Changes In Paradise: Chapter 13 ? MAD-mers, CHEW, And Poly-mers free porn video

Disclaimer: If you're underage, stop reading. If you're offended by transgender or transsexual ideas, stop reading; and if you're unlikely to enjoy erotic descriptions of sex, stop reading. This story is definitely adult material. Finally, if mermaids aren't your "thing," read this story anyway; it might change your mind. Please read "Changes In Paradise, parts 1 - 12," if you haven't already, and please take a moment to post a comment or send an email. Permission granted to re-post on any free site with attribution. Thanks for the comments, suggestions, and encouragement on the previous parts. I really appreciate it. Several characters and situations that appear in this chapter are the results of the comments from readers: thus, a very big thank you to Debra, Dan-in-warm-Los-Angeles, Draflow, Fran(k), Langalf, Mar Vir, Nimrill, Pat(rick), and Tanym (and my apologies to anyone who has suggested an idea that I have subsequently used but whose name is not listed here). I would also like to thank the many others who have left kind and encouraging comments. Your willingness to say anything is of great value to me. So, thank you again! We begin with a brief synopsis, since it has been over a year since a new chapter was posted (um ... sorry, and thanks for your patience). Newbies should really read (and comment on ... ah hem!) the original chapters, but perhaps this summary, in a voice not completely my own, will be entertaining and informative for devoted fans as well! Mare Vir (thank you again, my friend) started this for me as a way of helping me to slog forward with my writing, despite all the RL pressures, issues, and obstacles that lie before writers of fantasy/erotic fiction who do such work for "free." Hopefully, this long chapter will make up for my tardiness (and chapters 14 - 18 are already sketched out). Changes in Paradise: Part 13 - MAD-mers, CHEW, and Poly-mers By Patricia A lone figure rested on the pure white sand of a pristine tropical beach. She was a nautical goddess, a creature of that heretofore only existed in fantasy, a mermaid. Her long, red hair cascaded over her shoulders - the bottom of her tresses spread themselves over the damp sand of the beach. She arched her back, pushing her breasts toward the setting sun and dipped the pink fringes that dangled from the flukes of her shimmering sea-green fish-tail into the water as another wave rushed toward her. Pat shuddered in delight as the water rose along her tail. The water felt warm and refreshing, but that had little to do with her joy. It was the way the water enhanced the unseen (to her at least) connections between her and her fellow pod mates who were swimming around in the lagoon a few meters away. She could feel the receptors embedded in her fringes along her flukes, mid-tail fins, and dorsal ridge tingle with energy as the water carried the bioelectrical signals from her pod mates to her. She was most thrilled with the connection she felt to her daughter, Maureen, who was playing with her pod sisters, Freya and Cynthia in the shallow waters. A child of her own womb, Maureen's signal nearly overwhelmed the others, sparkling with energy and color. Danni, Pat's own sister-wife, was the next strongest as she was watching the children, again, while Pat's other sister-wife, Phoebe and the trio's husband and pod leader, John, caught fish below. At least that's what they were supposed to be doing; the faint pulsing of their connections suggested that they were engaged in another activity. Pat's breathing quickened as she remembered her own love making with John earlier that morning. Pat was relaxing for a bit. She and her more scientifically inclined counterparts had spent most of the day studying the newest behavior of their nautical sanctum - the Moon Pool. Their own presence there had apparently made the pool a change agent. The effects of their "siren cells" the mers released during their sexual encounters had altered the biology of several different species of bacteria and micro-organisms that inhabited the system of underwater caves they called home, causing these organisms to exert their own effects on any creature that entered the pool. Even as her own pod relaxed, other mers were trying to get a message to Mac Bennett and Joy Simpson to warn them that they may have been unintentionally exposed to the metamorphic powers that the Moon Pool now held on its own. Things were changing on this little island that was, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. But that was really nothing new. Pat scanned the beach and remembered landing there with John nearly two and a half years ago. When she first set foot on this very beach, "she" was a "he." Now, she thought as she sprayed water across her torso and face with a flip of her tailfin, she didn't even have feet to set anywhere. Not that she minded, of course, like all of her fellow creatures, she was thrilled to be a mer, and couldn't remember anything about her life before that was nearly as appealing as the life she had now. Pat looked into the water and smiled. A school of painted shellfish swam by. It was the secretions of these gender-changing fish that Pat had first synthesized into a healing salve. She (he) and John used it to heal their wounds when they first arrived on this island. Eventually, the gender changing influences of the fish DNA made Pat into a woman, John's fantasy woman no less, and John into a specimen of ravishing masculinity. Pat's womb clenched as she remembered how the newly created couple had relished the opportunity to experience this paradise together. It was really her (or his) first romantically satisfying sexual experience. They weren't alone for very long though. Daniel Sherman literally washed up on their beach. He was hobbled and left to drown by the henchmen of a drug lord, Malaki, who eventually became the group's unknown nemesis. To heal Daniel, they gave him the goop Pat had created, and he became Danni. Pat nearly laughed out loud as she watched Danni and their three daughters surface as they played a game of follow the leader. Yes, their small group was growing, but her smile faded as she remembered their early days on the island, before they were mers. Refugees from the drug gang kept coming. All of them found new lives with Pat's group, and several found new genders. Michelle became Michael while Peter became Petra. They also discovered that the fish goop exacted some sacrifices from the humans it helped. The changes they experienced caused them to bond tightly into "pods" of several females to one male. If two males were alone in the company of a single female, they were overwhelmed by feelings of aggression. But if one bonded female accompanied each male, harmony was easily maintained. The new pods formed around Michael, with his former sister Gail and Petra, while Petra's niece, Phoebe, joined Pat and Danni as sister-wives to John. When the thug Alberto and his men took over the island, things got really interesting. Confined to the water, the group noticed that they were subject to the continuing effects of the goop that each produced in their own sexual fluids. Unknown to them at the time, their bodies were already internally changing, developing new sets of organs that shaped the external changes they were noticing. Taking the fish by the fins, so to speak, it was Phoebe who thought to use the mental focus of the group to direct her changes into a mermaid. The combination of their proto-mer-organs, Phoebe's intense desire, and blind luck resulted in a miracle, a one in a billion shot that paid off in a multitude of ways. Within days, everyone had transformed themselves into the beautiful creatures they now were. Exploiting their command of the seas, the newly created mers rescued Alberto's hostages. Their freedom came with consequences as the mermaid milk that healed them from the abuse they had suffered at the hands of their captors also set them on the road to life as mers. Of the two Chinese girls they rescued, Shou Lin took a new name, Xing, to go with her new form as she completed Michael's pod while Mai Lin transitioned to a merman, Mu Su, to lead a new pod of mermaids, identical (finally) triplets, Rikki, Cleo and Emma (who had been Martin when he walked with a pair of legs.) Pat shuddered at the memory of the final battle. Taking back the island from the thugs had taken a terrible toll. They lost Michael to Alberto's hidden gun. The attack was too swift and devastating to give him a chance to recover with their amazing, siren-cell enriched, mermaid milk. So, he was lost, and Gail became Gabriel to lead their pod - which was soon to grow with the daughter Michael had created with Petra. Saka and Angra, lesbian lovers held in service to Alberto, had been the key to their victory. So they were allowed to join the mers as well. Saka could not bear to be with a man, so she became one instead as the merman, Agba. To fill out their pod, they took the young man, Laken, and forcibly made him into the beautiful mermaid, Liga. Exploring their surroundings bought more than the mers could have imagined. They discovered a sunken secret Russian submarine filled with research equipment. Far more valuable than any equipment, they located the only survivors from the sub. The pair of castaways, Russian scientists Grishna and Alexander, were at death's door from exposure and starvation. Faced with the option of certain death as humans or life as mermaids, they opted for life and took on their new forms as Galina and Alexis. It was around this time that the visitors to the island became less victims of circumstance or people in dire peril. Sally Bennett and Eric Edwards, recently of the U.S Navy, arrived to fulfill life long dreams of becoming mers. They achieved it, but only after Agba and Angara were lost to yet another servant to the Drug King Pin. They joined with Liga and Alexis who were carrying the daughters of the now dead Agba. Next to visit the island were the Connors family - who sought to rescue Pat(rick) and John. When they got there, they quickly found that the pair hardly needed rescuing. Hank and his wife, Janice, left the island with their daughters, Kate and Ann, but Pat knew they would be returning soon. They left their son, Robbie, and a former intern, Trevor. Neither of them would voluntarily submit to a gender change, but each wagered their masculinity on their desire to become mers. Robbie (or Rose) lost the battle, but it would be impossible to convince the mermaid that she had not won the war. More would be rescuers arrived in the form of Bill and Mae Williams, Mae's sister, Eve, and her friends Sandy and Dawn Halbst. Dawn's cure from cancer by the mermaid milk was one of Pat's most triumphant accomplishments, although, again, fate intervened and aligned the pods in a way no one had imagined. Turi, a merciless killer, bought Tuo, Tiki and Rangi to the island in search of the drug lord's money. When Turi nearly killed the three of them as well as Sandy and Dawn, the milk's influence over Sandy and Tuo dictated that Tuo become a pod leader to the mermaids, Sandi, Dawn and Eve. Meanwhile, Bill added the honorable mermaids, the transformed Timi and Ragi, to his union with Mae. In spite of all of the changing of genders and forms, Turi experienced the most profound change yet - as the mers changed him into Tutu, a female dolphin. Finally, with Tuo's help, Shen Chin was able to free her sister, Lin, and several others from forced prostitution at the hands of Shen's, former boss, the drug kingpin, Maliki. Shen and Lin formed yet another pod with Tuo's formerly disabled brother, Wong, and the French beauty, Esmee. At nearly the same time, Joy called an old friend, a former Navy SEAL, Mark, to lead another pod populated by African beauty Binah, the nearly transsexual Trixi, and (perhaps the most damaged of all the proto-mermaids) Homa. Pat hoped that the love of her pod mates would heal those parts of Homa's being that the mermaid milk couldn't quite reach. Shen also delivered Maliki's misogamist son, Manalo, to the island. He would not be allowed to experience the joy of becoming a mer. Instead, he paid for his past transgressions by joining Tutu as another female dolphin, Mumu. Pat sighed as she recounted everything that had transpired over the last two and a half years. There was never a dull moment on this island; that was certain. Danni surfaced again a few meters off shore, giggling loudly. It seemed her constant tickling and playing with the girls had come back to haunt her as she was now being assaulted in a tickling frenzy by a trio of young mermaids. "I could use a little help here," she cried out between fits of laughter. Pat giggled and twisted her body back into the water, feeling the warm sea enfold her with its warmth. She concentrated on her swim bladder and sank beneath the surface, and then she flipped her shimmering sea- green tail to propel herself into the group. With her arms stretched wide, she pushed herself between her nieces and wrapped Maureen, Freya, and Cynthia in a warm hug. Then, extending her fingers to her sister-wife's ribs, she said, "I think they could use some help instead," as she grinned and began to tickle Danni too. ***** Joy Simpson, former CIA field agent and now an emissary for the mers, stretched in the hotel bed, reveling in the softness that surrounded her. Even as she enjoyed the luxurious bed, her heart skipped a beat as she thought of returning to the sandy beaches of Mermaid Island. Well, six-hundred-thread-count linen was softer than the sandy floor of a tropical beach hut she decided, but it wasn't as exciting. She couldn't wait to return to the island, but there was lots of work to get done before that could happen. She sighed, and then looked over to the French doors, admiring the bright and bustling city below their penthouse room. A snort from behind her brought a smile to her lips. Mac Bennett, soon-to-be-retired Navy Admiral and father to one of the new mermaids, was still asleep. That old plane really ought to be junked, she thought to herself, feeling her bones snap and crack as she stretched again. Well, if they were lucky and good, it would only have to make one more trip back to Mermaid Island, but not for a bit yet. She rose to a sitting position, feeling her breasts swing on her chest. She looked down, and saw that they seemed perkier this morning than they had for a while. She pushed her long, gray-white hair away from her face and stretched again, finally getting her right shoulder to pop. "Ah, at last," she groaned softly. She worked her shoulder for a few minutes, flexing it and trying to get it loose. She had dislocated it several times in her line of work, and it was one of the reasons she retired. It was not a good idea to have a slow gun arm if you were a secret agent. She rose from the bed to admire the view from their hotel. Beyond their private balcony, the morning sun was still only a half-circle of orange in the east, but the busy Hong Kong harbor was already filled with the sounds of birds, boats, and bustling people. Joy leaned her slender frame against the door and let the cool, morning breeze wash over her. "Now that's what I call a great view," Mac said as he rose, groaning, from the bed. "Oh, my back," he said as he awkwardly rubbed his spine. "Not too bad for an old woman, eh?" Joy asked. "Not too bad for any woman, I'd say," Mac said as he tried to twist his back into a position of relief. "Here, let me help you, old man," Joy teased as she walked behind him and took his arms into her own. She put her knee in the small of his back, and pulled back on his arms, popping his spine. "Ahhh," he said as the cracks echoed through the room. "How do you do that?" "Practice," she said. "Now, get in the shower, we have a lot of work to do before we radio back to the Island at noon." "Slave driver," he said, turning for the bathroom. "You know, I'm still officially on vacation." "From the Navy, but not from me," Joy said. "Besides, the Navy doesn't pay as well as I do." "It's Hank and Janice's money, not yours," Mac said as he stepped into the shower. "And we are using it, not getting it." "I wasn't talking about money," Joy said, opening the shower door and slipping in with him. The large, luxury shower could hold at least four adults, and a built in bench could seat two or three people comfortably. Joy brushed past Mac and stood under one of the four shower heads that were all going at once. "I was talking about this," she said as she grabbed his slowly stiffening cock in one hand. "Easy, you're going to wear me out," he said, stepping close to her. "Two days of flying! One in a heap of bolts and metal that shouldn't be able to fly, and then the long flight from Port Moresby to Hong Kong in an overcrowded Chinese jet," Joy said, slowly stoking Mac's cock. "That is what wore you out, not my feeble efforts." "Your efforts are anything but feeble," Mac sighed, giving into her ministrations. "What work is it that we have to do today?" he asked yawning. "We are supposed to meet with my Chinese scientist contact, some government officials, then find a short wave radio to talk to the mers, and then visit an old friend of mine," she said. "Old friend?" Mac asked. "You'll meet him soon enough, and he will be most disappointed to meet you," she answered, smiling as she tugged on his slowly stiffening cock. "How do you manage to stay so good looking and horny?" he asked. "Trade secret," Joy whispered as she licked his neck. "Is this old friend part of how you stay good looking and horny?" he asked, leaning back against the shower wall, letting his cock fully rise. "God, Joy ... you make me feel ten years younger." "Getting old is not for sissies," she answered. "So, I have refused to age. As far as horny goes, I've always had an active sex life. It goes with the territory of being a field agent. But Mike is just an old friend, seriously." "Don't tell me any more than I need to know," Mac said. "I'm just glad we finally got together, forty years late." "Don't worry about the past," Joy said, sliding down to her knees, rubbing his cock on her cheek. "Soon we won't have to worry about time." "What do you mean?" Mac asked, as he felt her soft cheek caress his cock. "When we finish settling up with Uncle Sam, and return to Mermaid Island," she said, as she kissed his cock head, watching it twitch. "What will we do when we become mers?" Mack asked, as he looked down at his old friend of the past forty years. "A lot more of this," she said as her mouth enfolded the head of his cock, her tongue swirling around the tip. ***** Pat watched Maureen carefully as her two week-old daughter swam with her sisters Cynthia and Freya. The little mermaid was already an accomplished swimmer, and she was making nonsense noises as she played with her sisters. Her Kelly-green tail flashed as she twirled around Freya, bumping into her pale blue sister in her excitement. "They're just playing," Pat assured Danni. "Freya is fine, and she's giggling too." "It's so crowded," Danni said, frowning. "Why does everyone have to be in the Nursery Cave today?" "First," Pat reminded her sister-wife, "not everyone is here. Trevor and Rose are surveying the two islands south of here and won't be back until tomorrow. Second, all the other boys are out with Mark and MuSu experimenting with some tactical formations and hand-to-hand fighting, and so none of the mermaids can be near them, or all havoc will break loose." Both Danni and Pat shared a giggle as they remembered the look on John's face after he got back from Mark's first attempt to organize a mer-navy the previous day. Mark hadn't expected the chaos that erupted when his girls arrived unannounced in the lagoon as he and the other mermen practiced hand-to-hand combat and stealth swimming. The practice became all too real after Homa shouted her encouragement to Mark as he grappled with MuSu. Eric had tried to calm down the combatants but soon found himself just as aggressively entangled with Mark and MuSu as they were with each other. John saved the day by ordering Mark's girls to leave double quick, and once the mermaids were far enough away, the fracas between Mark, MuSu, and Eric melted away. It was a comparatively painless reminder that mer-bonding and merman-physiology were powerful forces that no mer could ignore. "Finally," Pat continued, "we are trying to calibrate the sensors in the Moon Pool so we can establish benchmarks of transgenic activity in the pool when we aren't there. That process should take another hour or so, right Galina?" "Yes," she answered, checking a small transceiver she had on a silver chain around her neck. "We should have something to tell Joy and Mac when they radio later today." "Excellent," Pat said. "Transgenic?" asked Binah. "Oh, sorry," Pat continued. "It means morphing or moving genetic characteristics from one species, such as the painted shell fish from which I distilled the original healing salve, to another, such as ours when we became mermaids." "Or moving genetic characteristics across kingdoms, like bioluminescence in fish that we changed into bioluminescence in the sea grasses to illuminate our caves," Galina added, as she helped corral Michelle so Petra could examine a dark spot that had developed on her daughter's left pelvic fin. "Those sub-routines on new sensors we made will take most of another hour to cycle through." "Is that what Mark and John were working on?" asked Trixi, remembering the strange system of pulleys, wires, and cages that they had rigged up the day before. "Yes," Pat answered. "Each one of those tiny cages has different tissue samples from several different species, some skin from both John and myself, and even some human samples." "Where did we get human tissue?" Trixi asked. "Some of Homa's hair that was in a brush on the boat," Pat explained with a smile towards the beautiful Iranian mermaid. "She had an awful lot of hair." "Has," Homa said, shaking her long, thick, tresses, the tight curls shinning in the dim light of the cave. "We will see what the micro organisms do to each of the samples, and try to predict what the Moon Pool might do to anyone who wandered in," Phoebe explained. "In the absence of any influence from our mer-organs, which is why we are all crowded in here." "I'm just worried that in the crush of all these mermaids our little ones will get hurt," Danni worried. "I would be more worried about the adults than the children," Petra said as her daughter thrashed her multi-colored tail, determined to return to the pool with the other babies to play. "Will you hold still, please?" she asked her uncooperative child. Galina and Petra held Michelle gently as Petra stroked the dark spot on Michelle's lavender and black fin. "I think it's just another mottle, like the rest of her tail," Galina said, examining the fin closely. "Our daughter's tails are changing their coloring?" Petra asked. "Probably," Galina said. "Human children are born with hair one color and it changes as they get older." "Eye color changes," Pat said. "And freckles, all kinds of things change as humans mature, actually. There isn't any change in the texture of her fin, is there?" "No," Galina answered, stroking it lightly, which caused Michelle to erupt in a fit of giggles. "Does tickle?" she asked rhetorically as Michelle squirmed and laughed. Petra released her wriggling daughter, and Michelle slithered back down her mother's long tail into the water. She raced to join the younger children who were all swimming in various patterns and circles in the wide pool. All six tiny mermaids slowly swooped in front of Esm?e, Lin, and Shen who floated at the exit tunnel, guarding against a baby breakout. They were all swimming together; Mari was in the lead now, keeping a slow enough pace for the newest mermaids. Other than Wong's girls, all the other mermaids were lounging along the edge of the pool, enjoying the soft blue-green glow of the bio-lights, and some were braiding one another's hair. "They don't seem like infants to me," Homa observed. "They act more like children. Are you sure they are only a few weeks old?" Homa teased. "Only three of them are that young. Ours," Pat said sweeping her hand past Danni and Phoebe, "are only two weeks old, Mari, Liga's daughter, is six weeks old, and Michelle, the oldest, is nearly four months old." "I know that to be true, but it still seems impossible," Binah said. "They all move like one or two year old children." "Mermaids are born with greater physical maturity than humans," Phoebe explained, smiling at her sister-wife Pat remembering their bet. "Human babies start crawling between six to eight months, and walking anywhere between their 12th and 24th month. Mermaids are born able to control all their limbs, which makes them much more developmentally advanced, compared to their human counterparts. They were also in the womb two months longer, which is actually a huge difference. We expect that all aspects of development will be quicker in mermaids as compared to humans." "How much quicker?" Binah continued. "We don't know for sure," Pat answered. "But we suspect that adolescence will commence in their seventh year, which is about double the speed of human children." "Oh," Binah said, pondering this new information. "But we will all have very long lives? That doesn't make much sense. Usually species that develop quicker have shorter lives." "You're right," Pat agreed. "But there are several reasons for those differences, the most important of which is the siren cell's ability to change, rebuild, or destroy cells." "What's it like?" Trixi asked, interrupting, as she wove another set of seashells into Binah's hair. "Having a baby?" "Which part?" Petra asked with a smile. "The making of or the delivery of?" "I think I've already got the making of down," Trixi said, blushing and studiously focusing on the next shell she was weaving into Binah's shiny black hair. "No, you don't," Petra told her, her particularly large chest swaying impressively as she shook her head. "You have no idea." "Conception is something more than the sex we've already been having?" Trixi asked. "Oh, yea," Pat agreed. "It's everything you've already experienced and a bag of chips." "No one says that anymore," Cleo chided, working her own set of shells into Emma's long, chocolate hair. "Whatever," Pat said with only the slightest trace of annoyance. "You get the picture." "How do you do it ... um ... conceive?" Homa asked. "You have to be careful, because it's something that is very easy to do," Pat warned. "While you're making love with Mark, you have to look deeply into his eyes and imagine the eye color of your child." "You just picture their eyes, that's all?" Trixi asked. "Yes," Petra answered. "But the orgasm is unlike anything you've ever experienced. "What?" Homa protested. "Better than we've had so far?" "Yes," Xing added. "You will pass out from the pleasure." "Seriously?" asked Trixi, her own chest heaving as she imagined Mark drilling into her, making a child within her newly formed womb. "Definitely," Pat said. "When you set the trigger, as we like to call it, your birth canal will trap your pod-mate's cock within your body, insuring a pregnancy." "Oh my," Homa said, looking at her own belly. "How does the eye thing work?" Trixi asked. "You have noticed how the patterns of refraction in mer eyes is much more complex and reflective than normal human eyes?" Galina asked. "Yes, our eyes changed when we became mers," Homa said, turning to gaze into Trixi's brilliantly blue eyes. "I think yours are the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen." "Thanks, Homa," Trixi said, her own eyes misting with emotion as she gazed at Homa's equally bright, intense, hazel-gold eyes. "I love you." "Well, our new eyes have six different receptor cones instead of the human three, so we see color in greater detail. We also have a higher concentration of rods, which gives us excellent night vision, and a larger ciliary muscle around the lens that greatly improves how far we can focus," Galina continued. "We also have our new mer-bioelectrical network that reaches into our eyes. When we gaze into our merman's eyes with the intent to conceive, our pupils dilate and the same bioluminescence we can see in our tails is generated in our retinas, only it's a very small pulse of energy. His eyes then respond with a slightly bigger flash of light, and that flash of light in his eyes triggers a hormonal release in our brain which then triggers the conception contraction." "Conception contraction?" Trix asked. "Remember how intense your orgasm was when you first became a girl?" Pat asked. "Oh, yes," Trixi said, the blood rushing to her face and chest as she remembered the first time Mark made love to her while Homa and Binah held her upper body in their laps. "It was the most wonderful thing that I've ever felt." "And then the first time as a mer?" Pat repeated. "Yes, I was so surprised that Emma was right," Trixi nodded, her passion rising as she relived that pleasant memory. "My first mer orgasm was bigger, longer, harder, and better than the best human orgasm, and I had had several before becoming a mer." "That's because your mer womb is bigger, longer, and stronger than human reproductive organs," Pat explained. "The hormonal trigger makes a mer muscle in your birth canal, one that normally exists in human anatomy but ours is larger, clamp down on Mark's cock, creating something like a vacuum seal." Pat stopped for a second and savored the memory, closing her eyes, and let her body respond to the memory of those feelings. The other mothers in the room also relived their moment of conception, and the sexual tension in the room swirled around them like a rich, thick blanket. "Um, that sounds kinda clinical, and you all are acting anything but clinical," Binah said. "Yea, I can feel sex just radiate from your body," Homa said. "It's getting me really ... um ...." "Horny," Trixi answered for her, weaving the last shell into Binah's hair. "God, you're beautiful," she said to her dark-skinned sister- wife. "You think so?" Binah asked, shaking her head so that the complex hair weave that both Homa and Trixi had created, thousands of tiny braids each weighted down with a few tiny shells, slithered over her shoulders and tinkled along her back. "Keep going," she urged Pat. "I like the way this talk is making me feel." "Mermaid physiology insures our high sex drive," Pat said, sharing a look with her pod-mates. "But it helps when your sister-wives are such wonderful creatures that you would make love to them anyway." "We love you too," Phoebe said. "Now finish, because the children are already responding to our pheromones, and that means we need to work through this arousal." Phoebe pointed to the pool where all six baby mermaids were now curled together in a corner of the pool, asleep. "What's wrong with the little ones?" Esm?e asked as she and her sister wives surfaced. "They all just went to sleep." "Pheromones," Pat explained, stroking her own body as she talked. "When mermaids have a strong sexual response, like feeding for transition or even just regular sex fantasies, we release very powerful pheromones, and immature mermaids respond by falling asleep. Mermen, on the other hand, can barely contain themselves." "Us adult mermaids feel it too," Danni said, pulling on her own breasts as she stroked her golden flukes along Pat's sea-green tail. "Finish explaining, damn it, so we can get going." "Sorry," Pat said. "Anyway, because the vaginal contractions trap the male's penis inside you, neither one of you can move, and so your conception contractions start. Normally the muscles around your birth canal, in both humans and mermaids, contract during orgasm. Those contractions can be larger in some women than others, and some women barely feel it at all. As far as we can tell, all mermaids are very conscious of their G-spot and vaginal muscles." "G-Spot?" Homa asked, her chest starting to tighten as her horniness increased. "A cluster of nerves on top of the vaginal canal a few inches inside your labia," Pat continued, pulling on her own breasts as everyone's arousal continued to grow. "The hormonal release caused by the eye flash triggers these nerves, which also triggers our ovaries to release one egg, which is why we don't menstruate. The conception contractions are a result of signals from our bottom bioelectrical mer-organ that cause those muscles to rapidly and repeatedly contract in a pattern that mimics the stroking that your merman would be doing if he could." "If his cock wasn't trapped inside you," Phoebe added, pushing and pulling on her own breasts, forcing her mermaid milk to arc through her fingers, spraying Pat and Danni with her sweet, warm, milk. "Ah," Pat moaned softly as one Phoebe's multiple streams of milk crossed her face. "Feels nice." "What happens after he cums?" asked Trixi, as she watched Mae, Tumi and Ragi fall into a tangle on the other side of the pool. "None of us remained conscious after our pod-mate ejaculated into our womb," Danni said, her own long nipples fully erect, pointing out into the cool air of the nursery cave like javelins, Phoebe's milk oozing down along her shoulders and breasts. "And it takes a while for your vagina to relax enough so that your mate can withdraw. When I woke up, John was still trapped inside me," she finished, her face and chest flushed with the memory of her conception of Freya. "Wow," Trixi said, noticing that Sandi, Dawn, and Eve had stopped listening and slid into the water together. "So, why isn't everyone pregnant?" Binah asked, her own ebony chest rising and falling as she struggled to contain her passion. "I don't know," Pat said. "You'll have to ask the ones who are not yet mothers." Trixi turned to where Emma had been sitting behind her, to ask, but saw that the triplets were locked in a jumble of arms, hair, and blue & white tails as they squirmed against one another. "That answer will have to wait," Trixi said as she pulled Binah into a kiss, pressing her body against the length of Binah's dark torso, her bright blue and yellow stripped tail entwining with her sister wife's dark red, orange, and black one. "We seem to be the only ones left not having sex," she panted as she looked around the room. Homa looked around the room and saw that everyone was now entwined in groups of three, and the room was filled with moaning, giggling, and the wet sounds of vents being opened and pumped by mermaid fingers and tongues. She looked down at her pod-mates and stroked her sister-wives' hair and hips as they writhed against each other, watching them as they brought one another to a shattering shared climax. Then she giggled as they both pounced on her, pushing her back into the soft sand of the Nursery Cave floor, showering her body with kisses and caresses. One of the wonderful things about her thicker head of hair, she thought to herself as Trixi and Binah stroked and kissed her torso and tail, was that she felt like she was laying on a thick, luxurious, silken blanket. Around her she could hear the other pods moaning, squealing, and yelping in pleasure as the mermaids satisfied their extraordinarily high sex drives. She gasped as Binah slipped her hand inside her own wet vent, twisting its way up her now longer birth canal, causing her fiery red and orange tail to vibrate against floor. She started to moan, but was cut short by Trixi's breast which had been shoved into her mouth. Homa drew a sharp breath of air through her nose, and then formed a tight suction around Trixi's swollen nipple. She could taste the sweet mermaid milk as it sprayed into her mouth. Binah's hand twisted inside her belly, and she gave into the mounting waves of her orgasm, letting her body ripple and twitch in pleasure. When she was finished, Binah withdrew her hand, and the three of them shared a kiss. "You're always so easy to set off," Binah teased, her own ebony skin splattered with droplets of her own and her sister-wives' mermaid milk. "I'm just glad that I can enjoy sex again," Homa sighed, stroking Trixi's face. "I didn't think I would ever have another orgasm when I was back ... " "Don't!" Trixi interrupted. "That life is over." "Yes," Binah agreed. "This life is our life now." "Our life," Homa said softly, still quivering from her orgasm. "Life ... our new mer-life." ***** Abao Dimaunahan, the second son of Malaki Dimaunahan, leaned forward in his chair, looking across the table at Michael Thomson, the owner of Thomson Marine. Thomson watched Aboa's left eye twitch as he waited for the small Malaysian man to make his next move. "Are you sure you have no more information?" Abao asked as he pushed a thick envelop across the table. "My father is most anxious to find his beloved first son, and the people who kidnapped him. I am sure my father does not want to believe that you had anything to do with helping them." Abao leaned back and straightened the silverware around the faceplate that had the now anachronistic Hong Kong Royal Yacht Club insignia in the center. He was trying to imitate the disinterest he had watched his father feign in so many previous meetings. Malaki Dimaunahan was an impressive man, not large or tall, but everyone who saw him immediately knew that Malaki was dangerous. Abao, on the other hand, was rarely successful in his attempts to imitate his father, and was unaware of his failure to do so. Michael Thomson brushed his graying hair off his forehead, and took another sip of wine. He knew who Malaki Dimaunahan was, and had sold him at least ten yachts in the last fifteen years. He also remembered Manalo and Abao from when they were little boys. Abao looked and acted less like his father than Manalo did, though there was something obviously wrong with Manalo when he saw him a little over three weeks ago. He was especially annoyed because Abao had interrupted his lunch and was going to make him late for his highly anticipated meeting with an old friend. "Keep your envelope," he said firmly. "You have all the information that I do, and I do not appreciate your implied accusation. Give your father my best; I will certainly be sharing my thoughts with him concerning this meeting. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to the marina." "I visited your marina this morning," Abao said, stopping Michael mid- rise. "It is such a beautiful marina. So clean," he said sweeping his hand over the view. "Yes, it is," Michael said evenly. "It would be a tragedy if anything happened that made a mess of it," Abao said sweetly, pushing the envelope towards Michael one last time. "Yes, it would be a tragedy," Michael agreed. "But you see, I have highly trained sanitation workers," he continued with only a touch of menace in his voice, "and you should see what they did to the last people who brought trash into my marina. Have a nice day." Abao watched Michael leave and then looked out over the harbor. Something was missing. He needed to find out more about the cripple they had loaded onto the boat. He believed that Mr. Thomson, the owner of the marina where Shen Chin, his father's former secretary, had traded boats, was holding something back, but he couldn't guess what. He saw Mr. Thomson below him on the docks, and watched him as he returned to his boat. He greeted a stunning older woman with long gray hair and another man, also with white hair, who looked like a tycoon, and the three of them went onto a very large yacht that quickly eased away from the dock and headed out across the bay towards Aberdeen. Rich Western playboy, Abao thought to himself, not an honest, workingman like his father and himself. ***** The sunlight filtered down through the clear tropical water, flickering across the eight mermen floating in their favorite sand bowl, the same one in which John had first discovered Pat and Danni using their gills for the first time. This time, however, the mood was very different. "I just don't understand why that move can't be adapted," Mark complained. He looked across the circle at Tuo, who shrugged his shoulders. All the mermen except for Trevor, who was off on a surveillance mission with Rose, floated in the clear water about three meters below the surface. They had been practicing various moves and "throws" as part of developing an underwater version of martial arts combat. "Perhaps our tails are not feet," Tuo offered. "Actually, they are." John said with a smile. "And that could be why you're having difficulty imagining how to use your tail in this move." "What you mean?" Tuo challenged, his hand pointing down at his greatly changed legs, watching his silver and gray scales sparkle in the dappling sunlight filtering down from above. "I have one limb, and it ends in a fin. This is a tail." "Not technically," John continued, flexing his own steel blue tail for emphasis. "We didn't grow tails, as Pat keeps reminding me, we changed our legs. If we had tails, they would be connected to our spine, and then we would have great difficulty adapting any martial arts moves to mer combat. But we didn't grow tails, we changed our legs." "Why didn't we grow tails?" Mark asked. "I mean, that's what whales and dolphins did. They used to be land mammals. Why wouldn't our genes alter us in similar ways?" "Well, Pat's the real scientist on this topic," John answered. "But from what I understand of the whole idea, the key fact is that we didn't evolve. We might have, if we had let time take its course, but when Phoebe realized that the siren cell could be directed or influenced by our own enhanced bioelectrical activity, we went from evolutionary biology to revolutionary biology." "No one has ever explained this to me," Mark said. "Tell me more, maybe after I understand what happened to my legs, I can make the mechanical adaptation to my tail, " he mused as he flexed his own black and purple tail, watching his green fringes flutter in the water as he tried to imagine his toes still under all that color and sparkle. "Well, first off, you're right. Whales and dolphins did evolve from land mammals, and they lost their rear limbs," John said, watching as the other "new" mers drifted closer in the circle in which they had been practicing hand-to-hand underwater combat. "While they still have vestigial pelvic bones, we kept ours intact. In fact, we kept most of our skeletal components of legs, knees, and feet. We just changed them to serve marine propulsion." "Could we really have evolved real tails, like dolphins, if Phoebe didn't force the change?" asked Gabriel, remembering back to their first transformations into mers. "Maybe in thousands of successive generations," John answered. "But we skipped the normal workings of evolution because the siren cell is part virus and part stem cell; it allowed us to both destroy and rebuild current cells in our own bodies rather than having to create new genetic traits in our children." "No wonder the Admiral was so impressed with the power of the mers," Eric realized. "We could create monsters." "We could," John nodded. "But we won't." "How can you say that?" Eric challenged. "I mean, not that I want to or anything." "Think for a nanosecond about your mates," MuSu said, joining the conversation for the first time. "Would you do anything to harm them?" All the mers grew grave and stiff. Eric slowly shook his head from side to side. "Right," John said evenly. "Each of us would rather die than see harm come to our girls. Soon, we will be able to easily protect them from thugs like Malaki and his sons, but how would we stop Russia or the USA if they thought mers were dangerous?" "Or China ... oh, shit," Eric said. "You're right, I can't imagine doing anything that would bring harm to my girls. Wow, mer-bonding is really powerful. I don't know if I could even "think" these thoughts when I was a human." "We're still human enough," John said. "According to Pat and the others. We can probably interbreed with land-based humans, though any union is overwhelmingly likely to produce a mer because our siren cell "modifies" any cell that it touches, and they would insure that mer DNA dominated." "Even if we had sex with a human girl?" MuSu asked. "Not that I'm thinking of it for myself." "Of course you're not," John said gently. "But we don't know. The siren cell is in our semen, and so it would probably thrive in a normal human womb and influence both mother and child. There is also a strong possibility that any sexual contact would start that human on an inevitable journey towards becoming a mer themselves." "So, other than not creating genetic monsters to threaten humanity, how do we protect our mates from a hydrogen bomb," asked Bill. "M.A.D." Mark offered. "MAD?" asked Bill. "Mutually Assured Destruction," answered Eric. "How would that work?" Bill asked, twitching nervously. "I'm not a military man, and this talk is making me edgy." "Most people fear things that are different from themselves, and we have become very different," John continued. "I'd say we've improved ourselves greatly," MuSu countered. "I agree," John nodded. "But Pat assures me that people like her own brother will likely lead the blood pack of religious crazies that will seek our deaths because we are Satan's spawn or some similar label." "Talk about monsters," Eric said grimly. "MAD?" asked Bill. "Mac and Joy are contacting each of the major powers, and providing them with proof of our power to create things for good, like those anemone that eat pollution, and things for ill," John explained. "Like what," asked Bill, growing even more nervous. "I don't even know," John said. "Pat, Galina, Alexis, Phoebe, and Emma have all sworn sallekhana, and they have forbidden anyone else to do so for this particular reason. The only thing Pat will tell me is that they are close to perfecting the ultimate bomb, a biological time bomb that could wipe out all life on earth." "A carrot and a stick," Eric mused. "A really, really, big stick. So, as long as we can protect ourselves from thugs and religious nuts, the major powers will likely leave us alone. We can save the world, or we can kill it." "Why wouldn't one of the major powers try to capture us to use this power for themselves?" asked Bill. "Sallenkhana and MAD," John explained. "Mac and Joy are going to make it clear that if anything happens to us, the entire world will pay the price." "Sallenkhana?" asked Bill. "Suicide caused by will or meditation," John explained. "We can shut down our own mer organs if we concentrate hard enough. The girls have tested it, and thus if they are captured against their will, they have sworn to die rather than endanger the other mers." "I'm not sure which is crazier, Sallenkhana or MAD," Bill wondered. "We can kill the world or kill ourselves." "But we have no weapon that will stop a bomb from wiping us all out," Mark said darkly. "Only one that will wipe out all life as a retaliation threat. That's not very many options." "The girls are working on several lesser bio-weapons that wouldn't cause environmental collapse, but would make specific areas of the world very unpleasant," John said. "The hope is that the world will just leave us alone." "History shows that humans have been really bad at that," Eric said. A few moments passed in silence the mermen all pondered the difficulties they faced. "While we wait to die, we still have our leg bones under this tail?" Tuo interjected. "Sorry to say, we must worry about Malaki and nutty Pat's brother." "Yes, we do," Mark laughed, breaking the tension. "So, we have legs still?" "More or less," John concluded. "We can stand on our flukes, actually. We can't walk, of course; our legs have been fused together by two new sets of bones at our knees and ankles, not to mention the scales that now cover our joined leg bones, but we can still balance and twist on those two sets of bones in much the same way we used to when we had two legs." "And we can do things with our tails that we could never do with our legs," Eric chimed in, flexing his in the water, causing him to twirl in place. "I can't think of what I see below my waist as my legs," Bill said. "Besides, I never knew any martial arts when I was human, so I'm not having to relearn anything. I just think of my tail as ... my tail." "I think I understand," Mark said, a gleam growing in his eyes. "Let's go up on the beach and try a few throws, and I think I'll be able to work out the new hydro-mechanics needed once I figure out how our own bio-mechanics work on dry land." He gave a quick hand signal, and everyone nodded. The eight mermen quickly fell into their now practiced formation, moving like underwater lightening towards the beach in a tight "V" formation, their pelvic fins nearly touching. As they neared the beach, their dorsal fins sliced up through the surface of the water as the rising bottom forced them to swim closer to the surface. Then suddenly the mermen erupted from the shallow water, arching towards the beach about five feet above the water. In perfect formation, they all hit the damp sand and tucked into a tight ball, rolling up onto the sand. Each merman's tail was wrapped over his head, stretching over and around his head, with his flukes laying flat against the small of his back, nearly even with his waist. Two or three summersaults latter, they all unrolled together, each facing a different section of the jungle, their bodies stretched out horizontally onto the sand on their bellies, presenting the smallest possible target to anyone hidden in the jungle. Mark gave a short whistle, and everyone relaxed and rolled over to sit up. "That was the best yet," he praised his comrades. "Bill in particular; you are finally getting the hang of that tuck and roll." "Thanks," Bill said, brushing sand from his chest. "I never thought I'd be back in the army." "Navy," Eric corrected. "Marines, whatever," Bill continued, "but it sure feels great to be young and healthy again." "Well, when there are only nine mermen in the whole world, every merman gets to be in the Mer-Navy," John said. "Now, you did this standing thing once before?" Mark asked. "Yes, when Michael died," John said with a look at Gabriel. "We sort of felt like we had to give him some sort of tribute. MuSu and I were the only ones who actually stood all the way, the girls sort of made it to their knees." Mark looked down at his tail, and then rocked backwards, gathering momentum. He pushed himself forward with his hands and rose up on his undulating tail. He wobbled for a second, but straightened out his tail, making it stiff, and "stood" on his flukes. "I can feel my muscles wanting to do things they no longer can do," he said, his voice straining with the effort. "Relax a bit," John said. "Let you body re-learn how to balance itself. You're working too hard at balancing." John curled his own tail underneath him, and then using it like a coiled spring, rose up suddenly. Unlike Mark, John's tail was still slightly curved, but everyone could see that the muscles beneath his scales were moving less frequently than Mark's. MuSu rose up too and hopped over to John. "The hopping thing isn't advisable on anything other than sand," MuSu said. "It really hurts on anything harder." "Our best locomotion over dry land is still salamandaring," John added. "But who knows, it might be useful to be able to stand up in a fight." Bill tried to rock himself up, but he kept falling over. "Damn it, what the hell am I doing wrong?" he demanded. "Over adjusting," Mark suggested. "Like I was doing at first," he finished looking down at his now more relaxed tail, slowly flexing himself up and down and side to side, seeing where the limits of his strength and balance were. "Although we have a very narrow range of stability," he said, nearly losing his balance, "it takes surprisingly little effort to stay in our new center of gravity." "Do it slower," MuSu advised. Bill shot a skeptical look at MuSu, and re-curled his tail underneath him. He flexed slowly, his arms outstretched, and slowly rose straight up. "Hey, I did it," he shouted. "Then get ready for this," Mark said with a grin, and launched himself at Bill. ****** "Are you asleep?" Kate Connor asked the darkness that surrounded her. "No," came the disembodied reply from across the room that, tonight, she shared with her sister. Kate sat up and turned on the bedside lamp, and looked across her dorm- room at her twin. Kate's roommate was away visiting her boyfriend, and Ann had come up from UCLA to visit her for the weekend. They had originally thought that going to different schools might be good for them, to develop on their own, but now, over halfway through their first semester of freshman year, both regretted their decision. Ann shared Kate's own blonde hair and hazel-green eyes, and both girls were tall and slender. They had their father's strong chin and their mother's generous smile, and the total effect was devastating, though neither girl paid much attention to the attention that they attracted. They were both wearing their standard bedclothes, a light tank top with boyshorts panties. Ann sat up too, and crossed her long, lean legs into a lotus position. "I keep on thinking about our talk this afternoon," Ann said. "It's amazing," Kate said. "Don't you think?" "Yea, crazy is more like it," muttered Ann. "We've both been fighting over Trevor since we were twelve years old, and now our own brother steals him away from us." "Not really," Kate corrected. "He just got to him first. Remember, there's three to a pod." "Yea, I know," Ann said sleepily. "Still, it makes me crazy that Rose is out there and we're stuck here in California." "Yea," Kate agreed. "I can't believe Dad wants us to actually go to all four years of college when he and Mom are probably going back to the island next summer." "We could learn more from Emma and her sisters in one week than we could from four years at college," Ann said. "And none of the boys at UCLA are nearly as beautiful as Trevor." "Same for here at Stanford," Kate agreed. "And now Rose has him all to herself," Ann sighed. They both looked out of the dorm window and watched the night sky twinkle. "Remember how beautiful the Milky Way was on Mermaid Island?" Kate asked. "Yea," Ann agreed. "It was so big, so clear. I can't wait to go back. This is nuts." "Do you really think all three of us can be sister-wives?" asked Kate. "Emma, Rikki, and Cleo can do it," Ann said. "We can do it." "Yea, but they are triplets," Kate noted. "Wouldn't that make a difference?" "Nah," Ann said. "We're twins, that's good enough." "What about Rose?" asked Kate, crinkling her nose. "We're talkin' about our brother, ya know?" "Yea, I know," Ann repeated. "What? You didn't like him?" "No, I love my brother," Kate protested. "It's just, like, you know ... he's Rose now, and, I mean, who is that?" "According to Mom, she looks like Mom and acts like Dad, just like we look like Dad and act like Mom," Ann said as she pulled her long, blonde hair forward over her shoulder as she reached for a brush. "When did she tell you that?" Kate asked. "Just before I came up here to visit," Ann explained. "But can you imagine a person who looks like Mom but acts like Dad?" "Like short, dark hair, slender build, super-intense eyes, but more laid back, quiet and shy?" Kate mused. "Wow, that's weird. Hey, let me do that," she finished as she rose from her bed and crossed the room. "Yea, weird," Ann confirmed as she handed her sister the brush and turned to face the window, looking out over the beautiful Stanford campus. She relaxed for a few minutes as she let her sister groom her. "The mermaids do this all the time," Ann said, enjoying tug of the brush against her hair. "Yea, but they do lots of other things too," Kate said, looking at her sister's long, vibrant hair as it flowed through her fingers. "Yea, I know," Ann said. "I've been thinking about that." "And," Kate said, barely breathing. "And I don't know," Ann said lightly. "I think I'm cool with that." "Cool with what?" Kate asked, dropping the brush to her own lap. "With you being my sister-wife," Ann said, turning to face her sister in the bed. They sat across from one another, cross-legged, their knees touching. They searched each other's faces to see all the swirling emotions that glimmered in their eyes, tugged at their smiles, and encumbered their breathing. "Serious?" Kate said, her breath rising in her chest. "Totally," Ann reassured her as she leaned forward and parted her lips, hesitation a few millimeters from her sister's mouth. "Me too," Kate whispered as she moved her lips across the small space that separated them, and gently pressed her lips to her sister's. They held their lips gently together, moving them slightly as they slowly deepened their kiss. Although they had kissed one another countless times in the past, this was their first kiss since they were twelve in which their sexuality was being tested. Ann moved her left arm up to Kate's face as Kate moved her left arm as well. They each cradled one another's soft face as they began to move their lips together, kissing again and again. After a few moments, they both leaned back and smiled at one another, their eyes shinning with love and affection, the smell of their shared arousal wafting upward. "That was way better than when we were younger," Ann said, her face flushed. "Yea," Kate agreed. "It makes me feel stronger." "Stronger?" Ann asked. "It felt right, you know?" Kate said. "Like we're supposed to be kissing, and supposed to become mermaids." "Oh," Ann said. "Yea, I see that too. Can you imagine what Elena would say if she saw us kissing?" "Don't remind me," Kate said, her mood darkening. "What's wrong?" Ann asked. "These walls are thin, and there is the smallest chance my roommate could come back," Kate said sadly. "Elena is still fighting with her boyfriend?" Ann asked, familiar with the trials and tribulations of her sister's roommate. "Yea," Kate agreed. "Tonight is supposed to be a make up, but she might come back. Even though she knows that you're here." "I guess we can't sleep in the same bed without anyone freaking," Ann said. "We could do that, and no one would care," Kate said, puller her sister up and leading her back to her own bed. "But cuddling only. Elena can be a real bitch sometimes, and I'd rather she didn't have anything to hold over me." "Too bad," Ann sighed. "I have been thinking about you a lot lately, when I ... " "Me too," Kate admitted, knowing exactly what her sister was talking about. "God, I wish Elena would just fuck him and get it over with, then you and I could really spend tonight together." "Yea," Ann agreed wistfully. They sat for a moment, relaxed in one another's presence. "Why is it that we are still technically virgins?" Ann asked impulsively. "Ha," Kate said ruefully. "Sometimes, when I hear Elena screaming while I'm trying to study out in the suite, I wonder if we made the right decision about waiting. She always sounds like she's having a great time." "I'm glad we waited," Ann argued. "Think how wonderful it will be when Trevor finally makes love to us! We both can lose our virginity to him, and neither one of us will be jealous. I wonder what he looks like as a merman?" "I bet he is even better looking than he was," Kate said, her breathing indicating her growing arousal. "God! Do you care if I masturbate?" "What about your other suite mates?" Ann asked, as she snuggled down next to her sister. "Wouldn't they hear us? You're real loud," she giggled, remembering the many times they had masturbated together. "Who, me?" Kate protested. "You're way louder than I am! Besides, my suite mates would only get made if they could hear us over their own screams," Kate said giggling. "They have sex with someone almost every night, and it's not with just boys." Both girls giggled, softly at first, and then louder. "Shuuuusch," Ann warned. "We don't want to wake your roommates up! They might want to join in," she said, choking back her laughter. "O.K., O.K.," Kate giggled. "We both scream too loud," she whispered. "So, we wait until we're mermaids?" "We wait until we're with Trevor and Rose," Ann said with a smile. "It still takes a day or two to actually become a mermaid, you know." "Yea, I know," Kate said, imitating the way her sister always said that phrase. "So, our Thanksgiving break is coming up, and we have to get Mom to help us change Dad's mind." "Yea, we do," Ann agreed. "The sooner, the better." ****** "Are there any volunteers?" Pat asked, as she looked around the Moon Pool. All the mermaids except for Danni, Xing, and the children had left the nursery cave and gathered in here. All of the mermaids were flushed with the after-effects of their recent sexual romp in the Nursery Cave, their eyes shinning and their tails still pulsing faintly with the lights of their recent passion. Pat, Phoebe, Emma, Galina, and Alexis had convinced the other mermaids to attempt some experiments in the presence of their sensors so that their mer-connections could be measured. They had measured their bioelectrical signals at rest, then while having sex, and now Pat wanted two mermaids from different pods to have sex so that those signals could be measured. "I know it goes against the mer-bonds we have developed," Pat continued carefully. "But surely one of us finds someone else here attractive enough to cause that person to orgasm?" There was silence as each of the sister-wives in the pool thought about what it would cost them to violate the deep bonds they could feel that they shared with their own pod-mates. Even those who could imagine breaking that bond had trouble imagining who they ought to pick to violate that bond with, even if it was in the name of science. "I'll go," Phoebe said softly. "I have a debt to pay to my uncle." Several of the newer mermaids looked up with puzzled looks. "Oh, my niece," Petra sighed. "You owe me nothing." "Besides you have to man your station," Pat warned. "My station is easy," Phoebe argued. "In fact, only my station is easy, yours, Alexis', Galina's, and Emma's are in Cyrillic, and all I have to do is make sure the energy converter doesn't overheat. Anyone can do it." "That's true," Galina agreed. "But you're related, aren't you?" "That may be a factor, which is all the more reason for Petra and I to be one pair," Phoebe said. "I would be with Trixi," Esm?e said haltingly. "If she would have me. She did me many kindnesses back ... back ... " "Don't speak of it," Trixi said quickly. "We do not speak of that past." "There would be no objection," Shen said, putting a hand on her sister- wife's shoulder. "We know of your love for us, and we know you will return." "Homa?" Trixi asked. "I am much healed," Homa said with a smile. "If Esm?e can offer, and you can accept, we can accept." Binah nodded her agreement. "Well, that seems to solve the problems of matched and mismatched pairs," Pat observed. "Do you want some privacy, except for the sensors, of course?" "No!" all four mermaids shouted at once. "I ... I ... m