She looked down at him, her eyes bright with desire. Her skin had flushed a darker pink on her chest and throat. She bit her lip. Her body convulsed again, less dramatically this time. She sighed loudly and rocked against him one last time. Her inner muscles bore down on him, and his cock spasmed for the final time.
Helena sank down against him. Their breathing mingled, as did the beating of their hearts. Jeenai put his arms around her. She rolled to the side as his penis softened inside her and she lay with her head next to his.
"How do you know just what to do?" she asked. "You've turned me into a greedy sex maniac. I'll never be satisfied with a regular man again."
Jeenai didn't know what a maniac was, but he was happy to learn he had so pleased her. "If I have my way, you'll never have to go to another man again."
She reached for his hand as he brought it down in the end of his sentence. She caressed the soft, pliant webs between his fingers, one by one. "I'm amazed at how much you communicate without saying a word. I guess it would be difficult to talk underwater."
She rolled over and peered deeply into his eyes. "You can see in the dark, can't you? You'd have to, all the way at the bottom of the ocean."
She touched his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. "You look so much like a man, but you're not. The color of your skin, your eyes, your fingers. You look like a man, but you're not."
He slid his hand back between her thighs and stroked her. She sighed and bit her lip, then put her hand down to stop him.
"You can't possibly be ready to go again." She looked down at his stiffening penis. "Oh, my God, you are. At least let me take a shower first. I'm sticky. And you could use one, too, to be honest." She wrinkled her nose. "We're both rather fragrant."
To him, she smelled like pure desire. "I love your scent."
Helena laughed. "You probably don't know what a shower is, do you?"
She took his hand and pulled him from the bed. "C'mon, Johnny. Let me show you."
He managed not to hiss when he got to his feet. Every breath burned in his chest, but he'd gotten used to that. The agony in his feet with every step, however, seemed to grow worse with every step. He expected to see a trail of blood behind him when he walked.
Helena took him into a small, bright room. "This is the bathroom. There is the tub. Here is the shower. I think you already know about the toilet."
She twisted a knob on the smaller basin. Water gushed forth from the silver spout. Jeenai reached for it, then pulled back. What had the hag said? Fresh water will do you no harm, but enter the sea, or let even a drop of the sea water touch you, and you'll turn back into what you were when you came into this place.
How was he to know if this water was fresh or salt?
He bent low to it and sniffed. Fresh. He put his hands beneath the silver stream and laughed aloud in delight at the familiar sensation. He splashed his face and chest.
"You like that?" Helena turned off the knob. The water stopped flowing. "You'll love the tub."
She twisted a similar knob on the side of the big basin. Water gushed into that. She fit a small plug into a hole in the basin's bottom and the water began to fill the basin.
"You go ahead and get in. I'm going to put a pan of muffins in the oven first. Go on. Make sure to turn the water off when it gets to the top of the tub, or else it will overflow."
She left him with a flutter of her hands toward the tub. She wanted him to immerse himself? Jeenai did so, and gladly.
The water felt different on his skin. He felt less buoyant. He settled onto the bottom of the tub and felt cold metal against his spine. The water itself was warm like the temperate seas farther to the south.
He stared up through the water to the white ceiling. He could hear little but the sound of his own heart beating and the rush of water flowing into the big basin. The tub, she'd called it. This water was different from the ocean, and even different than the river he'd once explored during his youthquest.
He'd followed that ribbon of water all the way to an inland lake, where he'd challenged the mals and shared the fuck with the fems who lived there. They did not call themselves Carrageenai, and they did not share genetic ancestry with the ocean mammals as his own people did. Those folk were related more closely to the eels that populated the brackish water of the region. Still, he'd had a good time there and made many friends. His penis rose at the memory of the revels he'd shared there.
The water rose over his belly and chest, then up his throat and cheeks. It covered his lips, and the hollow places of his eyes. Then it covered his nose. The weight of it soothed him.
He took a deep breath, wanting to smell and taste the water. Instant agony assaulted him. He could not breathe. He had forgotten his gill slits did not work. He opened his mouth to gasp and choke, and more water flooded into his throat and chest. He flailed, his hands banging on the tub's hard side. He struggled to sit, but his body wracked with coughing and choking he couldn't control.
Helena's face, twisted with terror, appeared above him. She reached for his shoulders and grabbed him up out of the water.
"...doing?" she cried.
Jeenai coughed and coughed some more until at last, air filled his body instead of water. Tears stung his eyes from the pain and effort. He tried to explain he'd been resting as she'd expected, but her grip prevented him from speaking with his hands.
"I thought you were drowning!" She laughed without humor. "But, of course, you can't drown, can you? You're a fish, right?"
Jeenai coughed to clear his throat again, then tried to gather her into his arms and comfort her, but Helena pushed him away. She backed away from the tub and crossed her arms in front of herself. Her tears had turned her lovely blue eyes red.
"I thought you'd be able to breathe water," she said."
"I do, yes. Such is the way of my people." He paused, his throat and chest still raw with coughing. "But not here."
She watched him, silent, then reached to brush away some hair that had fallen over his forehead. "I wish I knew for sure what you're saying. I wish I could tell for certain who...what...you are."
"I'm a man," Jeenai told her as simply as he could. "And I love you."
She shook her head, watching the slow, simple pattern of his hands. She reached out and touched his cheek, let her finger trail across his lips, down his chin, his throat, to his chest. She pulled her hand back quickly, as though his damp, cool skin had somehow hurt her.
"I think I need to be alone for a little while to think," she told him. Her lovely voice had gone coarse.
"I don't understand." He used infant-hands, and her eyes followed the slower gestures more readily, but she still didn't seem to grasp his meaning. "Helena, I came a long way to be with you. I want to be with you--"
"Just stop!" she cried and clapped her hands over her eyes. "I need some time to think, Johnny. This is freaking me out. I'm sorry. But...this is all too strange." She looked at him through the crack in her fingers. "I need you to go away for a while."
He stood in the water at her words, every one of which he understood completely. A pain split his heart and he put a hand there to quell it. She could not love him.
"The sex has been fantastic," Helena was saying, "but the rest of it... Johnny, this isn't going to work."
He got out of the tub and stood, dripping, on her tile floor. He noted with pride the way her eyes swept over his naked body and her nipples tightened. He was pleasing to her, and she couldn't deny it.
Yet he had learned that for humans, merely being pleasing to the eye was not enough. It didn't mean love. If she didn't love him, he would die.
"I will go, if you want me to leave." His hands moved slowly with grief. He shivered, suddenly chilled though the room was warm.
She grabbed up a towel and wrapped herself in one. Hiding herself from his gaze. Now Jeenai felt horribly exposed in front of her and he grabbed a towel for himself.
"I think that would be best." She looked toward the window and the glimpse o
f ocean outside. She blinked and more silver jewels slipped from her eyes to paint glistening trials in her cheeks. "Yes, I think...just go. Please."
He pushed past her and into the room to which she had first brought him. Where would he go? Back to the sea? He had no other choice. He had no need of a towel there, but kept it tucked around his hips. It was something that made him human, this wearing of clothes, and all at once Jeenai discovered he wanted to remain human as long as he could.
He heard a muffled noise behind him and knew she was expressing her grief. She sent him away, though it sorrowed her to do it? He shook his head. He would never understand humans.
He took another step. Pain sliced his legs and made him stumble. He caught himself against the back of a chair. His heart pounded and swelled with an equal pain. His hands shook. He moved toward the door and each step took an effort he wasn't sure he could repeat until he managed it.
Would it hurt to become sea foam? No more than this agony in his heart, his lungs, his legs. It might be better than this, Jeenai thought, his hand on the doorknob. It might be a relief to die.
Helena slipped a sleeveless sundress over her head and hung the towel up. She heard Johnny moving around in the living room. She waited for the sound of the door closing that meant he'd gone. A sob escaped her, though she tried to bite it back.
He couldn't really love her. Love was a pretty word to describe an emotion Helena wasn't really certain could truly exist. Damn it, she wanted it to exist. She didn't want to let what had happened with Howard color the rest of her life. She didn't want him to have ruined her that way. He wasn't worth it.
But could she believe Johnny loved her? He wasn't even human! The sight of him, eyes closed, bubbles gently escaping from what were unmistakably gills on the sides of his throat... Gills! She choked at the thought. He had blue skin, he had webs between his fingers, and he had a shark's sharp teeth. He'd had a tail, if what he told her was true! He wasn't a man...he was an animal!
Yet even as she slapped a comb through her tangled hair and twisted it on top of her head, Helena could not convince herself that Johnny was a beast. He expressed himself with elegant, fluid grace through the movements of his hands. He looked at her with an intelligence she'd never seen in Howard. And he made love to her like he'd been born for the sole purpose of bringing her pleasure.
She heard the sound of the front door opening and she whirled to go after him. She stopped herself in the doorway. He came from the sea. Could there really be a life for him above the water?
Maybe she would wake up and find this all really had been just a strange and wonderful dream. Another sob ripped from her throat at the thought. She didn't want it to be a dream.
"Johnny!"
Helena ran to the living room, but what she saw there stopped her cold. Two men stood in the doorway. She put her hand to her mouth to hold back her exclamation of surprise.
"Hello, Helena." Howard looked over at Johnny, who still wore only a towel. "If I'd known you had company, I wouldn't have bothered to come all the way down here."
"There's nothing stopping you from turning around and leaving." The words sounded cruel, even to her, but Helena made no effort to soften them.
Howard looked resigned. "I've left a hundred messages for you, Helena. You never answered them. When I called, you hung up on me. I decided I'd drive down and see you in person."
"It's only been sixty-eight messages," Helena said. "And I told you this morning not to call here again. Didn't you assume that would mean I didn't want you to show up either?"
Johnny looked back and forth from her to Howard. His long, dark hair had dried in waves around his shoulders. His bare chest gleamed with the odd, almost pearlescent blue color. Johnny's hands spoke, and surprisingly, she understood.
"This is Howard, the one I told you about," she answered.
"This is the man who hurt you?" He spoke with the lowering of his brows, the baring of his teeth, the clenching of his fists.
Howard grimaced. "What the hell is this, Helena? Who is this clown?"
Helena went to Johnny and looped her arm through his. With his warmth beside her, she suddenly felt strong. "This is Johnny. He's my--" She balked at the word boyfriend or lover. "Friend."
Howard was almost as good as Johnny at expressing himself with a look. Now he shook his head and gave a derogatory laugh. "I can see that. What's the matter with him? What's with the body glitter?"
"He doesn't talk. He's got a medical condition." The explanation tripped from her tongue without effort.
Howard gave another nasty laugh and reached for her arm. "C'mon, Helena. Get rid of this joker and talk to me."
She felt Johnny tense beside her. He moved between her and Howard. She couldn't see all his gestures, but they must have come across to Howard as threatening because her ex-fiancé raised his fists.
"Don't threaten me, buddy," he warned. "I can kick your ass from here to next week."
He could do it, too. Howard had always prided himself on being physically fit. Now he gave a grin that could only be called taunting.
"Stop it, both of you." Helena pushed from behind Johnny. "Howard, just go, okay?"
He put on the pouty face she had always hated. "C'mon, Helena. I drove for-frigging-ever to get here. I understand if you don't want to see me, but can't you at least give me something to drink? Let me use the bathroom?"
More than anything, she wanted to say no.
Howard sighed, and for the first time, sounded sincere enough for her to soften toward him slightly.
"Please, Helena. I know I screwed up. And if I could take it all back, I would. But I can't, and if you're determined not to have me in your life anymore, then I'll let you go. I just wanted to see you for myself, even if it was for only one last time."
Her resolve broke. She sighed. "Fine. You can use the bathroom and have something to drink. But it's not going to change anything."
He nodded, his gaze focused on her and ignoring everything else. "I know."
She pointed. "It's through there."
"Thanks." He apparently couldn't resist shooting a triumphant grin at Johnny as he passed, but that was a man for you. Up to his balls in testosterone when he felt his territory being threatened.
When Howard left the room, Johnny turned to Helena. "I will go now, as you wished."
She watched him get all the way to the door before she called after him. "Johnny, wait!"
He stopped, his hand on the knob. His head turned. She watched the curve of his ear, the sleek line of his jaw, the smoothness of his cheek and lips. She didn't want him to go, but she couldn't beg him to stay.
He faced her in the only way he could speak to her. His hands and fingers painted a perfect picture, one she could easily understand this time.
"You don't have to leave," she said in response. "Johnny, I don't know what is going to happen. But I don't want you to go."
He touched the sides of his throat, which now appeared no different than any human man's. He moved his fingers over his body, tapped his thighs, then stared at her with a question burning in his dark eyes. He wanted to know if his differences still upset her. Helena tried to speak, but couldn't find the words.
She heard Howard clear his throat from behind her and gave Johnny a shrug. "I don't know, Johnny."
For one awful instant, she thought Johnny would simply turn and walk out the door anyway. His eyes flickered from her to Howard and back again. Then he lifted his hands.
"Don't leave on my account."