Chapter 5: Strange Encounters

Charly closed the heavy wooden door behind her and stood in total darkness. She stood at the top of steps that had been cut into the hard rock, and what led to a secret place beneath the lighthouse. It was this place, the existence of it, and the history of why it came to be that would never allow for the sale of Lighthouse #1. The world could never know that mermaids, indeed, existed.

The sound of dripping water and the smell of the sea flooded the darkness all around her. She closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep breath. She felt home. When she opened her eyes, her pupils had changed. Her transformation had begun.

Her eyes had dilated in order to adjust to the black darkness of the underground grotto. She could now catch the faintest bit of light which was all she needed in order to see. Her vision adjusted until she slowly saw shadows and then more; everything appearing in various shades of blue. She could clearly see the stone-carved steps that led down onto a giant concrete platform with in its center an opening of water. It was a sizable underground pond that was connected to the ocean. It was freezing cold down there, but it didn't seem to bother her.

On dainty bare feet, she took the damp and slippery steps down until she stepped onto the hard rock floor. There she quietly unbuttoned her jeans, pulled these down along with her undies, and she callously tossed these aside.

She took the hem of her oversized blue and black flannel shirt and pulled it over her head, ignoring the buttons, dropping this clothing item, too, on the growing heap of clothes by her feet. She wore no bra. Her breasts were free and large, plump, and proud, but they were firm enough to not require her to wear something to support them. Her nipples were small and dark pink. Her body was slender but firm, standing tall and proudly. She was taller than most women, but she was one hundred percent sexy woman. For now.

When she finished stripping down, she lowered her naked body onto a small and narrow piece of rock that was used as a sort of pier. The top had been sanded down for an easier seat. Once she was sitting on her usual spot, she pulled her long legs forward and stretched them out in front of her before she brought her feet together and leaned back on her hands.

Then she closed her eyes and her lips moved ... and she began to sing a sad melody.

From the depths of the black pond water, tiny sparkles of yellow, blue, red, and green lights rose. They began with just enough light to be seen, but as they came closer to the surface, they lit the grotto in a spectacular array of colors.

Light bounced off the dripping walls of rock and the thick creosote-treated wood pilings that gave the walls and ceiling support. Those thousands of tiny lights all moved as if they were living breathing things, soon sweeping around her legs; beginning at her slender toes and circling upward around her feet, her ankles, her legs; rising higher around her thighs but stopping at an invisible barrier around her hips. As the lights climbed around her lower extremities, another supernatural phenomenon happened. Her bob began to miraculously grow! Her thick raven curls spiraled as they grew longer until the tips touched the wet rock beneath the palms of her hands.

Her eyes opened and revealed large dilated pupils as black as her hair with only the thinnest circle of turquoise. She blinked when the lights swirling lights from her toes up to her hips exploded brightly ... and then vanished.

She lowered her long eyelashes and looked down the length of her legs, but she no longer had legs. In their place was the shimmering streamlined soft-scale skin of a large fish, ending in a rather large point where her toes had been. The outline of her human legs beneath the layer of scaly skin slowly vanished when her mermaid's skin pressed down and smoothed out.

Her thick long curls slipped down as she bent forward before she stretched out her arms and allowed her fingertips to dip into the water. She briefly spread her fingers, showing the thin but strong membrane connecting her long fingers, and what helped her propel through water.

She cupped water into her hands and began gently splashing it over her seemingly lifeless lower aquatic part, and she continued to hum that strange but melancholy tune as she worked.

Then another miraculous thing happened.

As she continued to hum and splash the briny cold water over her lower part, the tip began to swell and then move. Soon, lines could be seen before her shimmering mermaid skin began to break around where her ankles should be, and two dark ocher-colored points on either side unfolded and separated from the rest before they grew and unrolled into a large pointy tail fin before it ended with soft slaps in the water.

Then the magnificent brown-yellow tail fin moved as she cocked her head and watched how it scooped up water and let it spill freely back into the pond. The entire tail fin moved languidly, to and fro, while its brown-yellow coloring began to change, growing darker until the shimmering rainbow hues from the rest of her tail bled down into the veins of her tail fins until there was no difference in color between it and the rest of her mermaid body.

Her transformation, not as a sea siren but as the legendary mermaid, was now complete.

She rocked herself once and she rolled off the rock before she dived head first into the black, icy cold water. The last part of her that was seen were her large beautiful tail fins that seemed to slice the water as it silently slipped into and vanished within the black water's depths.

Once in the water, she used both her powerful tail as well as her webbed hands to propel at neck-breaking speed through the icy sea. She didn't have gills like fish or like her mother, but she could hold her breath for up to two hours at a time. She, not the sperm whale, was the superior mammal on Earth that could hold her breath the longest and dive to the deepest depths of the vast oceans. The myoglobin protein bound oxygen in her blood, and as long as she remained in cold waters, she wouldn't need to frequently surface for gulps of fresh oxygen.

Underwater, she sped off into the deep; she barely used her powerful tail unless she lost momentum. Her powerful arms and webbed hands were more than enough. And as she sped down deep into the blackness of the sea, to places where a human couldn't see their own hand in front of their eyes, she twirled and spun and seemed to play along the swaying sea weed and reefs teeming with life.

The fish that found their way to her, swam close to her. Although they were well aware that they risked becoming her next meal if she was hungry, they were also guaranteed protection by the ocean's most powerful and intelligent creature that could win a fight with any shark and any other predatory creature infesting within and above the vast waters—even man.

She usually chased and played with these harmless fish, but she wasn't in a playful mood at that moment. She was on a mission, and as she torpedoed through the water, swimming further and further away from the lighthouse, she seemed to know where to go.

There was plenty of sunken treasure still undiscovered in those waters, and she was out to find something to entice Gems to hand over the Mermaid's Pearl. She believed that that Pearl belonged to her mother, and that, maybe, should she have the Pearl in her possession, and if her mother was still alive out there somewhere, she could use it to call her back.

She swam around the deep sea coral reefs of Nova Scotia, looking for something of value and interest to Gems. She ignored the threatening stances by the lobsters and other sea creatures that skedaddled out of her way as she scoured the corals. Strangely enough, she could smell through her mermaid part and she soon picked up a strange scent that wasn't part of the sea.

She pushed from the rough corals and with a single hard swipe of her tail, shot to the furthest side of the reef before she swam down to the lowest part of it. She paused with upper body upright and frowned for a moment or two as her long hair floated weightlessly around her face and head. Then she snapped around and in an elegant swerve, turned a corner and swam around the foot of the reef until she came to the spot where she picked up that strange scent.

She picked up the scent buried between the corals that had grown over it in the two hundred plus years it had been lost at the bottom of the sea. She grabbed a handful of solid coral and broke it apart as easily as if she were tearing into rice paper! After breaking away the sharp, jagged coral skeleton, she found a small creosote-treated miniature treasure chest.

She took the box and examined it for a few moments. Then she brought her long tail down and with a powerful swipe, she sped up to the surface as a large school of fish darted out of her way. She broke water and shook the excess from her head before she had a quick look around. Since it was evening, there was very little seafaring traffic, and satisfied she wouldn't be seen, she lifted the miniature treasure chest box out of the water and with a flick of her thumb, broke the rusty iron padlock, letting it drop into the water and sink back into a watery grave.

She opened it and found some valuable baubles. There was even a pearl necklace with a cameo locket!

"Pearls for a single pearl," she whispered before she closed the top, took a deep breath, and sank silently back under water. Once she sank at least ten feet beneath the surface, she curled head first downward, and then she dived back into the deep. In seconds flat, she torpedoed away, making her way back to the lighthouse with the box safely tucked against her streamlined body.

In less than fifteen minutes due to her incredible underwater speed, she reached the hidden mouth of the underground cavern, obscured by sea plants, that led to the secret pond under her lighthouse. She swam through the black water, seeing the path ahead of her as clear as day. Once reaching the large pond's bottom, she looked up and used her tail to propel herself to the surface.

When she broke water, she let out her breath and glided at her leisure, through the water and to the stone pier. She set the waterlogged miniature treasure chest on it before she set webbed hands on the top of the stone pier and hauled her heavy body out.

"Oof!" she gushed. "That darn tail is damn heavy on land." She had to make an effort to haul her body out of the water. At that moment, gravity was not her friend!

She finally made it and seated herself before she took the box and opened it again. She smiled when she saw the small collection of old treasure that she was certain would entice Gems for a trade. She smiled as she lifted the pearl necklace and held it up to admire it. It was then when she heard a familiar sound far, far away. She frowned as she lowered her hands and perked her ears. There it was again! She recognized the sound as being her doorbell.

Frowning, she put the pearl necklace back into the box and closed it. Then she swept her heavy aquatic part completely out of the water as she swept her hands back over her dripping drenched hair. As she did this, the sharp tips of her tail fins rolled back to the center and into a thick point, and the reverse of what had happened before was set in motion as she returned to her human form.

With the box in one hand, she got to her feet, briefly wincing at the sting of the soles of her feet. This was painful enough to make her wince and limp, but it was a temporary side effect after returning to human form. As if walking on coals, she ignored the pile of her clothes and went straight to a wall where a makeshift wardrobe was built. A few black robes were hung there and since she didn't have much time to dress, she took one robe off its peg and began pulling it on as she made her way up the stone-carved steps, hearing that whoever it was at her door, he or she was annoyingly persistent.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" she said as she gingerly took the stone steps up to the secret door.

She entered the living quarters of the lighthouse, and closed the secret door behind her. It was so well crafted that it seemed to melt into the wall. She grabbed a towel on her way down the hall and briskly toweled her hair as she walked into the sitting room furnished with rugged Mission-style furniture, and headed straight for the rise in front of the door.

She peeked through the spyhole and then her head pulled back as she blinked big eyes. She didn't expect him at her door! She bit her lip, contemplating whether or not to pretend she wasn't home, but the persistent ringing told her that he knew she was in, so that wasn't going to work. Besides, it was also cowardly, and she may be a lot of things but she was no coward.

She finally unlocked the four deadbolts and the security chain-lock before she took the brass doorknob and opened the door. Her nostrils suddenly flared when she caught a scent that made her suddenly feel strange in her stomach.

She gave her most unfriendly look as she arched an eyebrow. "Yea?" she said with an aloof look and flat tone.

Royce Masterson filled the opening of the door. His height and broad shoulders almost filled the opening completely with black leather and white wool. When he noticed her hostile disposition, he arched a black eyebrow, but it was the sexy look she offered with the black robe loose around her shoulder and the folds gaping enough that he could see the swell of her surprisingly large and smooth breasts almost to her nipples. In a brief flash of sexual interest, he wondered how her nipples looked...

And then he realized she was sizing him up, too! This stirred something inside him and it excited him. He needed to say something fast.

He cleared his throat. "Do you always greet men at the door dressed like that?"

She raised big mesmerizing eyes but her disposition had changed, and she no longer appeared hostile or unfriendly. Now she appeared to be a little rattled and a little confused. She frowned as she shook her head as if shaking the cobwebs from her brain.

"What? I mean," she shook her head as she stammered, "d-dressed like what?"

"Wearing only a robe," he said as he stared at her pretty eyes, "and nothing else."

She looked down at the level of her chest and saw where his gaze had fallen. From that vantage point, she could see her pink nipples and the fairly large areolas surrounding the delicate nodes. She lifted slender fingers of both hands and touched the loose folds of the robe, but she made no attempt to pull them over her almost indecently exposed breasts. In fact, much to his surprise, she slowly pulled the loose folds away, baring her breasts in all their beauty.

Then she raised her eyes almost as if she was drunk. "Don't you think they're beautiful? Are they strange to you? Do they look like breasts you've seen on other women?" She shook her head and frowned; she was beginning to blink much slower and she felt as if a haze was filling her brain that she couldn't clear—but it was a haze that was beginning to take control of her actions and her jaw went rigid as she tried to fight it.

Of course, her extremely strange behavior took him aback as he looked at her beautiful pale breasts and pink nipples. "They're the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen and not anything like any on other women I've known."

She frowned as she looked up at him.

"They're as magnificent now as when I made love to them ... five years ago." Then he reached out and, paying no heed to her warning never to touch her, he quietly took her hands from the folds of her robe with the intention of pulling them over her naked breasts. "It's very cold out—"

"—And your hands, they're warm. So deliciously warm," she quickly whispered and much to his surprise she took his hands in surprisingly strong hands and pressed them against her naked breasts before she tilted her head back and closed her eyes as if she were in ecstasy. "They're warm and strong ... and they feel so good on me ... against my skin..."