And a Diamond in the Middle

A job was another important detail and I found with Galway University as a visiting classics scholar and lecturer while keeping my professorship back in the States but switching it to research only. It was a fairly long trip from Niela's pool and our new home to Galway, but, after getting my work permit from the Irish government, I scheduled my classes and in-person meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays and did almost everything else by email, video chat, or phone.

To make things even better on the money front, the Greek-Irish mythology connections book was complete and being printed. I wouldn't make much from it but it opened doors to more research-based books. In addition, my publisher's fiction group was quite interested in the idea for a mythology-based novel that I'd finally pitched. On reading the draft of the first few chapters, they'd gotten me under contract for the rest of it with more lucrative options for more novels in the future.

However, the most complicated issue turned out to be Niela's concern about being able to continue her line. She wanted me to be the father of her daughter, but with my vasectomy preventing that, I entered into discussion with my doctor in the states who was able to refer me to a Doctor Kelly, a fertility specialist in Galway.

"Sam, you basically have two options if you want to have a child. You can seek to reverse the procedure or you can use sperm aspiration, where we draw the sperm in your testes out through a tube and eggs from the mother, do in vitro fertilization, and then implant the fertilized eggs back into the mother."

Knowing that would never work with Niela without revealing her secret, I asked, "Do you think there might be a way to do it in utero if the semen was inserted into the seminal fluid, assuming there was plenty of both?"

He laughed and shook his head, telling me that it would take a lot more volume than I would be able to produce in a single session.

I grinned and said, "Doc, you don't know my Niela. She does...incredible things...to me. The problem is that, well, Niela has a condition that doesn't allow her to travel. It will have to be performed at our house."

Doctor Kelly was skeptical so I convinced him to bring his equipment out to the house a couple of weekends later to give me time to purchase a medical grade freezer unit. Once he arrived, I introduced him to Niela, who stood where the fans would collect most of her pheromones and suck them away to avoid affecting the good doctor; after she assured him that she really wanted to go through with it all, the doctor agreed. Saoirse and Riley entertained him while Niela took me to the bedroom.

I was hard in seconds so she started stroking me, slow and gentle, giving me little flicks with her tongue before taking me in her mouth and almost killing me. She took her time with that, building me up slowly and taking me back down in turn, always getting us just a little closer to our goal.

I could feel it nearing then, and she still was able to run through a couple more of her cycles before I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled away just in time, directing shot after shot after shot into the sample jar. When I returned to him a couple of minutes later, I could barely walk, causing him to suppress a smile until he saw the jar, filled almost to the brim, and he thought I was pulling his leg. When I assured him it was real, he shook his head in disbelief, but proceeded to give me the local sedative and perform the sperm aspiration anyway. Minutes later, he was astounded at the quantity and quality of the little buggers.

As we carried his equipment back to the car, Doctor Kelly said, "Sam, I didn't want to say this in front of Niela, but I'm guessing your reconstituted semen is every bit the equivalent of a fresh batch from a twenty-something-year-old porn star." He laughed, and added, "Or possibly batches from a whole gang of them. Seriously, if you follow the procedures as given when the time comes, if Niela can't get pregnant with this, then I doubt that she could ever get pregnant."

He stopped after putting his case and the storage unit in the trunk of his car. "Sam, one other thing. You might want to have Niela checked out by an internist though, possibly for some type of kidney or liver issue or something similar. Maybe it's just the lighting in your house but I swear she has an almost greenish cast at times!"

I laughed. "Nah, Doc, it's definitely the lights. We'll get them checked sometime soon."

He laughed, too, glad that it hadn't been some horrible issue he'd begun to imagine, and we shook hands before he climbed in his car and went on his way.

***

With all of our efforts now in place, Niela and I are quite happy together, considering ourselves married though we'll probably never get there legally. That's not because she doesn't have a birth certificate nor because she has no form of identification. No, as an Irish water fairy (it turns out that she prefers that term over Naiad) who's now probably more versed in the ways of the internet than I am, she honestly doesn't see the need for a middleman to say and have us repeat words that we can say ourselves with greater feeling and meaning. We're planning a little private ceremony with Riley and Saoirse when Matt and his girlfriend come for a visit to meet Niela in person in a few months.

Speaking of Riley and Saoirse, they're over quite frequently and they and Niela have formed a sweet, familial relationship. It may be because they're related or maybe because he loves Saoirse so much but Niela's pheromones only have a partial effect on Riley, not attracting him toward her while still having the good side effects of significantly increased libido. He's whispered to me that's a very good thing because he doesn't know what he'd do with Saoirse when they got home if it didn't.

I may be wrong, but I think that's good for them since Riley's not as gruff as he was when we first met, often even smiling these days. Niela told me that Saoirse's happier and feeling better, too, having lost several kilos and toned her muscles, including some that she'd forgotten she had.

I cut my sweet fiancée off at that point, not wanting to violate any confidences or, really, to hear any more for that matter.

When I'm home, Niela spends much of her time with me, either at the pool or in the house, taking dips in our little freshwater pool that's connected by the tunnel to her pool in the stream. She loves our bed and particularly enjoys making love in it, but, unfortunately, she can't sleep in it. After we're done with our loving each evening, she returns to her pool for the night and I usually sleep in the house with both of us looking forward to our reunion at dawn. I'm looking for a big floating lounge chair for two that will allow us to stay together some nights when the weather allows during the summer months.

Tonight is different though, for it's a very special evening, a cool but clear Friday night in spring and, most importantly, there's a full moon overhead. I purchased a wet suit recently so Niela has invited me to spend the night at the pool with her, where we'll swim for a while before we dance together in the moonlight. Niela has teased that the leprechauns might even come out to play a jig for us and then we'll make love until dawn.

Even with her pheromones enhancing my libido, I'm hoping I can go long enough to keep her happy!

***

Epilogue: Five years later...

"Daddy? I'm sleepy. Can you put me to pool?"

I smiled at my little nymph and scooped her up, smothering her in kisses as she giggled. Her skin was drier than I liked so I immediately headed toward our freshwater pool.

Niela and I initially agreed to wait until I was older before she had a child so I wouldn't have to spend too many years without her. She'd told me that her mother died soon after her birth, after she'd passed along the knowledge of the water fairies. Since Niela's kind is quite long lived, she would have no issue using my frozen donation whenever we were ready and, with this plan, Niela and I would get to spend as long as possible together and I might still be able to meet my daughter and get to know her a little bit before I croaked.

However, it didn't work out like that. As we talked over time, I began to question if Niela's "she died when I was young" was based on our human perspective or Niela's, which was frequently somewhat different than my own. Therefore, I talked with Riley O'Haire, one of his sisters, and their father's surviving brother at length.

It turned out that Riley's grandfather was in his forties before he ever married and his wife was much younger. Riley's Uncle Seamus, now into his 70s, even believed that his father had had a long-term relationship, possibly over many years, before meeting and marrying his mother. From what Riley told me, that woman had been Niraena, Niela's mother, and his impression was that Niraena had been quite old, even for a water fairy, before they met since the O'Haire ancestors had believed for many generations that the pool was cursed. No one would go there as a result.

With this information, I asked, "Niela, how long does it take a water fairy to go from birth to being fully grown?"

"Not too long," she answered. "I think it was maybe fifteen or maybe sixteen winters?"

"Wait!" I replied in shock at her answer. "You mean, not too long in comparison to how long you've lived, right?"

"Yes," she replied, not understanding how I could interpret it any other way.

"So when you said your mother died soon after you were born, you meant that in comparison to how long you've lived?"

Again, she looked at me like I was being dense. "Yes, Sam. I've been without her for a long time and I still miss her."

"Niela, do you know how old your mother was when she died?"

"No, we don't count days and time like you do, but she'd seen many, many winters."

"Sweetheart, do you think that her dying might have had something to do with how old she was instead of being because you were born, especially since you got to spend at least fifteen years—your winters—with her?"

She'd never really thought of it that way but once she did, she no longer wanted to wait to have a child of our own. Water fairies tend to have one-track minds when they want something, so we called Doctor Kelly about helping thaw my sperm deposit. After a lot more explanation (and taking him fully into our confidence about Niela; after all, Bruce, Clark, and Peter all eventually had an ally they had to trust), he agreed and our daughter, Kaitlin, an Irish form of Kathy, was born some months later.

"Mommy! Are you coming?" called little Kaitlin as we reached the edge of our freshwater pool.

My love, Niela, came out of the house wearing her gossamer gown, woven by Niela of spider silk and very similar to the one our daughter was wearing, but she was also wearing her little Irish hat with the shamrock and its diamond in the middle that we'd long seen as being symbolic of how we'd come together.

Niela smiled at me and kissed me goodnight before taking our daughter's hand. I kissed little Kaitlin, too, and, like every evening, I wished them both sweet dreams as they stepped into the water and disappeared below it until morning.

Smiling, I went into the house, looking forward to that.

The End

________________________

Endnotes:

Thanks so much to everyone for reading and for any feedback. Thanks, too, to blackrandl1958 for her invitation to participate in the Surfin' with the Alien Challenge. Since the alien in the challenge didn't have to be an outer space-type alien, I chose to go with a mythological rather than science fiction alien and since the challenge date was St. Patrick's Day, I decided to steer toward Irish mythology as a result.

And yes, to anyone who might be wondering, Sam's enjoyment of comic books (with a few references in the story) was a nod to the cover to Mr. Satriani's original album cover featuring Marvel's The Silver Surfer.

Other notes for those who might be interested:

While the Naiads (sometimes spelled Nyads) and water sprites were from Greek mythology, Wikipedia notes that "the water nymph associated with particular springs was known all through Europe in places with no direct connection with Greece" including among the Celts, the ancestors of the modern Irish. Since Ireland had such a rich mythology of land and water fairies and since specific details of the Naiads are rather sketchy, I took the liberty to speculate and expand on what might have been the Irish freshwater version in this story, particularly since there was often only one Naiad per enchanted pool.

And just in case there are any Irish fairy scholars out there, I'll mention that the Merrow, the Irish sea fairies, are akin to the modern Mer-people and are not included in this story.

The story of the Irish farmer who built his house in the fairies circle is entitled "The Fairies' Dancing-Place" by William Carleton and was included in William Butler Yeats' "Irish Fairy Tales and Folklore."

Finally, Kathy's hat as described herein is a real eight-panel newsboy hat that comes with a small but very distinctive leather-like flower on the right side. It's produced in numerous patterns and colors by a weaving firm located at the famous Muckross House at the entrance to the Killarney National Forest in County Kerry. An internet search should help you find it if you're interested. While the color of Kathy's hat was never mentioned, there are numerous patterns and colors available