Page 3 of The Mer-Mate

So, he isn’t going to kill me. Even with him being nearly twice my size, with teeth that could rip into my throat, fear is the farthest thing from my mind.

He’s helped me breathe. He’s helped me see. I’m in no danger with him. “You saved my life today.”

“Today?” he says, disbelief clearly written on his alien features. “Do you have any idea how many times I have saved you?”

He crosses his arms over his huge chest. With a flick of his tail he shoots back several feet, a vortex of water swirling between us. His head tilts again, and I swear he looks hurt.

How many times.

And I know . In every fibre of my being, I’ve always known. A strange feeling of weightlessness sends my heart lurching in my chest, like a boat pitching down a swell.

“It was you,” I whisper, the sound rushing through the a’wesh lodged in my throat.

Thirty years .

I see the boy in the merman in front of me. The same dark, curious eyes. His face, so similar and so unlike my own, observing me from beneath the waves, his hand reaching up to meet mine.

Then, just flashes of memory. Me, leaning over the edge of my family’s boat, trying to touch him.

Unbalancing. Cold, the light fading as the currents and riptides dragged me below the surface.

Arms circling me. Waking up on the tiny wild island off the shores of Tofino, freezing but alive, and miles from where I went overboard.

I knew I wasn’t crazy.

All these years trying to prove myself wrong, because anything else would be unfathomable.

Unfathomable is in front of me right now. Huge, preternatural …

And kinda pissed at me.

“Of course it was me,” he grumbles. “Every time. And you keep putting yourself in danger with no regard for your safety.”

Years of near misses on the ocean come to me. A squall that should have capsized my boat. A shark making a beeline for me on a dive, veering away at the last moment. A broken anchor line that turned me back to harbour, docking minutes before a rogue wave claimed two other vessels.

I search his face. “You’ve been watching over me.”

“Not always me.” A series of chirps leave his throat, and a dolphin swims into the cave “—let me know you were in trouble.” He crosses his arms in a very human move. “It is like you have a death wish.”

My merman is incredibly pissed at me.

“In my defence,” I mutter, “I was trying to find you .”

His expression doesn’t change, but the dolphin chatters at me.

“Is—” I try to mimic the chirps “—the dolphin?”

At my attempt of the name, the dolphin swims deeper into the cave, turning a somersault. It’s ( he? She? Does gender matter to them? ) a Pacific white-sided dolphin, though something tells me that label would be meaningless to them.

The dolphin shoots through the water and blows a stream of bubbles in my direction, and I can't help but laugh. I try to recreate the series of chirps again, and fail.

“I don’t speak dolphin.” Yet , I want to add, but go with, “I don’t suppose you’d be okay with me calling you Pacey?”

The dolphin flicks its tail at me, unbalancing my precarious equilibrium and sending me windmilling.

I’ll take that as a no .

“For a first attempt at her name, you did not embarrass yourself too badly,” he says.

Her. An odd feeling creeps into my chest. “Is, ah, she your mate?”

Another look of disgust. “She is my best friend and sentry. She has helped me keep you safe for years.”

Huh. My nickname at the research station is the dolphin whisperer, because almost every trip we took, at least one would show up. Now I know why.

“Thank you,” I say to her. “Why don’t dolphins and whales use a’wesh to breathe?” I ask them both.

“They tried a few million years ago,” my merman replies. “Allergic.”

“That sucks for them.”

“They manage.” My merman and the dolphin exchange a few clicks and squeaks, and she sprints out of the cave, leaving us alone in the quiet blue.

He floats a few feet away from me, watching my reactions. Some of the hardness has left his expression, or, at least I think it has.

Everything about him is a mystery. This creature I’ve been searching for since I was a child. The scientist in me is begging to come out. I want to know everything.

What about the bends? Can he breathe above water? Why aren’t I hypothermic? How many of them are there? Why do they keep their existence secret?

What comes out is, “Can I touch you? ”

He’s been with me for almost my entire life. His kind fascinates me, but I want to know him .

Wordlessly, his webbed fingers encircle my wrist again, so gently, I could easily break free. Instead, my body flows through the water, close enough for him to place my palm flat to his chest. The second my fingers touch him, I have to swallow the sob that threatens to burst out of me.

My merman is real . Even though his hands have been on me, I was too overwhelmed with the whole not being dead and learning that merfolk weren’t a myth, that it didn’t fully sink in until now.

Thirty years I’ve been searching for him, even as I tried to convince myself that what I saw was the dream of a terrified child. All the times I’ve felt alone, he’s been with me. Watching over me.

My protector.

He’s so warm. Muscles vibrate under his slick skin. Streamlined. Better for slicing through the water. I move my hand to where I think his heart will be, and it booms like a drum under my fingers, but at half the speed I would expect it to.

Of course. The water is doing the work of holding him upright. So little effort is required to exist down here. I place my two fingers on my carotid pulse. My own heart rate hammers against my fingertips. Maybe once I get used to this feeling of weightlessness, the ocean will support me, too.

I trace my hand higher up his torso. Sternum. Ribs. Clavicle. If it wasn’t for his sheer size, his anatomy would feel completely familiar. At least, his upper half does .

I move my hand towards his throat, but stop, looking up into his huge, dark eyes. “May I?”

The muscles work in his jaw. “I am yours to explore.”

My thumb brushes the thick column of his neck, gentle over the spot where the a’wesh must live in his throat.

I have so many questions. The muscles are more developed than any human, a deep triangle from shoulder to skull.

The trained biologist part of my brain marvels at what mechanics must lead to this, but all I can think is that I can’t wait to see him swim. See him in his element. All powerful.

Further up my hands go. His skin is smooth all over.

Even his jaw and cheeks, and I realize he must not grow facial hair.

The hair on his head though, moves as if it were alive.

I comb my fingers into his mane. It’s nothing like I expected.

Whenever I’ve left the ocean, the salt tangles my hair, leaving it rough and full of snarls.

His flows like silk through my fingers, shimmering shades of olive, leaf, and seagrass.

“Your hair is so beautiful,” I whisper. “It’s like fields of grass, rippling in the sunlight.”

“I do not know of fields.” His black pupils widen, the blue cave light reflecting back at me. I see myself mirrored there, my face full of wonder. Full of joy. I look …

Beautiful. And it hits me.

This is how he sees me .

He wraps a strand of my own hair around his finger. “Yours is the sand born of a thousand shells,” he whispers back.

I hesitate, my fingers trembling along the blade of his cheekbones, down to his mouth. His lips are the most inhuman part of his face. So thin, almost silvery. When I run my forefinger along the seam, a shiver runs the length of his body.

“Do you have a name?” I ask.

The deep rush leaves where my fingers still touch his lips, and I’m left with the image of an underwater river.

“Toren.”

My heart sings. Toren. My merman has a name. I mimic the deep rush. The a’wesh now living in my windpipe must be changing me already, because the sound that comes out is almost a perfect match, and the light of the cave wall brightens.

“How are you called by those who know you?” he asks.

“Shayle.” Even to my ears it doesn’t sound like it did on land, and when he repeats it back to me, my name is water over pebbles in a shallow stream.

He brings his fingers to my lips. The pads of his fingers are shockingly rough compared to the rest of his body.

To grip underwater , I think. I lean into his touch.

I want to close my lips around his fingers, but the claws stop me.

I wonder how he tastes, or if from now on, everything will be salt.

“So often when I saw you above the water they were blue,” he muses, still tracing the shape of my mouth. “When I saved you first, they were white. Now, they are pink. You are so many colours.”

It’s not a conscious thing when I kiss him. I run the tip of my tongue over his fine silver lips. The waters leaving our mouths mingle, and I feel him pulling the taste of me into him.

I wind my hands into his hair. He does taste of salt, but also of strange undersea herbs I don’t know.

His huge hands cradle my jaw, holding me close so I don’t drift away.

Even so I feel like I’m spinning, upside down, and I cling to his forearms to hold myself in place. Our tongues meet, and I suck in water.

Like the pads of his fingers, his tongue is incredibly rough.

It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

My mind wanders to what it would feel like other places on my body.

Experimenting, I lick the tip, and a groan leaves his mouth.

He descends on me, plundering my mouth in return.

His rough tongue over mine and it’s all I can do to remember to breathe.

Kissing must be a part of mer-culture, because my merman is very proficient with the act.

“So soft,” he says between kisses. “So small. So perfect."

If I were on land, I’d be stumbling, my legs are shaking so hard. My tongue finds the tip of one incisor and flicks. The faint tang of copper fills my mouth, and another deep groan leaves his throat.