by Hondo Jinx
Second, the blue-skinned girl had a great voice. Though she had spoken only three words, her alluring voice had coiled around his mind like an invisible tentacle, tempting him to jump back into the water.
Instead, he stood and shook off like a wet dog.
“That’s right,” he said. Conflicting tides of caution and surreal attraction battled within him.
Suddenly, he had an enhanced awareness of the water trickling down his drenched body. He could feel every drop rolling down his skin, tickling him and… tasting him?
That was his sense of things.
Maybe the cold and shock were confusing him.
Or maybe the blue temptress was up to something. Because she wasn’t just a girl. She was a monster girl. And that meant magic.
Braddock’s mind pulled back, spooked by the notion of her somehow using the water to touch and taste him; but his body betrayed him, responding as the water tickled over his flesh, exploring him.
The crotch of Braddock’s soaked jeans tightened, squeezing his sudden stiffness.
“Mmm,” the mysterious woman purred. “You are a man.”
He nodded and forced himself to take a step back.
She opened her pretty mouth and another torrent of laughter flooded out, filling his ears with warmth and bubbling humor.
Braddock couldn’t help but smile… at least until he realized that his feet had, seemingly of their own accord, taken a step back in her direction.
“And a silly, silly man,” she said.
Braddock shook his head. “I am many things, darlin, but I’m not silly.”
She smiled slyly. “No? But you have no wings.”
He just looked at her.
“No wings yet you tried to fly. And failed spectacularly!” Laughing, she splashed water in his direction.
Braddock took another step back, but her splash rained down on him, rolled down his face, and slipped under his shirt collar to begin its tickling trickle over his body.
That’s when Braddock realized he was no longer cold. In fact, he felt quite warm, as if instead of jumping into a freezing river he had taken a dunk in a heated tub.
“Oh, don’t be a sourpuss,” the blue girl taunted. “What is life without love and laughter?”
Again, Braddock felt the pull toward her. Again, he resisted temptation. Because his gut did not trust this woman. Not one bit. “There’s a lot more than that to life. Like staying alive. And I got a suspicion you might like to drown me.”
“Drown you?” Her tiny mouth dropped open in mock disbelief. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t want to drown you. I want to play with you. Feel and taste you. Love you.”
As she spoke, she shimmied back and forth in the water.
Braddock knew she was staring into his eyes, but his own gaze drifted down her slender neck, across the water pooled in her deep collarbones, to the bobbing swell of her upper breasts, which she had exposed almost to her nipples.
“Besides,” she continued, “how could a little water sprite like me ever overpower a big, strong man like you? Your body is magnificent, and it flows with immense power.”
“Is that right?” Braddock said, hauling his eyes away from her mesmerizing flesh.
“Yes, you are a truly glorious specimen of masculinity. But I have a bone to pick with you, mister.” Squinting at him, she lifted a hand from the water and shook one finger in a scolding motion. “You lied to me. You are not a man.”
“I’m not? Well, darlin, that’s news to me.”
“You are more than a man. You are a true man, an off-worlder.”
Braddock nodded.
“And,” she said with a coy look, twisting back and forth in the water, “you have been playing with a monster girl.”
She paused, licked her lips, and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully for a second. “Yes, a sprite. I can taste her. But not a water sprite. No, not a water sprite, not yet. A meadow sprite. Mmm.”
“I gotta give it to you, darlin. That’s a pretty good trick.”
She smacked her lips thoughtfully, and her mouth spread into a wide smile. “Oh, you rascally man. It’s one of Hortensia’s dew maidens. You bonded with her. The Meadow Mother must be furious!”
“So I hear.” Braddock took another step back and, remembering the troubles at hand, examined the extra cylinders he had pulled from his pockets just before the water sprite had startled him.
He beheld disaster. The paper cartridges had soaked through.
“I do hope I can convince you to play with me before the Meadow Maiden gets you in her clutches,” the water sprite said. “But you are troubled, my love. Why do you frown so?”
Braddock held out the spare cylinders. “I got these wet. The powder inside is soaked. They’ll never dry properly.”
“And this is bad?”
“Very bad.” He nodded toward the pistols. “Those tools yonder, they’re kind of like magic wands. They have been keeping me alive on this crazy planet. But they need dry powder to work. So the only thing they’re good for now is decorating the cabin wall.”
“Oh!” she cried with excitement and splashed around, clapping her hands. “I can help you! I can fix your problem!”
“You can?”
“Of course, silly! I’m no fern-brained dew maiden.” With a little bow of her head, she said, “I am Cascadia, lovely and talented water nymph at your service.”
Braddock’s suspicions spiked again. “I thought you were a water sprite.”
“Water sprite, water nymph, nixie… what’s the difference? The point is, I have complete control over water.”
A few feet from Cascadia, a column of water rose from the surface of the river. The crystalline pillar wavered, changing shape, and a second later, Braddock was looking at a nude and curvy woman sculpted from water.
The sculpture collapsed, rejoining the river, and Cascadia laughed. “Now, that was a trick.”
This time, he laughed along with her. “Very impressive, Cascadia. My name is Jedediah Braddock, and I would sure appreciate it if you could dry out my loads.”
The smiling nymph licked her lips. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Jedediah Braddock. Bring me your tools, and I will suck them dry, my love.”
He took a step forward, then stopped himself, jarred by her gleaming eyes and hungry smile.
Seeing his hesitation, Cascadia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Are all men so timid, my love, or is it just you? I have to say that after a lifetime of daydreaming about meeting a man, I am sorely disappointed. In mythology, men are rough and aggressive, and they take what they want.”
Cascadia bit her lip and bounced her brass-colored eyebrows up and down. “Since I was just a little girl, I longed to meet a big, strong man who would take me as his water wife. I saw your handsome face and big, hard body and thought my wettest dreams had at last come true. But no. It turns out you’re scared senseless by a tiny little water sprite.”
“You give yourself too much credit, darlin. I’m cautious by nature.”
“Cautious, huh? Is that why you jumped off the cliff?”
Braddock picked up his things and moved forward. He had to take the risk in case she really could fix the gunpowder.
“That’s it, my love. Come closer. Let me help you.” She stretched out a light blue hand. “Give it to me.”
Up close, Cascadia looked less human but no less alluring. Her eyes were very large and lit from within by a subtle glow.
This internal fire was more obvious in Philia’s green irises, which some nights, as Braddock and his wife made love, glowed bright as copper in flame.
The glow in Cascadia’s blue-gray eyes was more subdued, like the reflection of a cloudy sky upon the water.
Her nose was thin and long and straight with a slightly pointed tip and mere slits for nostrils. From its high cheekbones, her face sloped smoothly down to a tiny mouth with lips as blue as those of a drowned woman.
It was a sleek, efficient face, made for slippi
ng quickly through water, and it was beautiful and alien and arresting.
Seeing her this close, Braddock was caught between warring compulsions.
Mostly, he wanted to yank the strange, slim nymph from the river, pin her down, and ravage her with kisses, taste those blue lips, draw his lungs full of her exotic scent, and explore every inch of her feminine yet inhuman body.
His gut, however, was hollering for him to forget the pistols and hightail it out of there.
From afar, Cascadia had resembled a beautiful human woman with blue skin. Up close, there was no denying her alien nature. And because Cascadia was wholly beyond Braddock’s realm of experience, his gut was interpreting her confident beckoning as a trap.
Bottom line, however, he needed working pistols.
Reaching the shoreline, he placed a waterlogged cylinder in her webbed palm.
“Thank you,” Cascadia said, flashing him a smile before examining the cylinder. After a few seconds, she looked up and smiled again. “Yes, I could dry this for you, the metal, the powder, the wax, everything.”
“Great. Thank you.”
Cascadia tilted her head, smiling slyly. “I said I could do this. I didn’t say I would.”
“Quit jerking my chain, darlin. Are you going to help or not?”
“If we are to be lovers—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If we are to be lovers, Mr. Jedediah Braddock, we must begin our relationship correctly. After all, from this initial confluence will flow the river of our bound lives.”
Braddock reached down to take the cylinder from her, but Cascadia slipped backward through the water without so much as a splash.
“Hear me out, my love. I am not proposing equality. I am simply saying that we should honor one another. We are different, you and I, but that doesn’t mean we can’t flow in harmony. Let us begin by establishing a habit of mutual satisfaction. That is all I’m suggesting. I do something for you; you do something for me.”
Her tiny mouth smiled, and her blue-gray eyes shimmered a bit more brightly.
“What, precisely, are you proposing, darlin?”
16
Cascadia giggled playfully and buoyed up, raising the tops of her shapely breasts up so high that Braddock could see the suggestion of dark blue nipples wavering just beneath the surface. “Just… a little… kiss?”
“A kiss?”
She nodded, giving him the innocent routine.
“On the lips, right?” he clarified.
Cascadia gasped dramatically and leaned back, touching the fingertips of one hand to her upper breasts. “Yes, of course.” She laughed, cheeks blushing a darker blue, but it seemed to Braddock she was putting it on. “Where did you think I wanted you to kiss me? Oh, you’re bad, my love!”
“On the lips, then. I kiss you, and you fix these things?”
Just like that, she ditched the coy act and grew as shrewd as a trading post horse dealer. “For one kiss, I will dry one item.”
Her eyes darted over the cylinders, pistols, and back to him. “Four of these,” she said, hefting the cylinder in her palm, “two metal wands, and seven articles of clothing. Not counting your hat and coat. I’ll fetch and dry those for two kisses apiece. That’s eleven kisses total, and you’re dry from head to toe. Otherwise, I fear you will have a very cold walk home.”
Suddenly, the warmth he had been experiencing fled. Instantly, he was shivering with cold, as one would expect, standing coatless and hatless in wet duds with temperatures near freezing.
“Deal,” he said through chattering teeth.
“Do you swear to honor our agreement?”
“Sure.”
“Do you swear by the springs and streams?”
“Sure, darlin.”
“Say it.”
“I swear by the springs and streams I’ll give you eleven kisses if you dry out my gear. Now how long is this going to—”
But he didn’t even bother finishing his question, because the cold vanished.
Looking down, he realized his clothes were dry. So were the pistols. Peering into the extra cylinder, he saw the wax looked dry, too.
The water sprite had dried everything in the blink of an eye with no apparent effort whatsoever.
“Yes!” Cascadia cheered, pumping a tiny blue fist in the air. “Eleven kisses from a true man. Here you are, my love, take this cylinder as well and tuck it into your snug, dry pocket.”
Braddock was so stunned he followed her directions without question. Once he holstered his pistols and stowed the cylinders, she handed him his hat and coat. Both were dry as the Mojave.
Amazing.
He shrugged into his coat, set the hat atop his head, and touched the brim. “Thank you, darlin. Much obliged.”
Cascadia drifted up to the shoreline, grinning hungrily again. “Happy to help, my love. Now come over here and fulfill your promise to me.”
He crouched down in front of her.
Smiling, Cascadia slid forward, and lifted her upper body from the water, deftly covering her breasts with one arm as she braced herself on the other.
Rivulets of shining water streamed down her taut, lithe body. She was small boned with a tiny waist, but her shoulders were comparatively wide, and her limbs and abdomen were long and firm looking.
For that matter, every inch of her slender, finely sculpted body rippled with subtle muscle. Following a glistening bead of water as it rolled down the deep groove of her arched spine to the water, he watched the round perfection of her bare, blue bottom breach the surface.
For some time he simply stared, drinking in her beauty, drowning in it. He couldn’t even breathe. He could only stare and harden, thinking, Only eleven kisses?
A tidal wave of longing roared up through Braddock’s body and crashed into his skull, breaking hard against the shore of his mind, obscuring his thoughts in a heavy spray of desire.
He shook his head, trying to clear it, and the main body of his sudden lust pulled back out again, but urgent desire yet remained, swirling in hot tidal pools atop his brain, blurring his consciousness with lingering mists of longing.
Cascadia blinked at him, her pupils swollen with interest. “Kiss me, my love. Please kiss me.”
Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers. Another tidal wave slammed into his brain, washing away everything but a swirling madness of need and adoration.
“Oh, my love,” Cascadia moaned, and popped up to give him a quick, nipping kiss like a fish half-striking bait.
It wasn’t enough.
Braddock needed more, needed everything, needed all of this beautiful woman forever and ever and ever.
Strange thoughts flooded his mind, wavering images of Cascadia and him making love surrounded by wavering strands of green, ribbon-like plants, bubbles streaming from their nostrils, hair swaying in the currents as they bonded deep under water.
Cascadia’s lips brushed his ear, rousing him from this wonderful dream, and he felt her hand upon his wrist. “You may touch them,” she breathed, pulling his head toward her, and the next thing Braddock knew, his hand was full of the firm, wet globe of her breast.
She gasped at his touch and, dropping her lips below his jaw, sucked his neck as he cupped the smooth curve of her lower breast and hefted its heavy perfection. Spreading his fingers, he palmed her whole breast as she sucked and sucked at his neck. Again, his mind eddied with blissful images.
Catching her tiny nipple in his grasp, he gently rolled the hard nub between his thumb and forefinger as his imagination drifted into a scene of pure joy, the two of them swimming side by side deep under water, trailed by a dozen little nymphets, our beautiful daughters…
“Husband!”
Braddock jolted from his reverie, badly confused and aching with intense desire.
Someone pulled him back and away. The intruder had him under the shoulders and was dragging him backward, pulling him out of the water…
The water?
Yes, Braddock
realized, head clearing, he had been in the river. All the way up to his chest, in fact.
Philia hauled him back on dry land.
He sat up straight, shook his head, and said her name.
“What were you thinking, husband?” Philia asked.
“I don’t know…”
“Never talk to nymphs.”
A geyser of bubbly laughter exploded behind him, and Braddock looked toward the river, where Cascadia still bobbed, panting for breath and smiling mischievously. “Oh, my love, that was amazing!”
He scowled at her. “What did you do? I’m all wet again.”
“That makes two of us, love. And don’t you worry. Here.”
Just like that, he was dry once more. “Thank you,” he said grudgingly.
“My pleasure, love. Now come and give me those kisses.”
“Oh no you don’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t have gotten wet again if you hadn’t pulled whatever you just pulled on me. What did you just pull on me, anyway?”
“Me?” Cascadia said, touching the tops of her breasts in mock incredulity. She had slid her chest under the water again. He still hadn’t seen her breasts, but the memory of how they had felt lingered warmly on his fingertips like the aftertaste of ambrosia. “Is it my fault we were swept into a raging flood of mutual desire?”
The corners of her tiny mouth lifted into a devilish smile. “But I’ll have the balance. Seven kisses remain. I expect them shortly, my love. And once you have paid in full, you will beg for more. A lifetime more. And I, of course, will accept.”
With a quick splash, Cascadia dipped her head under the water and vanished.
Philia held his face in her hands and frowned. “What have you done, husband? What did she mean, seven kisses remain?”
Briefly, Braddock explained his crazy morning. The monster, the long fall, the wet clothes and gunpowder, and the basic deal he had struck with Cascadia: kisses for clothes and cartridges.
Philia was horrified that he’d nearly been eaten by a woolly dragon. But she seemed even more disturbed by the deal he’d struck with the water sprite.
“Oh no,” Philia groaned, shaking her head back and forth. “You didn’t promise, did you?”