I shucked my clothes and crawled into the hot tub. I tried to project maternal or medical images, but I’m not sure I succeeded. Weak as he was, he gave me a look that reminded me in no uncertain terms that he was male, gorgeous and untouched by human inhibitions. Pretty, he thought, or something like it. Different but pretty.
That startled me more than everything else that had already happened. Pretty? Me? Ben had never said I wasn’t, but he’d never said I was, either. In fact, he’d often had small polite suggestions for me: ‘You know, if you let your hair grow out … if you wore a little blush and eyeliner … if you tried some different clothes …’ But I keep my hair short and wear no makeup and choose simple clothes because I never know when my job will immerse me in water. In the end, Ben couldn’t accept that. Couldn’t accept that I’d rather walk on the beach than go to a nice restaurant, or read the latest scientific journal than see the latest movie. And so, in the end, he’d removed himself, leaving behind a few memories and a hot tub that ran on salt water.
Sad, the merman thought.
‘Not really,’ I said aloud, without thinking. ‘It’s just … sometimes I miss what might have been.’
Why spend so much time on what-might-have-been? Why not think about what-could-be?
Was I really doing that?
‘I miss him sometimes,’ I admitted. ‘But, to be honest, I wasn’t right for him.’ It didn’t even hurt to say it any more. ‘I’m not right for most people,’ I continued. ‘I’m very set in my ways, and I like being alone.’
The merman shook his head slightly, as if the movement tired him. It is not natural to be alone, he thought back to me. It is natural to find a mate and be joyous with her.
I got a mental picture of two merfolk playing in the water. The sun above sent beams slashing through the water, and the two played among them, darting and slipping around the light shafts. They could see all the way down to the ocean floor through clear turquoise water, and that was their next destination. They shot down, brushing through the swaying kelp in hot pursuit of a school of neon fish, laughing silently as the fish dashed between their webbed hands.
I didn’t get a sense of great romance, or even of sex; instead, it felt like exulting in being together with someone you cared for. More than friends, yes, but more than lovers as well.
The vision faded, and the emotions faded as well. I looked at the merman. His eyes were closed and his breathing even. Asleep. And I, lulled by the hum of the hot tub and the feel of his arms, inadvertently joined him.
When I woke, I was amazed to see how low the sun was in the western sky. The morning’s exertions had worn me out. I looked at the merman. He seemed to be asleep but, although his arms were around me, he wasn’t leaning on me for support any more. Instead, he bobbed gently in the hot tub’s mild currents. His colour looked better.
I extricated myself from next to him. He didn’t sink when I removed my remaining support. Good. I really needed to get out of the water.
I grabbed my flannel shirt and threw it over me as I scuttled, shivering, into the house for a much-needed bathroom visit. I checked back outside. The merman seemed fine, so I attended to the next demand from my body: food and drink.
I gulped a big glass of water, put tomato soup into the microwave and slathered butter on a piece of bread. I paused, the slice halfway to my mouth. If I was ravenous, how did the merman feel? And what was I going to feed him?
I continued to eat hastily once the soup was ready, standing in the doorway of the kitchen because it gave me a half-view of the hot tub on the porch. As I sopped up the last bit of soup with the last bit of bread, I saw movement. I was kneeling by the tub in seconds, reaching out a hand to comfort him when he glanced wildly around, not recognising his surroundings. I tried to project safety and healing. He stilled, and smiled up at me.
Thank you. He placed his hand over mine where it rested on his shoulder.
Nothing I could say to that. ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked.
The answer I got was clear. Well, he would eat raw fish, wouldn’t he?
All I had available were some frozen salmon burgers. He grimaced, but was hungry enough to try them. I visualised the local fish market and promised him something better in future.
While he ate, I made a cup of tea, and dressed warmly in jeans and a sweatshirt against the chill spring night.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked. It felt awkward to be sitting, clothed, apart from him, and for a moment I feared we wouldn’t be able to communicate if we weren’t touching.
He allayed my fears with a smile that reached his sea-green eyes. Much better. I owe my life to you … what shall I call you?
‘Maris.’ Somehow, my parents had predicted my vocation – it means ‘of the sea’. ‘What do I call you?’
For the first time, he made an actual noise, and it startled me so much that I jumped, and would have overbalanced into the tub if not for his hands flying up to support me.
He’d made a sound not unlike the song of a whale or the squeal of a porpoise. I don’t know why I’d expected anything else. Our ‘conversations’ hadn’t been in English. He conveyed images, ideas, concepts.
His touch had set me trembling, and I didn’t know why. To avoid thinking about that, I sat back up and continued on the language train of thought.
‘Well, I’m not sure I can reproduce that,’ I said with an embarrassed laugh. ‘Do you mind if I come up with something easier for me?’ At his mental assent, I thought for a moment and then suggested, ‘How about Dylan? He was an ancient sea god.’
He smiled again, and I felt a warm rush of acceptance. I was surprised at how happy I was that he liked the name I’d chosen for him.
I cocked my head. ‘You can’t produce the sound of my name. What do you want to call me?’
His generous lips silently formed the shape of my name. What I received was a bombardment of images. I saw myself as I must have looked to him when I found him on the beach, looking down at him. Helping him into the truck, easing him into the hot tub. A disconcerting sensation of how he felt when I held him in the tub. And, with it all, a rush of something I tried to put into words: safetysaviourbravestrongkindprettypeltless-one.
I was stunned by all the compliments I had never heard before. So stunned, in fact, that I could only react to the last one.
‘Peltless?!’ I blurted.
Sensation of laughter, and the reminder of what I had remembered about Ben hating my short hair.
Sensible, the merman commented. Short pelt on the head means easier swimming. Don’t understand how you keep warm, though – no pelt anywhere else. To emphasise, he placed his hand on me. On my breast.
The tingles I’d felt earlier exploded through me, much stronger this time.
I suppose that’s why you cover yourself in this chilly climate, he went on. Pity, though, because you have such a sleek shape and soft skin. He didn’t move his hand away; instead, he brushed it across me. My nipple sprang to life and I choked back a moan of pure desire.
‘Yes,’ I managed. ‘We wear clothing to keep us warm.’
It is warm in here. He stirred the water with his other hand, the web between his fingers causing ripples as if from a near-surface fish. He cocked his head, green eyes watching me intently. Will you … join me again?
As he asked the question, he flexed the hand against my breast.
The scientific part of my brain questioned the ethics of the situation, but the emotional part refused to listen. I undressed again. The goosebumps barely had time to rise on my skin before I slid into the hot tub and into his arms.
My nipples stayed hard and puckered despite the heated water, and he wasted little time covering one with his hand again. The feel of his webbed fingers against my breast inflamed me further.
I’ve always felt somewhat clumsy during lovemaking, something about too many flailing limbs (and one arm always trapped somehow) and jerky motions. That all changed, here in the water. Here it was like a slow
graceful dance. Instead of colliding against each other, we slid. Instead of random waving about, our movements were deliberate.
He claimed my mouth, one hand still trapped between us and teasing my nipple. I found myself trying to rub against him, and I felt his tail curl between my legs.
I tensed, intensely aware of how alien he was. Sexy as hell, but alien. It felt good – it felt amazingly good – but he was a different species.
Your body is new to me, too, Dylan thought at me. But tell me we are not cousins, your kind and mine.
I did. His eyes weren’t human, but the emotion and intelligence behind them felt like home. If you don’t want this, we can stop, he told me, but I hope you do. He showed me what he hoped, rather graphically. The combination of gentleness and desire overcame the last of my scruples.
I pressed myself against him, opening my legs so I could feel his tail there, and said, ‘Teach me how to touch you.’
We’ll learn together. His penis bloomed out of its sheath.
The area where his humanoid body and tail joined turned out to be remarkably sensitive. His tail flukes were remarkably adept at caressing my breasts and between my legs. Oral sex, I think, was new to him. I felt all kinds of questions when I took him into my mouth, but he shuddered with pleasure and his hands cupped the back of my head, encouraging me to continue.
Stroke around … I got the image: as I sucked, he wanted me to caress the slit into which his cock would retract. It was a little bit like touching myself, but not really, because he was so very male. The organ convulsed at my touch, and his cock jumped. I rubbed up against him fiercely, knowing I couldn’t hold my breath much longer.
As I thought that, I tasted him and actually felt his ecstasy flooding me, triggering my own answering orgasm.
His first thought, when he could think anything coherent, was: Does it work if I use my mouth on you?
Fortunately, I didn’t need to answer him in words.
For someone who had never tried oral sex before, Dylan had good instincts and more enthusiasm than Ben ever had. Of course, it helped that he didn’t need to come up for air. Delicious, I felt him think. His tongue explored me fearlessly, even licking my ass before heading back to my clit and settling there. My right leg was draped over his shoulder, and I was clinging to the edge of the tub. It should have been terribly awkward, but all I could care about was the velvet of his tongue and lips caressing me, pushing me … One hand braced me. He used two fingers from the other to enter me as he licked. I felt his anticipation at the tight heat of my pussy, his excitement, and I screamed as I came.
There was an awkward moment when we realised that, while we were both frantic to fuck, we weren’t sure how to go about it. It was more like an awkward twenty minutes, during which we thrashed around, and laughed a lot, and got each other more and more excited and more and more frustrated. Finally, even though I’d never felt comfortable on top, I couldn’t stand it another second. I straddled him, wrapping my legs around his hips as he floated, and eased his cock into me. Then I stretched forwards, my breasts brushing his chest. He pulled me down and kissed me deeply and began to move, thoroughly taking control.
I’d always thought of great sex – the kind I’d daydreamed about – as crashing breakers, rough and a little frightening. With Dylan, it was more like a strong warm current, steady and powerful. We couldn’t move together violently, but his rocking inside me was relentless and wonderful, and I found an answering motion in my own hips. It was a slow build-up, molten and tender, and it seemed to me that we spent more time than usual looking into each other’s eyes.
We were doing that when I came, and in his eyes I saw my pleasure echoing and triggering the same in him. Connected as we were, I felt that in the same way I felt his thoughts, felt the concentrated heat of a male orgasm, and that set me off again. This in turn gave him fresh inspiration, and he choreographed me into a floating 69.
I lost count, eventually, of how many times we came, and all the different ways. What remained clear, besides the great pleasure, was the tenderness in his eyes and his touch, and the feeling that I had somehow come home.
I didn’t want to go to work the next day. I woke to the sunrise, still curled in a sleeping bag on the deck. My right arm was covered with dew because I’d slept with it stretched out so we could hold hands. He woke at the same time, and I crawled into the warm water and his magical hands. Eventually, though, I had to leave him, with a bowl of raw fish on ice.
Work was interminable. I was overseeing delivery of some sea turtles that had been stranded in the same conditions that had left Dylan collapsed on the sand. Somehow I managed to muddle through without harming any of the poor creatures. I left as early as I could and raced home to the hot tub and Dylan.
Dylan was floating on his back, which panicked me into a run. When he heard me, though, he thrashed around and raised his upper body out of the water. I ran to him (dropping the package of haddock on the deck) and we kissed over the side of the hot tub, our thoughts meeting and twining. Desire and pleasure – he had missed me at least as much as I missed him. More, because he didn’t have the distraction of work.
But I liked watching the birds. You have different gulls here, and little songbirds. He visualised sparrows, chickadees, red-winged blackbirds. And some not so little – the Canadian geese in the salt flats. Your land is different from what I know of the islands near me, but the sea is so different I shouldn’t be surprised. Things are quieter colours here, but it matches the grey climate.
‘You’re from the tropics, aren’t you?’
I was rewarded by an answering nod.
‘Did you get lost? You’re a long way from home.’
I was curious to see other parts of the ocean. And where we live, the last few seasons, it has been almost too warm. The coral is suffering, and it’s harder to find food. Where the water is colder, there is more plankton, and so more fish. We have never been migratory, but I wished to see if it were possible. But I went farther than I meant. I was learning so much!
I must have registered surprise at the scientific curiosity, not to mention his understanding of El Niño, because he laughed at me.
We already know we are cousins, your species and mine. You love to learn more about the world. Why should I not be the same?
Why indeed? Because we spoke to each other ‘in translation’, communicating more with feelings and impressions than with words, I had thought him naive. But, like myself, he was a student of the ocean – only he could know it in a much more intimate way than I ever could.
Once we figured that out, we spent the time we weren’t making love ‘talking’ about the sea. Among his own people, it turned out, he was the equivalent of a biologist. They had no written language, but their telepathic abilities helped them share knowledge.
From all our ‘conversations’, I got a very distinct impression of Dylan’s underwater home. Based on the wildlife, it was somewhere in the southwestern Caribbean. But where? I was dying to know. He didn’t know our names for the islands. One day, though, something he’d said about turtles sparked my memory. Excusing myself, I ran back into the house. Dripping water everywhere, I leafed through a stack of magazines until I found some articles on the turtle sanctuaries on Turks and Caicos that showed underwater views. When I showed him, he nodded sadly. We used to live there, but too many of your kind dive there now. We moved.
Of course. The Turks and Caicos chain was quiet compared to flashier tourist meccas in the region, but it was popular with divers. It would be far too crowded for his people’s safety.
Where had they gone? I found myself reviewing scenery from the area, but I hadn’t spent much time in the Caribbean. I tried to remember underwater scenes from the internship I did during my senior year of college at a remote, almost uninhabited island, and my follow-up visits there when it became the field station for the region’s first Marine Protected Area.
Yes, he told me, there! You have been there?
I love it there. I didn’t need to explain to him that I could say that about few other places besides that tiny island and Cape Cod. He knew.
An image of us swimming together in those clear warm waters. Then you can come with me when I go home. You must live on land, but we would be close.
Then he physically pulled back from me. You don’t want to?
How could I explain it to him when I couldn’t even explain it to myself? I’d felt lost during my time at the field station. I’d only gone as far as U-Mass Dartmouth for my undergraduate degree. I’d done my master’s at University of Rhode Island so I could commute. This spit of sandy land and the ocean around were in my blood, almost literally. My ancestors were among the first white settlers in the area, and I knew just which overgrown cemeteries held their graves – or the marker commemorating a death at sea. I couldn’t possibly leave …
I was afraid to leave, I realised suddenly. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before – but that panicky feeling in my gut had more to do with the prospect of leaving the area than with the realisation I was in love with someone who wasn’t even my species.
He swam back to me now and put his arms around me. Your home is beautiful, but there is so much more to see, friendloveplaymate. The ocean is vast. And change is scary, I know, but I’ll be there with you. And then he kissed me with such tenderness and yearning that I resolved I would try to get over my fears of leaving.
I meant to think it through rationally, I really did, but instead, that night, I ended up in the hot tub with him, unable to think about anything except his hands, his cock, his tail. For the rest of that week, we tried not to think of the future.
By the next Monday, I realised I couldn’t let him go forever. I didn’t know if we could really have a future together, but I had to try. And I had to see his part of the ocean with him as my guide.
Love on the Dark Side Page 7