Of course they will show none until they have brought me to another shivering climax. Even Goodman Plow looks more pleased with my response than he did while he was made to watch me being taken by the other two.
I am allowed to dress myself in my woollen gown under the watchful eyes of my examiners before my hands are bound so that I may be led from the room. The cool, capricious air touches me in the same way as the deacon’s fingers. I wonder if my descendants, God grant them life, will know of my history when I am gone.
Fairy Tail
J. D. Munro
Why not? If Mutt changed her body, why couldn’t I?
All the other sea folk spoke the Little Mermaid’s name in hushed bubbles, tsk tsking. But I call her Mutt. Shorthand for mute, mutated, and mixed breed. The perennial star of our passé piscine show, century to century, culture to culture. Fairy tales, animated kiddy musicals, operas, Daryl Hannah movies, famous statues, yadda yadda. A merlad like myself could get sick of having her tail-to-twat saga rubbed in my face – a tale told by the elders to warn me against yearning to be somebody else, somewhere else, but I envied her transformation from scales to skin. They talked like she was the only water-breather besides Neptune who did anything of note. Like she was the only one clever enough to hitch a ride out of the murky ocean depths. Well, I didn’t have Mutt’s flawless soprano to trade in for human legs, but I did have something she didn’t.
Me, I wasn’t sorry Mutt left the ocean for terra firma. I got her sea cave. The mer-tribe avoided her tainted sanctuary, fearing the misfit’s curse. But I was spawned discontented, so I wasn’t worried. I played with Mutt’s barrettes and bikini tops for hours. Mutt bitched about aquatic life for good reason. The makeup sucks. Squid ink can’t hold a candle to Revlon, and salt’s murder on the complexion.
Mostly, though, Mutt’s escape showed me possibilities. You thought she had it bad, wanting feet instead of flippers, but I was born the wrong species and the wrong sex. Not only half piscine, half mammalian, but boy body, girl desires. A damn guppy with a mustache instead of mammary glands. Half vertebrate class Osteichthyes and wholly male. Could’ve been worse, I know. Could’ve been of the superclass Agnatha, the jawless fishes. They’re not called hagfish for nothing.
At least guys on land could express themselves. Cologne, natty slacks, a flamboyant cravat. Less than satisfying if Joe Schmo really wanted ovaries, but at least fashion possibilities existed. Me, I was perennially naked, half epidermis, half scales. Sure, I had a more colorful tail than the girls, but the merchicks could paint their fingernails, stuff their closets with bikini tops and corsets, select coral baubles from overflowing jewelry boxes, garland their hair, pierce their ears. Me? Nada. Zilch. Same weary ho hum day after day unless I wanted to pump up my biceps or sport a fucking Flipper tattoo. All I had was my ass-length hair, which the merfolk elders insisted I cut. The Flotsam Child days ended with the war, they said, and it was time I jettisoned the Age of Aquarius getup.
That was the last straw. The sea king lectured me constantly, not only for my excessive surface time and lack of attention to his daughters (Lord, but we’re short on grooms down here – we’re teeming with maids but, think about it, how often do you hear about us merlads?), but for my ways. Someone tattled about my drag. (I knew who it was, the wall-eyed son-of-a-bitch, and I got him back when I lured a trawler in his direction. I am nothing if not a master baiter.) Until I cut my hair and buried the lipstick, the king forbade me both the surface and Mutt’s cave – I was persona non grotto. Algae-covered and miserable, I wanted to throw myself to the sharks.
Between you and me, the king wasn’t averse to an occasional feel of boy scales. The giggling nymphs got on his nerves, and he craved an occasional rough and tumble in the sand. Oh, I rolled in the surf with him on occasion, our tails intertwined, but it never amounted to more than a lot of frustrated flapping. He got me pretty sticky, but the salt water washed it right off.
And once I was dressed, with my best pearls and seashell top (and you thought underwire bras were the pits), enticing ships off course. Sunning on a reef with only my torso showing, I was passing, all right. As a girl and human. You should have seen the gestures from those sailors! I learned some choice slang.
And then up popped the king, in more ways than one. My excited tail was causing quite an underwater stir. He tackled me without so much as an introduction, and he didn’t read me. Hello, can you tell the difference between a boy tail and a girl tail? He didn’t recognize me with my makeup, either. Thought I was an exotic maid from the other side of the equator. Folks believe what they want to. We frolicked and splashed for hours in the moonlight. He kept trying to cop a feel, but I was too quick for him. My coy silence attracted him (the voice could give a lad away) – a refreshing change for him, since the undersea chatter can be deafening. You try sleeping through the Humpback mating season, and the dolphins aren’t much better. Yack yack yack. And just wait until a ship passes the Sirens. Their racket could rupture an eardrum! Later on, I would catch the king looking wistful up on that reef.
I had my own human prince, too. Mutt’s not the only one with a regal lover. Shipwrecked nobility’s a dime a dozen. How many princes getting washed overboard does it take for humans to get it? You’d think they’d learn to lash those pretty boys to the deck. Keep ’em safe, plus they’d get into light bondage – kinky inbred aristocracy’s no secret. And did you ever notice our fairy tale’s the only one where the guy gets rescued? No wonder my gender orientation’s all screwed up.
So, anyway, there was my drowning beefcake, clinging to a rock. I didn’t know at the time if he was heir to any throne, but he had a most princely package. He was newt, I mean nude, stripped naked by the turbulent waters of desire (i.e. me) and in need of resuscitation. Could I help it if I latched onto the first appendage available? He came to life, in more ways than one. The piscine pecker remains private no matter the stage of ecstasy, but this transformation . . . a jellyfish turned into a dolphin snout! Holy mackerel! My tail ached. Not to have such a sea snake, but to have one inside me.
The prince woke up. It was love at first sight on his part. All he could see was the top of my bobbing head and my long hair floating with the current, so let’s say my personality won him over. I kept him on that rock a couple of days, having sport with him. But, like all fairy tale creatures, he pined for his own kind, and I had to carry him home.
He knew what I was, in one respect. When he arched his back and latched his legs around me, his little submarine could only slide against my scales. And there’s the irony. Humans idolize mermaids as sexual beings, the pinnacle of erotic imagery. But it’s all slippery foreplay. Hello, dudes, there’s nowhere to put your love thang. It’s, like, so obvious. Mermaid. Get it? Read eternal virgin. Duh. What are you mortal boys all thinking?
But my prince didn’t know that even without the tail, my body lacked a lady’s accommodating seam. That my bikini top covered only handfuls of seaweed. That he kissed boy lips, artfully painted and which he dutifully smudged with sloppy passion. That my slim hips were due to more than late pubescence. That what he thought was my clitoris was actually a shining example of the well-camouflaged piscine penis. Think about it: have you even seen one on a whale? No matter the size, the sleek design is most accommodating to my designs. For which I’m grateful. I never had to go to the uncomfortable lengths of disguise as my protruding human counterparts, poor dears. Try hiding a torpedo in your lace panties. Ow.
I never confessed the truth to my princely lover. The human male might lust after a little inter-species or even extra-terrestrial intercourse, especially when their sexually-aggressive she-lover’s on top, but threaten their fragile heterosexual masculinity and, girlfriend, you’re in trouble. You catch my drift.
Maybe you’re thinking that I wasn’t a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Maybe I was just that way. You know, limp-wristed. My scales rippled when I watched pirates and their cabin boys, sure. I’d take it over a tail. But I wanted the
Carmen dress. The red lipstick, gypsy earrings, and fishnet stockings. If my legs were going to ache with the dagger slice of their magic creation, then my feet might as well kill me in heels.
With talk of a buzz cut and marriage to Mutt’s sister looming, I was ruining my nails with worry. I had to act quickly. There’s no deep sea sex reassignment surgery, honey. Just wands and spells. And I intended to use them. If that damn Mutt with her incessant humming could splice her way to happiness like an Oscar-winning film editor, then why couldn’t I? If the old sea witch, Jezibaba, could put a hole between Mutt’s new legs, why not mine? While I went about morphing into a mammal down there, why should I have to sprout a sea cucumber instead of excavating a cave?
It’s not like Mutt has all the necessary equipment. They talk about Happily Ever After, but all she can do is squirt out caviar. She got the bearded clam, but not the indoor plumbing, and Mutt’s prince needed an heir. Nobody’s gotten the ending right – not Hans Christian, not Walt, not Dvorak. I felt sorry for her. She crept out at night to bury her eggs in the sand. Kissed by moonlight and sea foam, they turned into phosphorescent pearls. Mutt’s put on weight, too. You can’t blame a girl. Éclairs are a damn sight better than plankton.
But what to give up in my quest for not only knees, but a pussy instead of a penis? Trading scales for snatch requires more than a Gold card. I can’t carry a tune to save my life, so trading my voice for a vulva like Mutt wasn’t an option. Nor would I trade my hair, long and luxurious, my key to passing as a damsel. If a mullet-cut was to be my fate, I’d rather keep my gills and marry the eldest daughter. Not my pretty features, my green eyes, nuh uh. I wasn’t of the nobility – I was a poor serf – so what could I offer in exchange for the proverbial knife? I conceived of an idea.
The sea witch was happy to see me. Since she was responsible for Mutt’s now being a mute, overweight, and infertile Homo sapiens, the king forbade any intercourse with her, talking or touching. And there was the problem. There were no undersea sperm donor banks, and Jezibaba’s biological clock was ticking. She could morph life, but she couldn’t create it except for the old fashioned way. She required a Daddy to help her hatch some eggs. She needed some fertilizer and she needed some bad. Her eyes lit up at my proposition, and she took my bait. We shook fins on our deal.
So I blew my wad before I lost the spout. Milked myself right into an oyster shell. The prospect of my new body so excited me that I donated a healthy supply. Beats spilling my guts ad nauseam to a therapist to get the sex change stamp of approval.
Jezibaba was touched by my gift of a turkey baster. I mean, ew, you didn’t think I was going to flop around with her in the shallows, did you? She was already in the family way as I floated away to my new terrestrial destiny.
The waves tossed me on shore as a stark naked human female. Jezibaba in her gratitude outdid herself. “Make ’em big, Jezzy,” I had told her. “If I’m gonna do this, I don’t want no A cup.” I’ve got wide shoulders, and my knockers needed to look proportionate.
Now, I’m no dummy. I didn’t wash up on a deserted beach in a fairy tale, where there’s only one good catch, like it’s the prince or the stable boy. Please. That is so twentieth century. No bottom fishing for me. This girl’s entrance would be a splash. Praise be waterproof mascara.
I chose Miami Beach in broad daylight. Who should be tanning himself as I rose out of the foam but the modeling agent for Cindy Crawford (you tell me she doesn’t have a secret past with such a name.) I knew he was vacationing there – I watched Entertainment Tonight on passing cruise ships. He landed me a contract and popped my cherry, too – after we signed on the dotted line. More fun than a cold and clinical vaginal dilator for keeping a new well drilled.
Now I walk the catwalks of Paris and New York. I’m so famous that people know me by one name, Merléné. Mutt got a scum-slick statue in Copenhagen, but I got the cover of Vogue. You wouldn’t believe my net income. My fan club members are quite the fawning groupers. Critics predict that my career will flounder, but, tthhpptt, I don’t age! My managers keep me out of the sun, to preserve that “effervescent sheen” the photographers rave over, though they complain that I squirm. I’ve been called captivating, enchanting, and mysterious, with other-worldly good looks. I know how to angle for a compliment. If they only knew what used to pulse beneath my thong. They long for my autobiography, but that’s a tail no one will believe.
It’s not that I don’t miss the sea sometimes. More than one lover has told me I undulate excessively in the sack. I’m hypersensitive about references to a fishy odor, though I’m told this is normal. Once when I was drunk I let out that I was piscine. What a gaff! But my date thought I said Episcopalian. Another guy thought I meant my astrological sign. Like I said, folks believe what they want.
Sometimes I ache for my tail. Mine was gorgeous. The male of the species always lucks out that way. My iridescent green scales glowed in peacock colors when I was aroused, which was constantly, especially in front of mirrors. The sea king surely knew whom he tried to harpoon that magic night under the stars. He grounded me because he knew I would transform myself and leave. Perhaps I would have stayed if he had embraced me as I was. But he couldn’t confess that he had gaping gills over another guy, especially one dressed in a soggy bustier. He has his kingdom to consider, after all, and his fins can only flutter publicly for females. Too bad. He could use a queen. But that was his aquatic quandary, and I’ve gone on with my life. I can never go back.
I skinny-dipped under the moonlight recently. I nearly drowned, not knowing how to swim without my tail, but the king’s virile hands buoyed and groped me. Finally, those manly monarch fingers full of my real breasts. No padded bikini-top this time. No coy darting away like a shy school girl. And if there’s one thing a merman knows how to play with, it’s nipples, ’cause there’s not much else to titillate. We mated properly, as male and female, and his trident was impressive enough as far as fish privates go. Size matters, honey, and to say otherwise is a phallus-y. But I didn’t make comparisons when he swam with me wrapped in his embrace, tasting the glory of cresting moments, surfing the tides of love. My ass crack leaked sand for an eternity afterwards, though, and from now on it’s a mattress or abstention.
She tricked me, the old sea cow did, and left me with my facial hair. But I watched the Shopping Channel and knew what to order to permanently eliminate the five o’clock shadow. There’s always a catch to these spells, but I have technology on my side.
I got Jezzy back. I snatched one of her brood. She laid 28 million, so it’s not like she couldn’t spare one. I sent little Moses in his basket down Mutt’s river. Mutt worked some deal to transform her adoptive son’s tentacles into human limbs. Hey, I’ve got my Mother Teresa moments, but I left a red herring so she wouldn’t know I was the do-gooder. I don’t want to mix up her G rating with my R story. Besides, I’d have to coo over the little tyke. I got the fashion instinct, not the maternal instinct. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t get the indoor plumbing. No PMS! Other than the lingering effects of Piscine Mammalian Syndrome, of course.
As for my washed-up, human prince? He turned out to be the bona fide castle type, with magnificent jewels in his treasure chest as well as in his knickers. I pay clandestine visits, for which he’s grateful. His marriage to a flighty swan has been less than satisfactory. But I’m not about to base my happiness on the whim of one fickle, horny bastard. Those other fairy tale chicks required the true love of one man for their transformations. Screw that old fashioned bullshit. Cast a wide net, I say. Keep one in every port, above and below water. This girl intends to have it all, on her terms. I’d like to say I used my brains, but it all comes back to using a cock, doesn’t it? But the phallus is what I gave up. Not what saved me. And I don’t intend to base my future on needing one again. This media goddess will gladly spread her legs for homage, but not for salvation. I don’t need beast, phantom, jungle boy, knight, or vampire to awaken me. My eyes are wide open, honey, and I’m bi
ting the queen’s apple.
Another Assignation with Charles Bonnet
K. L Gillespie
The smell of rubber tingles my nose as I stretch an elastic band and allow it to snap back on my fingers. I do it again and it releases a fresh flood of aroma that reminds me of stolen moments from my teens that were devoted to fumbling and fucking under an old oak tree in the woods behind my house. His name was Jonathan and he lived next door.
The hubbub of my office blurs into white noise as I lose myself and my inhibitions once again under that old oak tree. The sun warms my face. Birdsong fills the air. Jonathan’s hands are on my body and his breath is moist on my skin. He pulls out a condom and I can remember its smell and the way it felt between my fingers as if it was yesterday. I helped him peel it on and . . .
Trng trng . . . trng trng . . .
The phone rips through my memory and a sigh travels from the pit of my stomach until it escapes between my lips. I pick up the receiver, elastic band still in my hand.
It’s Mother. I struggle to put all thoughts of Jonathan from my mind as she bombards me with a thousand questions. She worries, so I tell her I’m fine and pretend I’m going out with friends tonight. She seems satisfied – and after a few more minutes of chit-chat she hangs up.
As soon as I replace the receiver I hold the rubber band to my nose and try to recapture Jonathan, but my memories play hide and seek with me, teasing me from round corners and mocking me for not being able to picture his face. The harder I try to see him, the further away he gets, until I am left with nothing but the smell of rubber in my nose and a pile of work to get through before the end of the day.
Five o’clock eventually arrives and I leave the womb-like confines of my office and step out into the great big wide world. The West End is particularly noisy today. I’ve lived here for five years but if I’m not careful I get lost, so I cement a thousand-yard stare on my face and make a beeline for Charing Cross Station.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 44
