Page 48 of Moist!

chapter three

SERAFINA

Cantis might not understand my need for a “shiny rock” as she put it, but at least she’s willing to take me across the Carbinu Sea since she and the other sirens killed my men.

I guess I’ll just have to bear the niggling discomfort of having her perfectly soft, naked body pressed against mine. So terrible, a cruel fate indeed.

I’ll have to really reign in my attraction to her, lest my pocket overflow with wetness for her.

That embarrassment would be the true horror.

With my front pressed to Cantis’s back, my arms wrapped around her shoulders and hands dangerously close to her breasts, it’s a real possibility.

It certainly doesn’t help that my head is cradled in the crevice between her head and left shoulder, where I can enjoy a constant waft of her smoky sea storm scent.

And with her moving so quickly through the waters, it’s hard not to focus on anything else but her undulating body beneath me.

With her longer tail and stronger body, we are cruising through the deep waters that cover the Kandune Canyon at the sea floor.

Cantis is hot, dangerous, and from what I’ve seen so far, very blunt. I want to have a little fun with her.

I’ve always been one to want to push buttons, see how far I can take things. It’s almost as much fun as playing my silly tricks. But in order to make a big impact, you have to know a person first, so I have to get Cantis talking.

“What do you do in your free time?” Cantis startles at my questions, slowing down for a moment before picking up speed.

“I watch the seas.”

I wait for more information, assuming she’ll go into detail, but nothing comes.

“How long will it take before you get tired?”

“Days,” is her one word response. Okay, new tactic. Sometimes when you ask a seemingly unrelated question or something that seems irrelevant, people will answer with more detail, so I hit her with an old favorite of mine.

“Have you ever wondered what it might be like to fly instead of swim?” Cantis huffs out a breath at that.

“No, it’s not possible so why wonder about it?” Okay, that tells me a little bit about her focus and logic at least, but I want more.

“Can you speak turtle?”

Cantis whips around to face me and stops swimming.

“You want to talk, you answer the questions, then.” There’s a slight furrow in her brows but otherwise she seems calm.

Just as I suspected, I’m not irritating her, she’s just not used to passing conversation.

An introvert just waiting to be adopted; and wouldn’t you know it, I have a Cantis-shaped spot in my life that I’m happy to fill.

I smile softly at her as I rattle off my answers.

“I knit pearl clothing in my free time. It would take me about four hours before I’d have to stop swimming. I think about flying all the time,” I give her shoulders a gentle squeeze, not quite able to contain my excitement for the topic.

“Sometimes, in the summer, I swim belly-up underneath a bird to see how long I can keep up with them. It’s fascinating, watching their wings flap in nothingness. And no matter how big they are, they float up there all the same.” I sigh, and move on to the last question.

“And no, I can’t speak turtle, though I’ve tried several times to learn. It’s just that they don’t speak often, and when they do, it’s so slow that I can never stay focused long enough to retain anything. Happy?”

Cantis grunts with a nod, flipping back over to continue swimming.

“Well, I was going to ask you something else, but maybe I’ll answer the question first and then you can tell me about yourself?”

Cantis gives a shrug below me that I interpret as “go on”, so I continue.

“Sirens are so strong and agile, you could go long distances and probably outswim any being trying to chase you. I bet you could protect yourself from whales, sharks, and any number of things. Is there anything that scares you?”

I sigh, knowing exactly what it is I’m afraid of; my sisters' intolerance for me coming to the forefront of my mind immediately.

“I know my strengths and my boundaries and I typically have a lot of fun within my comfort zone. The problem is that the zone of comfort is on land, and I know I belong in the sea. But I don’t fit in with other mermaids; I wish I did, things sure would be easier.

..” Like building community, or asking for help, or sharing an inside joke and laughing about it in hard times.

“But I’m not my full self when I’m with them, and it’s like my scales itch from the inside. It’s suffocating.” I adjust the pearls at my neck, my anxiety making them feel tighter than they are.

“And I’ll never truly fit in with humans, either.

Sure, I’ve been walking among them since I was little, but the second they found out what I really am, no matter what kind of relationship I’d built, it would be all over.

Every single one of those walkers would turn me in to authorities or try to burn me at the stake.

” It dawns on me that this is the first time I’ve actually voiced these fears out loud, and to a practical stranger no less.

But when Cantis strokes one of my hands wrapped around her, it makes me feel better about my impromptu moment of vulnerability .

“I guess that doesn’t really have anything to do with strength or agility like I was saying before; but do you have any fears like that?

That come from the inside?” I don’t have to ask if she heard me because my mouth is right next to Cantis’s ear, so I take her silence for thinking.

After a while, she squeezes my hand and speaks.

“I’m afraid of not being enough, and of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I wait some more, but when Cantis removes her hand from mine to keep up her previous pace, I accept that that’s all she’s willing to tell me right now.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Cantis,” I murmur as I tuck some of her hair behind her ear.

“I guess even dangerously beautiful things have a reason to stay up at night,” I say with a chuckle.

She shivers underneath me. I love how reactive she is, but I don’t say anything, choosing to let the moment breathe.

We swim in companionable silence for some time before thoughts and ideas and questions start to bubble up again.

“When did you first–”

“Oh no, you don’t,” Cantis surprises me, “I’ve got a question of my own.”

“Please, ask away.”

“What’s your earliest memory?” I try not to overthink how this could help me gauge her interest in me and focus on answering the question.

I tell her about the first time my parents took me to the human market.

It was summertime and I was just old enough to start shifting my fin into legs.

My parents sold the items they’d been working on in our sleeping cavern and took the money to buy us all kinds of human treats.

It was my first time eating strawberries.

After I’m sure I’ve told her every single detail I can remember about the trip and how it was all so fascinating to me, it’s finally time for me to hear her answer.

“What about you Cantis. What’s your earliest memory? ”

“Oh, nothing elaborate like yours.”

“I still want to hear it,” I say, shimmying my shoulders into hers.

“The earliest thing I can remember,” Cantis says quietly, “is the first time I saw a man die.”