
The
water was high, a storm tide, and we were resting on a new beach
where
there had been a stand of mangroves before the storm.
"It just struck
me," Mary said. "We've been living in salt water for
an
awful long time. Why don't we need fresh water?"
"I guess the
fish take care of that for us," I said. "Anyway, I
sure
liked that game of tag."
She gazed at me
while she finished a mouthfull, and then grinned. "Me
too, but I hate to admit it. God I hate what June did to us."
"I'm starting
to enjoy what's happened to me," I said. "I hate the
fact
that she did it to me, I'd like to see her in jail and I'd like
to see
her pay through the nose to straighten out the mess she's made
of my
life, but I can imagine that I might even have chosen to become
a merman
voluntarily."
"Mabe you're
right," she said. "If she'd offered a choice and given
us
time to prepare É"
"But she did
give us some pretty good preparation," I interrupted, and
then paused to crack a sea urchin. "She went out of her
way to teach us
how to feed ourselves and to introduce us to the lagoon environment."
"I guess so,"
Mary said, leaning back in the shallow water.
I finished my urchen,
tossed the shell into the water, and looked at her
as she relaxed beside me. "You're beautiful," I said,
and then rolled
over to kiss her.
She responded warmly,
pulling me to her. As we hugged and kissed, I felt
whatever had become of my penis stiffen. It felt good to press
the belly
of my fish against hers, and I enjoyed tracing my fingers down
her back
and onto the fish skin over her fanny.
We aroused each
other to the frustrating limit; I wanted an orgasm and I
didn't know how to have one. I wanted to give Mary an orgasm
and I
couldn't. We hugged, kissed and touched in the shallow water,
driving
ourselves as close to orgasm as we could, but we couldn't get
there. In
the end, frustration won the battle and we held each other.
Mary cried
softly against my shoulder, and then we rested, listening to
the slowly
growing sound of the surf as the eye of the storm began to pass.
--
"You two are
quite beautiful when you play," Doctor Eckert said the next
morning, interrupting our breakfast.
The day after the
storm was a beautiful clear day, and Mary and I had
just finished a game of tag after a night on the bottom. I looked
up at
her as she smiled at us from the edge of the water. "What
do you want,"
I asked.
"I just thought
I'd stop by to see how you survived the storm," she said.
"I see you're OK, and I see your gills are finishing their
metamorphosis."
"What?"
I asked, looking down my stomach. There were tears in the skin
along my hipbone, right at the joint between my skin and the
fish's. I
could see the tears open and close with the pulsation of my gills,
and
there was another tear in the numb skin on the bottom of the
fish's jaw.
She smiled. "Your
new gills occupy a good chunk of the volume of your
pelvis and the old fish's skull. The six intake holes will form
a vee
along the line where your fish skin and human skin meet. You'll
see the
whole vee shape when the fish's lower jaw finishes sloughing
off."
"How do things
work?" Mary asked.
Doctor Eckert waded
into the water and squatted by Mary. "See how your
gills pulse slowly? You've got something like a second diaphragm
run by
the fish's jaw muscles; it pumps water through your gills. Your
gills
aren't supposed to give you enough oxygen to stay active under
water, but
they're enough that you can sleep on the bottom."
She stood up.
"I've got to go now; the folks from the institute are
ready to tour the West Lagoon. You'll meet them in about a month,
I've
already set the fish loose."
She started to
wade back towards the shore, and on the spur of the
moment, I tripped her. "Mary!" I yelled. "Help
me pull her into the
water."
"What?"
Mary asked as the doctor rolled over and sat up, sputtering.
I'd managed to
turn my tail towards the shore, and I took the doctor's
hand as I spoke. "Doctor Eckert? I'm going to do my damnedest
to see
that you meet those fish of yours."
"No!"
she screamed.
I thrashed with
my tail in the shallow water, pulling her by the arm into
the deep water. She fought, kicking and scratching, so as soon
as the
water was deep enough, I pulled her under. That stopped her,
and by the
time I came up to let her breathe, Mary had taken her by the
other arm.
"You can't
do this to me!" she screamed after she'd caught her breath.
"I don't see
why not," Mary said. "After all, you did it to us."
We silenced her
protest by ducking her under, and by the time we came up
for another breath, we were at the reef. We abandoned the doctor
at the
edge of the reef, letting her fend for herself while we scouted
out a
passage, and then we towed her out to sea and to the west around
the
atoll.
The doctor was
pale and exhausted by the time we found a way into the
West Lagoon. She still tried to protest when we let her surface
for air,
but we didn't want her to struggle too much, so we never let
her stay up
for long.
"Keep her
away from shore," I said. "Let her alone now that
we're here.
Just herd her to the deep pool we saw back when we were snorkeling;
that
should be where her fish are."
We herded her,
watching from under the water as she swam, and grabbing
her by the ankle and pulling when she tried to break for shore.
I
watched the water around her as much as I watched her, looking
for the
fish.
I didn't notice
them at first; there were two of them, grey green
monsters the same color as the ones that had gotten Mary and
I. The two
fish swam at a distance, hovering just above the bottom, and
then one of
them lunged, snapping off the doctors legs in one swift bite
and then
spitting them out as it circled for the kill. It streaked upward
at the
bloody stumps of the doctor's legs, opening its mouth at the
last second
and engulfing her struggling form up to the hips, then turning
and
carrying her into the dark depths.
Mary and I followed
them down to the sandy bottom and watched as Doctor
Eckert passed out. I felt awful as I watched the tiny amounts
of blood
drifting from the gills of the fish, but at the same time, I
felt
satisfied. Even smaller amounts of blood seeped from between
the doctor
Eckert's hips and the fish's jaws. I watched until I was sure
that the
fish's gills were working, drawing water through the gap between
its
green lower jaw and the doctor's stomach, and then I swam away.
"You're hurt,"
Mary said as she surfaced. "I guess June fought pretty
hard."
"At first
she did," I said, and then turned to swim towards the beach.
While I swam, I thought about what we'd done to Doctor Eckert.
Given
that there was no law on the island but her own, what we'd done
seemed
just, or as close to just as we could hope for. The only injury
she'd
received was from her own fish. Even so, I had the nagging feeling
that
I was simply rationalizing an act of revenge.
When we got to
the beach, Mary pulled my attention back to my injury.
"Roll onto your back, I want to see what's happened to you."
"How does
it look?" I asked as Mary examined my belly.
"You've got
a little scratch, and your fish's jaw is broken and pulling
loose. It looks like it's dead; do you want me to see if I can
finish
pulling it off?"
"OK,"
I said, looking down my belly as she fingered the torn fish skin.
It stung a bit
as she began to peeling the skin away, but it came off in
a single piece, including the old fish's jawbone and teeth.
As the
doctor had predicted, what was exposed was a vee of brown human
flesh.
The ridges of my hipbones continued down the sides of the vee,
and there
were two more gill openings where the fish skin over my hipbones
met my
skin.
"Well I'll
be damned," Mary said, sliding her fingers down the skin
of my
belly where it extended into the vee. At first I didn't know
what she
was talking about. Looking down, the thing that struck me the
most was
that the skin she was touching was slowly pulsating, moving in
and out
with the flow of water through my gills.
I understood when
I felt Her fingers slide onto my penis; she touched it
before I saw it, and then she lifted it, and then she chuckled.
"I'd
almost given up on finding this again."
"Me too,"
I said, looking down at my penis as she kissed it. There was
a
shallow groove between the bony ridges at the base of the vee
of my
belly, and my flaccid penis rested comfortably in it. "Want
to see if
you've got anything to match?"
She rolled over
onto her back in the shallow water, and I began to
investigate. She giggled when I began peeling the dead skin
off her gill
openings, saying that it tickled. It came away easily enough,
a bit like
the way a blister peels off when the skin under it has healed.
When I
was done, I'd exposed a vee of smooth brown skin between her
six gill
inlets. It pulsated like mine, but my attention was on the vertex
of the
vee. Where I had a groove that fit my penis, she had a ridge;
above it
was a soft-lipped groove in the skin of her belly, her vagina.
"I love you,"
she said, sighing as I stroked her new belly skin.
"Want to try
making love?" I asked.
"I think it'd
work best in deeper water," she said, taking my hand.
We swam, hand in
hand, out into the center of the lagoon, and then swam
circles around each other, kissing, touching, and fondling as
my penis
grew erect. I made a pass and grabbed her around the waist,
kissing her
on the somewhat relocated lips of her vagina. She took my erect
penis
into her mouth and gently toungued it, driving me towards an
orgasm, then
broke away.
I surfaced for
a breath of air, and then kissed her full on the mouth.
She held me around the neck while I fondled her breasts, and
then I slid
my hands down her back and pulled her to me. As our hips came
together,
she reached down to guide my penis into herself, and then we
fell
together with a firm and unexpected thud. The pumping of our
gills was
locking our bodies firmly together.
Her warm body surrounded
my penis as we kissed deeply. I could feel the
constant gentle pulsations of her gills around my penis. The
motion was
felt exquisite, as good as anything I could accomplish by thrusting
my
hips. I slid my hands down to the small of her back, and then
we came up
for air.
Mary leaned away
from me and smiled at me as we floated. Her nipples
were on the surface as I traced their outlines with my fingertips,
and as
the look on her face grew intent, I gently squeezed and pulled
at them.
The pulsations
of our gills were synchronized. Each pulse drew my penis
out of her and then thrust it hard into her. Each pulse loosened
her
vagina and then clamped it down hard. The feeling was so intense
that I
felt like bursting, and then my orgasm hit me like a lightning
bolt. I
could feel it as a surge of power focused on my groin, and then
a
pulsating pleasure so intense that it was almost painful swept
through my
body as I came.
She moaned ecstatically,
and then pulled me to her and kissed me hard on
the lips. We submerged ecstatically, sharing our joy, probing
with
tongue and penis, sucking at each other, both filled and fulfilled.
"Hello!"
a distant voice echoed over the lagoon as we broke the surface
to breathe.
I looked towards
shore and saw someone there waving at us. "Hello"
I
called, waving back. We were still locked together below the
water.
"Time to face
the world?" I said, feeling uncertain as I spoke in a low
voice.
She gave my hand
a squeeze as she looked towards shore, and then turned
back to me. "Should we give whoever it is a show on the
way over?"
"What do you
mean?"
"We'll have
to let people know what's happened to us eventually, so why
not have fun while we do it? I'd bet whoever that is was supposed
to be
June's next victim."
We pulled free
of each other and then dove under as we began swimming
towards the beach. We held hands as we swam, and when the water
was deep
enough, we lept, giving whoever it was a good look at us. We
lept twice
again before the bottom approached too closely for safety, and
then we
raced for the beach. |