It’s been a couple months since I moved into Starla’s sizeable beach house; given to her by her mother along with the rather successful pearl cultivation business that paid for it. I never asked much about it, and Starla was okay with that, especially since her mother didn’t want to divulge her ‘trade secret’, even to me. The only strange thing was the fact that Starla was an expert diver, yet she never wanted to just plain swim with me; something about wanting to be able to breathe if she went underwater. I was about to find out what she meant.
I woke up one morning and looked at the clock. 6:58, about an hour earlier than I would’ve liked. I was always a heavy sleeper, but when I woke up, I was up for the day. I got out of bed and was about to remove my nightgown when I heard a splash in the bathtub, like someone was bathing in it; and Starla never took baths. I opened the door to find something draped over the rim of the tub; it was a large light-blue fishlike tailfin.
I approached the bathtub and looked inside to see the full shape of the occupant. At one end was a long aqua-blue fishtail baring a small slit below a seamless transition to a human torso at the waist; at the other, was Starla, hands folded behind her head with her eyes closed, and her bare chest rising and falling with every comfortable breath despite a lack of gills anywhere. She opened her eyes, gasped as she saw I was looking at her and immediately sat up in the tub.
After spitting water out of her mouth, she said, “Th-this is a costume!”
“You were breathing underwater,” I shouted before pointing at her tail, “and there’s no way that is a costume! Wait, Is this your ‘trade secret?””
“Okay yes, I am a mermaid; and this is indeed our trade secret. I’m sorry; I wanted to tell you years ago, but my parents wouldn’t allow it.” Starla said. “Believe me, I tried to convince them many times, but they says there’s no way to know how a human can react when you tell them.”
"So your parents are both merpeople too?" I asked.
"Yes lillian." Starla said.
“When you put it that way, I don’t blame you for not telling me. I guess that also explains why you never took baths or why we never just swam. You’d have changed into a mermaid, right?”
“Yes, that’s true.” Starla said, pulling her tailfin into the bathtub.
“So, why take a bath now; and why have you never changed when we went diving, or whenever you got soaked?” I asked.
“Technically, it’s not a bath; I just like to relax in my mermaid form sometimes, but I didn’t expect you to wake up so soon. As for your other question, only fully submerging our bare legs in water will force us to change. It’s a good thing too, because otherwise that would make living among humans completely impractical.”
“That makes sense.” I looked back down at Starla’s tail curled beneath the water. “You can guess by now that I’m okay with this. In fact, seeing you like this makes me wish I was a mermaid, too.”
Starla clasped my hand and smirked saying, “You know, that can be arranged.”