Tails

by Lhynn Cooper
Chapter 13

.........."I'll be fine, really." I said, and then Linda, put on her face mask, turned on her air-regulator and put the mouth-piece between her lips. Then, rather clumsily with all her equipment, she got up, turned and climbed down the ladder hanging on the end of the pier, into the water. She could just stand on the sandy bottom with the water up to her neck.

..........I turned over and, on my stomach, slid down off the pier, and joined her in the lake. The water was pretty cold, but, as in the bath tub, it didn't bother me at all. I felt perfectly comfortable.

..........My tail was resting on the sandy lake-bottom, holding my head out of the water. Linda pulled her mouth-piece out, and said, "Let me get my camera and light. You ready?"

.........."You bet." I said, and without waiting ducked under the surface and began to 'breathe' the water. I felt perfectly at home. I could see almost as clearly as on the surface and my mermaid body instinctively adjusted it's buoyancy so that I floated about three feet off the bottom, my long hair floating around me.

..........I could see Linda's body over by the pier as she gather her camera. She then pulled her head under and walked along the bottom over to me and pointed out away from the pier, under the bottom edge of the boat house door, which was just above the surface of the water. I gently began to move my tail up and down and swam out under the door, with Linda swimming alongside. As we moved out from under the structure, the sun made this underwater world almost as bright as is was above the surface. The lake bottom dropped off steeply and the sand gave way to a darker bottom covered in vegetation.

..........I was ecstatic. This was the element that this body was designed for. I moved almost effortlessly with small undulations of my tail, my arms trailing at my sides, my hair flowing sensuously behind. In any movie or TV depiction of mermaids that I had ever seen, the costume always clearly showed that the tail was merely a covering over the legs. And movement showed this, with the fictitious 'tail' bending at the knee joint, in only one direction. My tail was real and did not have that limitation. It moved with the fluid grace of a true underwater being. I realized that I could also hear things. I could hear the bubbly breathing of Linda with her air tank and mouth piece. I could not speak, my larynx was still designed to work with air, and water would not produce the vibrations necessary for speech, but, so what.

..........I looked and realized that Linda was not beside me anymore. Looking back, I realized that I was swimming faster than she could with her legs and rubber fins, and had moved ahead of her. I turned and went back, moving my tail faster and faster. I could swim at a much greater speed than I would have thought possible. My tail was quite strong and showed no sign of tiring.

..........Playfully, I swam in circles around Linda. She had stopped swimming and was just watching me. Feeling somewhat guilty about showing up her much weaker human underwater ability, I slowed, swam to her side and stopped, aware of my hair floating around my head like a halo. She moved her hand around in kind

..........of a circle, obviously indicating for me to continue swimming. She was content to just watch me undulate and move through the clear, sunlit, lake water.

..........I resumed swimming in circles around her. We had moved far enough away from the shore, that the depth was now at least fifty feet, and we were about half way down. Moving up and down was as simple and effortless as going left or right. It was like flying. The sense of freedom was absolute and exhilarating.

..........After a while, Linda held up her hand, and I stopped, floating weightless. She swam closer and pointed to her camera, she wanted to take some pictures. She pointed upward. Apparently, she wanted to get closer to the surface for more light. We stopped about ten feet below the surface and she held the camera to her eye. I posed, trying to duplicate some of the poses she had me do in her studio.

..........We swam closer to the shore, and she took more under water pictures, using the light attachment, as I posed, perched on a sunken log. She indicated she wanted to talk to me and we poked our heads above the water, near the shore. She removed her mouth piece and told me she wanted to get some shots of me on the shore in a small, secluded bay nearby. We swam over and Linda remained in the water while I pulled myself up onto the shore while she took more pictures. She even talked me into removing my top and took some nude photos. After this, I swam back under the surface, still not wearing my top and found that I liked the feeling of freedom that not wearing it brought. Linda didn't complain, as I knew she wouldn't, and took the garment from me and tucked it into her belt. Then it was again out into the lake for more swimming and some pictures on the bottom, while using her light. Linda wrote out on her message board, with some kind of marker, not to get too far from her, that it was hard to see very far at this depth. I had no trouble seeing clearly, in spite of how deep we were, but her human eyes were apparently not as sensitive as my mermaid ones were.

..........I noticed fish swimming, some of them quite large, particularly near the bottom and close to the shore, in the vegetation. I could get quite close to them, but when Linda approached, they scattered. Apparently, with my tail fin, they considered me one of them but Linda was an outsider.

..........All too soon, it seemed, she motioned me over and wrote on her little board, that she was running low on air and we had to go back so she could change tanks. We surfaced to get our bearings and found that we were farther from shore than we had thought. Linda said to wait a minute, that she was tired and had to rest a bit before swimming back to the boat house. I told her to put her mask on, and that I would tow her to shore. She looked skeptical at first but then, submerged with me and held on to my hand with both of hers as I carried her camera in my other hand. Pulling her along was not as effortless as swimming alone, but she kicked her leg and rubber fins to help and we returned to the small pier in boat house in a short time.

.......... Linda climbed onto the pier and removed her tank, breathing heavily. "I'm pooped." She said. "I've got to rest for a while and get something to eat and drink." I was floating in the water, still enjoying the freedom of movement that I lacked while wearing this body on land. "I could also use a bathroom." She continued. "Aren't you hungry or thirsty, or even a little bit cold?" She asked, standing on the end of the pier looking down at me.

..........I admitted that I was getting hungry but that I wasn't thirsty at all, and not at all cold. Any time I did feel thirst while swimming, a limitless supply of cold water was all around me. "I had to pee a couple of times while we were out there." I told her. "But, I figured, if fish can do it while swimming, well, so can I."

.........."To be honest," She said. "So did I. Being cold always makes me have to go. But, to put it rather bluntly, I gotta take a shit now. I didn't think you wanted to watch me do that under water."

..........Linda said she would be right back and break out the lunch she had packed as soon as she made a visit to the bathroom up at the house.

..........I stayed in the water, very reluctant to give up ease of movement that it brought to me. While waiting, I explored the area under the pier and along the shoreline, just outside of the boathouse in the small inlet the boathouse was located in. I kept poking my head out of the water and watched for Linda to return. When I saw her walking down to the boat house, I returned to the pier.

..........She saw me surface as she came into the boat house carrying a cooler she had retrieved from the minivan. "Lunch." She said. "C'mon, get out of the water. I'm not going to be your waiter."

..........She unpacked the food as I grabbed the edge of the pier and pulled myself up and out of the water. As a man, I would have had no trouble doing this, but my thin arms were not nearly as strong, and I had to struggle to get up onto the wooden pier without scraping my sensitive nipples on the edge. I finally just gave a big kick with my tail and kind of jumped out of the water on onto the pier. I landed on the wooden edge with my tits jiggling and my wet hair hanging down, dripping water forming a puddle around me on the wood.

.........."Very good." Said Linda. "I was just about to try and give you a hand." She came over and handed me a towel.

.........."I've never experienced anything like that." I said. "I didn't want to stop or get out of the water."

.........."I could tell you were off in your own world, under there." Linda handed my the bathing suit top and continued, "Here, put this back on, you shameless hussy. Are you sure you're not cold? Your 'headlights' are on full bright." She indicated my nipples, which were fully erect.

..........I didn't want to put it on, it felt too confining. I just dried my face off and wrapped the towel around me, under my arms and covering my breasts, as I had seen Samantha do so many times after a shower or bath.

.........."I've never felt so alive as I did out there, Linda. I could stay out there all day. Maybe all night too."

.........."Well, I can't." She responded. "I have to come back every so often for more air. And, swimming is so tiring. Aren't you at least a little tired?"

.......... "Maybe a little." I said. "But the sensation of moving like that and breathing under water, I felt as free as a bird, flying in the sky."

.........."Hey, come back to earth, little bird." Linda said. "Or I'll have to take you home now. Don't go off the proverbial deep end on me." She handed me a sandwich.

.........."What is this?" I asked, peeling open the bread to look at the inside.

.........."What else?" She replied with a sly smile. "Tuna fish."

..........I groaned. If I hadn't been so hungry, I would have thrown the sandwich back at her. We sat and ate and talked. I tried to tell her how much I was enjoying this and she told me she was having a really good time also. After lunch, Linda sat next to me on the pier and we talked some more, her legs dangling in the water next to my tail. She got up and brought a comb out of her bag and began to comb out my wet hair. I told her she didn't have to do it, but she wanted to and it did feel good. When she was through, I returned the favor, although her hair was much shorter than mine.

..........Linda said she wanted to stretch out and rest for a little while. She asked if I wanted to lay next to her, but I was afraid of what might happen and told her I was going to get back in the water. She stretched out, on the pier, using one of the bags as a pillow. I slid back into the lake and lazily paddled around near the shoreline, watching first some fish, and then looking upward, the clouds float by overhead, which I could clearly see from under the surface, enjoying this all too brief respite from my wheel chair.

..........After about twenty minutes, I went back under the edge of the boat house and saw that Linda was sitting up and getting her tank ready. Soon she joined me in the lake, this time with her video camera and another strong light. Again we swam out into the lake. This time staying closer to the shore. Linda videotaping me as I swam and maneuvered, completely nude, through the clear liquid.

..........A ways down the shore from the boat house, we swam around a point of land and into a small bay. We came across a rope stretching up to the surface and could see a small boat. Linda wrote the word 'fisherman' on her board. Just then a glass bottle floated down from above. I grabbed it. The label said 'Budweiser'. Swimming down to the bottom, about forty feet below the boat, the bottom was littered with many more bottles and some other trash. These guys were serious drinkers, as well as being serious litterbugs. I don't know why, but to see this pristine lake defiled like this really bothered me. I motioned for Linda to follow me and we swam back around the point and toward the shore, which angled up steeply. We broke the surface and peeking from behind a log, could clearly see the boat, with three guys in it. One of them appeared to be asleep, and the other two were pulling long drinks from more bottles of beer. As we watched, one of them emptied a bottle, then held it under the water to fill and dropped it in, to float down to the bottom.

.........."Let's do something about this." I said to Linda.

.........."I don't know about this, Terry." She replied, sounding nervous. "Maybe we should just leave them alone."

.......... "I'm going to teach them a lesson and have some fun at the same time." I told her. "Look at those three, they're so drunk, they'll think they're hallucinating. Just follow me and give me a hand. Maybe you can tape this, it might be worth a laugh later." I told her where I wanted her to be with the camera, and we submerged.

..........First we swam back around the point, closer to shore, where they were casting their lines into the shallower water among some vegetation. We found their lines with hooks and bait attached and using Linda's knife, proceeded to cut all three lines. They noticed the movement of the lines and one by one reeled them in and noticed the cut, or they thought, broken lines. With much cussing and yelling, the three drunken fisherman began to repair the damage. While they were occupied, I took Linda's knife and swam down to where their anchor was on the bottom. I carefully cut the rope and swam up to the bottom of the boat with the end of it. I cut off about ten feet of the line and proceeded to wrap it tightly around the propeller on their outboard motor and tie it securely around the housing.

..........Then, motioning for Linda to follow me we came up to just under the bottom of the boat. I motioned for her to take her camera to where I had told her I wanted her to be, about twenty feet off the bow of their boat, and on my signal, stick her head and camera above the surface, and tape what I was going to do. When I could see she was in position, I gave her the signal, and then I came up on the side of the boat away from the shore and put my head out of the water, about six feet from the boat. They all turned to me as soon as I broke the surface, including the one I had thought was passed out.

.........."Hello boys." I said in what I meant to be a seductive voice. "How's it hanging?"

..........One of them started choking on the mouthful of beer that he had just swilled, and the other two just sat there, staring at me with their jaws wide open.

..........I rose a little higher out of the water to give them a good view of my naked tits and very erect nipples. All three jaws were so wide open, you could have parked a truck in any one of them. "You boys are being very naughty, littering in my lake like this." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Linda with her camera. Even with her mouth piece in, I could tell she had a big grin on her face.

..........Two of them were speechless. The other started to jabber in a drunken tone, "Wat'cha mean YOUR lake, lady? You don't own this here lake and we'll dump our stuff where we damn well please. No broad go'in to tell me what to do. Only my wife does that, damn her." He was trying to stand up in the boat. Cm'on over here, bitch, and I'll show you what we do with uppity wimmen around here." He was too drunk to stand and almost fell over the side.

.........."This IS my lake." I said, batting my eyes at him, and feeling ridiculous doing it. I hoped Linda was enjoying this, I was. "I'm the 'Mermaid of the Lake', and this is my home." I said in a louder voice. "And for despoiling my home, I'm going to tow your boat out to the middle of the lake and let you row it back. And when you reach the shore, you are never to return to my

..........lake, or I will feed you to the fish." With that I leaned back and brought my tail fin out of the water and brought it down on the surface, splashing all three with cold water.

..........All three started yelling and muttering curses. Two of them still stared at me as I moved around, bringing my body far enough out of the water to leave no doubt as to what I was. The third tried to start the motor, but the nylon anchor line wrapped tightly around the propeller and housing kept it from turning over.

.........."Enough of this." I yelled. "Your motor will not start unless I let it. Now, sit still and do nothing or you will be sorry." I wanted to scare them but I didn't want them to fall overboard and drown. Their shock at seeing a supposedly mythical creature and their drunken state caused them to do as I said.

..........I still held the end of the anchor line attached to the bow of the boat. I swam, backwards, out away from the boat until the line was taut and pulled the bow away from the shore and Linda, who was still taping. Pulling the boat wasn't easy, and most of the time I was completely submerged while pulling. I could pull harder that way. Every so often, I popped back up to let them know I was still there. Linda had no trouble following, while I slowly towed the boat.

..........I couldn't pull them all the way to the middle of the lake, but after about ten minutes of pulling I was getting tired and decided that in their drunken state, this was probably far enough. I swam back under the boat and seeing a basket in the water filled with the fish they had caught, I cut the line holding it and carried it with me away from the boat. About ten feet from the side of the boat, I surfaced again, and, pulled open the top of the basket. I dumped out the few fish they had trapped inside it and yelled, "Be free, my children. Swim for your lives."

..........Throwing the basket back at the boat, I yelled out again, "Now go, and never defile my home again. Next time I won't let you off so easy."

..........I submerged and swam back to where Linda had also ducked back under and was looking at me shaking her head. I took her hand again and towed her away from the scene, back around the point and out of sight as fast as I could.

..........We surfaced again, and Linda took out her mouthpiece and breathing heavily, said, "Are you crazy? Those guys could have hurt you. And, they saw you, now what are we going to do?"

.........."Do you think anybody is going to believe them?" I replied. "Before last Saturday, if Bob had come home and told you he had seen a mermaid, would you have believed him? Not a chance, you'd have wanted to know how much he had to drink or what kind of funny weed he was smoking. Once they sober up, they'll never mention it to anybody else, probably not even each other."

.........."I guess you're right." She said, calming down a little. "Let's use up the last of the tape and get back to the house. My air won't last much longer and I'm getting pretty tired."

..........We swam and Linda taped until it was time to go back. I was a little tired myself from the exertion of so much swimming and, especially, pulling that boat. We got back into the boat house and Linda put her camera gear up on

..........the pier and then stood on the bottom near the ladder. I was floating next to her. She paused, looked at me, started to grin and then a moment later broke into laughter. "Hello, boys." She mimicked what I had said. "I am the 'Mermaid of the Lake'. Jeez, Terry, how corny can you get?"

..........In a moment we were both laughing as hard as we could. We laughed so long that my sides began to hurt. Linda calmed down a little and started to climb up the ladder onto the pier. Half-way up, she muttered, "Be free, my children." And broke into gales of laughter again and promptly fell off the ladder back into the water. She still had her air tank on and it pulled her under. I rushed to help her stand up and got her upright. She stood in the neck deep water choking and sputtering. I reached around and helped her loosen the straps on the tank and it fell off and sank to the bottom. When she had resumed normal breathing I helped her lift the tank up and we pushed it up on the pier.

..........She stood in the water, holding onto the ladder and finally said, "God, that was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You've got to be the worst grade B movie actress ever."

..........It still felt funny to be referred to in the feminine form, as an 'actress'.

.........."It was the best I could do on short notice." I said, still grinning.

..........She smiled at me, grabbed my hand and said, "I know I said I wouldn't ask you to do anything you didn't want to, but......" She took both of my hands and pulled me to her, and said, "At least kiss me. If I can't make love to you under water, like I've been dreaming of doing, at least kiss me while we're in the lake."

..........She had been pretty good to me and had helped a lot since my change. I felt that a little kiss wouldn't hurt anything.

..........I put my arms around her, feeling her wetsuit, and we put our lips together. She had her arms around my neck, pulling us together. Not that I wanted to pull apart right away, the kiss felt good, real good. My nipples were already a little hard, now they became fully aroused. Linda dropped her hands down my back, pulled our bodies tightly together, and began to squeeze and massage my smooth, scale covered bottom.