The Color of Sea

That's Blackfin! I thought that dolphin was acting strangely yesterday. That's how he knew where to deliver that invitation to lure us out here. He must have followed us and watched us transform at the shore.

He consumed the Prince's pet?

Good way to get into the court unnoticed, isn't it? We may be able to use it against him. Our features flowed. Soft curves became granite planes. Breasts vanished, muscles bulked. We floated in the depths as Prince Remus, commanding the dolphin to depart.

In Blackfin's form, he should still be imprinted on the Prince. It will be a struggle for the shapeshifter to override his conditioning to attack us wearing the Prince's form.

The dolphin was at war with itself. It tried to make a run at us, but broke off shaking its head. After a few attempts, it hung limp in the water.

That was too easy.

He's not out of tricks, yet.

Again he flowed and stretched. Dusky skin and black tresses arrowed through the water, and Erissa wrapped arms and legs around us. She rubbed her breasts and crotch suggestively against us, coaxing our mighty S-shaped penis into action.

Oh, no, did he get Erissa too?

Looks like it. And he knows we'll have difficulty bringing ourselves to harm her.

Quick, the Eularian Guard.

Our tail split into muscular legs, our proportions grew stockier, our head bald and our skin purple. From our loins grew their caste's legendary sexual organ: six feet in length, prehensile, and strong enough to tear a door from its hinges. We looped this around the pseudo-Erissa's waist and plunged the end into her vagina. The tide of battle began to shift; no human female could outlast a Eularian Guard. We thrust into her with a vigor intensified by the mobile head of our penis, which stroked and rubbed the walls of her passage as we moved. She began to respond, flushing down to the tops of her breasts.

We have an advantage here. We spent all night learning her sensitive spots.

Even if we win, we lose.

What do you mean?

If we absorb him, we add his memories and his urges to our personality. He'll color us with his darkness, permanently. He may be strong enough to remake us like him, even if we win.

We need another alternative.

The game changed. Perhaps we faltered from dismay, perhaps he was more adept at form-shifts under duress. He chose a form that was physically little different but psychologically terrifying, especially to me.

The form was still female, generous of hip and breast. Her skin darkened to blue, her hair shifted to a mohawk stripe of very long golden strands, which continued down her back, across her shoulders and down her arms. Even her pubic hair grew into a silky long beard. The strands moved as if of their own accord, reaching out and tangling our limbs.

This was a Medusa, a thing of my worst nightmare. I had barely escaped from one long ago. I had woken up screaming for years afterward; I still lapsed into a dreamy smile when remembering the encounter.

The tendrils coiled around us, drawing us close. Movement seemed slower. The gain was turned up on all of our senses. We could feel each individual hair lap our skin. The salt of the sea boomed, the charcoal and iron taste of the Other grated deafeningly. Each eddy in the sea stood out unique in its temperature on our skin and the load of tastes it delivered. Colors danced in spectra beyond knowing.

This is a good news/bad news situation, I thought. The tendrils have a slow-acting neurotoxin that gradually petrify the voluntary muscles, while heightening all of our senses. A real Medusa would have sex with you repeatedly until she was sated and you were as st iff as a board. Then she would eat you.

What's the good news?

It would be the best sex you've ever had. Every orgasm would crest higher than the last until you lost consciousness or went mad.

How did you escape the time you encountered one?

I went prepared with a vial of anti-toxin. I very nearly was unable to activate it. I escaped largely by luck.

The Medusa reeled us in by our penis, taking several feet of it inside her. Her pubic tendrils entwined the shaft. Every nerve in the entire six foot appendage lit up, reporting the passage into her warm interior in minute detail. She plastered herself to us; we could feel thigh and belly and breast as she moved against us. Hairlike tendrils caressed, held, inflamed.

We felt every striation in her passage ripple down our shaft. She sucked on the glans with deep muscles that milked the storm for dewdrops of lightning. She planted a probing kiss on our lips with a tongue that deep throated its way in. These were all improvements on the basic Medusa. Their philosophy was that technique was wasted on victims already high on neurotoxins.

The turnabout was so swift that we were cresting before we knew it. As the pressure in our loins exploded outward in the first ejaculation, Color Of Air whispered, mind to mind, I love you, Samuel.

As blackness overwhelmed, I would like to think I answered. I cannot recall.

Moments later, though it seemed longer, a jagged light returned. The Medusa was bringing our still-stiff penis to a new frenzy. She had a hand on our testicles, massaging them to bring us to a swift completion. Why didn't she finish it when we were out? one of us thought before next eruption hit, deeper and even more soul-wrenching.

The light returned again, flickering. The Medusa was still riding us, spurring us on the ever-rising spiral. This was how a real Medusa brought her victims to exhaustion, but there was no reason for the Other to be doing this.

She wants to break us. Drive us mad, or burn out our brains entirely. She fears our strength, and wants us incapacitated before she consumes us.

I wish I could reach our needle gun. It's too far down. There's something in the way.

It's that damn bottle . . . We came again, harder, faster, and longer. The dark seemed darker, the light farther off when we finally revived. The Medusa was still going strong.

Can you shift the bottle higher? Yes, right about there. It nestled in our groin now. Will the membrane contain the alcohol?

For a few minutes.

That's all we need. Can you get the cap off?

No, I don't have the dexterity. Color Of Air seemed near breakdown.

Then break it! Bear down!

The Medusa grinned as we seemed to throw ourself into our destruction, bearing down, going for one last orgasm. We started shaking. It was beginning, and we knew there was no coming back from this one.

The eruption began, our ecstasy screamed into pain. We writhed in a spasm that set our core afire. As we went over the edge for the last time, the bottle shattered. We came, pumping nearly a half liter of alcohol deep into the Other.

The triumph on her face dissolved into dismay, dismay into fear, and fear into horror, which slowly washed away on the gentle currents. Bits of protoplasm glinted in the Cinder light, until overrun by a squadron of firefly fish. The last was a tang of charcoal and iron filing, washed clean by the living sea.

We came ashore in exhaustion, made it to the bungalow, and tumbled damp and naked into the bed.

A few hours later, the door opened. A figure entered, stood by the bed, let the robe slip from its shoulders. It lifted the sheet. We felt a warm fragrance of lemongrass and lavender kneel astride us in the darkness.

"Luggage, light," I ordered.

The light came up to reveal Erissa. Black tresses, as artful as always, tumbled to conceal one breast. The other dimpled in the night air. Our needle gun was held to her throat.

"How do I know it's you?" I asked.

"I came to warn you that I had a bug on me last night. A few nights ago, I had a quick encounter in the massage studio. The masseur has since disappeared like the other shapeshifter victims. He must have planted the bug on me then."

"How do you know it was him?"

"Because of where he planted the bug."

"Oh."

"He may have heard us last night. You may be in danger now."

"I was. I did your job for you. He's fish food now."

She digested that for a moment. "I need some proof to take back."

"I'm the one holding the gun. That means you take my word for it."

"That works both ways, Captain."

We felt the tip of a needle gun pressed against the side of our skull.

"I may have to keep you under close surveillance for some time to verify your story."

"That works for me." Our growing hardness entered her softness. She gasped, but her aim didn't waver.

"You're my kind of woman."

"Sexy?"

"Dangerous."