Julie awoke refreshed and the first thing she did was unpack her tail. She wrote a note saying she was going for a swim since no one else seemed to be around, and she didn’t want her family to worry about her.
Wearing her seashell bikini, Julie poked her head outside and seeing no one, she slid off her bikini bottom and raced to the water’s edge. She always preferred to wear nothing under her tail. She slid the snug suit over her legs, slipped into the water and kicked off.
She spent a few minutes diving and swimming around when suddenly there was a splash behind her.
“Hi!” A girl said as she surfaced, scaring the bejesus out of Julie.
“Jeeze, you scared me!” Julie said.
“Sorry about that. I’m Miley by the way.” She had blonde hair and a seashell bikini much like hers. Julie figured she was another guest who wore a mermaid costume.
“Julie.”
”Nice to meet you, Julie; I haven’t seen you around here.”
”I just arrived today.”
“That’s a lovely tail you have, and such nice shells.”
”Thanks, took me forever to find the materials, not to mention making them up was a chore and a half.”
“Yeah, they can be, can’t they?”
Julie looked into the water, but couldn’t make out much of Miley’s tail. “Can I see your tail?” Julie asked.
”Sure.” Miley said, and she lay on her back, bringing her tail flat on the water’s surface. It was a copper color with a sheen more brilliant than any costume tail that she’d ever seen.
“It’s so beautiful,” Julie said before beginning to run her hand down the length in awe of how close to the texture of real fish scales they were, if a bit more silky, “and so realistic!” Miley didn’t hear that last part as she was enjoying the gentle caress of Julie’s hand.
When Julie started fingering the tailfin, Miley started laughing and flicking her tail. “Hehe, stop it, I’m ticklish!” She said, backing away.
The undulation of her friend’s tail caught Julie off-guard. “Wha… wait a minute.” She swam to Miley’s tail again, placed her right hand on top of where her friend’s thigh would be, and her left hand under where her shin would be and bent the tail upward, curling it in a smooth curve. She quickly looked to Miley’s face and, seeing no discomfort, only an inquisitive look, let out a brief shriek and dropped the tail, which hit the water with a splash. “Y-You’re a real mermaid!?”
“You’re not!?” Miley shouted. “I mean; I saw you swimming around with that tail and I thought… Ah, I should have known with the weird way it bent and all.”
“Wow, I gotta hand it to them;” Julie said; “this tail even fooled a real mermaid.”
“So why are you trying to fool people into thinking you’re a mermaid, anyway?” Miley said with her arms crossed.
“Well, I never meant to deceive anyone, I just really love mermaids is all.”
“So, you were just pretending?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Well, I’d say it’s about time you stopped pretending, and got the genuine experience.”
“You mean…”
“Real tail and all.”