Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
W hen the little fish had finished, we walked through the palace towards the dining room and Marcel asked me what I would like to have to eat. The choices he told me about were from a variety of types of seaweed, some mussels, clams, oysters, or sea squirts. I’d wondered what was considered edible under the sea, and Marcel explained that merfolk do eat some kinds of sea creatures, but not the ones who can shift. Non-shifting fish were permitted but, “We usually prefer to dine on mussels and clams, oysters and sea squirts as they don’t feel pain.”
I asked Marcel what a sea squirt was, and he told me they were strange things that, once they attach themselves to something solid, stay in one place and eat their own brains.
“Yuck!”
Marcel laughed. “There are many strange things down under the sea, Audrey. You’ll get used to it soon, but for now let’s go to the dining room and sample the buffet.”
After I sampled things I would never have eaten before in my old world – not raw, at any rate – Marcel told me I needed to take a nap, as my new digestive system would take a while to work. He led me to a pretty cave with softly glowing pale purple walls and a big sponge bed, covered with a soft green coverlet.
“What is that made of? I wondered.
“Seaweed,” he told me. “This is your own private cave, Audrey. Entrance is by invitation from you, only. Now have a nap, and I will come and fetch you in a bit.”
I was asleep in minutes.
I woke to a soft cough and saw Marcel standing in the doorway. “May I come in, Audrey? You had a good nap, and I want to take you on a swim to see the rest of the kingdom.”
I got up and sat at a pretty shell dressing table and used a spiny shell to comb my hair — though there was no mirror. Then I followed Marcel out of my cave.
We swam through the castle, Marcel pointing out the various creatures and telling me their names, which I immediately forgot.
“Now we’re about to go outside. Stay close to me and remember, you never have to have sex with any creature unless you want to.”
Past the doors of the castle was a gorgeous garden with every imaginable type of seaweed, colorful sea animals and sea grass. Sea pinks were the prettiest things there, but the corals and anemones were beautiful, too.
We swam a long way, often greeted by fish and merfolk who all seemed to know all about me. Several of the mermen asked me if I would like them to fuck me, and I politely declined, saying I was on a tour of the kingdom, but— perhaps later? We finally came to a high wall that seemed to be made of glass, but glass that undulated in the currents.
“This is the boundary of the kingdom. The wall is made of jellyfish who take turns guarding our kingdom from predators,” Marcel told me. “We do not go beyond the wall unless our king tells us to.”
“But I came from outside it, didn’t I?”
“Ah, you can enter the kingdom, but the only way to leave is through this wall, and you have to have the king’s permission, or be fulfilling a fantasy.”
“But I didn’t see this wall when we came to the castle?”
“The jellies saw us coming and opened it so we could swim through.”
“Will I ever go back to... to the beach?” I asked him.
“Do you want to?”
I sighed. “I guess not. It’s much prettier down here, and I do love my new tail.”
Later that day, I lay on my bed and thought about my new life and how it compared to my old one. There really was no comparison; I was much happier in my new home under the sea. I hoped Marcel would become my steady boyfriend, but I wasn’t sure what that meant down here. The Mer-King had multiple ‘consorts,’ as the merfolk called his wives, but the consorts could have sex with whatever or whomever they chose, so… did the other merfolk marry? My divorce never got filed, but, of course, both Derrick and I were dead... so the marriage was officially over, thank goodness. It was all so confusing!
I heard a knocking sound and looked up to see three pretty mermaids gathered at my door.
“May we come in, Audrey?” the smallest one said.
“Of course!” I told them. “Come sit on the bed with me and tell me all about this beautiful place!”
They swam in, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. They were incredibly beautiful, and I was sure I was awfully plain in comparison. I hadn’t seen a mirror while I’d been in the sea, so I guessed I just looked like the old me: Not ugly, but no beauty queen.
The three made themselves comfortable on my bed and introduced themselves to me as Portia, Sheila, and Muriel.
Sheila stroked my tail, and I saw the mermaid’s hands were never still. They were always stroking their hair or their bodies or each other’s hair or bodies. It was vaguely hypnotic, like the way seaweed swayed gently in the ocean’s currents.
“Pretty Audrey, you must tell us all the latest gossip from the upper world! Is Warren Beatty still hot? Has he made a movie this year?” she asked.
“Is he still married to Annette Bening?” asked Muriel.
“Oh! And Paul Newman? Has he made any new movies lately?” Portia also wanted to know about Hollywood gossip.
I told them that Warren Beatty was, in fact, still married to Annette, but since he was 86 years old, his choices of film roles were quite small. And when I told them of the death of Paul Newman, there was a great chorus of sighs and wails that grew even louder when I told them Joanne Woodward was also deceased.
“Hey, maybe they became merfolk!” I told the sobbing mermaids. They cheered up a bit at that, and they insisted I catch them up on all the celebrity gossip. I didn’t really follow celebrities or have an Instagram account when I was alive, so the talk soon turned to local gossip. I gazed at them, at their perfect figures, their long wavy hair, their perfect noses. In Hollywood, minus their tails, perhaps, they would all have been starlets.
Two of them, Sheila and Muriel, had human-looking skin, like mine. Portia had scales like Marcel’s, that glittered like flakes of precious stone.Muriel had the most luminous brown skin; it almost glowed in the soft light of my beautiful cave. Sheila had long black hair that seemed to have a life of its own, undulating around her body. Portia had glittering, scaly tits that begged to be touched and stroked. I felt a bit sad I wasn’t mer-beautiful.
Portia interrupted my reverie. “You look sad, Audrey. Do you miss your old life?”
I thought for a minute. “No, honestly, I don’t. I love it here, and everyone is so kind to me. I just wish I was as pretty as all of you, but Marcel is kind and seems to like me.”
There was silence as the three sat and gaped at me.
“Audrey, you’re beautiful! I can’t believe you don’t think you’re as pretty as we are!” Muriel told me.
I blushed at the compliment, but I was pretty sure they were just being nice. “No, it’s okay. I was never beautiful the way you are! You look like movie stars!”
Sheila looked at her two friends, and they all smiled. “Obviously, you have no idea how you look.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “I surely don’t look any different than I did just before I...”
“Just before you died?” asked Portia.
“Well, yes. I guess I looked in the mirror at my house just before my husband and I drove to the lawyer’s office. Of course, we never made it.”
“Well, we’ll have to get you a looking glass,” said Muriel to her friends. “Aubrine still has one, right, Portia? Marius bought it from some mer-pirates. I took a glance in it last week.”
“You’re right,” said Portia. “Let’s take Audrey to meet her, and Aubrine can let her have a peek in the looking glass.”
The three swam up off the bed, and Sheila took my hand as we left my cave and went looking for the queen.
There were so many twisty corridors in the palace, I was sure I’d never find my way back to my cave unassisted, but I was so fascinated by all the beauty I saw around me, I didn’t worry about it.
When we reached the royal apartments, I heard the sounds of a baby crying, and a soft voice began to sing the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. My three friends stopped, and Portia whispered in my ear.
“That’s Aubrine. Her voice is famous for its beauty. She has charmed sailors so they’ve left their ships and joined our kingdom!”
The baby stopped crying and began to make happy, giggly noises instead, but I couldn’t stop myself from swimming towards the sound of Aubrine’s voice. It was like a huge magnet was drawing me closer. When I came to the doorway that led into a softly lit cave, I saw a woman with long, red hair holding the tiny baby I’d last seen in King Marius’ arms. I couldn’t see her face, as her scarlet hair drifted between us, but I saw that her tail was golden with a few red scales here and there.
She finished her song, as Polly had stopped crying and had instead become engaged in winding her feet in her mother’s hair. Aubrine raised her head, sensing they had company, and I was so amazed at her beauty, I dropped back a bit.
“Welcome, Audrey!” the beautiful woman said. Her face was positively luminous. I thought of paintings of Renaissance madonnas I’d seen, but I remembered non as beautiful as Aubrine.
“King Marius told me you had joined our family, and I wanted to come and find you to welcome you, but Polly wouldn’t settle without a song.”
I gazed at her, bewitched, and felt I should say something. ‘ Thanks for having me ’ seemed a bit crass. ‘ Thank you, your majesty. I’m very happy to be here ’ was better, but I seemed to have lost my power of speech.
My three friends swam up beside me and put their arms around me.
“She’s our new bestie!” said Portia, and I relaxed in their embrace.
“Aubrine, could we let Audrey look in your mirror?” Muriel asked, stroking my hair.
“She doesn’t think she’s pretty,” explained Sheila. “Can you imagine such a thing? I mean just look at her, she’s beautiful!”
Aubrine grinned at my friends. “Of course she is, and you three use that mirror all the time. Go show our new mermaid how stunning she is.”
My new friends broke the spell and almost hauled me out of the cave. We swam down a hallway lit by glowing stars placed randomly on the walls and entered a big bedroom with a giant scallop shell for a bed. Above the dressing table was a large mirror. It looked as though it had once hung on a wall in Versailles. I walked over to the bed and noticed there were some small octopuses clinging to its thick, wavy edges. When I reached out to touch one, it grasped my wrist and held on tight. Muriel laughed when she saw me trying to free myself from the tentacles, and she gently stroked the octopus, until it let go of my wrist.
I rubbed my arm, and the mermaids explained that King Marius was fond of restraining his partners while they coupled. The octopuses were there to be used as cuffs.
“Queen Aubrine likes it when he uses the squid flogger on her, but my favorite is a small jelly-fish butt plug!” Portia whispered to me.
I shuddered, but if this beautiful creature next to me and the Madonna in the other cave liked it? Maybe I would, too
Sheila grabbed my hand and drew me across the room to the dressing table, where I stared into the mirror. I turned my head, looking for myself but all I saw was a beautiful stranger staring back at me. She had hair the same deep auburn color as mine, but it was long and silky, the strands waving around her torso in the current that accompanied me everywhere. Her eyes were blue and almond shaped, surrounded by long dark lashes. Her breasts seemed a bit larger than I remembered mine to be, and her waist was slim above her greeny-blue tail. As I studied her face, I realized that when I moved, so did she, and when I made a face, it was mirrored in hers. It was me!
Portia stood beside me and smoothed my hair. “This is what everyone has always seen when they look at you. You just couldn’t let yourself believe you were beautiful, so you believed you were plain. Sea mirrors never lie, Audrey.”
Was this really me without my inferiority complex? Holy shit! I’d never thought I was pretty, and Derrick had only confirmed my self-doubt by criticizing my weight, my looks, my choices of clothing.
“Are you really going to wear that?” he’d say, just before we went out to a restaurant or a party. “Maybe you should stick to having a salad today, Aud. You seem to have put on a pound or two recently.” I recalled his voice saying things like that, and it began to affect me... but then I remembered where he was now, and I was willing to bet he wasn’t bossing anyone around anymore.
“See, Audrey? This is what you really look like when you don’t have someone undermining your self-confidence.” Portia came and stood next to me, putting her arm around my waist. “You’re really beautiful, and, because you’re kind and good, you’ve become a mermaid.”
“Wow,” was all I could say.
We spent the next few hours gossiping and talking about how much fun the other residents of the palace were to have sex with.
“Percy the octopus should be high on your list of partners,” Portia told me. “His tentacles! Oh my god! You won’t believe it!”
“ Hmm, not as wonderful as Marcel,” I thought, but I didn’t contradict her.