Times of Austerity Ch. 01

One thing that the company could be sure of was that those who were allowed to see those individuals would be sure to keep their silence as to what fate had had in store for them.

He watched with a sense of pride as his underlings, dressed as cameramen and sound engineers fussed over the two mermaids who had been caught on the couch. They were a pair that he had been planning the acquisition of for more than six months, both earmarked for their individual qualities and sure to raise an eyebrow when they were ready to be introduced to a paying audience again. The news anchor had a small and yet loyal following of admirers, even having made polls of sexually desirable women in the past and he envisioned her as an elegant and alluring addition to the stable. By contrast, the sports reporter was an impressive physical specimen, she was more in his thoughts as a testament to the physical power that her tail would allow in the water and he toyed with the idea of having something made for her in the vein of a trident to emphasize the point.

The blonde who had escaped was neither of those things, a petite and supple little package that was recommended by her apparent flexibility and all too apparent charms. When she was finally found and processed, the set would be complete with mature, majestic and mischievously irresistible being covered by the trio.

He was just sorry that the final mermaid would have to succumb to the portable version of the device that was used in the process, as he understood that it was not as pleasant as the sensation of the larger model incorporated into the couch.

But then if people insisted on making things harder for themselves, he could really not be blamed.

The men had satisfied themselves that the mermaids were healthy enough and commenced the task of stripping them of the clothes that were now superfluous to their needs. He moved closer to watch, always fascinated with this part of the process on account of the fact that it seemed to him the final stage between what they had once been and the creatures they now were. While still dressed in their suits and with their underwear wrapped around the bottom of their tails, the two were so easily thought of as women who had been turned into mermaids and so might be changed back at any given moment. It was only when such remnants of humanity were peeled away that the illusion was dispelled and the truth of the matter made plain to see.

First the tangle of tights and knickers were pulled away from the caudal fins of the prostrate mermaids, their weight causing them to slap noisily against the floor as this was done. Then the jackets of their suits were removed, followed quickly by the shirts or blouses that they wore beneath. For a few seconds they sat there in nothing but skirts and bras, as if halfway towards a strange seduction which had seen them grow tails even as they shed their clothes. Then the skirts came off with the aid of deftly wielded strip-knives and the bras were unhooked so that their breasts hung naturally upon their chests.

There, he thought, job done.

Where before there had been two women, now there was without question two mermaids.

His attention now demanded by other concerns, he left the men to begin the job of removing them from the studio and preparing them for the journey ahead.

Elisabeth almost cursed herself when she made the mistake of calling out in desperation to the first person that she glimpsed amongst the packing cases and piles of equipment that made a veritable warren out of the backstage area. She was rapidly becoming panicky as she ran and the feeling had left her almost unable to think through her actions as a consequence. The stupidity of the thing was oddly more stinging in the seconds that passed as she realised what she had done than the fear of the consequences, as though she were ashamed to have been caught out rather than afraid of what would follow.

The man had looked like nothing more than an average stagehand, dressed in overalls and seemingly engaged in a routine task that involved glancing behind the cases that surrounded him in search of something that had up until that point eluded him.

Of course it had, Elisabeth realised, because he was looking for her.

The man called over her shoulder the second he realised that he had happened upon his prey, the actual words escaping Elisabeth's ears, but their meaning was very clear indeed, the only surprise being how suddenly she felt her arms being seized from behind as another pair of hands joined responded to the summons.

Many times in her life she had been able to take advantage of the way in which most men (and even some women who should have known better) underestimated a relatively small woman, planting a strategic knee or fist in a sensitive area and then making her getaway whilst the attacker was still dealing with the effects of the blow. But here there was not even a chance of employing such a tactic as those who were attempting to manhandle her had come to the task prepared and indeed expecting to face as much resistance as she could muster.

In the end, Elisabeth was limited to a frustrating game of push and shove in the confined space between the cases, trying with all her might to wriggle free or lash out at her would-be captors. It did her little good, more exhausting her energies than preventing them from overpowering her and slipping plastic ties around her wrists and ankles, which they pulled cruelly tight as soon as they were in place. Hands bound behind her back and legs effectively immobilised, all she could do was shout every piece of abuse that came to mind at them, and even that was denied her once they gagged her with a piece of duct tape, more she thought later for the sake of shutting her up than for any genuine fear of her cries attracting attention.

"What are you waiting for?"

Elisabeth glanced up to see the man who had first spotted her fixing his colleague – whom she still could not see, as he was holding her from behind – with an expectant and rather urgent expression.

"Shouldn't we take her back to the set first?"

The second man's voice was slightly nervous, looking for a way out of some obligation with which he was suddenly less than comfortable.

"Why do we need to do that?" the first man asked in an exasperated tone. "She's put us behind schedule already, what with running off like that. You've got the thing right there in that box, so get it out and stop being such a wuss about it."

Elisabeth had realised just what they were discussing even before she felt herself being forced forwards and over a conveniently positioned case. She fought as best she was able, despite her bindings, as she was lifted off the ground so that her torso lay over the top of the case and her legs dangled over the edge behind her. When they were done arranging her to their satisfaction, she was perhaps two feet off the floor, in the most undignified position of having her backside in the air. But for what they intended, it was simply perfect.

She could not tell which of the men was doing what, only being aware that her skirt had been hitched up and a pair of cold, slightly rough hands unceremoniously pulled down both her tights and kickers in one go. Then there was the feel of something smooth and cold against her buttocks, moving inevitably downwards towards its ultimate destination, reminding her terribly of the probe that had missed the same spot merely by a moment's chance.

The one hope that kept appearing in her mind was that the circumstances themselves would somehow conspire to frustrate what they were trying to do. After all, she was cold, restrained and scared out of her wits by that point, hardly a combination that would make her body amenable to such a thing. But then she thought of Nina and Kari, wondering why they should have been in any other position when they were forced into the transformation themselves. Neither seemed to be the type to be sat on the couch in the grip of some bizarre tumult only seconds before going on the air, so what had made their bodies accommodate the probes?

Her answer came in the form of sudden warmth that spread through the probe even as she felt it push between her thighs, a sensation almost of electricity against her skin.

No man designed this thing, she thought, it took a woman to figure out that knocking politely was more likely to open such a door than trying to batter it from its hinges.

Hardly fair, under the circumstances and almost impossible to resist.

Elisabeth felt as though even her own body were against her, rebelling in order to allow the preparations to be made for entry and filling her with the sensations that she supposed must have suffused those of the women whom she had watched become mermaids. There was a brief feeling of anticipation, tinged at the edges with trepidation, and then the thing was inside her, so that there was nowhere left to hide from both the effects that washed over her and the realisation of what was actually happening at the same time.

Lost in the confused thoughts that crowded her mind as she tried to keep herself under control, Elisabeth was struck by the ironic thought that she had spent more than a little time in the past actually trying to pass herself off as a mermaid for a paying audience. It had been in the course of the pantomimes that helped to pay the bills once a year, when the role she found herself cast in was not that of Peter Pan or Dick Whittington, but rather the eponymous character in The Little Mermaid. The part had been pretty standard fare, a couple of songs and the usual dancing about like a prat, and the costume was nothing more in reality than a tube of fabric sewn with glittering sequins that caught the lights and ended up everywhere. All the same the memory of how restrictive the costume had been as she was forced to sit on a polystyrene rock for long periods during the show came back to her now.

How strange, she thought, that at least then there was the hope of taking the damn thing off.

An increase in the feelings that were spreading through her body brought Elisabeth back to the present, to the realisation that this was real and it was happening to her. The familiarity of the rhythm she could now sense in the probe confirmed to her that she was not simply being invaded by the device, but the man holding it was actually using it in the manner of a vibrator. She was being masturbated, brought towards a climax like an actress in a pornographic film or a madwoman from the nineteenth century diagnosed with hysteria. Humiliation sent her cheeks red, and she was at least glad of the fact that neither of them seemed to be interested in noting her reaction, at least at that end.

It was hard for her to tell if the probe was having any effect on her apart from the unwanted and yet irresistible stimulation, and at the same instance Elisabeth was slipping into a state of self-pitying defeat that threatened to leave her stripped of all resistance and defenceless against the effects of what was happening even inside her own mind. All that she could think about at that point was she sheer unfairness of it all, why of everyone who happened to have been invited onto the couch at the breakfast show, did she have to be the one to do so when some madcap conspiracy was hatched to transform a handful of innocent women into mermaids?

I'm scared, her mind was racing now; I don't want to be a mermaid.

But a new feeling that spread out from her abdomen and began to move downwards told her that any such choice had been taken away from her.

Elisabeth had not been born into a generation of women for whom the idea of an orgasm was either seen as impossible or else a myth propagated by the feminist agenda. She was familiar with the reality that the female body was capable of such a thing under the right circumstances and had experienced more than a few in the relatively short period of her life so far. What she now felt building inside her was without doubt wearing the form of an orgasm of no little strength and intensity, though she was sure that it served as a kind of Trojan Horse for the other things that were going on inside her body at the same time. She doubted that even had she not been bound hand and foot, there would have been little she could do to resist the fervour that was coming to a head and any moment it would reach its peak and then carry her away with it.

And instinctively she knew also, that would be the moment the change would take her.

The same tearing sound that had accompanied Nina and Kari's transformations now filled the air again, but Elisabeth did not feel what could have been described as pain. Instead she was seized by the first throes of the orgasm at the same moment as her thighs were pulled together by a force impossible to resist. It seemed to her that the effects of the change were linked somehow directly to the sensations that she felt, each creeping alteration to her legs reflected by a sympathetic twinge towards her orgasm. By the time the effects reached halfway down her thighs, she was almost panting for breath behind the tape that covered her mouth.

Next came the feeling of a thousand tiny eruptions across her buttocks, what could only be the sensation of her skin exploding with the scales that would cover her tail when it was fully formed. They tingled as they spread, temporarily cutting off the cold air of the studio which had been reaching her exposed backside and thighs. But once they had begun to settle into a regular pattern, she realised that she could feel what was beneath her and the chill on them as well as she ever had with her naked skin.

Only when the changes reached the back of her knees did Elisabeth feel the inevitable push of the advancing tail against her tights where they had been unceremoniously yanked down beforehand. As odd as the thing had been to watch as it happened to another person, it was literally uncanny to experience it first-hand. Never in the space of normal events would a human being see such rapid and total change in the shape and texture of their own body, and as such it served to alter and maybe even unhinge her mind a little.

Little by little the black nylon was pushed downwards as the tail absorbed her legs, but at the point where her ankles were lashed together, it could be pushed no further and the material began to rip and tear under the effects of the transformation. By the time Elisabeth's heels merged into the beginning of what would soon after become her caudal fin, what was left of the tights simply fell away with her shoes, clattering onto the bare floor without a single glance from the men who were responsible for her transformation.

The final disappearance of her feet and the subsequent unfolding of her fin was marked for Elisabeth by the peaking of her orgasm. Whether by chance or deliberate design, she reached her plateau at the very moment the tip of her fin brushed the concrete of the floor. She shivered involuntarily at the sensation of the cold surface, a ripple travelling the length of her newly-formed tail and threatening to dislodge her from the perch upon which she had been placed. Even as she cast her head back to release some of the pent up energy from the throes of her orgasm, she was aware of the weight that constituted the tail, the way it altered the centre of her balance and demanded that she orient herself in a new and unfamiliar manner. Elisabeth knew that as she emerged from the effects of her climax, she was in fact emerging also into a new state of being at the same time, and in many ways that might have been unfathomable to her in that moment; she would never be the same again.

Now that her transformation was done, the men who had watched the whole process did not become more reverent towards the mermaid they had created, if anything their manhandling of her became yet more impersonal and insistent. The probe was suddenly pulled free and at first Elisabeth was of a mind to make a show of disapproval, but when they placed her kneeling upon the floor and went about cutting her out of her remaining clothes with their knives, she thought better of the idea.

As each item of clothing was removed, she felt an integral piece of the metaphorical armour that had held her panic in check fall away with it. Somehow whilst still dressed in the remnants of what she had chosen to pluck from her wardrobe the night before, she was still able to think of herself as the same woman that pulled them on and set out for the studio that same morning. It was as if because they had not changed – even as her body had – they took on the same sense of permanence as the features of her face or the colour of her hair, so that now as they were taken away another element of her former self was destroyed in the process. With her hands still secured behind her back, Elisabeth could not even use them to cover her tail or else her eyes, being forced to gaze upon her altered body ever more as she was stripped naked. Once the last piece of clothing was gone, the strapless bra that gave no resistance to the blade of a knife, she finally looked down at what had become of her form, feeling as she did so the crushing weight of reality press upon her shoulders at the same time.

There was no escaping the sight that greeted her, no denying its significance.

Below the taught curve of her stomach, just after the point where he waist began, Elisabeth's skin gave way to an uneven smattering of orange and golden scales, which became more uniform and regular as they spread downwards over the tail that now constituted the lower half of her body and ended in a gently flapping caudal fin with which she could feel the floor beneath as well as she ever could with her vanished feet.

No scrap of clothing or indignant declaration of self could disguise the fact that Elisabeth was now as much a mermaid as the women whom she had seen transformed, and her head sank almost onto her chest as the enormity of what that meant suffused her thoughts.

She almost failed to notice as one of the men slipped a collar around her neck, fastening it behind like she were an animal that needed to be kept under control. For the moment she was not inclined to fight what was being done to her, afraid that worse treatment might be the result. The collar and her continued restraint gave the firm signal that whatever awaited her in the near future; she was not considered worthy of having any say in the matter.

Not only was she a mermaid, she was tantamount to a slave as well.