Little Mermaid Ch. 01

Fairytales, they say, are innocent. They're about cute princesses, and about funny dwarves and elves and witches and sorcerers; just harmless fantasies, all of them. We read them to our children before they fall asleep. Hollywood turns them into movies in which the good always prevails. The ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan, the croaking frog turns into a handsome lover. Poor Cinderella gets her prince, and so does the little mermaid, including a splendid pair of legs.

And everybody lives happily ever after, don't they?

***

Her name was Ariel. She was born a few years after Disney gave birth to its cartoon mermaid, and yes, it inspired her parents to name her after it. Of course, nobody asked her if she agreed. She didn't, and she never lost her embarrassment over it, especially since she turned out to be a poor swimmer. Since preschool everybody called her Ari anyway, but with the perverse self-loathing of puberty she insisted on having her full name back. Teenagers... who knows really what makes them tic, or their parents, for that matter?

Ariel grew up to be a beautiful girl, but she would be the last to agree to that. When you're 14, 15, it's hard to look at yourself and judge the whole package objectively. It's hard enough to look at yourself at all. All mirrors are liars; they lie both ways, depending on who's watching. They show anorexic girls a fat body, and they show fat girls that they have beautiful eyes -- or, well, okay, nice hair? Mirrors made Ariel focus on details she considered ugly: a too wide forehead, too big eyes, a wide mouth with fat lips, a skinny body, spindly legs and far too tiny tits. They were just fat nipples, actually, the left one at least two millimeters bigger than the right one. And there was a fucking birthmark right under it. That's what she saw. Anyone else saw a lithe beauty with Bambi limbs, doe eyes, blond shiny hair and immaculate skin, a girl on her way to catwalk and camera.

By the time Ariel reached 18, the mirror convinced her that she was irreparably ugly. Whatever her mother or her girlfriends said, however boys reacted, she only saw a skinny, awkward girl on her way to become a plain, flat chested, unattractive woman. In reality, she only got more beautiful with each passing year. So, without realizing it, she became an aloof, arrogant bitch in the eyes of lesser-graced girls. They would kill for just one or two of her assets. How could they know pretty girls suffer from lack of confidence too, just like they did? Some maybe even more so.

***

"You like making fun of me?" Ariel said, sucking on the straw in her soda bottle. The wind tugged at her bangs; she'd let them grow to cover her too wide brow and cast shadows on her too large eyes. The boy's gaze widened in surprise. He was Tim Bradlee, she knew, one of the typical jocks: sun-bleached hair, wide-shouldered frame and tanned skin. He had clear blue eyes and a mouth full of big white teeth. He always sported a crooked smile; he must be practicing it in front of a mirror, she supposed. The boy wore long shorts under his exposed abs. All in all, she saw a hundred reasons why he shouldn't be talking to her, hell, he shouldn't even be able to see her.

"I'm not making fun of you," he said. "Why would you think so?" It was early autumn, still warm; they were at the beach. The sweating soda bottle chilled her hand. "They" were high school kids; she knew most of them. Tim was a senior like her, hanging out with a surfing crowd. Ariel sat on the boardwalk, a few feet away from girls she reluctantly considered her friends: Barb and Liz and Val and Von. No one used full names except for Ariel. All the girls wore bikinis; she wore a one-piece suit. They all had long hair; she had it cut into a short bob. Ariel didn't feel like explaining why she'd asked Tim Bradlee if he were mocking her; she knew enough reasons why he should. Damn, it would be unnatural if he wouldn't.

"I dunno," she muttered. "Everybody else does. I just guess you should too." The boy bent his knees and squatted beside Ariel. He didn't know it yet, but it was the moment he grew up. Most people believe growing up is a slow process for boys, and yes, it usually takes a long time. But in every teen boy's life there is this one moment you can point out where he stops being a boy and becomes a man. For Timothy Bradlee it was the instant he decided not to shrug and walk away from this obviously crazy girl, but to squat down and tell her that he was serious, and that she was the prettiest girl he knew. So, he told her.

Ariel felt her soda pop shoot down her windpipe and up her nose. She started coughing and sneezing. Then she felt a big warm hand tapping her back. She looked up, and straight into the boy's frowning face. Tears ran down her cheeks. Coughing some more, she scrambled to her knees, picking up her towel and bag.

"S-sorry," she said between coughs. "Sorry." Then she rose, turned and left in a hurry, making the planks rattle under her slippers. Tim's eyes followed her slender body and her long, long legs until she disappeared around a corner. Then he looked over at the other girls. They shrugged. The awkward thing about growing up is that we don't do it all at the same pace.

***

Whenever reality became too confusing for Ariel, she took a shower. It was the only place where she knew for certain that no one would see her. The tiles didn't have eyes, and the glass door steamed up conveniently quickly. So, after running home, she took a shower. But, while the hot water started washing away sand and salt and tanning oil, Ariel found out that, even on your own, you're never alone. She closed her eyes and drowned in the steamy spray, deafened by the sound of falling water, and as she did so she heard the glass door slide open. She recognized the squeaky sound; a cold little draft made her shiver. She felt hands on her moist body. Opening her eyes, she saw blue eyes, very white teeth and a crooked smile. Bleached hair stuck to a tan brow; a mouth found hers, weak and slippery. A hand cupped her right non-existent breast, fondling the nipple until she gasped. Lost in the embrace, she pushed her hips forward, feeling fingers touch her clit; another finger entering her vagina. A wave, even hotter than the scalding water, raced through her body, from her clawing toes up to the roots of her hair. Maybe she came, maybe it was just another wave in an ongoing tsunami, just as imaginary as the boy had been. The water turned cold, and she was alone.

Of course, she was.

***

The next time Ariel saw Tim Bradlee was at a school's football game. Well, actually, seeing him was only partially true. All she really saw was a helmet and huge slabs of white armor covering his body. She had to remember his number to know which of the packaged hunks he was. He was part of the school's football team; she never really tried to learn about things like quarterbacks and tight ends or all the other silly ways they used to distinguish one plastic gorilla from another. To her they were all running robots, pummeling each other and ending up in untidy heaps of flesh and hardware. Sometimes they carried one off on a stretcher.

Last year they'd asked her to join the cheerleaders. She knew it was an honor. She also knew how it would end after a few weeks of waving those silly pompoms and throwing up her skinny legs. She'd make a big fool of herself, or rather: they'd make one of her. So, she said no. And when they asked again, she said no again. Sitting on the bleachers with three of her more-or-less-friends, she watched the girls yell and jump in a long row of tan-and-burgundy outfits, their panty-hosed legs flashing in the afternoon sun. She wondered which one of them would let Tim Bradlee fuck her after the game; or maybe more to the point: which one wouldn't? Ariel didn't consider herself bitter. Then again, nobody really does, do they? Like all frustrated teenagers, she might tell you she was just seeing things more clearly than any of her retarded schoolmates. She didn't need to be ridiculed into knowing her place. She might be ugly, but she was too clever to give them that chance, wasn't she?

The sounds around her suddenly increased from loud to deafening; looking up she saw the game had started. So, she watched like she always did: looking but not seeing, listening but not hearing. To her it was all one big meatball rolling from left to right on the grass, and back. Sometimes a ball flew out of the melee, to be caught by one of these robots, running off in a blur of spindly legs until he was buried in the next mountain of crunching flesh-and-armor. Right when she looked down to scratch her knee, there was a sudden, eerie silence, and everybody around her rose to their feet, blocking her view.

"What's going on?" she asked, calling up to Von, who stood next to her.

"It's Tim," she yelled, looking down. Ariel climbed to her feet, just in time to see men running to a silent heap on the muddy grass.

"What happened? Is it really Tim?" she asked.

"He didn't get up after a tackle," Von said, blushing with obvious excitement.

"Damn fools," Ariel muttered. "Killing each other." The heap of meat and plastic was transferred to a stretcher and carried off the field. When the medics reached the bleachers, people started clapping. Ariel guessed she would never understand.

***

"Would you sign my cast?" She looked up from her lunch box, straight into a big, black felt-tip pen, the cap already unscrewed. Behind it was the face of Tim Bradlee, grinning; the skin around his eyes wrinkled. A hot flash jumped to her throat. Swallowing hard she tried to force it down, praying she didn't blush like crazy. Damn shower fantasy. Looking down she saw crutches and a Day-Glo orange cast around his knee and leg, right below the frays of a pair of cut-off jeans.

"So, they let you out," she said, hating the slight tremor in her voice. "Does it hurt?" She took another spoonful from her lunch box, mostly not to have to look at him. He stood waving with the pen, feeling stupid. Then he nodded at the chair opposite her.

"Is that chair free?" he asked. She looked up.

"Obviously," she said. He made a production of sitting down, stretching his wounded leg into the aisle. One of the crutches fell to the floor with a crash.

"No, it doesn't hurt; I got pills," he said, after picking it up. "But my season's shot."

"Tough luck," she offered.

"You're not into football, are you?" he asked. She shook her head, still letting herself be absorbed by the content of her box.

"I think it's a stupid game," she said, with a full mouth.

"But you were there," he said. "I saw you."

"Ha!" she replied, with the right mixture of incredulity and contempt, she hoped. He raised his eyebrows; then he smiled.

"You don't believe me?" he asked. "I always look if I see you, you know. You sat with Von and Liz on the southern bleachers, where the hotdog stall is." Ariel knew by then that her blush must be clearly visible.

"How could you see me?" she asked, trying to sound sarcastic. "With all those bare legs thrown into your face." He chuckled. She flashed her eyes at him, dark and frowning. "You think that's funny." He paled a bit, raising a hand.

"No, no, no," he said. "Sorry, I thought you were joking." She shrugged.

"Which one of them didn't you fuck yet?" she asked. "Let me guess: Alice Mueller, 'cause she wears glasses and a brace." He didn't answer. He just stared at her, his mouth slightly open. And now it was he who blushed, he really did.

"I... I don't know what you mean," he stuttered. "I like Alice, she's nice and a great dancer. And I kissed Lucy, but that was after last month's school party when we were both tipsy." She remembered the party; the one she didn't want to go to but was forced to by Von and Barb. Stupid school functions where girls danced with girls because the boys were too scared, too cool or too drunk on illegal booze to ask them. She'd seen Tim Bradlee there; he'd been dancing. She remembered him walking up to her. She'd turned away and had run for the toilets. Closing her eyes, she tried to erase the memory.

"And I should believe that," she said, looking up. "You are a, what, a quarterback, and you don't fuck the cheerleaders? Ha, what are you, a boy scout?" Tim Bradlee scrambled as he tried to get his stiff leg under him and rise, fumbling for his crutches. Casting a shadow over Ariel, he lingered.

"Yes," she heard him say. "I was." She didn't look up. Not finding anything to say, he wished her a good day and hobbled away. A bubble of claustrophobic heat tightened around Ariel's head. A tear ran down her cheek.

***

For teenage girls, going to the mall is a ritual. You don't go there to shop, do you? Not when you're an 18-year-old high school girl; you only buy serious stuff when accompanied by someone having money, like, say, your mother. Whenever Von and Barb and Liz and Ariel went there together, they only shopped windows and checked out boys and the hair and outfits of other girls, well, at least Von and Barb and Liz did. Sipping tiny sips from never-emptying bottles of pop, they ran a litany of comments, covering their venom in sugar, and their sparse compliments in a frugal dressing of icy coolness. Ariel kept wondering where they learned all the intricate and subtle rules for this ritual -- and how she'd missed that lesson. Then she saw Tim Bradlee. He was on the other end of the food court from where they were sitting; and he wasn't alone. Still using one crutch, his free arm was around a blond girl. They laughed, and the girl's head was close to his.

"Hey," Liz said, "Isn't that Tim Bradlee over there, with that whore, Allison McKeefe?" Ariel knew the girl, and her reputation. They all did. Everyone knew that Allison put out. And she wasn't a real blonde either. She gave blowjobs, you know. And her big round tits had grown way too fast to be real. But Ariel's eyes were on Tim. She'd been right, hadn't she? He'd mocked her at the beach because she didn't have tits like Allison. And he did fuck cheerleaders. Well, ex-cheerleaders in this case: Allison dropped out years ago. She must at least be twenty-one by now, twenty-two probably, and stupid as hell. Look at those dumb tits. Tears burned behind her eyes and it made her furious. She also hated how her heart raced, every time she saw him, the asshole. Putting down her bottle she said:

"I'm off... things to do... bye." Walking away, she took two right turns she didn't have to take, ending up behind Tim Bradlee and the girl. She didn't spy on them, of course not, she just happened to see them in the reflection of a shop window. Not that there was much to see. They hugged for a few seconds; then the girl gave Tim a peck on his cheek and walked off. Her shining curls swished left and right, and so did her fat ass in too-tight shorts. No wonder Tim fucked her, Ariel thought. She's got it all.

***

At last, lying on her bed, Ariel let go of her tears. Here she was, eighteen, and everybody ignored her when they weren't making fun of her. She was a freak, too weird to be seen with, let alone have sex with. Too flat; too ugly. She'd never had sex, and she would never have it. For sure, every guy fucked girls her age, even the halfway pretty ones. Not her. Von and Barb and Liz had the right bodies, tits and ass and all. She knew for sure that they gave blowjobs, and of course, they weren't virgins anymore, hadn't been for ages, no doubt. They just never talked to her about it; they didn't want to hurt her feelings. Friends do that, you know. They wouldn't ridicule her for still being a virgin, and ugly. She knew why they didn't... not to her face. You don't tell your best friend that she isn't beautiful enough, not as a woman should be, with tits and curves and knowing what to do. A real woman doesn't blush and run away when a man asks her for a dance, meaning a fuck of course. So, why did she? Because she knew he would find her a mood-killer: flat chest, flat ass, sack of bones. A waste of his time.

She knew everything about fucking, how it was supposed to be done. She'd watched people on the internet. Men with huge cocks, and beautiful women who had impossibly round breasts, jutting from slender frames, and big, tanned asses. Not at all like her. They gave men whatever they wanted, taking their fat cocks down their throats until they gagged, drooling slime and saliva. It didn't seem to matter how rough they were fucked in their bald vagina's or even their fat assholes: the women enjoyed it hysterically. Once, Ariel had tried how it felt. She'd pushed a finger (and then two) up her anus. It had been under the shower, and she'd closed her eyes, standing on tiptoes. She knew it ought to feel great, remembering the women on the net, so she pushed and pushed. Once again, she knew she was a failure.

Back on her bed, tears ran down her face as her hand slid over her belly. She touched the glowing skin until her fingers slipped under her panties, where they found the curls of her ugly pubic hair and the moist heat of her vagina. How could she be so wet, down there, while feeling so sad? Something must be very wrong with her. She'd heard boys talk about internet porn, popular boys like Tim Bradlee. They seemed to know the names of all those women, Jenna Jameson, Lela Star, Sarina Valentina and other names. At home, she'd searched for those women on the net, and wasn't surprised how they looked, and what they did. One wasn't even a woman; she had big fake boobs and a cock. So, they even preferred guys with tits over her.

Ariel's fingers found the little nub at the entrance of her vagina, and without thinking she rubbed it until waves of heat spread and contracted in her body, making her back arch and her scalp tingle. After the heatwave left her, she fell into the black, bottomless hole she knew so well.

***

Ariel's mother stopped her as she sped through the front door to her bedroom, of late her usual route when she came home from school. She sat her down at the kitchen table, pouring a glass of the steaming herbal tea she didn't really like much.

"What's wrong, honey?" Her eyes had the "don't-give-me-bullshit" look, although Ariel doubted she would ever use such a word.

"Nothing," she muttered, "I'm fine," not even convincing herself. Her fingers around the scalding mug were still numb from the chilly air, as numb as her mind. Her eyes rested for a second on her mother's face, before turning them down again. Her mother didn't look at all like her; not even considering the age-difference. She was a petite brunette, and everything seemed round on her: her breasts, her hips, even her face. She must have been very popular when she was young. So, how could she ever understand? Ariel guessed she took after her father, who was blonde, though balding, and about six foot three. He wouldn't have had problems getting laid, she thought, imagining him twenty years younger. Taking after him, tall, skinny, she should have been a boy, she supposed.

"Is it something at school?" her mother asked. "How was your test?"

"Fine," Ariel said, relieved by the new direction their conversation took. If anything was truly fine, it was her grades. What else could she do but study? At least it would make her a smart gnome at a college far, far away. "I got an A-," she went on. "And the history essay was an A."

"I had a young man on the phone, only minutes ago," her mother then said, suddenly returning to more hazardous territory. "Tim Bradlee, you know him? The football player." The name had its usual effect on her.

"W-what did he want?" she said. "Why would he call you?"

"He's a nice boy," her mother went on, ignoring her questions. "We had a wonderful talk." 'A wonderful talk.' The words sank to the pit of her stomach, collecting bile. She didn't even try to imagine what the phone call might have been about. 'Wonderful.' Her mother took a sip of tea, smiling. "He said you forgot your books and asked if he should bring them on his way home." The bile became simmering lava.