Seula didn’t know what to make of Azalea’s revelation about her suddenly expanded belly. She chalked it up to some strange shoreborne custom or just a fairy thing. Either way, Azalea was happy.
If this is what having a friend and being included was like, it felt nice – even if she thought Azalea was a little too open and forthcoming about certain things. Feeling spoiled by their company, her joy was tinged with sadness, knowing her new friends would be leaving in a few days.
After they’d all eaten, Devin, Azalea, and Reina left for their souvenir shopping. Seula didn’t feel like going. She needed some alone time to think about the decision she had to make. Did she want to learn the truth about Lady Luci’s possible employment and risk ruining the image she had of her? She was having trouble deciding. Maybe a swim would help.
It had been a long time since she’d taken to the water for anything beyond fishing. She finished oiling her harpoon—the coming-of-age gift she’d carried for years—and leaned it against the wall. The motion felt strange; she rarely entered the water without it.
Taking several deep breaths, she slipped into the brisk water with barely a ripple. The pelagian exit from the Boil’n’Bubble was a simple underwater tunnel entered from a hole in the floor. From there, it was a five-minute swim to Merport or a ten-minute vigorous swim to the merfolk’s city.
Kicking off the first bend in the tunnel with her back flipper, she shot forward, narrowly avoiding stubby rocks jutting out at odd angles.
On land, she felt clumsy and highly reliant on others. In the water, though, she felt free, graceful, and responsively agile. Twisting and turning her body, she deftly navigated the enclosed space until, with a full rotation, she burst out into the open ocean.
The sudden transition from tiny space to extreme vastness never failed to induce both anxiety and awe in equal measures. The complete contrast between the safe and stifling tunnel and the freedom and uncertainty of open water even energized her.
Turning onto her back, she ceased paddling and let her body sink naturally. She stared up at the cliff wall where her lighthouse sat framed by the wobbly moon, distorted by the bay’s choppy surface.
This process was just one of her little idiosyncratic habits she did during this time of year to help mentally anchor herself. From this depth, light could still penetrate, if there was any. The half-lidded sun was not at full strength, having given its reign over to the twilight of winter, turning the bay into a hazy world of shadows.
Closing her eyes, she flipped over and slowly re-opened them, letting herself spatially adjust as she coasted down the steep incline of the continental shelf. Below her lay a broad plain carpeted with cold-water coral, a few shipwrecks from long ago, and lonely sea grass waving as she passed by.
Shoals of fish cruised alongside her. Aside from merfolk, with their unnaturally bright coloring for this environment, the non-demi-human marine life were plainer, with little variation between silver, gray, and white, with streaks of tannish copper. Life was plentiful down here but only because of the eddies and whirlpools bringing up fresh food from the darker depths.
Farther down, the plain leveled off, where it eventually and quite abruptly ended, plunging vertically into the abyss. This was an unmistakable geographical sign marking the final point of safety for breath-holders.
It was also the location of the merfolk’s only city in the north, Valtamerikylä, or Valta for short. This precariously located home for a large portion of the undersea demi-human population could be seen from miles around. A large dome of hazy yellow light warded off the impingement of the inky blackness, acting as a reasonable underwater lighthouse, guiding those from beyond the precipice to civilization.
For a homebody like herself, she had a healthy respect for the great expanse beyond. She wasn’t inclined nor equipped to live outside, or venture very far beyond this small sliver of inhabited water. Few were; even merfolk with their gills needed a place to settle down to rest from time to time.
Those that did, mainly the whaleans, delphins, orcarii, sharkari, stingrati, and other nomads, were capable of sleep-swimming, or they possessed the stamina to cross the vast distance without getting tired.
Seula was more than satisfied exploring the great beyond through her imagination and stories, both its wonders and dangers. The enchanting accounts of turquoise seas with sparkling, clear water and life with every color imaginable, or the dread warnings of swaths of ocean where nothing lived, so hostile to life a person couldn’t float or even breathe… all enthralled her.
Whether such accounts were exaggerated didn’t matter. They kept her imagination sufficiently entertained.
Sometimes she wondered if anyone had ever mapped it all! If not, would anyone ever? How many generations would that take?
Hurrying on her way, she first had to swim over farmland before reaching the city proper. Down here, crops were not affected by the seasons. Each ‘field’ was a rectangular parcel of sand subdivided into three plots. Rows of aquamarine sea-grass and wine-red algae grew in the smaller sections, while the larger divisions were reserved for evenly spaced rows of giant clam shells resting on stands of driftwood.
The Bivalari, as they preferred to be called, were a shy tribe that rarely interacted with others or their own kind, for that matter. Skittish, they often stayed hidden in their protective shell.
Their self-imposed reclusiveness wasn’t because they disliked the company of others. No, the reason was purely anatomical. Their shells were the result of a lifetime of adding layer after layer of an oily substance produced from their skin. These layers hardened until the bivalari were fully enclosed.
They were human from the head down, but their backs merged to form the spine, or hinge, of their shell. Possessing no legs, each of their thighs merged with a shell half. Opening themselves up to the outside world meant exposing a very vulnerable and private side. They only ever did so for very specific reasons – partially opening to eat or fully opening for mating and pearl coating.
Realizing it was still too early for the business of the day to get into full swing, Seula spotted only a handful of ‘open’ bivalari. It was considered rude to swim fast near the clam beds. They were easily spooked and would shut at the slightest surprise, disrupting farm work.
Slowing down, the polite selkie crept past a woman with delicate, milky-white skin and dark hair. She was raised vertically so that the edges of her shell were wedged into the sand, making her look like a lewd pop-up book. This was the typical, albeit unnatural, position for working.
Most likely a new hire still coming to terms with the intimacy of the process, she hung suspended above an engrossed male sahagin, probably the farmer, trying to cover her face in embarrassment. But at the same time, the nails of her other hand dug into the muscular man’s forearms as she leaned on him, silently moaning her enjoyment of the process.
With steady confidence, the fishman vigorously swished his fingers across her clamhood, separating it as an old fin of the pearl trade compared to the younger inexperienced seamen. The goal wasn’t to make her orgasm – that was merely the reward for staying at peak arousal for as long as the session lasted.
The creation of a pearl was actually the result of an irritant entering a specific part of their body. Nacre, a protective mucus produced from their vagina, would coat any foreign object in a glossy lacquer and harden into what would eventually become a pearl. The non-interfering, natural process could take anywhere from six months to four years for a big one. Farming artificially sped up the process to just a few weeks, or even faster if the woman was healthy and willing.
Purposely introduced ‘irritants’ that were used didn’t actually cause any harm if left inside, nor were they uncomfortable. Quite the opposite – the clam girl wouldn’t even know they were there if they weren’t privy to its insertion. They also made them amorous.
Inducing arousal at the onset helped ensure a thick base coat. After that, the aphrodisiac could no longer be released, leaving the process entirely in the well-versed hand techniques of the farmers.
In most cases, an increased yield was wonderful to have, but sometimes a new farmer would try to cheat by adding way too many irritants, resulting in an uneven distribution of nacre and a subpar pearl.
It was okay to have more than one irritant up to a certain amount, yet it all depended on what kind and size of pearl was desired. The primary importance and value were placed on quality.
Being a pearl producer was a speciality career, one for which the bivalari were uniquely suited. Thus, it came with many perks – the best food whenever they wanted, full-body massages, free entertainment organized by their farmer, and general pampering sure to make anyone a little envious.
The key factor in a well-cultivated pearl was the care provided to the bivalari because the effort required to grow one pearl was physically quite taxing.
Coatings would occur three times a day or more, depending on the girl’s neediness and energy. Edging maintained a steady production of nacre, so it wasn’t unheard of for a completed pearl to have hundreds of layers to it.
Pearls came in several colors determined by the bavlari’s lineage, anything from blackish blue to silverish-green. Seula preferred the pink and golds personally, but the most demanded was the illustrious white. That alabaster finish was the most coveted and involved an extra… special step…
Only females could produce pearls, but males were not entirely cut out of the process. They had a different role. Outside of mating season, a male’s seed also qualified as a foreign element. All it took was many injections to mix in that extra-shiny finish.
Male bivalari were not used. It was too awkward to scissor two shells together, and they reproduced externally anyway.
At the height of the busy season, the job was open to whoever wanted to assist, but most of the time it was the farmer or a farmhand. The sahagin farmer, having masturbated her to the height of her arousal, simultaneously made himself hard. His shorter length was actually preferred due to bumpier ridges compared to the streamlined penises of other pelagians. With the bivalari’s vagina already stuffed with a pearl, he didn’t and couldn’t penetrate her completely.
Lining up with the flabby, dark folds of her pussy, he rubbed himself between the mushy lips a few times before pushing in with one smooth thrust.
Built to match a different vaginal shape, sahagin mating typically happened underwater. As such, the male was shaped in such a way as to pull seawater out of the female, forming a vacuum so it wouldn’t interfere with fertilization.
Technically a virgin to any form of penetration, the enraptured clam-girl shuddered as her mismatched hole tightened, molding around the farmer’s penis as he steadily thrust.
Seula caught herself staring as she passed and quickly looked the other way. They’d be at it for a while, and she realized she was getting distracted.
—
With the rural areas behind her, Seula neared the city limits. Strewn across tiers of flat coral was a visually complex hodgepodge of house-sized shells layered on top of each other, forming buildings and city blocks. While the shells doubled as homes, many of the roughly eighty percent of the merfolk population had turned the single-entrance, balconied dwellings into their own private singing stages. For the other twenty percent, their two-story shells became businesses.
Seula swam down through high rises to street level and passed by one such shop. A pretty collection of banded whelks, murex, cockleshells, and others was stacked and organized pleasingly within someone’s front window.
As a staple of undersea life, shells weren’t only used for housing. Smaller ones were used in everything from dishes and containers to musical instruments. Picking up a conch horn, Seula turned it over in her hand. Sound worked differently underwater. It moved faster and carried farther.
Unable to vocalize words as they could on the surface, alternatives were employed by the various pelagian tribes in order to communicate. Were it possible for landwalkers to come down here, it might seem eerily devoid of the everyday sounds they were used to.
For those possessing hard outer-skeletons, claws, and pincers, a series of clicks and snapping was used to communicate, colloquially named ‘chatterclack’. It was sometimes called ‘underclack’ because it was a simple, gruff, and harsh-sounding language when translated into words.
Pelagians with gills used ‘bubblelect’ – a difficult form of communication for which air is taken in through the gills and breathed out in a precise way. It was challenging to read because it not only relied on the bubble’s pattern but also on the amount and size.
For people like herself who had to hold their breath, a mix of hand gestures and tail smacks sufficed. Rudimentary, but it conveyed enough.
The merfolk, too, could use bubblelect but didn’t because it was too “banal” and “low-tide.” They preferred the more advanced version of humming or throat singing, as they called it.
When the merfolk actually put effort into something besides parading around and flaunting their beauty, they created music. They were masters when it came to composition, structure, and arrangement, and understood the intricacies of how to weave together melody, rhythm, and harmony.
With their naturally gifted voices, they could lead listeners through the width and depth of emotions, enthralling and enchanting an audience for hours.
Seula set the conch down and continued on her way, losing herself in thought as she cruised the streets with no particular destination in mind. Her thoughts drifted forward to tonight. She was torn. She hungered to know everything there was about Lady Luci, but there was an anxiety about reality not matching up with her idealized image.
How did that saying go? “Beware diving too deep, you may find only shipwrecks?”
Even if her ladyship was doing those types of… things, did she have the right to question it? If that was what she wanted to do, shouldn’t she, as the duke’s daughter’s most adamant and self-proclaimed admirer, accept even that part of her and even support her?
Seula stopped in front of a street vendor creating sand art, where brightly colored layers of sand formed vertical pictures in a glass jar.
Surely, Lady Luci must also have those kinds of needs from time to time, just like anyone else. Even herself, perhaps the least horny selkie or even person out there, did. The bombardment of the sexual industry at the cannery and her reaction proved that.
Seula shook her head to dispel the lewd images.
Couldn’t Lady Luci satisfy her own needs, though, or have any number of the people who waited on her assist with it? Why go to the Kelp’s Hole for such things? Was she too self-conscious? That would make the anonymity of the Kelp’s Hole a perfect option.
Continuing her wandering, Seula passed a group of Hardskjell hard at work. More commonly known as Clawkin, their tribe was divided into two factions: the Redclads, with the longer, segmented bodies, and the stouter, often hermitish Krabbfolk.
Both tribes being fastidious, they kept the city clean. No one had requested they take on that role; rather than feeling obligated, they naturally gravitated to it. They lived there and wanted a hygienic place to live.
Seula had an epiphany. ‘Wait! Maybe Lady Luci felt inclined to a specific role! As a noble, she would most likely abide by the oath: Obligation of the Highborn. It was a social promise, a pledge given by those with an aristocratic upbringing. It was said that those with privilege, wealth, power, or status had an obligation to act with generosity, responsibility, and honor toward those who were less fortunate.
‘What if Lady Luciana’s adherence to that extended to even those kinds of things? To personally commit herself to the care of the citizens – it was such a noble endeavor! She is as truly wonderful as I thought!’
‘If that was the case, then, as Lady Luci’s number one supporter, surely I should be witness to each and every aspect of her wonderful benevolence, right?’
Had anyone been privy to her thoughts, they surely would have said her imagination was swimming away with her. But no one was, and it was already too late; her head was already in the bubbles and carrying her away.
The selkie’s thoughts roamed over that idea for a while until a more pressing matter came up. She was running low on air. She could only hold her breath for thirty minutes. It was typically dangerous for her to dive this deep. She wouldn’t have done it if provisions had not been made for breath-holders in the form of special garden spots called ”breath stops”.
Orienting herself, she kicked the water and jetted through busy urban areas until she arrived at a quiet park. It was tucked away from the bustle of the streets under a kelmari forest and swathed in a murky emerald haze caused by tiny things called plankton, or so the Whaleans said.
Aside from being a source of food, they also somehow used the sun to make air and add it to the water if there were enough of them concentrated in an area. One such plankton bloom was here, surrounding a small gazebo.
Diving down, Seula approached the door-less entrance and peered inside. She witnessed several kelp girls staring out at the scenery. Lightly knocking on the lintel, all heads turned toward her in eerie unison.
Their presence here was significant but in a passive way. They didn’t need oxygen themselves, but they collaborated with the plankton, after a fashion. The way they respirated added to the density of the air in the water the plankton started.
The announcement of her arrival wasn’t for the kelp girls, though. Within their midst was another presence. This person was from a specific tribe that Seula considered the most elegant pelagians in all the ocean – even more so than Lady Luciana (though she disliked admitting that).
Floating above the floor was a woman of indeterminate age, with translucent skin and an unimaginably flowy, opaque dress splashed with violet. Her clothing was, in fact, her body. Frillier and more elegant than any crafted garment, the slightest ripple caused it to fan out and swirl about her, giving the illusion she was performing a graceful dance.
Atop and part of her head was one of two large, pulsing ‘bells’. The other protruded from the bottom of her ‘dress,’ in a long train of pastel pink and white tentacles.
She was a jellmire. Believed to be immortal, these enigmatic people never grew old. Instead, they reverted to a younger version of themselves when they reached a certain age or contracted an illness. However, they could still die if they were injured or waited too long to revert.
As quiet as the kelp girls, they also couldn’t speak, but their constant watchfulness made them aware of many things. At times, their fathomlessly serene eyes seemed to hide wisdom on par or exceeding that of whaleans. Unexcitable and unhurried, they were content living out their lives doing next to nothing except drifting along with the ocean’s endless tides.
Despite their penchant for inactivity, they did at times serve in one of a few important roles within pelagian society, especially the one Seula was in current need of.
When the jellmire turned and smiled warmly, Seula avoided making eye contact for longer than was considered impolite. She felt awkward around such ephemeral beauty. No words needed to be exchanged. They all knew why she was here.
The Jellyfish woman held out her hand, coaxing the timid selkie forward. As Seula clasped the almost ethereal fingers, her heartbeat quickened, conscious that the kelp girls would watch throughout the upcoming process.
Pulling the shy girl into a most motherly embrace, the jellmire wrapped her arms and tendrils around the tense selkie.
Their faces were so close. Seula blushed and looked down, but the older woman’s smile deepened as she lifted the younger selkie’s chin up. Mechanically, Seula closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and leaned forward, waiting as the refined woman reciprocated with a firm and airtight kiss. It wasn’t a kiss of passionate romance or reunified familiarity (despite Seula’s conviction that this woman remembered her), but one of fully genuine care, love, and tenderness. It made her flustered feelings melt away.
As Seula was pulled tighter, the countless ruffles of the jellmire’s body puffed up, and she seemed to be inhaling with her entire being. At the same time, Seula flushed, feeling countless prickles pierce her skin wherever a tentacle was touching her. The small of her back, her neck, all over her tail, her breasts, nearly every inch of her was wrapped in ribbon-like tentacles. Even her slit had the flat part of a tentacle plastered to it.
The numerous tiny stingers throughout the strange demi-human woman’s body served two purposes. One was to catch food (she also ate plankton). The other was to inject the recipient with a special ‘venom’ that helped the receiver’s body saturate and enrich itself with the life-giving air they were about to receive.
It came with a cost, though – a side effect she found to be the most embarrassing aspect of using this service, especially with an audience. It made her orgasm.
Puffed up to her full size, the jellmire’s body contracted, sending the air she had filled herself with, along with another dose of venom that made Seula’s flippers curl. A sudden rush of pleasure made her gasp and inhale the fresh air being exhaled into her. Once, twice, three times, an orgasm was forced out of her, each one bringing about a deeper lungful of air.
The dull-mindedness of low oxygen faded as her heightened alertness made her more acutely aware of how hot and turned on she was.
Had she fantasized that the jellmire woman was Lady Luci? She needed to touch herself so badly, but she was paralyzed with euphoria. All she could do was inhale as her body succumbed to the air and aphrodisiac being pumped into her.
The exchange seemed to last for minutes, with Seula orgasming another two times. Still, barely forty seconds had passed when the blissed selkie realized that the soft lips were no longer pressed against her own. She would have collapsed if she’d been on land, but the buoyancy of her now full lungs kept her upright and afloat. The jellmire woman cradled Seula, held her hand, and rubbed her cheek against hers until the selkie recovered.
The kelp girls had lost all interest and resumed staring out into the ocean.
Stroking Seula’s cheek affectionately as she withdrew, the jellmire waved goodbye and joined the kelpgirls in their vigilance as Seula wobbled and floated to the exit.
With the post orgasmic clarity flooding her mind, she suddenly remembered something important. ‘Wasn’t there a scheduled town visit today? How could I have forgotten?!?’ In a panicked rush, she swam toward Merport as fast as her flippers could carry her.
—
Luci lay face down in bed with a pillow over her head. She wished the chambermaids busying themselves around her room, opening the blinds, stoking the fire, and generally tidying her room, could have waited another hour.
“Your ladyship, if you don’t hurry, you’re going to miss the breakfast chime.”
Luci sluggishly sat up and rubbed her eyes. Yawning, she slid to the edge of the bed while one of her three sahagin handmaids attempted to make her hair presentable. A second readied the jewelry and royal emblems she was to wear for the day, and the third pulled out a list from her apron pocket.
“Here’s your itinerary for the day, m’lady. After breakfast, you have a sit-in on proposals for increasing cross-cultural interaction between Merport and Pelagosyr, followed by attending the grand opening of the new Harbormaster’s office. At four, you have your weekly town visit.”
“Yes, yes. Thank you for reminding me, Eirvika.”
After breakfast, Luci mechanically went about her duties, being hauled here and there on her enclosed palanquin because she’d dirty herself and it’d take much too long at her normal walking speed.
Snobbish courtiers and lower-ranked nobles with their own agendas flocked around her, clambering for her attention, but her mind was elsewhere. She didn’t care to entertain those who spent too much time soaking in their own brine, as she liked to say.
Luci peeked through the curtain as her retinue passed through the industrial district and by her secret night hobby. The Kelp’s Hole was closed at this time of day, but tonight she’d undoubtedly be there to unwind after a day like today. She didn’t often get a good look at the front since she only ever entered from the back. It was so plain it would easily be overlooked by a non-local.
—
She thought back to the first time she visited. One evening, several weeks after her joust she’d been in her room reading but she couldn’t focus. She’d felt listless, like a ship adrift in the doldrums. She’d been moody, bored, antsy, and worst of all, horny.
The first bit she could cope with; having worked hard for a goal, only to come up short, literally, but the aroused state in which she found herself was all thanks to having been penetrated for the first time by her sisters. She wanted to experience that sensation again.
For the little dignity she had left, though, it was beyond mortifying to repeat letting her sisters penetrate her.
She looked down at herself. She’d been purposely ignoring the etiquette of hiding her nethers whenever she was alone, a passive-aggressive act of quiet rebellion and dissatisfaction. ‘So annoying!’
Even though her body was constantly covered with a clear mucus, whenever she got like this, the secretion from her womanly parts was especially slippery and messy. She was leaking it everywhere.
She had to do something about her embarrassing situation before her cleaning maids found out and knew exactly why they would have extra work in her room tomorrow.
She bemoaned the smallness of her fingers; they weren’t thick enough, nor could she bend her wrist enough to fist herself. She got up in a huff and pushed over a chair in frustration. She could rub herself on something like usual, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to be filled.
She paced around the room. If only she could buy a toy. She heard phallic-shaped merchandise existed, but she’d never be allowed to buy one, and she wasn’t close enough to anyone whom she felt comfortable asking to buy one for her in secret.
She looked around the room for something to serve her needs. Nothing. Nothing except for… she looked down at the overturned chair. She didn’t need such furniture, nor could she use it; it was for guests with legs. ‘Legs… maybe that’d work.’
She pulled it closer, the legs up in the air, positioned herself at an appropriate angle, and sank down. ‘How convenient the leg was rounded.’ She might have used it, though, even if it was square. Pushing forward, the makeshift member slid in easily, but it wasn’t able to go as deep as she wanted because the other legs were in the way. ‘Better than nothing!’ She exhaled and rode the chair for several minutes, managing to orgasm once, enough to take the edge off, but not wholly satisfying.
Dismounting, she threw herself onto her bed and stared up at the curtains resembling flowing kelp, prompting a memory to resurface. She’d remembered seeing a flyer advertising a Kelmari soup kitchen, but it wasn’t the food she was interested in. It was the way it was written that gave her the impression that untoward things happened there anonymously.
She didn’t see how food and “untoward things” were connected, but she was curious to know more. With the itch still simmering in her lower extremities, a vague idea started to take shape in her mind that perhaps she could take care of her needs there.
But what if she got caught? She’d need a plausible explanation. She could just say she’s conducting a personal inspection of the Kelmari situation. Her response to anyone questioning her didn’t need to be a lie.
She didn’t know the in-depth particulars about how the Kelmari conducted their affairs, but she knew enough to know they had trouble acquiring enough food in the winter and had emerged on land to find a solution to their plight. They didn’t have much of an active role in society and were often overlooked. Commendably, they had managed to carve out a niche for themselves.
At her current standing, she didn’t have much influence to directly alter their lives, but perhaps she could discreetly bring more attention to their business.
How would she go about getting into town unnoticed? A disguise? She didn’t have any clothes meant to hide her identity. They’d all been bought to do just the opposite. Technically, she didn’t even need to wear clothes, but she liked dressing up in fashionable accessories. They were a wonderful human invention.
Looking around her room, hoping for inspiration, her eyes settled on the curtains again. ‘If I’m going to a kelp girl business, I might as well dress the part.’ The curtains were dark green, almost black, useful for keeping the sun out so she could sleep in… or stay hidden for a clandestine adventure!
Pulling them off the rungs, she flung the material over her back and wrapped it over her head. ‘This could work!’ Her sticky body helped it stay enveloped to her form.
Now, how to get down? She went to the bedroom door and cracked it open. Everyone had gone to bed. No one usually bothered her before morning, but escaping this way was no good.
She wasn’t fast enough to avoid the night watch, not to mention it’d take too much time, and they’d see her slime trail. The gate was guarded anyway.
She returned to her now bare window and looked down. Her room was on the third floor. It’d have to be this way. She put her foot on the windowsill and shimmied out.
‘Perfect!’ It was starting to rain, and that’d wash away any sign she had been there. Also, fewer people would be out and about.
She was nervous being this high up but managed to make it to the ground level without incident.
Sneaking around the perimeter, she crawled over the outer wall and found herself on the street, by herself, for the first time in, well, ever!
Her many trips into town had ensured she’d memorized several routes, so she was pretty sure she knew how to get to where she was going. She dropped into the nearest canal with minimal splash.’This is exciting!’ Typically, leaving the castle was a whole affair with guards, heralds, and all the people who made outings seem as little fun as possible, as they always reminded her of etiquette. As if she didn’t already know.
Speaking of, she’d forgotten to hide her womanhood. ‘Why should I? Since I’m doing so many things I shouldn’t right now, why not this?’ As someone who was not brought up wearing clothes, this might be the closest she came to exhibitionism.
‘You’re so naughty, Luci, exposing your lady parts out in public.’
She passed through the upper district unseen. It wasn’t until she neared the city center that she encountered people standing under eaves waiting for the rain to stop. Her destination was near where the sailors tended to congregate.
‘Almost there. If I go up here, I think I’ll be at the entrance.’ The entire journey had taken nearly an hour. If she did this again, she would have to take travel time into account. Would there be a next time?
Poking her head out of the water, she spotted several men and a couple of women milling about the entrance. ‘No going in that way. Maybe around back.’ She dove back down and approached from a different angle.
‘Better. Not a single person.’ Climbing out of the water, she hurried as fast as her single foot could slide, her heart pounding in anticipation. Of what? Many lurid images flashed through her mind. None of them was realistic but enough to spur her on her horny adventure.
‘Made it!’ A windowless door faced the open sea. Years of exposure to the constant blasting of wind and ocean had formed a fine layer of salt crystals. Fiddling with the crude latch, she managed to force the rusty hinges to turn and slipped inside.
‘Now what? It looks, smells, and definitely sounds like a place where improper things happen.’
She was at the end of a large corridor of doors lit by saltwater lamps. Unlike the ones used underwater, they had metal rods inside them and lasted for hours on just a glass of seawater.
Wax candles were either nonexistent or affordable only to the wealthy. Tallow candles smelled bad, and pelagians weren’t keen on fire to begin with because of a mix of primal discomfort and the way it dried out their skin.
Luci extolled her continued good fortune. The floors were already slick with past Kelamari traffic, so her own trail would blend in with the mucous-coated wood.
Perusing the hallways and distracted with the freedom obtained through her rebellion against her distinguished upbringing, she nearly bumped into an old redback woman exiting a room.
Armored in sturdy plates over much of her body, she had no soft points except for her midriff, upper torso, head, and portions of her arms. Her long, segmented body ended at a fanned-out tail. With a bucket and mop in claw, the woman balanced herself on six pointy, segmented legs.
Immediately remembering she wasn’t supposed to be there, Luci froze.
The tired old woman closed the door and was about to move on to the next one when she noticed the eminently out-of-place Tritonian woman. Narrowing her eyes, the elderly woman silently stared the intruder up and down.
It was apparent to the lobster woman of advanced years who stood before her, even with her poor eyesight. Not that she cared much; she didn’t involve herself in politics. Her only concern was why and what, if anything, she should do about it.
Luci mistook the squinting for scrutiny of who she really was and tried to pull her disguise lower over her face. That inadvertently left the bottom half open.
The nonplussed hardskjell blinked. Well, that answered the why. No one was with this seemingly anonymous noble, which probably meant she came alone and didn’t want anyone to know.
For someone of high status, being in a place this far removed from her station could spell trouble, and would if a fuss was made. Even though she was just the cleaning woman, she felt quite protective of the livelihood of all the girls who worked here.
Also, she was young once and had learned not to stick her claws into shells where they didn’t belong. So, if Miss Fancy Foot came just for that…
The lobster woman pointed to the room she’d just finished cleaning, “No trouble.”
Luci cautiously peeked inside. Did the woman mean that as long as she didn’t cause trouble, she could stay? She curtsied to the old woman, already scuttling away and shaking her head at the disruption to her normally quiet evening.
Hastily entering the open room, Luci shut the door behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief. Having been given permission from someone who seemed to have authority, she felt more at ease. However, she was still no closer to figuring out what exactly went on here.
Dimly lit, the room was little more than a closet, albeit a large closet, comfortable for two kelpgirls. Luci was comparatively a large woman, though, longer than she was tall, and her rear ended up smooshed against the door.
The only furniture was two buckets and two three-legged stools, each with a wedge cut out of it. One of the stools was occupied.
“Oh, excuse me, I didn’t notice you there!”
In the corner sat an unassuming Kelmari girl, placidly watching Luci. She was leaning against the wall, pale legs spread, and her green hair fanned out around her. She mildly toyed with her pussy with a, well, what Luci could only assume was a toy – an actual toy just like she wanted!
She stared at the woman’s small hole hungrily gobbling up what her own leaking one wanted.
Catching herself staring, “I, er, sorry to disturb you. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Madam Hardskjell said it was ok to come in. I didn’t know it was occupied.”
The disinterested kelp girl made only the slightest of gestures, indicating her presence didn’t bother her.
This was Luci’s first time in the presence of someone pleasuring themselves and so unashamedly, too. Since it happened in private, behind closed doors, she wasn’t sure what the polite thing to do was. Should she leave and give her some alone time? She didn’t seem embarrassed about it.
Pausing a moment, the kelp girl grabbed another toy, closed her eyes, and stuck it in her mouth. Any and all attention disappeared into her pleasure-drenched mind.
In such a confined space, the atmosphere felt extra intimate, making Luci uncomfortable. It almost compelled her to make small talk to break the tense silence, but that didn’t feel like the right thing to do given the circumstances. She wouldn’t know what to talk about anyway. Her life was so different from other people’s. She didn’t know what those outside her social circle enjoyed discussing.
‘She gets as wet as I do. Is that where Kelmari lubricant comes from?!?’
The purpose of the cutout in the stool’s seat became apparent. As the kelp girl sat over the bucket, long, clear, gloopy strands oozed from the aquatic plant girl’s soppy snatch, adding to the container which was already three-fourths full.
Luci was familiar with the valuable commodity, but she had been led to believe it was harvested by scraping it off their leaves. That was obviously not the case, or at least not the only way.
Unable to take the silence any longer, “M…may I be honored with the name of the person with whom I am sharing the room?”
The Kelmari opened her eyes, her mouth half-stuffed with the fake cock. Scooping some of her own slime onto her finger, she wrote with it on the wall.
A-l-a-r-a
“And, um, at the risk of being rude, may I ask what you, er, we do here?”
Interpreting the deadpan expression as being confounded at such a ludicrously rudimentary question, she hastily followed up. “S…sorry, I’m, uh, new here.” She immediately regretted that, though. ‘As if that wasn’t obvious, Luciana! This is a Kelmari business after all.’
Not particularly caring who or why this bumbling Tritonian girl was here, Alara removed the toy from her mouth and placed the end against one of four holes in the wall Luci had failed to notice.
‘What does that mean?’ She tried her best to figure out what the kelp girl was attempting to explain, but then a sudden noise came from the other side of the wall.
Alara hastily got up, dropped to her knees in front of the hole, repositioned the bucket between her thighs, and stared up at the black opening with expectation.
Wondering what was happening, Luci was startled as a stumpy grayish-purple something lined with ridges was suddenly extended through.
“What is that?”
Alara didn’t even look her way. Without even a moment of preamble, the kelp girl grabbed whatever it was in her slickened hand and started to pump it. Placing her thin lips on the tip, she suckled her way up, slowly feeding more and more into her mouth until she’d taken the whole thing.
Similarly, on her side of the room, another mystery shape sprang through a hole, startling the sheltered noble.
Squinting at whatever it was, she noticed this one was obviously different. It was peach-colored, smooth, and much more delicate-looking. Unsure of what to make of it, she leaned in and cautiously sniffed. ‘A human male?’ Poking at it, she lifted the limp worm-like thing with the end of her finger. ‘I feel as if I’ve seen something like this before, but from where?’
While she ruminated, she absently started playing with it, as if she could puzzle out what it was through a more hands-on experience.
‘Is… is it getting bigger?!?’
The more she handled it, the larger and stiffer it grew until it was pointing
assertively at her face.
‘At the very least, I know it’s part of a human, but I’ve never seen a human with one of these. At least not… outside… clothes!’
‘Luci, you simpleton! This is a human penis!’
She’d never seen one in person, let alone in so much detail; only a crude drawing when she was learning human and demi-human anatomy from one of her tutors. That wasn’t even to scale.
‘How is it able to start small and grow so big?’ She didn’t remember covering that in her lessons.
Fascinated, she watched it grow in length and girth until the hood of skin looked painfully stretched over the end. Thinking maybe it was too tight, she gingerly pulled it back, uncovering the mushroom-like tip.
‘Then perhaps Alara’s was a sahagin?’ She glanced over at the kelp girl, lips pressed against the wall, having swallowed the entirety of the proffered cock.
‘So the lewd things that happened here involve sucking a male’s penis? How does that relate to them being fed, and how did soup play into all this?’
There was a sudden knock on the wall. Alara froze, the only movement being her throat swallowing and the accompanying audible gulping.
The whole time, Alara hadn’t paused for even a moment as she continued to toy with her pussy, which oozed thick cataphracts of love juice into the bucket.
“Of course! Luci, you dunce. Is your reasoning slipping? Males produce milt.”
Luci had never been allowed to eat it because she’d been told it wasn’t proper for a lady. On one occasion, though, she’d manage to sneak some from the kitchen. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as others made it out to be. Was it better fresh?
Having completely drained her customer, Alara pulled off with a pop and watched the member disappear back into the dark recess.
‘Am I being expected to do that? But… I don’t work here!’
No, that was the wrong way to think about this. She, an outsider, had barged into these girls’ workplace, maybe some even called it home, and disrupted their work. This was how they sustained themselves during these cold months, and here she was acting lackadaisical. And for what? Just because she could and was feeling rebelliously horny?
These girls depended on these meals… it might even be a matter of survival! She’d maybe even taken someone’s job for the day when they really needed it. Well, perhaps not that last one. The redback woman did let her in, so probably not, but she just might as well have!
‘What a shameful display of obliviousness, Luciana! This man, no, this citizen of Merport, perhaps even someone she’s seen in town, had come here and donated his precious time to help feed these girls. You must make amends and take responsibility!’
She turned to face the human cock with a seriousness that’d make any onlooker burst out laughing, but this is how much Luciana believed in correcting her grave breach of respect with her indiscretion. She needed to take responsibility. Her sense of justice wouldn’t let her do otherwise.
If proper ladies didn’t eat milt, then that meant that non-proper ladies did. She was certainly no proper lady with how poor her manners had been.
‘You’re not a duke’s daughter right now, Luciana. You should see yourself as a slutty sea slug whose only duty is to satisfy every male that sticks their member through, extract this milt, and give every generous donation to Alara.’ She owed that much to whoever might have been sitting there.
With the zeal of a person earnestly motivated to right a wrong, the Tritonian maiden grasped the penis firmly and… ’but how do I do it? I’ve never put one of these in my mouth before, not even my own.’ Luci looked to her impromptu oral partner for inspiration.
Not one to offer assistance unless specifically asked, Alara was nonetheless keeping an ear and eye out in case she was needed. Whatever the reason for the strange sea slug woman’s presence, she seemed to have put herself in a frame of mind Alara could respect – willing to do whatever she needed to to pleasure her patron.
As a source of sustenance, and indirectly, life, Alara and her kind had the utmost reverence for their patrons’ cocks and exercised all their skill into what they did, both as a thank you and to make sure not a single drop of the precious liquid was left inside.
As the milt of humans and other patrons was not nearly as energy-rich as the sun, she and her sisters needed to suck a lot of cock to sustain themselves. This was so much so that this activity was all they did throughout the cold months. They couldn’t digest other foods well, and they could only buy so much milt with the money they saved up during the rest of the year. Both fresh AND free, the generosity of their customers couldn’t be overstated or more appreciated.
Another customer came to have her to demonstrate her expertise. Moving a little to the side, Alara brushed her green hair over her shoulder so Luci could see better, indicating with a tilt of her head to just do what she did.
The reputation of the Kelp’s Hole was not a place for people to expect a slow and gentle blowjob. Strong, intense oral action from famished girls was what everyone visiting experienced.
Alara guessed her partner’s mouth probably wouldn’t feel the same, or at least not as acute as her own inner palette, so maybe something with more manual focus was needed.
Luci removed her curtain cloak, forgetting all about hiding who she was. ‘You got this, Luciana. Let’s see… firm grip around the shaft, pumping it while twisting like you’re wringing a towel, fast but not too hard. Flick the tip of my tongue through the slit while sucking intently on the head.’
She did her best to follow, but it was more physically strenuous than it looked. Each time she glanced over for what to do next, she was struck by how sexy and gorgeous the plant girl sucking that male’s member appeared.
Luci wouldn’t learn about the physical changes that occurred in Kelmari when they were underfed until later. Right now, she was engrossed by the femininity of an extremely surfeited Kelmari. Her round butt was well nourished, its peak forming the base of the gentle slope of her spine as she arched her back to reach the hole above. The tantalizingly heavy pudding-soft breasts jiggled as she bobbed forward.
Luci wasn’t into girls in any romantic sense, but she could and did appreciate the female form, as what Alara was doing was an oddly arousing and complete reversal of subsistence from a wholly different type of milk.
Having worked her male’s penis almost all the way into her mouth, she was slowly getting the hang of what to do. She looked forward to what came next when a knock on the wall cut her experience short.
A warm liquid unexpectedly filled her mouth. Quite different from the cold pelagian milt she’d had before, its taste defied description, but she immediately liked it. Slowly pulling back to help make room for the tiny torrent, she was most shocked by the amount and did her best not to spill any or swallow. She held the load on her tongue for several moments, savoring the first-time experience.
Alara, too, had finished, and both men disappeared, leaving them alone.
Luci pointed to her cheeks, then at Alara, which confused the kelp girl. ‘Is she offering me her food? Does she not need or want it? But she worked hard for it!”
Luci gestured again, and this time the plant girl nodded hesitantly.
Turning her body as much as she could without smothering the smaller girl, Luci lifted Alara’s chin, leaned over her, and let the liquid spill from her mouth.
Swallowing the gift, Alara surprised Luci when she stood on her toes and kissed her, her tongue hungrily searching for any remaining morsels.
Breaking away from the surprisingly intimate moment, Luci put her hand to her lips. The kelp girl made no particular notion that it meant anything special other than she was being thorough, but that was the first time someone had kissed her like that. She was taken aback.
—
Luci’s reminiscing was cut short by one of her attendants. “Ready, your highness?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, carry on.” She waved her hand and felt the tremor as her litter bearers lifted her up.
She felt uncomfortable with that title. Though technically accurate, she would have been a princess if they had retained their neutral independence from the Thawdenn kingdom. However, her ancestors had accepted the demotion and had become dukes and duchesses because they felt an alliance would best serve the people rather than their own titles.
So far, it had. While it didn’t serve any strategic military advantage right now, since they had no enemies, it created a structure for a mostly beneficial mixing and sharing of cultures.
She’d only met the royal family once during her presentation as a debutante at the official debutante ball, an event marking the formal introduction of young women from the aristocratic and upper-class families into society.
The sound of the conch horn called for Lady Luciana’s procession to set out through the estate gate, down the twists and turns of the upper district, and then past the Esivanhemmat Gatehouse until they were in the middle of the city.
Back in the present, she recognized that the density of the crowd varied. At some points, the passages were packed with people cheering, waving, and appreciating a momentary distraction from the normal drudgery of the day.
Being the center of attention didn’t bother her, though she didn’t yearn for it either; she would have been equally content being in the background. She chose to reciprocate her people’s appreciation with her wave – a royal wave, as it was sometimes called. Hand raised, palm outward, slow with a slight rotation of the wrist. A generic ‘I am cognizant of you.’
Normally, she’d do this duty mechanically, without much enthusiasm. She did think of them as her people and herself as a servant to their well-being, but it could be tedious. Today, though, she had a reason not to be more attentive. She was trying her best to suppress any anticipation as she scanned the audience for a certain someone. If what Seula said wasn’t an exaggeration, she should be here, somewhere.
The mixed crowd was warmly bundled, and there were no coastal harpies. They didn’t usually attend unless it was one of the more grand and formal occasions marking a historic event. Even then, they mainly came only for the free food.
No merfolk today. It was too cold, and typically, they wouldn’t have cared about her except to see her latest apparel and jewelry combinations.
Today, she wore a black mother-of-pearl necklace inlaid in pink and orange coral, a glimmering comb hairpiece meant to look like a cresting wave, silver earcuffs on her antenna, and a waist chain of polished shells dipped in gold.
She sighed. Still no sign of her. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Luciana. Better to just take care of things as they come without any expectation; less disappointment that way.’
Turning to wave to the other side of the street, her heart skipped a beat. There she was! The selkie was crouched at the opening of an alleyway and at the end of a cluster of people. She had a fist clutched to her chest, and almost a yearning look in her expression as she peeked around the knees of the people.
Her mind raced about what to do. Should she acknowledge her in some way? Wave directly at her? Smile? Mouth something at her and hoping she could read her lips?
Seula wasn’t the type of girl who swooned, but she could understand why it happened to some people. ‘Lady Luci sure looks majestic today. The gray, dismal backdrop of Merport sure does make her colors all the more vibrant. She also seems more lively today for some reason. Maybe something good happened? And she’s looking around a lot more than usual. Is she trying to find someone? Oh, it looks like she found them. Huh, she’s looking over here. It’s as if she’s looking at…’
All noise faded away as their eyes locked. She wasn’t only looking in her direction, she was looking at her!
Luci changed the way she waved, hoping no one but Seula would notice the difference.
She did. A subtle greeting. A small lift of the hand, discreet and personalized for her?!? Seula forgot to breathe. Even as Lady Luci passed her by, she turned in her seat wanting the moment to linger just a little longer. What did it mean? Was Azalea right? Did Lady Luciana actually remember her? Even if she did, a simple glance of recognition was all someone such as herself should have been afforded.
Seula was abuzz with a confused joy she’d never known before. Why her specifically? What did she do to deserve it? Did more happen in their first brief interaction than she realized?
The happiness of being acknowledged by the person she most wanted it from made her want to swim her hardest and leap out of the water like the Delphins did! It made her yearn for more interaction. She wanted to hold Lady Luci’s hand again and talk about things. Anything and everything. Just to hear her voice.
The elated selkie couldn’t wait. She had to go find Azalea and tell her. She had to see her again! Even if it was at that place again.
Diving into the nearest canal, she raced to find the fairy and her family.
