by Shy Mom
Note from JetBoy: In the midst of writing her much-loved story “Sheltering,” Shy Mom turned out this delightful short-short and passed it along to me. Needless to say, I immediately claimed it for Juicy Secrets. Read on and see why.
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Evelyn and the Mermaid
Ligeia
A lot has been written about mermaids, mostly by men, mostly wrong.
For one, we do not sing to lure them. That is a fantasy, set down by male writers from Homer to Hans Christian Anderson.
We are alluring, though. Our waves of sea-green hair arouse a wildness in the soul. Our pale breasts appear impossibly soft. Our shapely tails stir imaginings of unnatural acts.
It’s no wonder sailors smash their ships onto rocks in their rush to reach us. They’d do that even if we didn’t sing.
But we do not sing for them. Fuck them.
We sing for our girl-lovers, our virgins. Our songs reach them in dreams. They are the only ones we will allow to come to us.
Evelyn
I hear her in my sleep. She sings. No one has sung so sweetly to me.
Of course, I know who she is, what she is. I’ve read about her kind.
I should be scared. I’m not. In fact, she excites me.
Ligeia. I go to her in my dream.
Ligeia
Weeks ago, I sensed her arrival in this place called England, an island not far from our wine-dark sea.
She came from the New World, an unfamiliar land, but her head is filled with the lore of our realm. She reads, absorbs, knows far more than most at the age of ten. Her imagination seems limitless.
She excites me. Evelyn. I call her.
Evelyn
She is breathtaking, this mermaid.
Seated on heaped rocks, surrounded by seafoam, her otherworldly beauty resembles nothing of the temptresses of men’s imaginations, those sirens of seduction and deceit. Her womanliness seems as wild and deep as the sea.
She beckons, and the waves roil, crashing about me, under me. But in my dream, I walk on water.
I cross the gulf between us.
Ligeia
She closes the distance. Her naked frame is slight, so much that the stormy sea should swallow her, but her steps are fearless.
I reach out, and she grasps my hands. She steps onto my rocks, unscathed.
Still a virgin, thank the gods.
She’s lovely. Not like my mersisters, whose preternatural beauty grows tiresome after a millennium. She is exquisitely mortal.
Ribbons of black hair fly about. Almond eyes flash with excitement. Fragile lips rush to meet mine.
Evelyn
I kiss her.
Awake, I would not have dared. I would have thought and rethought without leaping to act. But in my dreams, there is no why. There just is.
And the only thing that is… is my desire for this irresistible creature.
Ligeia
I drink her desire, and fill her with mine. She writhes like the sea around us as my tongue plunges into the depths of her being.
Evelyn
I have never had sex, but know what this is.
She is boring into me, impossibly deep, invading, loving.
The pleasure churns like waves.
I love her back.
Ligeia
I suck her tongue into the whirlpool of my lust. Rather than flinch, she dives in heedlessly. She surrenders all of herself, her loneliness and longing.
So entirely exposed, I could make her mine, a mersister forever.
Evelyn
She enfolds me in one arm, pulls me into her bosom, buries me in softness and warmth. With her free hand, she clasps my sex.
Ligeia
I tease her tiny pleasure bud. She quivers and mewls. I press the hot entrance to her fissure. It is leaking. I lubricate the flesh with her own wetness.
My intentions are unmistakable, but the choice is hers.
Evelyn
I shift my weight onto her finger, and she impales me.
A jolt of pain, a shock of pleasure, and then another, and another, as she fills and fucks me.
Ligeia
I make love the human way with my hand, as our mouths make love the mermaid way.
The child fucks me back, unabashedly. She has never known love, but instinctively senses how and where to touch. I have never known such passion.
I drop my other hand to her bottom, fingers probing for her starfish.
Evelyn
Oh, God, will it hurt?
No matter. I spread my cheeks apart, offer my last orifice to this Ligeia, this dream.
Ligeia
I invade her, all of her, fuck this divine child as only mermaids can, churn up a tsunami of pleasure.
Her wild abandon overtakes me.
We crest together.
Evelyn
I drown in a sea of bliss. I lose myself.
I am hers. I am her, and she is me.
Ligeia
I know her, like I know myself. She is unutterably beautiful.
I love her, but know that she cannot stay. I let her go.
Evelyn
I wake.
I can’t go back, she warned. I am not hers. I will find other lovers soon enough.
I weep into my pillow, wracked with sorrow. The strains of a fading song haunt me.
I will never hear it again.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
The End