Seven Tears at High Tide

by C. B. Lee

  “Here you go.” Morgan hands the cards to Kevin, who’s turned a bright red.

  “Uh, thanks.” Kevin ignores Morgan’s outstretched hand and tries to stuff a number of colorful objects back into the upended box.

  “What’s all this?” Morgan sets the cards down and watches.

  “Nothing! It’s nothing.” Kevin shoves the box back under the bed, picking nervously at his shirt. His cheeks are flushed, and Morgan can smell Kevin’s embarrassment.

  There’s a bright blue square package that Kevin missed, and Morgan picks it up curiously. The label reads Cal State San Luis Obispo Student Health Services. Is it some sort of medical product?

  “Ah, yeah, that’s uh, I don’t have that because I was plan­ning to, um, I mean, if you—I mean I already had those!” Kevin stam­mers. “When I came out to my parents, they were, like, super supportive, and my mom got all this stuff for me from her work.”

  “Are you ill? This is some sort of health product?”

  “That’s a condom, Morgan. Have you… never seen one before?” Kevin blinks at him.

  Morgan shakes his head.

  “You can open it and look at it if you want. I know not everyone has access to, like, proper sex education, or very enthusi­astic parents like mine.”

  Morgan raises his eyebrows when he hears the word “sex” and tears open the package to look at the object inside. It’s a soft ring of manmade material, slightly wet to the touch. It smells… kind of sweet. He brings it up to his nose, and the fruity scent gets stronger, and Morgan sticks his tongue out to taste it.

  “Oh my God, stop,” Kevin says, almost hysterically. “You’re ridiculous—what are you doing?”

  Morgan unravels the thing to reveal a floppy tube, sniffing at it to see if the scent persists. “Why does it smell like the candy you had me try yesterday?”

  Kevin looks at the package. “Uh, I guess this one is blueberry flavored.”

  Morgan doesn’t know what blueberries taste like, so he licks the condom, making a face at the sharp tang of the material and the too-sweet stickiness. Kevin starts laughing, and the embarrassed tension in the air gives way to fond amusement.

  “You haven’t explained what this is,” Morgan says.

  “I did!” Kevin blurts out. He buries his face in his hands. “It’s for sex,” he adds in a stilted whisper.

  Morgan stops himself before making a comment about humans and their strange mating practices that require these extra things. Maybe these fruity-flavored things are like a courting gift that you present to your intended. But Kevin said it was for sex. Morgan gives him a blank look. “How?”

  “Wow, you are really sheltered.” The scent of embarrassment is back in the air. Kevin gestures hopelessly and looks at Morgan, but the human gesture is completely lost on him. “You know….”

  Morgan shakes his head and scoots closer.

  Kevin toys with the hem of his shirt. “Um, it’s like, for protec­tion. You put it on your penis. There are different kinds for people with different genitals; I think my mom may have gotten just a bunch of stuff.” He takes the box out now and starts rifling through it, and Morgan peers closer. In addition to the small foil squares, there are different colorful packages in different sizes and a number of bright, glossy pamphlets.

  Morgan unfolds one to a diagram. “Proper Preparation and You,” he reads aloud. The illustration looks like nothing he’s ever seen before, and he says as much to Kevin. “What is this?”

  “I think… that’s a butt.”

  “A butt?” Morgan shrieks. It isn’t long before Kevin is laughing with him, and the two of them dissolve into unrepentant giggling. They go through the rest of the contents of the box, looking through and reading some of the pamphlets. It’s fun, especially when Kevin starts reading aloud from some of the pamphlets in an exaggerated voice, as if he’s performing a part in a story.

  “This is kind of cool,” Kevin says, when they’re putting the box back under the bed.

  “What is?”

  “How you’re not, like, embarrassed about any of this. It’s just interesting to you, like we might as well be learning about world history or something.” Kevin looks at him with an appreciative smile.

  Morgan shrugs. “It is interesting, the mechanics of sex. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Kevin looks at him expectantly, pushing himself off the floor. He stands there with an air of nervousness, as if he’s waiting for Morgan to say something else about the sex supplies, but Morgan just takes Kevin’s offered hand and smiles. “Thank you for sharing this with me. It was fun.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Kevin seems surprised but pleased. He hugs Morgan and kisses him quickly on the cheek, relaxing into Morgan’s arms. “Do you wanna stay for dinner?”

  “Thank you, but I’m expected at home.” Technically Morgan is allowed to spend as much time as he wants on land for his Request, but he knows it would be strange if he were around all the time, and he’s been trying to keep up the appearance of being human.

  Kevin walks him to the door and kisses him softly. “Are you free tomorrow?”

  Morgan nods.

  Kevin beams at him; the smile stretches across his face from ear to ear. “Great! See you then.”

  “I love you! Goodbye!” Morgan hugs him once more, and Kevin pats him stiffly on the back.

  “I—okay—goodbye,” Kevin stammers, waving as Morgan walks away from the house.

  It’s high tide when Morgan gets back to the beach, but that’s no problem for him, even in his human form. He dives headfirst into the waves, heading sidelong for the hidden cave where he’s stashed his pelt. The salty air is cold and crisp on his wet skin, and he shivers a little as he surfaces for air. Taking a deep breath, Morgan finds the cave floor and tugs his pelt free of the rock trapping it on the ground. He takes care to fold up Kevin’s sweatshirt neatly and secure it with the rock, then stuffs the shorts haphazardly next to it.

  Transforming takes only a moment, for Morgan to think about his seal form and call it forward. With the next wave, Morgan is a seal again, sleek and powerful, heading toward the horizon. Despite the late hour, the sun still hangs above the water, gleaming yellow and making the waves sparkle and dance. Morgan hears the cries of seagulls in the air and the distant barks of the seals sunning themselves on the beach.

  Morgan barks a greeting to them as he swims past, and the response is convoluted, a rush of noise and laughter, the sense of warmhappyfedwarmhappyfed. There’s good hunting near here, Morgan surmises from the way one of them in the water is barking at him, but he can’t understand properly what she’s saying.

  She gestures to him, as if she wants him to follow, and Morgan tries to tell her he’s on his way home to his own herd, and to convey his thanks, but he knows she probably doesn’t understand his words. She yips out a reply, and swims back to join her own herd at the rookery.

  Morgan shakes his head and continues the long swim back home. Selkies and their more mundane cousins have always been able to communicate, and it’s never bothered him before that it’s not exact… they’re just different. But this seal reminds him of one he met before on his travels, a seal that was part of another selkie herd, up in the icy waters. The selkies treated her like family, hunting with the seal and talking with her. He wondered at the time how the seal had come to be with them, but he quickly put it out of his mind in favor of following his sister and their new friends in a game of ice sliding. Morgan remembers it now in startling clarity, thinks about his “conversation” with that other seal, and how he might feel if she were his sister.

  He takes a deep breath of air and dives. It’s better to focus on Kevin, how their relationship is faring, and whether the Request is going well. The Sea churns around him with nothing but approval and more information about humans, if he wants it right now.

  Morgan does not. H
e wants to understand why it makes Kevin uncomfortable when Morgan tells him he loves him. He wants to know what he’s doing wrong.

  He gets to the beach shortly after sunset, as the glowing pink sky is fading to purple. Naida is singing a story, acting out the humorous verses about a selkie from the warm waters who loved a selkie from the icy north. The song is silly and the pups are laughing, rolling around on the sand. Linneth watches her daugh­ter with a doting smile, swaying with the rest of the herd, caught up in the light mood of the song.

  Morgan shuffles to the circle and watches from a few feet away, not wanting his conflicting emotions to bring down the atmosphere. Linneth catches his eye and whispers something softly to the selkie next to her. In a flash she’s transformed, tall and stately, draping her pelt around her shoulders and walking gracefully over to Morgan on her human legs.

  “Hello, Mother.”

  “Morgan.” Linneth kisses him on the head. “Why don’t you take a walk with me?”

  “Sure.”

  Morgan is still tired from his swim, so he’s a little off bal­ance when in human form again. His mother catches him gently by the elbow and guides him up the shore, away from the others.

  “How are you? I know that every night you’ve returned with many stories of you and Kevin, and how wonderfully you’re getting on, but you have that look.”

  “What look?” Morgan sighs.

  Linneth smiles at him and sits on a boulder, then pats the space next to her. She doesn’t say anything, just looks up at the stars. They’re starting to come out, glimmering at them from millions of miles away.

  Morgan watches the sky with his mother, staring at the infinite silence above them, puzzling over what he wants to ask and how to say it. A wave gently comes ashore, trickling over their feet, bringing with it the slight touch of the Sea. Morgan supposes he could always ask the Sea, but he doesn’t know what kind of answer he would get, and how much of it would be something he already knows, and how he would have to struggle to figure out what it meant.

  “The humans often look to the sky for answers,” Linneth says, so softly it’s almost to herself. The starlight reflects in her eyes as she gazes skyward.

  “And are they there?” Morgan blinks at the stars.

  Linneth shrugs. “Perhaps. It’s an inspiration to them, but in my experience, a person may find the answer they seek simply in laying out their problem.”

  Morgan stares at his feet, at the imprint they make in the sand, watching the water trickle slowly back down to the ocean.

  “Or you can always ask me.” Linneth’s laughter tinkles like bells.

  “Is—is love different for humans and selkies?”

  His mother does not answer, and Morgan looks over to see her lost in thought. “I don’t believe so,” she finally says. “Why do you ask?”

  “I love Kevin, but every time I tell him, he gets—I don’t know how to describe it. Like he just doesn’t know how to respond and he’s really uncomfortable.” Morgan wiggles his toes into the sand.

  After a long silence with nothing but the stars blinking at them, his mother speaks. “You ask if love is different for humans and selkies, and at the core of it, I do not think it means different things to us. But that’s not what you’re asking, is it, Morgan? You want to know why your overtures are received differently.”

  “I’m just telling him how I feel!”

  Linneth smiles at him and runs a hand through his hair. “How do you know you love him?”

  “I read his heart the first time I saw him.”

  “The humans do not share this gift of ours. How do you think they love?”

  Morgan falters, thinking about the body he’s in, how limited life must be for them. He takes a deep breath, feeling the grains of wet sand sticking between his toes, and thinks about how humans must love one another, the movies he’s seen, the way Kevin’s parents look at each other. It’s like one of those math problems he has trouble understanding, as if it’s in a different language. Which is silly, since he can understand all the human languages, but he can’t quite answer this question.

  His mother gives him a small smile and taps him under the chin. “It is the selkie way to be able to see inside someone’s heart, the way we have been able to throughout all our history. To know each other instantly gives us the chance to recognize compatible partners in our brief encounters with other herds, so we might have the most information available to decide whether to leave with another herd or not.”

  Morgan nods. This is not new to him, but he has to wonder how humans pick their mates.

  His mother laughs lightly at his confused face and explains. “Humans take time to look for mates, getting to know them over the course of their lives. Surely you’ve noticed that in your time with Kevin you’ve learned more about him than what you saw in your initial reading.”

  Morgan nods.

  “There’s a difference between falling in love and just knowing you love him,” Linneth says. “And I’m happy that you have this opportunity to do both. The human way is quite rewarding, you know.”

  Thinking about this answer, Morgan leans into his mother’s side. She draws her arm around his shoulders and strokes his skin in soothing circles. Morgan thinks he understands; he likes the idea of this—falling in love the human way, slowly, the way Kevin would. If he feels that way.

  “What if—”

  Linneth shushes him and points toward the sky.

  “I am sure he adores you,” she says after a long moment of nothing but the sound of the waves and their soft breaths. “He brings you food gifts and takes you to see beautiful things and shares stories with you. Everything you have told me about him only assures me that your choice to take this Request was the right one, that this will be a good experience for you.”

  “The Council chose me.”

  “You chose Kevin. You heard his Request first, made contact with him and, even if you did not know it at the time, you chose to be that person he needed. I understand, Morgan. I know that I am old and your mother, but I have loved before, you know.”

  “I know.” Morgan rolls his eyes. He doesn’t remember his mother’s old mate, Erik, the father of Naida and his other older siblings, but everyone in the herd always talked about what a wonderful pair they made, how kind and loving he was, before his untimely death at the jaws of a shark. And Morgan knows his mother is happy with Joren, her current mate. He grew up with fond memories of Joren, and learned to hunt thanks to his calm and steadfast teaching manner. He doesn’t know why his mother needs to remind him of this, that she’s loved before. He has plenty of siblings to remind him of that fact.

  “I’m talking about your father, Morgan.”

  Morgan turns to look at her.

  “Don’t look so shocked. I’m just surprised you never ask me about him, that’s all.”

  “I have!”

  “Not since you were a pup,” Linneth chides.

  “I didn’t want to bring up sad memories. I used to wonder if, looking at me, you would see—him.”

  “Sometimes, maybe, in the curve of your jaw or the way that you laugh. It doesn’t make me love you any less, you know. You are your own person, Morgan, not just my son or your father’s son.” Linneth kicks at the water, playfully splashing Morgan.

  “What was he like?”

  Linneth’s smile turns melancholy, and Morgan regrets the ques­tion now, even though she was the one to bring up his father. “Now that would be bringing up sad memories,” she says softly. “Do not worry about your Kevin feeling strange when you announce your affections; it doesn’t mean he isn’t enjoying your company. You are doing a wonderful job.”

  “Thank you, mother.”

  She stands up. “Do you have any other questions I can answer right now?”

  Morgan shakes his head.

  “I’m going to spend s
ome time with the Sea. You enjoy the rest of your night, darling.” Linneth kisses Morgan softly on the forehead and walks into the surf. She transforms easily and dives into the ocean.

  Morgan watches her resurface and float on her back. The moon­light glitters on the water, and his mother is a lone shadow looking toward the silhouetted land in the distance.

  * * *

  As natural as it seems to tell Kevin how he feels, in the days that follow Morgan swallows back the “I love you” he wants to say. It still comes out sometimes, but he’s doing a lot better, or maybe Kevin’s getting used to it, because Kevin just smiles and accepts his affection, though he doesn’t say anything in return.

  One afternoon Morgan is sprawled across Kevin’s bed with his head in Kevin’s lap as he holds up flashcards for Kevin; he smells Kevin’s contentment as he combs his fingers through Morgan’s hair. He is about to comment on that scent, but then remembers what Naida had told him: Some of his selkie senses will carry over to his human form, including a distinct sense of smell, his swimming abilities and seeing in the dark. He must be careful of mentioning them, as humans find them strange.

  Being a selkie is not always an advantage. Unused to legs instead of flippers, at first Morgan huffs and puffs behind Kevin when they hike. He gets much better, though, and now feels as secure walking on two legs as he does swimming. He’s even confident walking along the shifting docks as they bob with the waves in the harbor, while holding hands with Kevin as he points out the boathouses.

  They hike all over San Simeon State Park, and soon each and every trail is familiar to Morgan. From the way he eagerly shows Morgan his favorite viewpoints or pulls him over to look at his favorite informative signs, it’s clear that Kevin’s spent a lot of time here.

  A sign about seals overlooking a view of the ocean is one of Kevin’s favorites. It makes Morgan laugh. The first time they saw it, Kevin clapped his arms to his sides and wobbled around, trying to imitate a seal.

  “That’s not how we—they walk,” Morgan said.

  Kevin didn’t seem to notice his slip-up, just laughed and made a sharp barking sound. He did his best seal impression, clapping his arms together as if they were flippers, and Morgan threw his head back and laughed at the sight. “You’re ridiculous.”