When Aaron came to, he noticed that he was still lying on the seabed, still on the tide flats. The shooting starfish was gone, though the crater remained. Anna was there too, still unconscious, but from the way she was groaning, it looked as if she'd come to soon as well.
Aaron suddenly remembered what had just happened; his eyes snapped open, and he looked down at himself. His body didn't look too different at all—except—wait a minute—was that a new fin growing down the center-line of his tail, maybe a handspan below his pelvic fins? The top of the fin, the first ray or spine was thicker than the others, and it seemed kind of tube-like, reminding Aaron of his . . . no way.
Experimentally, he gave it a stroke. The whole fin twitched, and Aaron noticed that touching the top of the fin felt *really* goddamn good. Just like touching the shaft of his dick when he'd been human!
He glanced over at Anna again, whose eyelids were fluttering open. Well, this was neither the time nor the place for experimentation. Still, he was excited. He wanted to go see Clia right away!
Anna finally woke up. "Aaron? Do you think it worked?"
"I'm optimistic," he said. "But you don't look any different."
All thoughts of modesty and propriety cast aside, Anna reached down to her genital vent, which didn't look any different on the outside, and slipped a finger into her oviduct. She gasped—her eyes shut tight—it felt unlike anything she remembered as a human, but somehow more like clitoral stimulation than what she remembered penetration feeling like. "Oh, yeah," she said, "things are definitely different now."
Arron smirked and said, "You know, there are going to be lots of surprised merfolk all around the world right about now. Surprised, but ultimately grateful."
"There are gonna be some surprised merfolk right here," said Anna. "We're gonna have to be, like, expert sex-educators for all of 'em!"
"Well, let's get on with it then!" Arron and Anna shared a grin, lifted up off the seabed, and swam with all haste for the mer-village.