by Tay LaRoi
The moment she stepped outside, she felt rejuvenated. The sun beamed down on her cheeks, tingeing them pink; the breeze tugged against her chemise, flapping at her heels. She could still smell the remnants of morning rain, and the muddy earth squished under her feet as she walked, then skipped, and then galloped across the field and into the forest.
Yes. Yes, this was the right choice.
She walked along the familiar trails, her eyes catching each glint of sunlight that slipped through the overgrowth. She noticed everything—each rock lining the path, each bird chirping in a steady, comforting rhythm, each slight rustle of brush as a chipmunk darted past. She breathed in and caught every scent, every wild iris and primrose.
What a lovely way to end, she thought, surrounded by the sights, sounds, and scents of the place she loved most.
Anja continued along the path, occasionally stopping to brush her hands against the bark of a beech tree. As she crept farther ahead, the scenery gradually shifted; the flowers disappeared and the trees grew closer together. The path narrowed and was soon barely wide enough for one traveler to pass. She followed it as it curved, arcing around a cluster of trees. But once she saw what waited on the other side, she hesitated.
The river lay straight ahead. It was a hundred feet away, with a few thickets of beeches between it and her. But even so, peering through the gaps between the trees, she could easily see the reflection of the sky on its surface. The sun took full advantage of the clearing, its beams illuminating the dust swirling in the air above the invisible current. Anja almost expected to hear a heavenly choir, dozens of voices from bass to soprano singing out, ushering her forward, urging her to take her last steps.
But there were no voices singing here. The water was still; the wind had died, leaving Anja to listen to nothing but a single voice, the one that existed only in her mind. She played that imaginary voice to herself again, that enchantingly feminine vocal that belonged to the forest itself, the spirit of the wilderness. She let that rapturous alto coax her, inch by inch, closer to the river’s edge. She imagined the woman of the forest guiding her forward, whispering to her:
A few steps more, dear, just a few more, and then you will be free. Shed your mortal coil with me. Yes, yes, that’s it. Come, my love, you are so close now.
Within moments, Anja reached the river’s edge. She stood on the bank, pebbles and twigs lining the few feet of tawny sand that separated her from her death. She had never dared to approach this closely before, but even this close to the edge, the river’s surface was unbroken, smooth as glass.
She looked down at her feet, still clad in her favorite shoes. She hesitated for a moment, thinking of the joyous adventures those shoes had taken her on through the winding trails and fields and meadows. Her throat clenched as she thought of abandoning them, but it was time for another adventurer to inherit them. She leaned down and unlaced them, kicking them off. They tumbled to the sand.
She peered into the water that glimmered mere inches from her toes and caught a glimpse of her reflection: her hair was hopelessly tangled and frizzy, and her eyes were wide and bulging, rimmed in red. For a quick moment, she turned back to the forest, entertaining desperate notions. Perhaps she could live here, she thought, a peaceful, hermit’s existence, surrounded by the soothing calls of wildlife. But fruits and berries were a rarity in the Black Forest, and the animals were swift. Without proper hunting tools, they would all easily escape her. And besides, this river was the only source of water.
There was nothing left for it now. Nothing left to do but surrender. She closed her eyes, took one step forward…and let her toes slip beneath the surface.
The earth shook beneath her. Anja nearly fell. Instead, she jumped back, throwing her arms about as she tried to steady herself. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the glassy surface of the river had broken—a vortex began to churn within it, nearly a dozen feet wide. The waves surrounding it undulated and frothed with each break, crashing back into the surface and leaving sprays of bubbles behind. The spinning accelerated with every second, and the waves grew ever larger as they spun.
And from the very center, from the pitch-black eye of the watery storm, a face emerged. Then shoulders, and a torso, and arms.
Anja cringed at first. She imagined all the monstrous features her mother had warned her about: gnashing teeth, gills that oozed with pus and blood, and fins as sharp as knives. But after she wiped the water’s spray from her eyes, she dared to look again, forcing herself to take in every detail of the last living being she would ever see.
And instead of shark’s teeth, she saw plump pink lips, paired with cascading waves of curly black hair. Instead of gaping, oozing organs, she saw only delicate, clean gills decorating a slim neck, and taut, toned shoulders. Instead of bladed fins, there were shimmering scales brushed along slender arms, like the freckles Anja often acquired in summer. The water being wore nothing, baring perfectly even, round breasts; trails of river water traced their way across them, eventually sliding off the ash-pale skin to rejoin the current below. She opened her wide-set eyes, revealing irises the same color as Anja’s, like the sky just before a thunderstorm.
Anja met those eyes and thought, At least, if I am to die, the last thing I will see is something beautiful.
Then the woman opened her lips and spoke.
“Anja. The farmer’s daughter.”
That voice. Anja knew that voice. She’d heard it countless times before, if only in her head.
“Anja Bauer, of the Black Forest.” The being reached out with one slender hand and smiled. “I have been waiting for you, my dear.”
How could it be? Did this creature pluck that melodious sound directly from Anja’s mind? How could she have stolen the most private of Anja’s desires, bringing it to life around her?
It was terrible, hearing that tangible reminder of her brief moments of joy and freedom. Despite its haunting, ethereal beauty, it only made her think of the dreams that would soon be lost forever.
“Please,” Anja begged, closing her eyes. “Must you torture me with this?”
The woman paused her ascent from the river. She hovered at waist height in the water, tilting her head. “Why do you say I torture you?”
Anja fell to her knees, burying her face in her hands. “I have already come to sacrifice myself to you, and you…you tempt me with everything I will never have.” Salty tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “You speak to me with the voice of the forest. The voice of freedom.” She bit back a sob. “And now I will never get to run through the woods again…”
“Anja. Look at me.”
Anja lifted her head again. The woman had moved closer now, perhaps fifteen feet from the water’s edge. The waves danced around her hips, sometimes dipping down just enough to reveal a hint of pelvic bone underneath her skin. “Look into my eyes.”
Anja did as she was told.
“Has it not occurred to you that the voice you heard was always mine?” The woman’s eyes flashed at her, like lightning. “Did you not think it might be me singing to you, willing you away from that life you despise so much?”
Anja’s tears began to stream down her cheeks like little rivers of her own making.
“Twenty years, I have been waiting for you.” The river woman’s voice softened. “Every time you visited the forest, I saw you. I’ve watched you grow from a delightful child to such a spirited young woman.” She smiled, showing even teeth that shined like pearls. “My intent has never been to bring you pain, my dear. That is something only your mother and father seem to wish for you.”
“But…” Anja sniffed, quickly wiping a tear on her sleeve. “What does it matter, really, whether I suffer or not?” She bit her lip, clenching down so hard she nearly bled. “The end result is the same. I’m still going to die.”
“What?”
Anja looked up again. The river woman’s eyebrows were furrowed, her lips pursed in confusion.
“What makes you think you’
re going to die?” The woman took more steps forward, unsheathing the rest of her naked form as she did so. The water slipped away, revealing elegant, curving legs decorated with iridescent scales, and—Anja couldn’t help but notice—a smooth vulva with hints of rosy labia peeking through. “Anja, that was never part of the contract.” Within moments, she stood at the water’s edge, with only her ankles and feet still wet. Anja glanced down and saw delicate webbing between her toes. “Who told you that you were going to die? Was it your parents?”
They stood just a few feet apart now, the river woman completely unashamed in her nakedness. Anja didn’t dare to look her in the eye. “Um, yes,” she mumbled as she stared at the sand, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. “They…they said you would pull me under the moment I touched the water. That you would drown me and lay my bones to rest at the bottom of the river.”
“That is ridiculous. What sense is there in such a gruesome lie?” The woman shook her head; her voluminous curls shook with her in defiance of the water weighing them down. “Ah, but of course they would say that. Anything to keep you away from me.” She snarled. “I should have known never to sign a contract granting material wealth. That is not the purpose of magic.”
She looked back at Anja, standing paralyzed in fear, and her expression softened. She reached out; from this distance she could brush Anja’s cheek with her hand, just barely. Anja’s eyelids fluttered at the touch.
“My dear, be at peace. You are not going to die today.”
Anja wanted to appear graceful for this woman, this beautiful creature who had come in her moment of greatest despair. But the emotions churning inside of her were too complex, too overwhelming to keep in any longer. She began to cry, collapsing, her head falling forward into the woman’s strong, wet hand as she sobbed.
“Oh, you beautiful, tortured soul,” the woman whispered. She wrapped her arms around Anja’s delicate shoulders and squeezed tight. “Cry out all your tears, Liebling. You are safe from them now.”
Anja shuddered in her arms. As she shook, years of pain, guilt, and fear began to shed from her, began to slip away. Her life had been so heavy.
“You will come with me,” the woman said, stroking Anja’s hair with one slim webbed hand. “We’ll swim together, to the City of Aquatic Souls. There you’ll be made one of us, and you’ll live for hundreds of years in all the rivers, lakes, and seas of the world.” She placed one finger under Anja’s chin, pushing her face up until their eyes met. “This is who you were always supposed to be, my dear. From the day of your conception, you were designed for us.” She smiled and took Anja’s hand in hers. “Why else would our hands fit so well together?”
Anja glanced down at the slim webs gracefully locked between them. “My…my parents wanted me to marry a man,” she said, looking away. “To send me far away from here. The thought disgusted me.” She looked up at the river woman’s face, now mere inches from hers. She noticed that her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes seemed darker, the pupils wider than before. Was she reading this correctly? Her mother and father had never spoken of women with interests like hers, but then, how many other truths had they hidden for their own convenience?
“Would…would you feel the same?” Anja dared to ask.
The river woman grinned down at her. “I could be furious with your parents,” she began. “To breach a contract is a terrible offense to human and aquatic souls alike. But had they kept their word, I would have taken you to the City as a babe, and after giving you to the Mothers, I may never have seen you again.” She leaned in closer; her lips hovered mere inches from Anja’s now. “But instead, I have met a beautiful young woman who, unless I read incorrectly, seems equally as entranced by me as I am by her.”
Anja’s face flushed brilliant scarlet.
“There is no need for shyness, love.” The woman’s hands began to trace their way down Anja’s arms in swift, delicate swirls. Anja felt her skin light up. “Aquatic souls do not hide themselves in invisible cages. We swim freely, as we desire.”
“But I…” Anja stuttered, locking her feet together under the water. “I’m not beautiful. I look nothing like my mother. I-I don’t have golden hair, or a tiny nose, or—”
“You think there is only one definition of beautiful?” The woman laughed to herself. “Liebling, you mustn’t compare yourself to her vanity. Think nothing of her any longer.” She closed her eyes halfway, tilting her head down until Anja could feel her breath on her lips. “Think only of this.”
She kissed Anja fiercely, clinging to her lower lip. Anja’s legs shook, and she felt the sand and water shift beneath her feet. The woman’s hands traced along her shoulders and down her back, pushing their bodies together. Anja’s airy chemise did little to hide the feeling of wet skin against skin, of breasts touching and lighting tiny sparks all throughout Anja’s body, from deep inside her mind to between her legs.
She had dreamt of touching another woman like this before, of course, but never had she thought it could become reality. At once she was both ecstatic and furious—her body quaked with pleasure, but she grew hot with anger when she thought of the twenty years of freedom that had been denied to her. She could have spent her entire life living in the wilds, free from mundane things like penmanship and needlework, free from her parents’ constant negligence and derision…
“The anger is natural, my love,” the woman whispered in her ear, as her hands trailed along Anja’s hips. “But let it pass you by. Think not of the past, but of now.” One hand brushed against the soft curve of Anja’s thigh. “Think of what you can explore.”
The rage still pulsed through her, but she closed her eyes and let her limbs fall limp, surrendering her anger over to the woman of the river. The woman gripped Anja around the waist and guided her down gently to the wet sand below, until one lay sprawled over the other, their feet and calves still submerged in the cool, now peacefully flowing water.
“You…you haven’t told me,” Anja whispered, as she reached up to caress her liberator’s face. “What is your name?”
The woman grinned from above her and then leaned forward, her stomach gliding across the silky linen of Anja’s chemise. “I am Aleit,” she breathed into Anja’s ear.
Aleit. Like “alight,” Anja thought. She smiled at the beauty of it.
Then she gasped as Aleit bent and kissed her neck, massaging and ever so slightly sucking in with her slick lips. Her tongue traced quick flicks and circles along Anja’s taught muscles, and Anja felt the strange sense of being both weakened and liberated. Her legs were pinned underneath smooth skin and scales, and her arms seemed beyond her control, tracing Aleit’s shoulders and back and that tender space under her arms where breasts begin to curve out.
But if she could choose, right now, to be anywhere in the world, she would still stay here.
Within moments, Anja’s chemise was pulled over her head. She delighted in shedding that last bit of human civilization. And when Aleit stretched out to toss it aside, her back arched in the most beautiful way; the sun shone onto the scales on her side, reflecting pearlescent tones in turquoise, emerald, and that same shade of stormy silver they shared in their eyes.
Anja hadn’t realized how much she could want until now.
“M-may I…” Anja’s voice faltered again, distracted by the perky breasts now hovering inches from her mouth. “May I taste you?”
Aleit gave her a mischievous smile. “You may have whatever you like.” She purred and bent forward.
Anja took one breast in her mouth, sucking on the tip while tracing the rest with her fingers. Aleit’s skin tasted like salt and smelled of rich, wet earth. Anja glanced up, just for a moment, just enough to see Aleit’s beautiful face, her eyes shut and her mouth open in pleasure. It was an intoxicating sight—and now that it was real, now that the voice in her head could be seen and tasted and touched, Anja’s desire grew more swiftly and fiercely than ever. Within moments, she had moved down, shifting the supple body above
her until Aleit was sitting up, her legs straddling Anja’s face.
Anja looked up and saw delicate pink labia arranged above her, slick clear fluid lining the edges, and thought, Here, I would gladly drown. Then she took Aleit into her mouth, her tongue tracing the length of each fold in every direction. She planted kisses along the lines, touched with just the tip of her tongue; then she pressed in harder and spelled words out, noting which ones brought out the deepest sighs and sharpest gasps, and composed a nonsensical sonnet where the letters were meaningless. It was only the sound that mattered.
Soon Aleit began to quake above her, and Anja thought she may well climax herself, just from watching her.
Of course, having no human to confide in about her desire, let alone explore with, Anja had never seen another woman come before. She imagined it would be gorgeous, but like with so many other things she had only dreamt of until today, her imagination was a poor substitute for reality.
When Anja found the clitoris buried deep within Aleit’s folds, she wrapped her lips tight and sucked in, massaging every edge, hoping to set each nerve and cell alight. And she did—Aleit tensed above her, her thighs pressing in around Anja’s cheeks until she could hardly breathe. Aleit gasped and then fell silent.
For the first time in her life, Anja felt powerful.
Moments later, Aleit screamed in ecstasy. She bucked forward, and Anja did everything she could to hold her still, kissing her labia until she fell away. She sank down onto Anja’s naked skin, burying her face in Anja’s breasts as she panted, her breathing gradually slowing down. Her hair, several feet long, covered them both in a shiny blanket of black curls.
Anja would have stayed there forever, tracing the scales along Aleit’s arms and back, if she could. But after a few moments, Aleit looked up, and her eyes were brewing with lust.