The Mermaid

Story idea by al55...

Rachel Jason sat handcuffed to the table in the interrogation room. She felt bruised outside from the rough handling she'd received, and inside from the aggressive strip search, and her voice was hoarse from shouting and crying.

Her lawyer stared at her with barely concealed distrust. "Those are the plain facts. This won't even go to trial."

"I didn't even sleep with him!" Indeed he'd still had his underpants on when the hotelier had charged in screaming about how she was a whore and would go to hell.

"But you intended to, and you were in a clear state of undress in the same bed," he repeated, "with a married man. It's adultery, plain and simple."

"For fuck's sake. Adultery went out with the Dark Ages."

"Maybe in Britain, but here in America we have morals, and you will pay the price."

As if that wasn't bad enough, the State's asymmetric laws meant it was only the woman who suffered criminal punishment. How was it that she had been in the U.S. for less than a week and already she'd got herself royally screwed.

"What price?" she demanded. "Prison?"

"Normally. Yes. Five years."

"Normally... but?"

"Female prisoners are in great demand from the leisure sector. Chances are you'll be working the brothel circuit for the duration of your sentence."

She stared at him in shock. "My punishment for almost having sex is to spend the next five years being fucked by strangers?"

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you leapt into bed with the first man to cross your path."

Indeed. "That's it, then? No trial? No hope of appeal? No extradition?"

"Sorry." He sounded anything but. He cocked his head as a thought occured to him. "You work at the zoo, yes? You work with animals?"

She frowned. "Yes." She was doing a year's experience as part of her veterinary degree - which she might never get to finish now.

"There is the Hybrid programme..."

The words sent a shiver down her spine. Hybridisation was banned throughout the world - except in the U.S., of course.

Her lawyer continued, "If you volunteer for the Hybrid programme, your record will be wiped clean."

"You mean, I can swap five years of prostitution for life as a mutant?"

He shrugged. "It's just an option. Almost no one does it, and the Government keeps threatening to close it down."

Horrible though it sounded, it seemed infinitely preferable to spending five years on her back with her legs spread. "Okay," she said.

"I really don't recommend it." His expression was one of utter boredom, as if her fate was a tedious irrelevance to him.

"I want to volunteer for the Hybrid programme," she insisted.

"I'll arrange the paperwork," he said absently, standing in preparation to leave, his mind clearly on other matters. "It'll be ready to sign in the morning."

And then he was gone, and she was left on her own to consider her folly.

*

It was the most profound moment of her life, and yet she was so high on drugs it seemed hilarious to her. "It's like that magic trick," she said. "The one where they saw the woman in half!" There had been no warning. They had simply fixed a metal device snugly about her waist, and pressed some buttons. There had been a strange, tickling sensation, almost as if she were being slowly unzipped in a long, winding spiral, and then her legs had been wheeled away. "Come back!" she called, before erupting into laughter.

"Don't worry, Rachel," Nurse Andrews said. "You'll soon be whole again."

Nurse Andrews was the only person that bothered to speak to Rachel. She had been the one who brought the contract to sign. "There are actually two contracts you need to sign," she'd explained. "This one consents to two weeks' close medical observation, blood and tissue samples, full cellular and genomic scans, psychological profiling, and so on. We need to make sure you are a suitable candidate for the Hybrid programme."

Rachel nodded. "Where do I sign?"

"Wait. Understand. If we find that you are unsuitable, you will be returned to the prison programme."

"I understand."

"And, also, if you yourself back out, your prison term will be extended by one year to cover our losses. So do not sign unless you are determined now to go through with it."

Rachel nodded again. "I understand."

"At the end of the two weeks, you will sign the contract consenting to hybridisation. At that point you will no longer be able to back out. You will effectively be property of the Hybrid programme until the hybridisation is complete."

Not for the first time, Rachel wondered if she was insane to be agreeing to any of this. Indeed, she wondered if the world itself had grown insane when a twenty year old girl - and a virgin at that - was being forced to choose between her humanity and a life of inhumanity. "I understand," she repeated wearily.

"Excellent," Nurse Andrews said, showing her where to sign, and smiling warmly. "You won't regret this."

Which wasn't strictly true. After two weeks of being prodded with biopsy needles and being injected with a multitude of chemicals whose names meant nothing to her, Rachel had felt both sick and tired. A diet of nothing but bland yoghurt hadn't helped her spirits either. But then Nurse Andrews had brandished the second contract. "Cheer up! Testing is done! Today's the day you sign - unless you're having second thoughts? Best say now..."

But actually, it had been a relief to sign it. Finally she would get to know what fate had in store. "Do you know -"

"Hush, honey," Nurse Andrews said. "Best wait and see."

She waited as they wheeled her into the operating room, and waited as a variety of strange liquids were pumped into her veins, and waited as a surgical device unzipped her through the middle and her bottom half wheeled away. "Come back!" she called...

But this magic trick didn't end with the return of her legs. It was something longer, tapering, white - or encased in white, perhaps. It fit snugly into the device about her waist, and again there was that long winding unzipping, but this time in reverse.

Nurse Andrews sighed. "You are going to be so beautiful."

*

Rachel awoke immersed in water, only her face above the surface. Her body, weighed down by the hard white coating that covered her new lower half, rested on an inclined, submerged bed with restraints that held her firmly in place.

A good thing too, for the drugs had worn off and the reality of what had happened hit her hard. With a scream of pure horror, she fought to get a look at what they had done to her, but the awkward position and the water's refraction made it difficult. She saw only a wavery blur of white, and if it was indeed her body, she felt nothing at all.

Nurse Andrews came running over. "My dear! You're awake! It's fine - don't worry. Everything will be okay in a few hours. Just try to relax."

She had no choice but to try. She couldn't move, after all. She could only panic, or not panic, and eventually the latter won out.

She'd known after all that they were going to do something to her. She'd just not expected to see herself in such a macabre scene. She couldn't stop thinking of all those pictures of the early Hybrids, grotesquely deformed chimeras, bastard children of the sciences of genetic engineering and cross-species organ transplantation.

But that was the past now, forbidden and hopefully forgotten. Modern American Hybrids generally had a glamorous, semi-mythical aspect. Like a mermaid, perhaps...

Rachel peered down as best she could, trying to see the new shape of herself. There was no tail, only the long white taper. Except, it wasn't completely white. It was grey in places, maybe a hint of blue here, a touch of pink there. "Yes," Nurse Andrews agreed, "the protective coating is dissolving. You must be healing well." She brushed her hand through the water, stirring up and dispersing a cloud of white, a concealing fog that dissipated to reveal a silvery rainbow. "Not long now, my dear," she said.

Where there had been only numbness before, Rachel sensed now gentle currents in the water, and a subtle temperature gradient. She also felt an increasingly severe discomfort, as if her ankles were being twisted all around, and it took an extreme effort to correct. Indeed, it meant moving something that had never before been a part of her body. She gasped, with surprise as much as relief, as her tail unfurled.

"I am a mermaid," she whispered, awestruck. Of all the monstrous Hybrids, this was the only one she could truly embrace being.

"I told you you'd be beautiful." Nurse Andrew was checking readings on her medical device. "Yes. Satisfactory. I think it's safe to remove the restraints."

Abruptly free, Rachel struggled to sit, her new body resisting the move but not quite preventing it. As her human upper half surged into the air, the size of the breasts she saw was so astonishing, her mind refused to connect them with her body.

"What the absolute fuck!" she screamed. "I'm a C cup, not a -, a -"

"JJ," Nurse Andrews supplied. "A definite improvement, I would say."

Rachel stared down at the offending mounds. They were unnaturally perky too. For some reason they upset her more than losing half her body. Her eyes widened at a sudden thought. "Do I still..." Her fingers discovered the answer quickly. "Oh!" The brief contact gave her such a jolt of pleasure that she found herself blushing under Nurse Andrews' gaze. "Ah, I do."

*

The reason her new oversized breasts bothered her more than suddenly being a mermaid, Rachel decided, was that their prominence seemed to advertise a very open sexuality - which she knew was unfair, really, to all those women who were born with large breasts, but any woman voluntarily going from a C cup to a fucking JJ cup was just begging for attention.

It wasn't just her breasts that were huge, either. Her areolae had expanded and her nipples were at least twice as long and thick as before. Together with their sheer, flawless perkiness, they looked more like a fantasy of breasts than the real thing.

Mermaids in stories never had such breasts. They were always such petite creatures, streamlined even. Then again, she wasn't sure the mermaids in stories had a pussy. The vertical slit just below her waist, just where the twin spines of her lower body merged, was definitely her pussy, complete with inner and outer labia, and a sensitive clit. The textures were all different to what she was used to, but the sensations were very pleasant.

"Do I still have a vagina?" Rachel asked shyly. "And a womb? What if I have children?" Not that she was sure she wanted children, but she needed to know.

"Yes, and yes," Nurse Andrews said. "Your vagina is new, but you still have your human womb. However, you'll need our help if you ever want to conceive. It won't happen by accident."

There was a sensitive spot at the base of the slit. Rachel blushed as she asked, "Why does it feel like I'm touching my, er, my asshole?"

Nurse Andrews chuckled. "Because it is your asshole, honey. But don't worry, nothing much will be coming out of there. Now, enough talk. Get out there and swim. Learn to use your new body the way God intended."

Rachel had a whole swimming pool to herself, maybe five metres deep and twenty across either way. She eased off the inclined bed, but clung to it for security. "In many ways," Nurse Andrews said, "your lower body is a separate organism. It has gills to breathe, a heart to circulate the blood and oxygen, and enough intelligence to translate your human impulses into natural movements. It can survive a short time out of the water by borrowing oxygen from your upper body, but also it will lend oxygen to your upper body if you are unable to breathe. Go - try it!"

Taking a deep breath, Rachel dared to let go, and the weight of her body pulled her down - and was distracted from her momentary panic by just how well she could see under the water. They must have done something to her eyes as well.

She tried to swim, using her hands mostly at first, but gradually discovering how to use her legs - or what replaced her legs now. Her lower body was incredibly powerful when used right, able to propel her rapidly through the water. Indeed, the pool, which had seemed large to begin with, soon felt very confining.

Contrary to her fears, her large breasts didn't slow her down significantly, and in fact the way the water brushed her nipples was not unpleasant. Not at all.

She surfaced at last, coming up for air, not that she needed it particularly. Nurse Andrews smiled at her. "Looks like you're almost ready. Go, enjoy your swim, and tomorrow we'll take you to your new home."

*

Her new home - and this seemed like altogether too much of a coincidence - was the zoo she had been working at. It had the world's largest inland tropical aquarium. Twenty metres deep, and at least a hundred across, it had coral reefs, sunken ships, and everything, and was often used by the big studios for underwater shots. There were also plenty of reinforced windows to let the scientists monitor - and the visitors gawp at - all the pretty fish.

And the new star attraction: a mermaid. Half fish, half big-breasted naked woman, with nowhere to hide. And even if there were corners where she could hide for a while, she couldn't stay there forever. She needed to breathe occasionally, and she needed to eat and drink. (In fact, she could drink the salt water, but it mostly went straight through her, and it was weird trying to swim and pee at the same time.)

There was an island in the middle of the aquarium with a freshwater spring, where she could lie half-in half-out of the water and sleep. It was little more than a rock, really, but had a concealed machine that dispensed what looked like balls of mozzarella cheese but tasted more like coconut.

It took her a few days to get used to being watched almost constantly, mostly by kids just excited to see a mermaid and ecstatic whenever she waved back, but there were also the adults, especially men, whose expressions of lust spoke of dark desires. Sometimes she saw them touching themselves too. It was very creepy.

She tried to ignore them, taking her lonely pleasure instead in swimming through the corals and studying the fish. There were far worse fates than being a mermaid.

Rachel was there a week before she learned the final secret of her transformation. It affected her the way blood affects a shark, a single drop in the water luring her across a great distance, stirring a powerful hunger in her that sharpened her nipples and set her clit to throbbing madly.

It was nighttime, so late that even most of the staff had left. She followed the scent through the water to where a man stood at the aquarium's edge. It was the zoo's owner, Henri Duchamp, a billionaire by all accounts. She had glimpsed him from afar once, and in the news often enough.

His cock, semi-erect, jutted out from the fly of his tailored suit, and as she watched, a drop of cum fell from its tip into the water. The smell of it was intoxicating. That was what had called her to him. "No!" she cried, and made to swim away, but the lure was too strong and she circled back quickly.

Henri had removed his suit and underwear, and now sat at the edge of the water in only his shirt. He was not a handsome man, although the aura of wealth and power and confidence was undeniably seductive. "Come, girl," he said. "There's no point fighting it."

Rachel knew it was wrong, but couldn't resist. She swam gradually closer, towards the edge, until her arms were on his legs, her nose against his cock that was hard again. The part of her mind that wanted to reject this manipulation of her lost out to the simple hunger to taste the cock and make it cum again.

Although a virgin, she had given a past boyfriend a blowjob on one occasion, but his cock had been nothing compared to this one. She barely managed to wrap her lips about the soft, bulbous head. Shifting position slightly, she succeeded in wrapping a hand about the shaft, and worked it steadily as she sucked on the head of the cock and used her tongue to explore it.

Her boyfriend hadn't lasted long when she did it, and Rachel had been angry when she tasted his cum in her mouth, but this time she wanted it all, and Henri seemed in no hurry to finish. He had come once already, of course. She kept at it with determination, however, sucking and licking with enthusiasm, and stroking the shaft. Right then and there, all that mattered was making him come.

And when at last he did, the thick shaft jerking wildly between her lips, cum flooding into her mouth, she swallowed as much as she could, a little disappointed to feel so much running down her chin.

When he eased her off him, his cock diminishing rapidly this time, she was reluctant to let him go. Henri might have come twice, but Rachel hadn't even come once, and couldn't remember ever needing it so badly. "What about me?" she pleaded.

Henri blew her a kiss. "Tomorrow, sweet one," he said, and strolled off, his clothes draped elegantly over his arm.

With a loud moan of frustration, Rachel swam off, back to her island, and in what little privacy it provided she used her fingers to fully explore her mermaid pussy for the first ever time, until her cries of ecstasy echoed across the water.

*

As her body's feverish need cooled, however, her post-orgasmic bliss gave way to a sense of betrayal, and she oscillated between rage at everyone who had played their part in the drama that led her to this point, and a black depression that robbed her of the will to eat or swim or anything. Because no way was it coincidence that within days of starting work at the zoo, she was instead both the prize exhibit and a sex toy for its billionaire owner.

And if so, were they all in on it? From the married man who seduced her, to the lawyer who played on her fears, to the nurse who smiled so kindly. All to turn a naive virgin into a sluttish fantasy. They had threatened her with a life of whoredom, and turned her into a helpless cum-loving trophy.

In the morning, thirst and boredom stirred her to life again, and for a while she swam listlessly, ignoring the crowds of watchers. Warring with both her anger and depression was the memory of just how much she had enjoyed that encounter, and a secret hope it would happen again - as much for the brief moment of company as the intoxication of cum.

Against all her better judgement, she was there waiting for him this time, the aquarium quiet once again. "When did you decide?" she asked him. "When was the moment you decided I should be your exhibit?"

He laughed gently. "We were looking for someone young with no family, blonde and good-looking, good with animals. And then you applied, and we checked to see what you were like, what experience you had." Clearly he didn't mean work experience. "So we gave you a job, studied you for a few days, and I certainly found you attractive. So we set things in motion - and you played along very nicely."

Which was true - she had. "I get the mermaid thing," she said. "But why these?" She lifted her breasts. "And why do I have such a craving for cum?"

"Because all my life I've wanted my very own mermaid. I've even tried dressing women in costumes, but nothing compares to the real thing." He shrugged. "Plus I love big breasts - who doesn't? - and I don't have the time and enthusiasm for seduction."

As if to prove the point, he stripped as he spoke, his cock already semi-erect and hardening swiftly. Rachel was torn between an angry desire to tell him to go to hell, and a raw hunger for a repeat of the previous night. As she hesitated at a safe distance, Henri sat at the edge stroking his cock with an amused expression - and she understood: she might resist now, but at the first hint of cum in the water, she'd be back, begging for it.