"I'm a mermaid!"
Honestly, it wasn't the first time somebody had used that word to describe Millie. Back in high school, she'd been been called Mermaid Millie quite a bit - best swimmer in the school, destined, most people believed, to do it professionally. I still thought she could have gone all the way to the Olympics, if her parents hadn't ripped all support of her athletic dreams away. It still fired me up to remember all the insults and slurs they had hurled at her - trying to tear her down and destroy her, all because she had dared to have feelings for another girl.
She still got out to the beach constantly, of course, swimming as often as the weather allowed. We had moved down to SoCal after college, braving the absurd cost of living, just so that she could hit the beaches all year round. Difficult, even with degrees and decent careers under our belts, but not once had I thought she wasn't worth it.
"Yuuuup, that you are," I replied playfully, patting her on the shoulder. It only seemed to make her roll her eyes as she backed up, still panting heavily. I was about to ask if she needed to sit down, or get a drink of water, when she decided to do the former, plopping down on the opposite end of the couch.
From this angle, I could finally take note of the condition of her swimsuit. The one-piece she had worn was wet, an entirely expected thing and the reason we invested in waterproof seating. More concerning, however, was that it was ripped - the bottom was hidden, of course, by her shorts, but I could see the tears in the ice-blue fabric that rose above her waistline. That she wasn't more distressed about such damage to her favorite swimsuit was very, very out of the ordinary.
And in short order I got to see how ripped the swimsuit was - she practically tore her pants off, tossing them against a wall with a thud that briefly drew the interest of Sparks, our ever-lazy pug, before he returned to laying about. The whole bottom was ripped open, like something had pushed against it until it completely tore... and even that wasn't around for long, as she quickly pulled off the swimsuit altogether, leaving her naked on the couch once she had thrown the torn garment to the floor.
I was playful as I spoke again, but there was a hint of annoyance there. "I just finished mopping, babe."
She rolled her eyes once more. "Oh, trust me, this is worth it." With a grin she threw her legs over, laying them on top of mine. I wouldn't complain, of course - having those long, athletic, ever-bronzed limbs against my body would never cease to be a pleasure. She had them pressed together, like she was fighting to eliminate every inch of space between them.
"...okay, I'll play along." Setting my book back down on the table, I sat up a little, letting Millie's feet sit in my lap as I started massaging them. "If this is just some long con to get me to put on the cheerleader outfit again, you just... have to..."
She didn't need to say anything to rob the words out of my throat. I was transfixed in amazement as I watched her body begin to... shift, for lack of a better word. It started at her thighs, already so tightly pressed together - the seam they formed, it just... it vanished. Thinking my mind was playing tricks on me, I reached out to feel it, finding a solid mass of flesh. She moaned in sudden surprise as the most sensitive part of her body, a region I was quite familiar with, suddenly spread out, positioned along the front of her now-conjoined legs.
My jaw hung open as I watched the solidification spread down her legs, pulling them into a single large mass. The definition of her knees seemed to melt away, back into the one solid mass that now began to twist in my lap in ways that no legs could have. When it reached her feet, she moaned again, and I could feel the heat that radiated from her. Both feet seemed to flatten out, toes lengthing into spines as splayed members became a wide, thin... fin. There was simply nothing else that the shape could be.
Her legs, now her tail, began to twinkle, my jaw hanging even further open as thousands of little dots of glistening light appeared. The lightly slowly took form, becoming bright, shiny scales that covered the whole of her tail. Their pattern was a rainbow, shifting between colors all the way down the length of a limb that was now easily six feet long on its own, having twisted around my back to pull me closer to Millie. Fire like I'd never seen burned in her eyes, and I could have sworn that her gorgeous face, those long locks of black hair - they were more beautiful than ever.
I couldn't really think of anything else to say. "Holy shit."
Millie giggled, her hands reaching out to take mine. "It's amazing, isn't it?" There was a huskiness to her voice, something alluring that hadn't been there before, that kept my attention raptly focused on her every word. "I don't know how, or why... but... god, it feels so good."
There was a question I wanted to ask, burning in my fast-beating heart, and she answered it without me ever needing to ask. "But I need something... I need you... god, do I need you right now..."