Caroline headed back to the female employees locker room to get changed at the end of her work day. One other employee was in there: Isabella. The two young women had worked together for about a month and were friendly, but not close. Isabella had already showered and was sitting on a bench, wrapped in a towel and checking something on her phone before getting dressed.
Caroline offered Isabella a passing "hi" as she walked by. Caroline's soaked wetsuit clung snugly to her athletic figure, her long wet hair disheveled and some of it clinging to the sides of her face. She reached for the zipper on the wetsuit, but struggled with it.
"Let me help you," offered Isabella.
"Thanks," replied Caroline. She felt the zipper slide down and slowly peeled the wetsuit off. She was topless underneath, clad only in bikini bottoms to prevent the wetsuit from chaffing anything sensitive. Soaked with saltwater, especially her hair, Caroline needed to rinse off. She hung the wetsuit to dry and headed for the shower. As she did, Caroline noticed Isabella's attention had not returned to her smartphone; she had instead been watching Caroline disrobe.
As Caroline removed her bikini bottom and stepped into the shower, she tried to recall what she knew of Isabella. Hadn't she mentioned a husband at some point?
Isabella had never paid a lot of attention to Caroline before, but when she walked past in her wetsuit the saltwater smell was strangely entrancing. Watching Caroline strip off her wetsuit had gotten Isabella wet. Why was she suddenly feeling so thirsty for her coworker? Now Caroline had stepped into one of the shower stalls, but left the curtain open. An invitation?
The water raining down on Caroline felt delightful, like the best shower of her life. She hadn't enjoyed it long when someone else stepped into the shower stall. Caroline turned around to find Isabella standing there, her towel having been left on the bench. Caroline stared open-mouthed at her naked coworker. Caroline hadn't consciously performed a striptease getting out of her wetsuit, hadn't deliberately left the shower curtain open...but unconsciously the mermaid virus was already at work. And now confronted with a naked, eager woman Caroline she felt no reason to resist. Instead she wrapped her arms around Isabella and gave her an open-mouth kiss. The mermaid virus already found a second carrier.
The two women kissed and caressed in the shower. Mouths explored breasts and fingers probed vaginas. Caroline imagined the two of them were mermaids on a beach. The fantasy brought her to climax. Isabella took a little longer. They held each other, leaning against the shower wall, unsure why they had both felt compelled do what they had just done. They didn't know that the mermaid virus made a woman release pheromones through her sweat glands that made her more sexually attractive to both men and women, to increase its chances of spreading.
Isabella gave Caroline a final kiss and left the shower to dry off. Caroline finished rinsing off then, in a bit of a daze, made her way to her own locker to dry off and get dressed to go home.
As Isabella drove home, fantasies swam through her mind of herself as a mermaid, making love to her husband.
Caroline got in her car with her throat feeling dry and an itch on her leg. Then she got a group text from a friend, inviting her and some fellow girl friends to a local bar.