A fish out of water, p.7
A Fish Out of Water, page 7
It was not a portal to any other waters, but there were fish. Ariel put her hands into the water and they crowded around her fingers, the little voices simple to hear. Her face ached as she smiled for the first time in weeks, but the joy quickly faded to concern. The poor things were all unhappy. The pond was choked with weeds and silt. The koi, in particular, were about to give up.
Well, ignoring Ariel was one thing, but helpless little fish! Ariel stomped her foot indignantly and marched the rest of the way to the house. She fumbled her way through several storage areas, mostly empty, and found a discarded shovel and a rake. Tools and some magic would save the fish and at least provide her with a distraction.
She was a long way from the house and she could feel that Erica was not immediately near. She stripped off her clothes and waded into the frigid water. The rake was nearly useless, she soon discovered, quickly clogging with the heavy bracken and silt. With a sigh of something that could have almost been pleasure, she submerged and blinked her eyes to adjust to water vision. Mud made it hard to see, but her hands could find weed root. They were easy to pull out of the soft bottom soil.
She worked until she was dizzy with hunger and fatigue. She waded out of the thoroughly stirred up pond and summoned the drying spell. As she pulled on her clothes in the watery afternoon light she saw that she had only cleared a quarter of a quarter of the worst weeds. She left the tools and wearily walked back to the house.
The knob of the large patio door was still in her hand from closing it behind her when she heard Erica’s angry voice.
“Where have you been?”
Ariel stared at her with surprise. Erica hadn’t missed her in days, maybe weeks. She was about to shrug apologetically when she remembered the poor neglected koi. She tossed her head with all the regal dignity of a daughter of the queen’s blood and walked pointedly toward the kitchen.
“If you leave here I won’t look for you.” Erica followed Ariel to the kitchen. “I spent a fortune the first time. I won’t do it again.”
Bring me some shells and I’ll repay you, Ariel thought. When she had the cure maybe she would do just that. Obviously, Erica had once had money, but those days were past. She was about to turn back to Erica, and try to indicate in some way that she was sorry, when Erica grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.
“Stay or go, but tell me why.”
The rush of pleasure from the touch of Erica’s hand was so intense that Ariel couldn’t focus on what Erica was saying. Her body tingled and she saw sparkles behind her eyes.
Erica shook her, hard. “Why are you doing this? Why did you show up here? You’re like some drug. I’m losing my mind!”
Ariel could only nod frantically. She understood how Erica felt. She was wet again, just from Erica’s touch.
“What does that mean, Ariel?” Erica pressed her against the counter. “Where’s the yes I know you are dying to give me? Look at you, it’s all over you.”
Erica’s hands cupped her breasts and Ariel arched into her. It was shockingly good.
“I should have never touched you. Not that night, not now. You want me.”
Erica pulled the shirt up, baring Ariel’s breasts. Her fingers traced the lines of scars that crisscrossed Ariel’s torso. “These are healing,” she said softly. “You don’t eat enough.”
Neither do you, Ariel wanted to say.
“Ariel,” Erica whispered. “I want to hold you, sleep with you, it’s not just fucking.”
Ariel closed her eyes. Humans tended to equate sex with love—it was a counter to their guilt fetish. Erica was not in love with her.
She shuddered when Erica’s fingers abruptly closed on her nipples and tugged sharply.
“Ariel, please. Why can’t we have a normal life? Why can’t you just say yes and we can move on?”
She wanted to laugh at Erica’s foolish simplicity, but then Erica didn’t know she was dying, and had no idea she held a mermaid in her arms. The irony wasn’t fair to Erica. None of this was fair to Erica. The queen said humans were not their playthings, but what was this game of the queen’s but toying with Erica all the more?
You can’t fix it, Ariel told herself. You can’t change this, you can’t make anything better. The only thing you have control of is the cure.
“I want this, too.” Erica’s hands went around Ariel’s waist and then she lifted Ariel onto the counter. “I’ve never been with anyone who made me feel the way you did. Like I knew all your secrets and passwords. Like I was some god reading your mind.”
She nudged Ariel’s legs apart, and it was all Ariel could do to keep from grinding her pelvis against Erica’s stomach. The ache that never went away grew so intense that her eyes wanted to roll back in her head.
Erica grasped both of Ariel’s wrists in one hand and pressed them into cabinet above Ariel’s head. She held Ariel firmly and gazed into her eyes.
“Say yes, Ariel.”
Ariel’s entire body shook as Erica trailed one finger slowly across her breast, circling her nipple several times. Then she was firmly pulling on the puckered flesh, toying with the nerves that seemed to explode inside Ariel’s brain.
“Say yes.”
Yes was her prayer, Ariel remembered. She wanted to give herself to it, swim in it and drown. Her tides were surging. Her hips rocked to the edge of the counter and she felt that hard pressure of Erica’s body there, pushing back against her own.
She was close. She clamped her lips together, though she’d forgotten why it was necessary. She tried to move away, but her body screamed for her to stay.
“Say yes, and we’ll make love at least once tonight, the way you said you liked to.”
Ariel’s breath was catching in her throat. She wanted so badly to moan.
“You want to come, don’t you?”
Ariel convulsed at the suggestion, nearly pulling her wrists out of Erica’s grasp. She wanted to give herself but all the reasons she should not were so confusing now.
“Just say yes, and we’ll fuck for weeks. I’ll lose myself in your body.”
Why was yes wrong? Why was she not supposed to be with Erica? Who was she that she couldn’t say yes?
She hung suspended in time without history or future, utterly lost in her desire. She had always wanted this. It had seemed an ideal she would never reach. She lived inside the moment, and wanted the ecstasy, the scream of primal joy, and the surge of her overflowing tides.
The moment seemed perfect, so why did she hurt? Why was her soul edged in sorrow and guilt?
Say yes, Ariel, yes, I need you…
Erica…Erica was touching her, wanting to take her, love her. But it wasn’t real. It was a sickness. Ariel was a disease to Erica.
The moment of perfect desire was sand under the surf, washing away to nothing. Erica did not want her and without any chance for pure, clean song between them, Ariel could not remember why she had wanted to feel this way.
Erica let go of her wrists and staggered back. Only then did Ariel realize she was shaking her head no.
“Why?” Erica was as pale as the moon’s light, but her eyes were hot with anger. “You want it, I want it. You’re a walking fucking temptation, and I want to tear your clothes off every time I see you. Why won’t you say yes?”
Ariel pulled her shirt down and buried her face in her hands. She wanted to scream, wanted to sob, but she held it all inside, caught in a whirlpool of silent grief. It was a long time before she realized Erica had left the room.
Chapter 13
Days, then weeks, then months passed, and Erica pointedly would not stay in the same room with Ariel. If their paths crossed she quickly adjusted and it wasn’t long before Ariel instinctively went the opposite direction, too. It hurt to be near Erica, hurt to be away, hurt to breathe. Hurt to move, hurt to think. In her bones, in her muscles, in her heart, she hurt.
The only time she didn’t hurt was when she working in the pond. She dug out weeds until her hands ached. Communing with the little creatures was simple and undemanding. She wasn’t alone, and that was what mattered.
During her exploration of the far end of the pond from where she began, she discovered a leaf-clogged pump. She knew nothing of how such things worked, but she cleaned everything she could reach. A search revealed the controls concealed inside what appeared to be a solid rock. To her delight, the pump gurgled into action. Moments later, a small, musical waterfall cascaded down what she had thought was merely decorative rock.
Within a few days the water had cleared to the point of being able to watch the gleaming fish dart back and forth. She visited the pond every day, hunkering down with at least her hand below the surface. Some days she stripped and waded. It wasn’t deep enough to swim, but she could float and twist. It became her small slice of something like home.
The days were growing longer, and most afternoons the fog lifted, allowing for warming sunshine. The nights remained black with the frustrated song she shared with Erica. Ariel didn’t know how to break Erica’s anger. She wasn’t even sure she deserved to try. What had she brought Erica except pain? What could she ever offer Erica besides unwelcome news and, eventually, an eternal goodbye?
On a bright afternoon with the waterfall tinkling in a light breeze, the overhead sun lanced into the pool and the surface shimmered with a light Ariel recognized. She had not thought this pond, far from the sea and so darkened with mud, could ever be healthy enough to act as a window. She let the surface still, then leaned slowly over it, her mouth near enough to kiss the surface. She breathed out, slowly, and below her an image spread.
She saw swimming colors and a barrage of faces—Caliba, who was never far from her thoughts, and some of her sisters. They all shimmered with gaiety and light, no worries, no cares. The breeze made the images waver for a moment before the spell broke completely.
After that, she was at the pond every day from the moment the sun came into position until it faded. The glimpses of home were brief, but she felt, finally, she could bear this year. If Erica was too far away, Ariel ached to know where she was. If she was too close, Ariel burned to be touched. But this middle range they had found left Ariel with some control, while memories of home helped warm the cold inside her. Only at night, in closer quarters, did the physical longing surge up, leaving Ariel’s thighs perpetually wet and heart on fire with regret.
Chapter 14
Ariel thought it must be nearing summer, because sunflowers broke ground in the garden, and reached for the light. They reminded her of anemones, so brilliant and pleasing. She caressed their silky petals as she wandered her way to the pond. The day was warm. Yes, it must be summer, she thought.
When the sun moved over the pond, the visions from home were spangled with light and laughter. Ariel longed to touch or hear, to at least laugh. She watched hungrily until the spell broke, wondering if anyone there ever remembered her. More than a little depressed, Ariel stripped off the baggy sweat clothes Erica had lent her, and slipped into the water.
She floated on her back, listening to the faint clicks and whistles of the fish happily searching the pond for bits of food. The sun was warm on her breasts and face. Smiling to herself in an unusual flash of innocent pleasure, she turned several slow somersaults in the water. Easy and graceful, she let her hands touch the bottom while her feet waved happily above the surface in the sun.
A concussion hit the water and Ariel flipped skyward in surprise. When her eyes flicked back to air vision she saw Erica standing next to the pond, a rock in one hand.
“What are you doing?”
Ariel just stared. What the kelp did it look like she was doing?
“You were under forever.”
With a silent sigh, Ariel swam toward her clothes. She frowned, annoyed. With Erica here she couldn’t use a drying spell. She’d be dripping all the way back to the house.
“Is this where you’ve been hiding?”
Ariel shrugged.
Erica knelt by the water’s edge. “I thought the fish would all have died by now. The pump broke and I didn’t have the money to fix it. Smartest thing I ever did with my inheritance was pay cash for this place.” She stared down into the water. “The fish are beautiful. Thank you.”
The compliment was welcome, and Ariel wished there could be more. But the infection they both suffered was the only reason Erica wanted to be close. Ariel wanted to go home, go back to hunting with her friends and enjoying the life of the first circle. She only hung on Erica’s every word because of the infection too. It had nothing to do with the gentleness in Erica’s voice, or the way, sometimes in an unguarded moment, Erica looked at her with something more than hunger.
Ariel climbed out some distance from where Erica was kneeling, but realized that she would have to walk past Erica, naked, to get to her clothes.
“They are beautiful, like you.”
Ariel flushed, but only nodded. She gathered her things and hurried toward the house, not stopping to put anything on. Erica was too close and Ariel could feel her pulse starting to throb. Control was easier if she didn’t fully inhale Erica’s chemistry.
Erica was following her and Ariel ran, her hair streaming water down the backs of her calves. She couldn’t be naked with Erica.
“Ariel, please wait. I won’t touch you.”
Erica’s plea was so earnest that Ariel had to stop, even though it wasn’t Erica’s control she was worried about.
Erica stood a scant foot from her. “I can’t take this. I can’t even look at those fish and not think about your skin. Everything I see is you.”
Please, Ariel wanted to whisper. Then she asked herself, Please what?
“I’ve waited, waited for something to happen. Waited for you to say yes. You want to, I can feel it. God knows I want you. I will never forget that way you responded to me. No woman has ever been that way for me, and I don’t know how you did it. You made me feel like you were saying yes to me, not the rich hot butch who knew how to fuck. Your yes was real. Real.”
Ariel nodded. She had wanted Erica as much as Erica had wanted her.
“I want you, not just in bed. Not just coming on my hands though… God, Ariel, I want that too. But that night you smiled at me, and spoke so softly. Even though the sex got hard, we weren’t hard.”
Ariel closed her eyes. She knew what Erica meant.
“Even if we don’t. I feel good when I hold you. I feel better.”
Ariel opened her eyes and realized that Erica had gotten even thinner. She seemed all eyes and sinew. What was Erica asking for? Comfort?
Trembling, Ariel told herself that comfort was something she could give. They both wanted more, but comfort wouldn’t lose Ariel the cure. And it might ease Erica’s time. Until that moment Ariel had not seen past the moment when the cure was unleashed in her body. She supposed she had thought she’d go home. And leave Erica to do what? She would stay, Ariel decided, stay with Erica, until it was over.
She slowly lifted one hand and brushed her fingertips the length of Erica’s jaw.
Erica sighed, and gently pulled Ariel into her arms. “I just need to hold you.”
Ecstatic fire seemed to lick over Ariel’s body. The feel of Erica against her, holding her, was so welcome and so needed.
“It’s okay, Ariel. I’m not asking for yes right now. Just this.”
Ariel ached to say yes. She told herself that the moment she was cured she would say yes. She would stay with Erica until Erica’s ending. Was that pity? Compassion? Erica’s pain was real, and Ariel had been the unwitting cause. Trembling with the effort to be gentle, she kissed Erica softly on the lips.
They stood like that, in the dappled sunlight, for some time. Ariel knew the tears on her cheeks weren’t just her own.
“Thank you,” Erica finally murmured. “I don’t understand, but I feel better.”
They walked toward the house in silence. In the kitchen, Ariel paused to pull on the clothes and then filled the tea kettle.
“So, you do some sort of water acrobatics?”
She nodded and smiled. It was close enough to the truth that her eyes sparkled.
“I thought you were drowning. I can’t swim. I was too busy with horses when I was growing up.”
Ariel looked a question and Erica seemed to make up her mind. “Bring your tea into my room.”
Ariel had only glimpsed the inside of Erica’s large bedroom. There was a sparse seating area with a settee and a low table crowded with books and papers. A massive desk with cubbyholes and a computer dominated another corner of the room. The bed, its four thick posts devoid of curtains or tapestries, was also massive, but it was a perfect complement to large picture windows facing the woods. In the distance there was either fog or sea, she couldn’t tell which.
She tore her gaze from the bed, too easily picturing herself spread out on it, and Erica’s naked body on top of hers.
Erica set several albums down on the cluttered table, and Ariel joined her on the settee. “This is Algonquin, isn’t she a beauty?”
Ariel studied the photograph of a very young Erica. She was dwarfed by the large chestnut, but her face beamed with confidence. Ariel outlined the splash of white on the horse’s head and nodded. A beautiful creature, but not as lovely as the shining child that stood next to her.
They turned the pages and Erica let the stories pour out of her. “Dressage isn’t so hard. It just takes a good horse and patience. I loved going to competitions, and I had so many friends. I met an English princess and an Egyptian sheik, and it all seemed so charmed.”
The light outside faded as Erica showed Ariel her life. She’d been everywhere in the world, and her voice was mixed with fond memory and an edge of unhealed grief.
“I think I would be in a different place if Daddy hadn’t died when he did. Mom sent me back to boarding school after the funeral and I guess I thought nothing would change. Then she got remarried, and that asshole was a piece of work. Dad’s money was in trust from his great-grandfather. When he died the trust moved on to my brother. He was supposed to provide for mom and me, but he didn’t like new husband. Don’t blame him. The jerk spent mom’s money like it was water. But when my brother found out I was gay, that was enough excuse to cut me off too. So he kept it all.”
