by Renee Carter Hall
(5/24/00)

She wasn't prepared for the feeling of peace when it pulled her under.

Thoughts of drowning flashed through her mind as the current dragged her deeper, but after the first exhausting panic, she didn't feel as afraid as she might have imagined. And, strangely, she didn't think about her fiancé, except to wonder if he would try to save her.

Even more strangely, she hoped he wouldn't. They'd been side-by-side for the past week, ever since his whirlwind proposal the first night of the cruise. Only moments ago, she'd slipped out of their hotel room, stealing away to the beach, not so much for the morning swim as to have some time to think. Being alone had carried a disturbingly pleasant sense of freedom.

Dark. Colder. No -- warmer, now. Something touched her, something -- someone? -- brushed her arm, bumped her leg.

Then -- air. She coughed, choked, gulped mouthfuls, lungfuls of it. She felt someone's arms supporting her in the waist-deep water. She opened her eyes, expecting to see him there, handsomely triumphant, wearing an expression of relieved concern.

It wasn't him.

This man had dark green eyes, and his skin was deeply tanned and smooth as the inner curve of a sea-washed shell. Water dripped from his uneven black hair and rolled in beads down his chest.

She tried to speak, to thank him, but found herself coughing seawater instead. Finally she was strong enough to stand in the shallow water, although he still had to hold her steady in the shifting sand.

Then, as the next wave pulled back into the ocean, she felt something brush against her legs. Startled, she looked into the clearing water, waiting for the sand to settle. Probably some big fish like the ones she'd seen when she was snorkeling -- those greenish ones, maybe, the ones that had mistaken her toes for fish flakes.

The water stilled to glass.

She had to be hallucinating.

The long tail lay half-curled against the sand, its glossy scales shimmering in the rippled sunlight. Its color ranged from light green to turquoise to emerald, ending in a translucent fin with delicate webbing, like the veins of a new leaf. The scales came to his waist and merged, almost seamlessly, with his skin.

Another wave flowed in, stirring the sand. She forced her gaze back to his face. His eyes shone with silent laughter.

A mermaid -- no, her dazed mind corrected her, a merman. Of course. So simple. Never mind that this was some kind of oxygen-deprived dream, that she was looking at something out of a myth, or a kids' movie, or a--

When the next wave hit, her self-awareness rushed back with it, and she realized that at some point she'd lost her two-piece swimsuit. She started to cross her arms over her chest, then stopped. What difference would it make now? Besides, if he was any indication, merpeople likely didn't bother with clothes.

She turned from him to the shore. They were alone on this stretch of beach, here among the lava-born rocks. She could be miles from where she'd started.

"Can you...." Her throat burned. She swallowed and tried again. "Can you take me back?"

He lowered his eyes a moment, then ducked into the water. She watched him push out of the shallows and into the curling breakers. He surfaced, turned back to her, and waited.

Gathering her strength, she swam toward him -- and he grasped her wrists firmly and pulled her under.

Panic seized her. She remembered stories of sirens whose songs lured ships to disaster on jagged rocks. Was he the same -- luring human victims to the cold sleep of--

--and he pulled her toward him, sealed his mouth against hers, his breath flowing into her, tinged with salt spray and something sweetly exotic.

She felt her heartbeat slow until it matched the swaying of the nearby kelp. When he pulled away, she drew in a breath without thinking -- but the water rushed in and out of her lungs as easily as air.

She didn't need an explanation. She suddenly trusted magic, and she trusted him. She followed him deeper, feeling the water grow steadily cooler against her skin.

It will be a long journey.

She accepted his voice in her mind just as freely. He taught her how to slip in and out of the currents, to ride them like the waves above. It wasn't long before she could keep up with him, even though she wasn't born for the sea. They stopped here and there, sometimes to rest, but more often for her to pause and marvel, to study the subtleties of coral, the precision of a school of bright fish.

It wasn't until they reached the whales that she knew she didn't want to go back.

There were two of them, all slow power and grace, their massive forms made ghostly by the water. They were singing, each note a low tone that resounded for miles, blending with the tone before and after, slowly forming a whole. Only after watching them for several moments did she realize they were mating.

So different... so beautiful. Their union woke something in her; their song made her at last aware of something long absent. She wanted to go to them, to press her hands, her body, against theirs, to be a part of what had brought these two creatures into one.

She watched the male withdraw, watched how they stayed close after, rising together to breathe, then settling against each other again. Longing flooded her. How would it be, to know that contentment in each other, to feel the slow turning of the earth in each other's heartbeat?

What they have is in all.

She had almost forgotten he was there. Show me, she desperately wanted to say, show me how to feel that, show me how to know it's there, in me, in someone else, in both of us...

He must have understood, because he kissed her again, not firmly as before, not to do something that had to be done, but to do something he wanted, something she wanted, something they both needed.

Together, they were weightless, free. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders; he curled his tail between her legs, his delicate fin touching the small of her back. Neither of them could tell, now, which direction was up or down. There was only forward, steady as the pulsing tide.

His tail, a single, undulating muscle, gently slid through her legs and back. She felt herself opening as the smooth scales pressed against her. She stroked her hands in slow caresses along his body, exploring where one half ended and the other began. Then her fingers touched the curled fin, just below where his hips would have been, and she watched his body tense with pleasure. Gently she stroked it, wondering at its shape, the hollow tube it formed -- and he suddenly arched his back, rippling his tail against her. A milky cloud billowed between them, then faded into the water.

She felt like laughing, it was that new, that perfect. Languidly he reached for her, but she darted away. His fingertips brushed her thigh, though, and in only a moment he caught up to her.

His hands memorized her legs, then gradually moved between them. She wondered what the females of his kind were like, if her sex was as new and strangely beautiful to him as his was to her. Then his fingers found her clitoris and her body arched, suspending thought. She welcomed his touch, and discovery after discovery followed, her essence blending with the sea.

They began a gentle ballet, swimming around each other, circling, touching, diving, returning. She let her fingers drift over him as he swam by her, marveling at his easy grace. At last they were close together again, and she stroked the curled fin, pulled him to her, and guided him inside.

They moved in and out of flowing currents, their shared pleasure timeless as the whalesong. They dove to the sandy floor, pushed close to the surface, then descended again, always staying joined, their bodies spiraling together.

This was how it felt, then, to make love with someone instead of being made love to. This was how it felt to understand, in a way deeper than reason, that more than the bodies joined, that you became part of a thriving, sacred connection, part of the force and the will that created everything -- the earth, the white sunlight, the womb of the sea...

As they dove to the bottom again, they reached a cluster of dark oysters, and as they separated, he sent to her: Wait.

He summoned three bright fish, two yellow and one blue, each no larger than her hand. The yellow ones darted playfully at her nipples, their fins like flashes of sunlight, while the third touched her clitoris with its round, gulping mouth. She felt her body being slowly consumed by the sensations and fought to hold back, to wait for him.

She turned to watch him, hoping that the slight distraction would keep her from coming. She watched him press his palm on each broad shell, pause, then move to the next. At last he cracked one open against a rock, palmed something, and returned to her, dismissing the trio of fish.

He opened his hand, releasing it into the water: a black pearl. Swirls of blue and green played over its mirrored surface as it hung before them like a tiny, darkly luminous planet.

He captured the pearl, embraced her, kissed her, and touched it to her clitoris. He rolled the pearl teasingly up and down against her aching bud, then tucked it into her lips.

She shuddered as he entered her again, her muscles clasping him tighter, each ripple of his body rubbing the pearl against her, forming something just as precious within her, something that glowed and gathered. She felt his muscles tensing, too, against her and inside her, and she held him closer as they ascended, and she realized they were pushing to the surface, waves of light sliding over them, toward the sun and the sky. The sunlight was stronger now, brighter, and she felt his whole form tremble, felt him release wave after wave, flowing from him and filling her, and as her own sudden climax rushed over and through her, they broke the surface as one, her fervent cries escaping into the air like the rush of wave-foam striking rock.

She let the warm waves carry her to the beach, each one lulling her closer to sleep. She knew he would be gone when she woke, that she couldn't stay with him and he couldn't go with her.

She stayed awake long enough to feel his lips brush hers, long enough to see him disappear into the white surf. Then, digging her fingers into the sand, she surrendered and slept.

Her fiancé found her on the beach, wrapped a towel around her, and led her to a doctor who pronounced her perfectly fine. Alone in the examining room, she took out the pearl and balanced it on her left hand, imagining how it would look in a ring. Much better, she figured, than the cold diamond he'd presented to her. She dressed and tucked the pearl into the pocket of her shorts.

She would never tell him. She wouldn't be able to bear hearing him laugh at her imagination. He would provide a simple explanation for what she'd seen, probably what divers called the rapture of the deep... No, she would keep everything safe, would hear only his lecture on how to recognize the rip currents, undertows, what to look for, what to do to keep this from happening again.

She thought of the whales' song, thought of that last kiss. There would be nothing like that, not with him.

Before their ship left port, she decided, before they returned home for the expected announcement, she would leave the solitaire to the sea. Perhaps someday, her lover might find it and somehow understand.

From now on, she would know what to look for.