Chapter 7

 

 

 

I lay there, stroking my beautiful tail, but knowing I had to either find a way to get to water quickly or make it go away, if I could. It was my heightened emotional state, the images in my head and the desire to be with him forever that brought it, could I undo what I had done.

“Take some deep breaths, and try to calm down a bit, then concentrate.” Thomas self-assuredly said to me. “You’ve got to try to make it disappear again, you can’t be out of water with it, you’ll die.” He slowly moved off the bed trying to make not rock so much, starting for the open bathroom door “I’ll run the tub full of water in the mean time,” He called to me as he rounded the corner into the small room. The next thing I heard was muffled because of the sound of water running, so I couldn’t make it out.

I closed my eyes, taking several deep breaths trying to calm myself from both the pleasure that we’d shared, and the pain and surprise of my tail appearing for the first time, it wasn’t working, I started to panic. I could feel myself starting to dry out and fade; tears welled hot and salty in my eyes. What if I couldn’t undo this? What then? I started over trying to undo my tail, make it, will it to go away, but I didn’t really want it to, yet I knew it I had to do it. I was so very scared that if I did succeed in making it disappear that I might never get it to come back again.

Thomas reemerged from the bathroom, “How are we doing out here?” I could hear the depth of concern in his voice it alarmed me. I closed my eyes trying again, breathing very slowly, and concentrating on making my tail reform into my legs. Thomas held his breath, waiting to see if I could accomplish the task. I blocked everything from my mind. I tried to imagine my legs, my torso, and the single line of lavender-silver scales. It still wasn’t working, I kept my eyes closed and prayed to the Goddess to help me, I felt strong arms slide under me lifting me much like you would a child who you were carrying to bed, I instinctively wrapped my arms around Thomas’ neck to steady my weight, as he lifted me to carry me to the tub. We rounded the corner, he walked over, bending gently at the knee sliding me into the water slowly tail first, a little bit at a time as not to shock my system, similar to the way you would accustom a new fish to a community aquarium, because after all, the metabolism is much the same when we are with our tails. I could feel the tension in his arms as he held me, not wanting to lower me in too fast, slowly just a bit more of my body went in the water, and a bit more, until I was finally as submersed as I could be in a bathtub.

“Relax, you’re safe now for the most part, where do you keep your linens?” Thomas asked, not really knowing his way around the apartment.

“Around the corner, on the shelf,” I about half pointed to where they were.

“Ok, you rest and get re-hydrated, I’ll be right back.” he said as he walked around the corner coming back with a large towel, which he submerged in the water laying it over top of me to keep the moisture in.

He then got up and headed back out the door of the bathroom. I could hear him rummaging around the kitchen, the fridge door opened and then shut, soon he reappeared with a bottle of water in one hand, and a half eaten banana in the other, he handed me the bottle of water instructing me to drink. I sat up in the tub, managing to wriggle myself around to where I was sitting sideways, leaning over the front of the tub. It’s a good thing that one of the things that sold me on this apartment was the replica claw foot bathtubs, they had reminded me of my paternal grandmother’s house when I was child, I had always been closer to my paternal grandmother than my maternal grandmother.

He finished off his banana and back out the door he went, I could hear him just on the other side of the wall, I heard the air conditioner come on, he must have turned up the humidifier because it didn’t feel as stuffy as it had at first.

He came back in to the bathroom sitting down on the carpeted floor next to me, taking my hand. I looked at his face, I could almost see the worry lines, but Mer don’t wrinkle. Thomas reassured me that I could do this, he asked me to try again to make my tail form back into my legs, I was much more relaxed, being in the water I was more comfortable. He kissed me passionately; I closed my eyes, envisioning my legs once more. The pain came, I felt as though the lower half of my body was going to burst into flames, then it eased I could feel the strangeness of my legs reforming themselves. I kept myself concentrating on the feeling of my tail dividing it’s self, the feeling of my feet forming out of my fin at the bottom of my tail. I could feel and hear the structure of muscles and bones reforming themselves my skin stretching back over me, the scales dissolving against my skin, the grinding and cracking as they repositioned themselves properly on my body.

I felt Thomas move my hand as he came to sit in the bathtub with me, slowly wrapping his arms around me as if to reassure me that everything was fine. This is something I should have already known how to do, why had it come so late in my life as compared to others? I didn’t understand what was going on, but I felt a certain feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction that I had finally done it. , as well as to be undoing it now. I wondered if it was this hard, this painful when others learned when they were in puberty. I felt the firmness, the warmth of Thomas pressing against me; it eased the tension in my body. I slowly started opening my eyes, the waves of strangeness in body had gone, I could no longer feel a solid tail, but two independent legs with feet at the bottom. I was almost scared to look, afraid I might have done it wrong and misplaced a part of my body, but everything was right where it was supposed to be, even Thomas.

We sat in the water for a long time, just holding each other, not talking, and just being together. It was as if this was how it was meant to be, Thomas and me together, almost as though it was willed by the Goddess herself that we be one. But why had neither of my parents taken the time to teach me this when I was supposed to learn it, why was it that I seemed so much less to them, yet so much more to Thomas? Why my accomplishments so much less to my parents were was it because I chose to excel at something in the human world rather than in the Mer world? Damn it, I am good at what I do, I have trophies, and acknowledgements to prove it.

I snuggled more tightly into Thomas’ arms, just taking in the feel and scent of him against me, now my world was perfect, and I by the will of the Goddess was going to keep it that way. “Thomas, can you teach me to fight?” I asked, “ I mean, like the guard trains, I’m going to have to know how to use a dagger, a sword, a trident as well as the hand to hand underwater combat if I’m going to challenge Emma, there’s no way around it.”

“Yes, I can teach you, “he replied, as he pulled me closer yet, “But not tonight, for tonight you’ve done quite enough.” I looked up as his boyish grin played at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know about you, “he whispered, “but I’m tired.”

Suddenly the door rattled, I had forgotten to do the chain lock, and only one person had a key to my apartment. It was James, he was using the spare key I’d given him, after everything tonight, and this was the last thing I wanted, or needed to have to deal with. Thomas got out of the tub, grabbing a dry towel that he had dropped on the floor earlier throwing up his personal illusion. I got out of the tub, stumbling a bit, standing on my legs felt awkward, almost painful. I worked my way through it, managing to grab the other towel, placing my own personal illusion. James was already in the apartment, he appeared through the bathroom door, my thong hanging off index finger of his right hand, his keys in the other, a look of sheer anger and disappointment on his face. I wasn’t sure he if he was going to come at me, or start crying like a spoiled child, who’s favorite toy had just been taken away from him.

 

 

 

Chapter Seven