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- The Fish
- by
- S. B. Douglass
- 1991
-
- "I've got to attend a meeting today," Doctor Eckert said. "You
- folks are welcome to visit the North Lagoon, though. You haven't
- been there, and it's got some nice deep pools not too far from
- shore."
-
- "Want to?" Mary asked, after we waved to Doctor Eckert as she
- pulled away from the dock.
-
- "Sure," I said, watching the small hydrofoil pull out of the
- water and skim through the gap in the surf where the channel
- through the reef led to the open ocean.
-
- June Eckert was an old friend of Mary's, and when she'd invited
- us to visit her island lab, we'd jumped at the chance. The
- island was a small atoll in the Florida Archipelago, about 80
- kilometers west of the Miami Polder. The atoll had three lagoons
- separated by a low sandy island; what dry land there was, and it
- wasn't much, was anchored against the ravages of the frequent
- tropical storms by palmetto scrub on the higher ground and man-
- groves in the low spots.
-
- Half-an-hour after Doctor Eckert left, we were walking along the
- path to the North Lagoon. We'd been there for a week, and Doctor
- Eckert had taken us around the island and given us swimming tours
- of the other two lagoons. We hadn't been into the North Lagoon
- yet, but it sounded like a good way to spend a day. Our swimming
- tours with Doctor Eckert had been fun; she made a hobby out of
- subsisting on raw seafood, and during our tours, she'd made
- frequent stops to let us taste one or another of the delicacies
- in her lagoons.
-
- "It's a pretty place," I said, putting a hand around Mary's
- shoulders as we stood at the edge of the North Lagoon.
-
- "It is," she said, and then kissed me on the shoulder. "Kent,
- this has been a great week, but with June around all the time,
- I've felt a bit inhibited. Want to make love before we go swim-
- ming?"
-
- I answered her question with a kiss, holding her to me as our
- lips joined, and then sliding my hands down her long back to her
- fanny and massaging it as my penis hardened against her. She
- slid her hands over my back and then up over my shoulders to the
- back of my neck. I paused to finger her soft brown breasts as
- she leaned back, hanging from my neck and grinding her hips
- against me, and then I slid my hands down to support her fanny.
-
- "In the water?" she asked.
-
- "Sure," I said.
-
- We continued kissing and touching as we worked our way down the
- sandy shore into the water. When the water was up to mid thigh,
- she lifted a leg over my hip and took me in before lifting the
- other leg. Mary and I loved making love that way. When the
- footing was good, I could dance while I carried her, but on the
- sandy bottom of the lagoon, I just stood there and swayed as she
- rode my hips.
-
- I cradled her with my hands laced together behind her chest, and
- her hands were free to finger my nipples. She smiled as she
- rocked gently against me, and I admired the look on her face and
- the shape of her breasts while I savored the feeling of my penis
- in her and her fingers on my skin. After a while, she reached up
- to lock her fingers behind my neck and let me take a turn touch-
- ing her.
-
- I slid my hands up her sides to her round brown breasts and
- across her dark brown nipples, and as I gently circled her nip-
- ples with my thumbs, I could feel her contracting around my
- penis. As we made love, the velvet of her body slowly sliding up
- and down my penis drove me to the edge of an orgasm, and she held
- me there until I had to kneel on the sandy bottom to avoid loos-
- ing my balance.
-
- The feeling of the water around our joined bodies set me back,
- briefly, and then she let go of me and let the water carry her
- weight. Her brown face rose from the water a yard from me; she
- was smiling, her short straight hair glinting in the sun, and her
- dark nipples alternately rising above the placid surface of
- lagoon and sliding back under as we made love.
-
- I could feel it as she came; her vagina clamped down on my hard
- penis, her ankles clutched at my bottom, and she leaned back and
- gasped. After her initial gasp, she began massaging me, pumping
- with her pelvic muscles in rhythm with the waves of her orgasm,
- driving me over the edge. I pulled at her hips with my hands,
- straining to drive myself deeper into her body as the explosion
- swept through me, and then I could feel surge after surge within
- her as I pumped myself dry.
-
- "I love you," I said, a long time later.
-
- She answered with a lazy kiss, and then drifted free of me and
- stood up. "I'll go get the swimming stuff," she said, walking
- away from me.
-
- I watched as she walked back to where we'd left our stuff and
- picked up our masks, snorkles and flippers. She was a trim,
- muscular woman, built for running and swimming, and her bare
- brown skin looked beautiful against the white sand and green
- scrub behind her.
-
- We swam out into the lagoon, beyond the sandy beech that was
- renewed by the frequent tropical storms. There were bright
- colored fish, green and brown seaweed, and broken coral forma-
- tions, some white and dead, some brightly colored with life. We
- passed over a deep dark pool where it looked like the bottom
- dropped out from under the lagoon for a few hundred meters, and
- as the bottom rose to meet us and there was more and more coral.
- We were approaching the reef.
-
- I got Mary's attention and then pointed to the surface and stood
- up, treading water. I pulled out my snorkel as her head surfaced
- beside me. "We've got to be careful of the coral," I said. "We
- really ought to have worn gloves, at the very least."
-
- "Right," she said. "Let's stay away from the main part of the
- reef."
-
- Suddenly, there was a swirl of water. "My legs!" she screamed,
- and then went under.
-
- I ducked my head under the surface in time to see some kind of
- huge fish lunge at her. A shark? What ever it was, it got Mary
- and swam quickly away with her body sticking out of its mouth.
- She was gone. I bit my snorkel, blew out the water, and then
- looked around, my heart pounding. Should I try to rescue her?
- Should I run away? Was there anything I could do?
-
- Then I noticed a slight cloudiness in the water and saw something
- floating nearby. I almost wretched into my snorkel when I saw
- what it was. Mary's legs were hanging there in the water, sup-
- ported by her floating swim fins. Her legs up to mid thigh were
- there, cleanly severed by whatever fish had attacked her.
-
- And then it happened to me. I saw it out of the corner of my
- eye. A grey-green shape came at me like lightning and then a
- searing pain ripped through my body. My legs! The jaws closed
- around my hips, and then I felt them chewing, drawing me in as I
- was torn through the water into darkness.
-
- --
-
- I wondered if I was dead. I felt cold, water surrounded me, my
- skin itched, and I knew that I was deep below the surface. I was
- only dimly aware of the daylight above, and then my consciousness
- faded.
-
- I was aware again, still cold and wet, and it was dark. I was
- hungry, and then I remembered the shark attack. I wanted to
- panic, but I didn't have the energy. I passed out.
-
- I had a long series of disjointed memories like that, and then I
- awoke. The light at the surface was bright, and I ached for air.
- My head was pounding, my whole body hurt, and every movement made
- it worse. I needed air! I struggled, swimming for the surface,
- my lungs bursting with pain as I thrashed through the water, and
- then I broke the surface and gasped for breath.
-
-