Let him take his revenge? Where in the crap did that come from? thinks Anna. Is being a mermaid starting to mess with my mind? She feels tired, and hungry, and now she's noticing that she's all fuzzy in the head. Sure, she thinks, Eric is sexy and all, but I'm not going to let a fishman with a hot bod change who I am—and what I believe.
Still, she worries, I can't just ask him not to kill that Aaron guy. Eric hates him too much. Even if I do want to talk to him later, that's not enough of a reason. So Anna decides on a different course.
"Eric," she says, as pleadingly as she can manage, "I'm really hungry! Can't you please just save it for later and go find food? The longer we wait here, the more our eggs are in danger."
The mention of their eggs seems to snap Eric back to his senses. Could he really put the lives of his own children at risk for the sake of this revenge? No, of course not. "Yeah—yeah, you're right," says Eric. "I'll go back to the village and bring back all the fish I can carry."
"And I'll go back and watch over our babies," says Anna.
"All right." Eric kisses her. "I love you." He feels good saying that.
She feels good hearing it. "Love you too," says Anna.
And so Eric swims off. Anna, however, notes that Aaron is swimming away in the opposite direction, totally unaware of either Eric's or Anna's presence. He's probably going out to hunt for food himself, which means that Clia is likely alone around here somewhere. And so Anna starts looking.
Eventually, she discovers the nest behind the sheet of kelp-strands that Aaron had emerged from. There, she finds an absolutely gorgeous blonde mermaid, looking like something straight out of a painting if you tried to imagine the ideal mermaid fantasy, lying by herself on the sand. There are no eggs to be seen, but for some reason, the smell of the water here has Anna feeling flushed and just a little bit turned on. "Hello," she says, trying to sound friendly.
The mermaid looks up. "Oh! Hi! … Do I know you?"
"No," says Anna, "no, you don't. I'm new here."
"New?"
"I was human a little while ago. I just got turned."
Clia brightens up. "A human girl, turned into a mermaid!? Oh, that's so rare—you have to tell me all about it! Who changed you? How did it happen? I'm Clia, by the way—"
"Anna," says Anna with a nervous laugh. "And, yeah, I kind of already knew who you were, because the merman who changed me—is Eric."
Clia's expression darkens. "Eric? Hmph. He's so pushy, he—wait. He didn't *force* the change, on you did he? Because if that's what happened, I'll—"
"No!" says Anna, throwing up her hands. "No, not at all! He didn't know that I'd change, and it happened by accident! But I'm happy that it did! I want to be a mermaid, and I want to be with him!"
Clia pauses, considering. "Oh. Oh; well, in that case, I guess it's good that he finally found someone. Now maybe he'll leave me and my mate alone."
"I don't think he'll just give up," says Anna. "He wants to kill Aaron."
"Let him try," says Clia. "If he comes after us again, I'll give him more than a little bump on the head."
Anna doesn't know quite what to say to that, so she pleads, "Don't hurt him! I'll try and keep Eric away from you two as best I can, but I need him. He's my mate."
"Already!?" says Clia. "Wow. If you don't mind my asking, what do you see in him?"
"Let's just say that I'm happy he's mine and I'm his, and leave it at that?"
"Suit yourself." Clia looks Anna up and down, assessing her. "You must have a million questions. Aaron certainly did after I turned him."
"Well that's actually why I'm here," says Anna. "I was hoping you could give me a little information, especially about this mating cycle thing. Since it is my first day as a mermaid, after all."
Clia grins. "We could be here all day, if you want to know *everything*. How much time do you have?"
"Not much. I need to get back to my nest to guard my eggs?"
Clia's eyes go wide. "You and Eric have already *fertilized*!? Honey, you work faster than any mermaid I've ever met!"
"Just a little good old-fashioned human gumption," says Anna with a laugh. "But I guess you already have some idea of what that's like."
"Don't I ever," says Clia. "You land-mammals are just so sex-crazed! It's going to take some time for you and Arron both to adjust. Especially once the cycle ends and you can't do it anymore."
Anna's voice becomes an emotionless deadpan. "Wait. What?"
"Yup. After about a week, your sex drive is gonna go 'poof' and you won't be able to feel it again until the next full moon gets near."
"We can only have sex one week out of each month!?" Anna shakes her head and feels her temples with her hands. "You're right, this is going to take some adjusting."
"It's why us girls need to take advantage of it every chance we get. We can only feel this good when it's our 'time of the month'." Clia slowly rises up off the seabed and swims over to Anna, close enough to embrace her. "Care for a little demonstration? You make a really beautiful mermaid, you know."
Anna, her body reacting to all of the pheromones that both she herself and Clia exude, begins to feel even more hazy in the head. "Wait . . . my eggs . . ."
"Baby, we make a hundred eggs every month. If they don't hatch this time, there's always next cycle." Clia then kisses Anna, and Anna freezes.
Her body is lethargic, drained of energy from laying earlier; but Anna's brain moves at a mile a minute. She had never been attracted to girls as a human, not at all. But, what, now that she's a mermaid, she's no longer 100% straight? Is that how that worked? Or was she just being affected by the sight of all these horny mermaids playing with each other's tits around here, and going at each other like there's no tomorrow?
Anna didn't know. But she did know that she would have to make a decision now, or Clia would make it for her.