Lagoon

She spat his seed into the pool and the thick white clump hung clearly visible in the water. Her fingers trailed through it and her mouth rose above the surface again. "So much. Is that how you'll milt me, big fish?" Despite the taunt, her voice was shy and halting with emotion.

Water came up above his still-bared cock and the swimming trunks hanging loosely off his hips when he clumsily stepped down into the pool after her. He went to his knees to reach her level and swept her up against him. The diluted cum caught between their bodies clung to his shirt and her bouncing, submerged breasts unnoticed as they embraced. "However you want."

Belem had been a bust. He showed the photo around all the beaches and hiring quays and could find no one who'd seen her. The lead had been wrong, she had never come this way. All of the jobs seemed to be sewn up by wealthy, established pods, some Mediterranean, some European. The presence of the northerners frustrated him: from the corner of his eye, he could only see her, all pale skin and limbs soft with cold-water insulation. When he looked, heart in his throat, it was always someone else.

A week was lost, then another, his traveling money depleting and emails from the home office piling up. Stuck in another canal, he reflected on his daily walk through Ver-o-Peso, and the end was rushing closer. That was when his luck broke.

"Pezinho!" Through the press in the riverside market he saw a tanned arm extending just above the edge of the pier. The skinny, brown-skinned woman it belonged to swam up to meet him at the waterside. "É! You! You're the one looking for uma menina, Baltic, migrating with Pacificos?" Insouciance laced her heavily accented words and her face was lean and narrow like the blade of a knife. He was close to wearing out his welcome with the local pods, asking around like he did. When he nodded, she glanced down the dock at a food cart then back up at him meaningfully.

He sat on the pier and handed down one of the paper bowls of vatapa they'd been selling and ate the other himself while he listened. Between slurped mouthfuls she explained that a newly arrived pod, working their way along the coast from Colon, had seen the Pacific group there. "Cold water carnuda, same name." He wanted it to be her. "They made the Canal transit."

His new informant frowned at the folded reals he gave her in payment. "Not dollars?" She tucked them into a fold of her sash just the same before tossing the empty bowl up onto the pier and slipping away with a slap of her red-orange tail.

In Panama City he picked up the trail again. She'd split with the Pacific group, joining a mixed Gulf pod headed north. Not for the first time he wondered what directed her movement. He imagined spur of the moment decisions, blithe impulses leading her up and down the seaboard, going along with whoever was going the same way. Or perhaps she was traveling with someone, following, migrating together.

Uneasy thoughts nagged in hotel rooms and airport lounges. They had said their goodbyes and it had been years. His settled surface ideas were different from maritime ones, he'd learned too much to ignore that. When he'd set off he had only the basics of a plan: find her. Beyond that goal, he hadn't considered much else. If he had, he might not have begun. It was too late now. He submitted his resignation from Transearth on the flight from Belem, just ahead of the goodwill and patience of the company expiring.

The waterfront was closed when he arrived in Ensenada. Federales had the piers outside the cruise terminal cordoned off, but hadn't pushed the crowd back far enough to hide what had been done. Tails were staked to pilings in the water, crudely severed just above where shiny scale became skin. He turned away, having seen enough when a police officer used a hatchet to chop one free and it hit the low-tide water with a slap.

The maritime population had fled in the wake of the example made there and the streets belonged to whoever had the upper hand that day, Sinaloa or Tijuana. He kept his head down, drinking warm cerveza in packed longshoreman cantinas where tinny recordings of narco-corridos were almost drowned out by grumbling voices. There were no jobs to be had above or under the water and out-of-work laborers simmered while drinking their last paycheck.

No one really knew why the killings had happened, but whispered that "los tritones" had been swimming packages north to San Diego, taking pay from the cartels. Everyone knew maritime migrants lived on the fringe of the law and didn't care about borders. The wall the Americanos built didn't extend into the water. It was impossible to gather much more: he was a gringo in places he didn't belong, and newcomers in the city meant trouble right now.

Expat bars closer to the cruise terminal yielded more. The one he found himself in, nostalgically seeking American voices, had a waterside alcove where maritime customers could rest and drink but it was empty.

A leather-skinned Seattleite fisherman retired to the Baja tapped the worn photo when it was slid down the bar to him. Ceiling fans stirred tacky angling-related decor overhead. "I know this maritime fella, kicks up and down the coast. Saw him here the other year and talked about fishing up in Dutch like he does. Hard work, yeah, but that's what it is." The gnarled finger thumped the picture again to show the connection. "Had a new lady he was showing around."

That was it, then. The mouthful of beer he was caught with went bitter and flat in his throat. Back in his hotel room he laid on the bed still dressed, having foregone his nightly ritual of reviewing the collection of notes and maps on his laptop. Sleep didn't share the room with him.

They'd held each other and kissed long enough for his tongue to burn from the salt of her mouth. Soft words were murmured with lips close enough to brush each other, indistinct but unforgettable. Needful utterances layered tender declarations. "Somehow I knew." "Don't let go." "I've never... you're so beautiful." "Please, please, we can, I have to." "I love you, I'll always love you." "I want this." "I can't leave you." "Touch me like that." The words tumbled, trying to fill a shared lifetime in the few moments they had.

The lights failed and darkness enfolded them. Somewhere within the maintenance building the generator kicked on and the strung lights in the trees fitfully flickered back to life. The bulbs beneath the pool surface stayed dark. An almost inaudible stuttering crackle drifted in the air and faded away: distant gunshots, a reminder of the clash in the city. Whatever was going on there had brought down the island's already storm-battered power grid. Neither paid it any mind. They already knew time was short.

Fast and frantic he stroked her back, down into the scaled region below. Careful not to drag against their grain he kneaded the upper swell of her tail. She cooed softly, letting him keep her held close in the water. Her own hands pushed down his sagging swimsuit and explored his rear. Her grasp was rough with experimental excitement, pinching and gripping hard enough to make him hiss in surprise. A giggle and caress of the offended cheek was her apology and he answered in kind.

Their mouths and tongues met again before she leaned away and reached between their bodies. The warm water provided no deterrent and her searching fingers found his renewed erection, encircled and fondled it. She looked up at him and her eyes were huge and deep in the dark. "Now," the whispered, liquid word was half question, half demand.

Almost outside of his control his hips answered and thrust his member in her underwater grasp. "I need," he was all breathless and husky, "something to..." A wild glance around found they weren't far from the pool's edge. She made wet, mewling noises as he took up her weight in the water and pushed her toward the wall. Her tail molded around the side of his thigh and her flukes waved behind like a banner.

They fetched up against the side of the pool, hard, and she gasped at the impact. He released her for only a moment to peel off his shirt and throw it over her head to land on the concrete. It was hardly necessary but she shimmied out of her sash as well and let the brightly-colored twist of cloth drift to the bottom. She leaned against the wall with her elbows propping her up and her tail resting on pool floor. Her full chest heaved with panting excitement and she slid one hand down the front of her tail toward the discrete divide in scales that delineated her vent.

The strung lights glimmered in her hazy eyes and her slender fingers pushed the slit open to display the hidden flesh within for him.

Alaska. The distance was almost unimaginable but hadn't he chased her from ocean to ocean already? If she could travel it, so could he, and faster. He couldn't be far behind now and when he found her... When he found her... He didn't know.

There was time to think on the jolting last leg of the flight north, Anchorage to Unalaska Airport. The blank drone of the little plane's propeller isolated him within his own head and he imagined a hundred scenarios of how they might meet. Anger, sadness, an indifferent glance unsuspected and from a distance, each one he played out in his head to scripts of remonstration, tears, or accusing silence. He was almost on the ground when he finally considered the possibility that she might not even be there, or that it was nothing more than a tenuous arrangement in the first place. He pushed aside the positive outcomes and steeled himself.

The streets of Dutch Harbor were chilly and deserted in the grip of a seasonal lull in the fishery. With most boats and their crews in home ports the harbor's maritime population was confined to their sunken habitat. No one was around to help them into town.

The Maritime Affairs Specialist tapped the keyboard on his desk and hummed. "There, they know we're coming down." The habitat apparently had email, and the Coast Guard helped him get in touch. He'd sent what he'd learned in Ensenada and after a few hours had received a reply. Someone down there knew her and would meet with him. In the habitat; he'd have to go down.

Seamen helped him into a wetsuit with hot water hookups and then kicked on the pumps and compressor. The Coast Guard launch rocked during the maneuvers and threatened to spill him into the bay prematurely. The sailors were impervious to the little boat's unsteadiness. "Never dived before, sir?" the uniformed young woman asked earnestly. He shook his head.

"All you have to do is hold on to the tether line and sink," she probably intended to be reassuring. "Once you're below, they'll help you into a pocket in the habitat and swap your water over to their pump. If you get into trouble, give a yank and kick back to the surface." She demonstrated the release on his weight belt.

Her last injunction as the mask went on was "breathe, don't hyperventilate," and then he slipped back into the cold water of Margaret Bay.

The habitat was a mound of concrete pierced with a few portholes ringed with tarnished metal and was set in deep water away from the boating lanes of the harbor. Originally built for a Maritime Native Scout detachment during the Aleutian Campaign it retained the look of an underwater bunker. Barnacles, weeds and algae had blurred its shape, but it was still obvious. There were two men waiting right below him and they swam up to take him by the arms before he'd dropped even ten feet.

Both were wearing form-fitting diving shirts and belts, and one sketched a few quick hand-signs to him while they sank. "Down there. It's okay." The umbilical trailing behind felt a very tenuous connection to the surface. Painfully he equalized the pressure in his ears and let his escorts guide him.

The entrance to the habitat was an overhang that trapped a pocket of air perhaps just for visitors like himself. Then again, if they had email down here, there must be some parts of the habitat airtight. There was a shelf for him to sit on when he emerged into the air and his two escorts swapped his surface air and hot water for another set of hoses connected to the habitat. The ceiling just above his head was dark with mildew but the air felt fresh and cool, circulated from the surface by vents somewhere. There were a few of the other maritime residents in the grotto, visible below the surface. Maybe it was the most open space, or maybe they were there to have a look at the rare visitor.

"Go ahead, you can take your mask off," one of his escorts said, then nodded to the other and propelled himself deeper into the habitat.

With the mask out of the way, he looked closer at his remaining escort. The man's face was round and almost childish aside from a sharp scar that disappeared into his slicked-down blond hair. Suited to colder waters, too? His escort kept a hand resting on the high-visibility orange plastic handle of a diving knife on his belt as he floated alongside the shelf. The occasional sweep of his long silvery tail kept him in place.

Having taken his stock as well, the remaining escort spoke. "Alright," his accent was soft, Californian, "name's Whil."

The now-creased photograph was produced from within a diving glove and handed over without a word. It was accepted in equal silence and his escort peered at it under the yellow electric lamps set in the grotto ceiling. "Her." The maritime fisherman nodded to himself as if the photo confirmed something.

"You don't look like what I was expecting," the tension leaving Whil's shoulders was obvious and he released his grip on the knife, "thought it might be someone else from Ensenada."

"She's gone. Wanted to leave before we even got to L.A., talked her into staying. She finally left at Golden Gate." Whil cast his eyes up at the ceiling as if looking beyond it. "You're her pair of legs, huh." She'd talked a lot about him, he learned as the migration north was recounted, enough for her traveling companion to sound tired of the subject even now.

"I don't know where she was headed, or I might've gone after her. We made a go of it but..." the fisherman shrugged and slid the photograph into a pocket on his diving shirt. The conversation was over.

Back on the surface, in another inexpensive hotel room, he sat on the edge of the bed, numb. Whatever he'd feared, this hadn't been it. It was another dead end and there were a billion and a third square kilometers of water left to search.

She gave a small, whining cry as he slid into her core. Her vent was slippery, smooth, and tight around him and he could feel the muscles within ripple as her tail flexed. Pale arms clung to his neck and he took up her submerged weight without difficulty. "More, more," she sobbed into his ear and he pulled her onto his impaling shaft over and over. Fierce grunts of effort were his reply.

A rhythm developed: her tail worked sinuously while she was at his mercy, caught between grasping arms and ramming hips. Water splashed and slapped and left dark tendrils of moisture on concrete where it leapt from the pool. She gasped with each metronomic impact, the engorged bud now protruding at the apex of her slit tormented by the press of his body. When her head lolled back he could see her mouth slack in ecstasy and her eyes wild. "Is it good for my little fish?" His chuckle was coarse with effort.

"Yes!" her fingertips dragged furrows across his shoulder blades, "yours, yours, yours." He crushed his mouth against hers and their tongues twined like eels in a swarm.

The rub of scales reddened his thighs as she writhed, spitted on his length. Her breasts flattened against his chest and she squealed at how the hair there tickled her hardened nipples. A hard thrust of his hips convulsed her. Her gaped slit took him entirely and he bottomed out deep inside. High pitched and almost innocent in abject fulfillment, her moan of release echoed around the lagoon.

Spasms wracked her muscular vent to roll along the length of his cock and all at once he gave way as well. His knees almost buckled when he came again, this time within her unfamiliar depths. Her shaking hands rifled through his hair and this time she was the one to press her lips to his as if she could prolong their shuddering union.

She stroked his hair more gently when they lay together on the shallow pool steps. Both of them watched the niveous curl of their mixed juices that leaked from her, and she reached down to idly finger her entrance. "I don't know where I'll go." Her sigh was very small.

"I don't want you to go anywhere," the whispered words felt forbidden.

"I know." She inhaled deep and breathy, lifting her breasts under his touch. The air was released in a giggle, "but if I don't, how will I find you?"

"Maybe I'll find you instead." They were quiet for a long time and he was ashamed at the impossibility of their promises.

"I'll go wherever the current takes me," she finally broke the silence, "and someday I want to see where it all started."

The in-flight magazine, the resorts he'd never heard of, and the starlet-turned-special-envoy were left behind at the Cairns Airport. That summer night five years ago was much harder to shake.

An old Grand Banks motor yacht converted for diving carried him out of the harbor, on hire for at least a day. The decor in the cabin was a mishmash of nautical memorabilia, dive gear, and spare parts, with an afterthought spared for passenger comforts. A novelty nametag sign hanging on the inner hatch proclaimed "Your mum calls me: DAVIE." Askew on the wall next to it was a faded photograph of the guide and others in uniform. The banner they held read "AUSCDT4 HMAS Yarra - Aden." Cracked vinyl seating did little to invite, so he stood for much of the cruise with a hand bracing himself against a wall.

Advertisements for Ruin tours littered Cairns, inescapable. When he'd picked one, he'd been limited by the growing need to be frugal. Hard-learned experience from the past year taught that a single day wasn't going to be enough. He had to find someone knowledgeable and willing to make the trip out as long as he could afford it.

The grumble of the motors slowed and the boat drifted to a halt. "Here she is!" the guide called from the upper wheelhouse. The windows were nigh-opaque from encrusted salt, so he headed out on deck.

Sunlight dazzled his eyes before they adjusted to the bright blue expanse. More slowly the details of low green and sandy humps where the reef breached the ocean surface came into focus. It stretched in a broad swath, northwest to southeast, and touched both horizons. A few other boats bobbed in the distance as white specks on the waves. "The Great Barrier Ruin," Davie announced and hopped down from the last rung of the ladder to the deck with a sharp slap of his sandals, "we'll get you in the water and you can have a look-see at the walls, the holes, say g'day to the locals..." The guide puttered about the deck, checking their gear.

Below, the light filtered down to dapple everything with a more gentle radiance. Colorful coral growths shot through with flitting schools of equally motley fish enticed the eye and obscured the evidence of the construction they'd overgrown so long ago. Following the guide's lead, he kicked clumsily in his rented flippers, away from the live growth toward dying, bleached coral.

White and crumbling honeycomb and staghorn had fallen away there to reveal tightly-laid stone, obviously artificial. The wall extended back under its carapace of coral hundreds of feet in either direction. In ages past the maritime population of the Strait had built walls, mounds, a sprawling city of the oldest undersea structures known.

"All gone now," Davie mused later, back on the boat. Their wetsuits left shrinking circles of seawater around them on the deck. "All of them out there today, tourists like you." He'd seen a few maritime divers while they circled the immediate reef. When he'd waved, some had waved back and circled closer to meet, others had just moved on. None were who he was looking for, none had seen her.