The Secrets of Pimsim Cove - 8. Chapter 8

I was so glad that I had forgotten to pick up my cell phone after I dropped it onto the dock because saltwater was definitely not electronics best friend.

Sean’s arms were powerful, as he held me tight to his body, as we continued to fall down towards the ocean and landed with a splash. The rush of excitement was intoxicating. Cool water washed over us.

I fought past the bubbling waves whirling around me, needing to see his amazing Human body transform into the body of a Triton. The muscles of his legs grew thicker and his feet disappeared into a wide tail fin.

It was astonishing! Totally amazing! He was beautiful!

“Okay, now teach me how to do it!” I said trying to avoid swallowing a mouthful of saltwater.

Sean rolled over in the water and released me from his tight grip. Like every other kid in Atlanta, I had taken my fair share of swimming lessons and I was pretty good, not Phelps good, but good enough.

With one flick of his huge tail, Sean propelled himself several feet away and instructed me to swim to him. It felt a little ridiculous, but I did as he told me and swam my best freestyle, with my face down in the water. My arms took turns flinging up and over my head before the other.

I felt pretty proud of the quick progress I made, until Sean’s hysterical laughter broke through the deafening smother of the water crashing over my ears.

“No! No! No!” He laughed and pulled me from the water as if I were a weightless ragdoll. “Don’t tilt your head down. Your eyes should always be up and always scanning the water around and you. You need to let your legs do all of the work, like this.”

Sean demonstrated how to flick his huge tail with small movements which propelled him easily through the water, skimming the surface at his waist. “Using your legs leaves your hands and arms free.”

Alright, it sounded good in theory, but how was I going to make myself move like him when I was still missing very important parts: scales, fins, and oh yeah…a tail!

I tried it again, exactly as he instructed me, but my feet decided to go in two different directions instead of working together like his did, but Sean kept making me try it again and again and again.

“I can’t do it.” I mutter in frustration. Exhaustion whirled around me as my muscles began to tremble and cramp up. They threatened to give out at any moment and pull me under the water to a watery grave if I didn’t stop very soon.

“Yes you can. You have to. You just don’t know how to control the Triton that’s running through your veins.” He encouraged me. I couldn’t believe that I’d been such a jerk towards him, so many times and he was still willing to help me learn.

Looping his arms through mine, he helped me swim back to the narrow wooden ladder that ran up the last pylon. I hadn’t noticed it before now. I guess I wouldn’t have noticed it since I had been trying really hard to stay on top of the dock earlier and not fall off the dock into the water.

When it was within my reach, he lifted me up to the bottom rung and waited until I had a firm hold, before he let go.

As I scrambled up the ladder, he drifted a few feet back before giving a power flick of his tail, leaping out of the water directly onto the dock.

“Show off!” I grumbled under my breath.

I had to admit, even though I was pissed that I couldn’t sprout scales yet, the sight of him jumping from the water was really impressive; however, I still didn’t like that he was rubbing it in my face.

Sean crossed the deck while drying his face with his shirt. He offered me a hand, helping me up the last two steps to the top of the dock. My legs were tired and felt like jelly. He let me get my balance before leading me over to a dry spot and pulled me down onto the sun-warmed planks.

“You just need to concentrate and make your body do what you command it to do,” Sean lectured me.

Yeah, right! My scrawny defiant body had a bad habit of refusing to corporate with any of my commands. She had a mind of her own, and unfortunately, it usually overruled any demands that my brain tried to implement, no matter how wise it may be.

My body’s favorite pastime was playing the ever popular game, ‘let’s see how much we can embarrass Anna!’

“Close your eyes.” Sean told me. His knees were almost touching mine. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“Lift your right hand,” seemed simple enough, so I raised it.

“Now the other,” again, it was no problem.

“Well, what about your foot?” Shifting my weight onto my right side, I easily pulled my left foot out and wiggled my toes in the wonderfully warm sunshine. Now I was super glad that I had let Cassy talk me into getting those pedicures last week.

She said that we couldn’t spend the summer bouncing around in cute little flip-flops without uber-cute toenails…boy was she right!

I didn’t want to knock Sean’s teaching skills, but this rudimentary form of motor skills was usually taught when someone was two years-old and not when they were seventeen years-old, so I opened my eyes to object to his technique, when he scolded me and told me that he was moving on to the next lesson. Unsure if this was actually helping in any way, I decided to humor him and close my eyes again.

“This time it will get harder...now raise your hands.”

Still too easy! I began to raise my hands, but before they moved, I felt his long strong fingers wrap around my slender wrists like a vice grip, trapping them to the dock.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” My eyes popped open as I objected to his trick and tried to shake his hands loose, but he kept a firm hold on me and smiled.

“Come on Anna, lift your hands up.”

I rolled my eyes at him and shook my wrists again, but he still didn’t let go. “I can’t with you holding them down like this.”

“Close your eyes again!” He ordered. When he closed his brilliant gray eyes, I closed mine too. “Think about your hands…their restraints, what can you do to break free from my hold so you can lift them? Search within your mind for the answers. Think, Anna, think!”

Okay...thinking! How to get fish boy off me? Do I really want to break free of his grip? His hands were soft and warm…his body was hard and hott. That’s when it popped in my head. I leaned forward and kissed his sexy lips. It was really a quick brush of my lips over his, but his hands fell free from mine and I suddenly shot them up over my head.

“Voilà!”

His sun-kissed cheeks flushed pink as he sat breathlessly staring at me with those gorgeous eyes. They smoldered a dark smoky gray. “Well done, Anna.”

A guilty smile crept across my face at the same moment the sounds of footsteps padding along the dock, came closer behind us. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Rosy’s face break into a warm smile.

Oh smurf! My grandmother had just caught me kissing a totally hott local boy and for some reason, it looked like she thought it was kind of funny.

“I’m glad to see that you have learned the truth about us, Anna. I hope you find it in your heart to accept us.” Grandma said softly.

“Why wouldn’t I accept you? This is so amazing!” I gushed. “I can’t wait to tell Cassy all about it. She’s gonna be so uber-jealous!”

Rosy’s green eyes opened wide in fear. “Oh no darling, you must never tell anyone about us!” She explained, “It would make life incredibly dangerous for us. If our secret was ever to get out, Humans would never stop hunting us.”

I didn’t think about that. The last thing I wanted to do was cause trouble for anyone here. I told her that I understood and promised to never ever tell anyone their secret, not even my best friend.

Rosy shot a glance over to Sean. He simply nodded his dark head before she reached down and took my hands in hers, helping me to my feet. “You see Anna, the few of us that chose to live on the land…well, we are still bound to the sea and the City far beneath the surface. Even though Rook has been very vocal about disliking King Talbot, the Tritons are faithful people and we will always be devoted to our King.”

“Our people deserve the freedom to choose who they pledge their loyalty to.” Sean grumbled under his breath, but Rosy continued as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Darling, I have to go down to the City--” Rosy said motioning towards the water.

“Can I go with you?” I blurted out, forgetting that the ‘City’ she was referring to was far below the sea. Going to Pimsim City was not as easy as buzzing over to the mall. Her smile was troubled as she shook her silvery head and her silky hair billowed around us in the gentle breeze blowing off of the ocean.

I couldn’t go with her.

“I’m sorry Anna, but Pimsim City lies deep below the sea at the bottom of the ocean,” She rubbed my arms to soothe me. “Besides,” she tried to sound more cheerful. “The Solstice Committee is a bunch of stuffy old ladies. It won’t be much fun anyways.”

Then Rosy’s green eyes turned to Sean, still sitting on the dock. “I would like you to keep working with Anna. Teaching her our ways will make her better prepared for whatever is to come.”

With a curt nod of agreement, Rosy’s eyes softened when they returned to me. “Please listen to him,” Rosy whispered. “I know that you two had a bumpy beginning, but he’s a very good lad. He volunteered to help you because he thought it would be...easier to hear the truth from someone your own age instead of one of us old crabs.” She smiled as she finished.

Rosy was so naturally beautiful. Grandma Gigi would be totally jealous. Gigi and all of her rich friends spent thousands of dollars to have every wrinkle tucked, fat sucked from here and injected there, all to create the perfect body that Rosy had naturally.

I giggled when I noticed that just like Sean and I, Rosy was also barefoot and her emerald green skirt and top were the same shade as our incredible matching eyes. She pulled me into a warm embrace, then sternly told both of us to behave while she stepped closer to the edge.

Fear coiled through me. I panicked when I thought she was going to fall off the dock, but instead she turned and dove into the water. It was so elegant.

She sliced through the water and in one fluid motion. Rosy arched her tail and leapt back through the air. Her emerald tail shimmered as water cascaded down her scales.

For an old lady she was hott! Green scales covered her breasts, but her trim flat stomach, shoulders and back were perfectly smooth suntanned skin with the exception of two small slits that started at her spine and ran along the indented area between the bottom two ribs of her ribcage.

Rosy disappeared through the water so fast that I didn’t get a second chance to see what they were until it suddenly hit me. Oh my goodness, Tritons also have gills!

***

Sean silently watched as Rosy and I hugged our goodbye. His smile beamed when he saw my breathless reaction to her extraordinary display of power and grace. A thrill ran down my spine when I finally tore my eyes away from the ocean.

The ripples dissipated from where Rosy had hit the water. It quickly returned to normal leaving only soft gentle waves. I noticed his gaze flick over my body. Standing in wet shorts and a dripping tank-top, I was suddenly aware of the cool breeze caressing my warm skin.

Come on girls, please don’t embarrass me! I begged my tiny boobs, but before I could wrap my arms around my chest, they both stood up at full attention. Down! Down! Down! I commanded them and thank goodness they reluctantly listened and decided to stop embarrassing me...at least for now.

“How did you get those scars?” I blurted without thinking.

I was in such a rush to get the attention away from myself, and I should have stopped and thought of a more tactful way to go about it, instead of just blitzing him.

Sean didn’t appear to be fazed by my rude question and glanced down at the three long gashes that ran across his chest. His gray eyes looked up and met mine as he carefully watched for my reaction.

“Talbot did this to me,” he replied coldly, “when I was caught sneaking into his Palace.” His face curled into a cruel smirk at his painful memory. “He said that he would make an example out of me and ordered the Royal Family, his Court, and all of his Advisors to witness my punishment, while he beat me with a grapple whip.”

His icy gaze was frightening and I wanted to stay right where I was, but I couldn’t. I need to close the space between us and stopped right in front of him, close enough to touch him, but I was too afraid to reach out my hand. “Sean, I’m so sorry--”

“I was five years old, Anna!” Anger bit through his clenched teeth. Oh my goodness! Talbot really was a monster!

“But how could he do that to you? You were just a child.” I gasped.

The thought of someone beating a child, a child almost Jimmy’s age was absolutely repulsive. My eyes shimmered with unshed tears as Sean’s face softened at my anger over the betrayal of his innocence.

“Talbot is not the King of our people. The people want to make their own choice...and they will choose Rook!” Sean’s eyes were hard and sure of his words and I believed him.

***
Swimming with Sean felt natural. Ireland’s ocean water was considerably cooler than back home in Atlanta, but the summer sun was still bright and warm.

He swam ahead of me while I hopelessly tried to catch up to him. Like that was going to happen. To show off his excellent fishy skills, Sean would swim a couple of laps around me like a shark circling his prey before splashing off into the distance again.

Sean reached a small wooden dock that floated on the horizon. It looked so far away that I wanted to stop swimming and just let the cool fingers of the ocean pull me under, yet I couldn’t.

I had to keep going. Lesson number one went out the window when I closed my eyes while swimming. I tried to concentrate on the direction that I was going without having to look and just feel the water caressing my skin as I drifted along, trusting it to move me in the right direction.

“Almost there, Anna.”

My eyes popped open. I hadn’t noticed Sean swimming beside me and he was right. I was only a few feet away from the little dock. How did that happen? Moments before I could hardly see the dock and now it was right in front of me? Sean wrapped his hands around my waist and lifted me towards the top of the dry wooden planks.

“Wow!” Sean murmured behind me.

Oh my goodness! I’ve never had a guy so blatantly comment on my butt before! Butt…hehehe! I could feel a red blush sprawling across my cheeks…the cheeks on my face! I wished that Cassy was here to give me a hint about what I was supposed to do next.

“Anna, did you see this?”

Well it’s not like I haven’t seen my backside before. After all, I am a teenage girl and we are prone to dancing around our bedrooms in skimpy clothes, singing the latest Taylor Swift song…so yeah, I’ve seen the view back there.

“Sean--”

“You have scales!” He blurted out.

“What?”

“Scales!” Sean laughed as he gently pulled at the hem of my tank-top showing the bare skin above my jean shorts and there they were…scales! Dark blue shimmery scales.

They sporadically splotched my back with just a patch here and there on my legs, but when I whirled around to look at him, I couldn’t miss the look of surprise on his face.

“Now, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He whispered. Reaching out to touch my face, Sean ran his fingers over the pink scales that speckled my face, shoulders, neck and arms.

A thrill danced along my spine. He probably thought it was my excitement at looking down at my skin and noticing the scaly specks too, but it was his delicate touch that sent my pulse racing.

“Your scales and Grandma’s scales don’t cover your upper body like this, so why do mine?” I squeaked. I was suddenly more scared then excited and wanted them to disappear.

Sean wrapped me in his arms. “It’s okay.” He smiled down at me. “You’re different, that’s all. They don’t cover all of your skin--”

“But why am I two different colors?”

“That’s because of what you’re wearing…see.” He chuckled as he pointed to his legs and the faded material of his jean shorts began to shimmer and turned into to sparkly pale blue scales, but the scales that suddenly appeared on his bare calves looked creamy and iridescent.

“Watch…” The blue slowly spread lower before the pale cream color disappeared altogether, replaced entirely by the shimmering blue. “We ‘Greenies’ started the trend, but the other Tritons soon followed. Any fabric color will change the color of your scales.”

I took a deep breath and bit down on my bottom lip to steady it from quivering. It was so much to absorb in one day. “But I still don’t have fins or a tail,” I huffed, “and if I can’t breathe underwater, then there’s no way that I can ever go down to Pimsim City is there?”

I didn’t have to see him shake his dark head to know the answer, because it would always be no!

***

Me…different? Great! That’s just what I needed. I was already the Queen of different.

I was different from the bouncy-bleach-blond-booby invasion that had swept through my high school last year and now I was different from all the other Tritons whose scales only covered their tails and the private area of a woman’s breast. But nope, not me! I was just scaly in patches all over like a psychedelic chameleon.

Sean and I reached the McLoughlin’s dock at the same time that Rosy was returning home from her Solstice Committee Meeting. She beamed at me and watched as Sean carefully helped me up the ladder. He was so good looking that my heart missed a beat every time his warm skin touched mine.

“I have to go help Da finish searching the south shore.” Sean said to Rosy as soon as she joined us on the dock. She gave him a quick peck on his cheek before he turned and jumped back into the water and disappeared into the ocean without a single glance in my direction.

What the heck was that all about? I was speechless…stunned…surprised that Sean completely ignored me. Had I missed the, ‘I’m just not into you’ vibe? It was a wonderful afternoon. We swam and laughed. I thought that Sean had as much fun as I did, but maybe I was wrong.

***

Helping Rosy make a delicious stew for dinner helped keep my mind from wandering off to Sean…sexy, brooding and totally confusing Sean!

She taught me how to make a pitcher of her fabulous camu. It was yummy, but it still didn’t help keep my mind from drifting to him.

Stonebrook arrived home around sundown for dinner, but everyone else stayed out searching for Talbot’s stupid Ring, which was good because I was in no mood for any of Uncle Rook’s jabs.

“May I be excused?” I mustered up the courage to ask right after dinner.

Rosy and Stonebrook shared worried looks. “Are you feeling alright, child? You’re looking a tad pale.”

I forced a smile to reassure them. “I’m fine. I’m just really tired from all the swimming this afternoon.”

Rosy happily told Stonebrook about my scales. She was as excited as if I had gotten a perfect score on my SAT’s. Who was I kidding…I was as happy as a clam too.

At least I was until Sean swam away. Quickly saying goodnight to each of them, I rushed upstairs to call Mom before drifting off to a fitful sleep.