Laughter, silent, silver rings spreading out through hismind.Isn’t that the generalidea?
Not straight away.Let it last.
Oh, it will.You came for me before.We took the pressure offthen.
Not much, but it was true.Gratefully Priddy remembered.Hisurge to climax became a slow-building wave.He lay back on the rockand turned his head aside, smiling, lost.Let the merman fuck him,then, hold him and penetrate him, withdraw and shove deepagain.Do it, he gasped into themind-silence.Screw me until I’m nothing, until I wash up on thebeach neither dead nor alive, neither human nor fish, covered inseaweed and sand.Fuck me blind and deaf and brainless.Fuckeverything away.
More laughter, rocking and racking him this time.Is that what you want, my landling?
Yes.Yes.
Technically you already made your wish.But verywell.
***
Someoneclose by him was sobbing.The voice was terribly familiar, orPriddy wouldn’t have been able to come back for it.He wasn’t surehe wanted to.His head was pillowed comfortably on his arm, hisbelly resting on sand, as was natural to his kind—the wet-ripplesand of low tide, when even the cold winter sun of these partscould warm the shallows, and the Mer could lie quietly, scullingtheir tails and dreaming of Atlantis.He was, as he’d requested,laced up in seaweed, its drift a soothing tickle on hisskin.
“Oh, God, Geoff, I can’t believe this!I should never have lefthim alone.”
“He wasn’t your responsibility.”
“He was!He was!Itoldyou what happened between us.Oh, Priddy!I knewyou were flaky, man, but how could you go and do something likethis?”
A drythroat-clearing, then the odd new voice again, crisp and too neaton this shore of songs.“The timing’s certainlyinteresting.”
“What?”
“For you to find him like this.A bit of acoincidence.”
“He didn’t know when we were coming!”
“It’s a lighthouse, Kit.There must be a fair view from thetop.”
“What, so he...dashed downstairs and lay facedown in the wateruntil he was dead?”
“He just doesn’t look very dead to me.I’d better call anambulance, or whatever you have around here.Move aside, and pullyourself together if you can.”
“Don’t touch him.”
“Why on earth not?You can’t be concerned about evidence, notthe way you’ve been pawing at him.I only want to find out how coldhe is, so I can give the services an idea of how long he’s been...Oh, for heaven’ssake, Kit!”
“What?”
“This boy’s alive.He’s warm.”
“He can’t be.He’s not breathing.”
Kit hada very good point.Priddy hadn’t breathed for hours.That had beenfine down in the kelp-grove palace with Merou, but didn’t work sowell on Hagerawl beach.He had to make a conscious decision tostart.He pushed upright onto his arms: spat out a cockleshell andinhaled noisily.“Hiya, Kit.You all right?”
Kit fellon his backside.Behind him, a tall, grey-haired man bent to helphim, his expression heavy with irony.“It’s a miracle,” he said.“I’ve told you before, Kit—if you’re going out with me, I can’thave any fuss or indiscretion with your previous boyfriends.Isthat understood?”
“I...Yes, but I...”
“Then I’ll see you back at the house.”
Heturned and walked away.Priddy took a moment to admire him.He’dnever seen anyone so beautifully dressed for a winter day on thebeach.He was perfect, from the top of his expensively barberedhead to his Wolfclaw boots, which Priddy could identify becausethey left bad-ass little pawprints in the sand.“He seemsnice.”
“Oh—Priddy, don’t.Heisnice.It’s just that travel makes him tetchy, andthen you gave us both such a fright.”
