Chapter 4

The Sea Feels Strange

Pixie woke up wanting more–more sex, more of this life, more of Charlie. Maybe more than he could give, she thought. She reached for him, but his even breathing didn't change, even when she ran her hands over his body. He slept on.

Carefully, she climbed out of the bed and slid open the closet door. She froze when it squeaked, but Charlie's breathing didn't change. She took her coat and slid the door shut. She walked around to Charlie's side of the bed, bent down, and kissed him on the forehead. “Goodbye, my love,” she said. “Someday you'll understand why I had to leave. You'll find yourself now.” Charlie shifted, but slept on. Pixie let herself out the door, went down the path, put on her coat, and dove into the ocean.

She swam several miles, took a deep breath, then dove deep to an underground cave. Inside was a small pile of bones. She sat there until her breath was running out, wishing she could talk to her mom. But her mom had died when she was a pup, and all that was left were these bones. She had been taken in by a pod of harbour seals until she was old enough to live on her own. When she figured out that she could shapeshift, she would remove her coat and wander the forest. She soon became friends with other fey folk, and four of them became her best friends. They were the ones who had told her that a man could steal her coat and forever trap her on land.

Selkie left the cave and surfaced, then swam, caught fish, and sunned herself on a deserted beach while she tried to put Charlie out of her mind. This was her life: she was a Selkie. She couldn't tie herself to Charlie or the land. Her thoughts churned. Did she want to remain a Selkie, or a Pixie? She had nobody in the sea…

Charlie woke to emptiness. His hand reached across the bed to find cold sheets. She had stayed a week, leaving for a few minutes during the middle of each day to bathe in the stream, she said, and always returning. But now his Pixie was gone. His heart sank. She had left him. He had not wanted her to stay, not wanting another complication in his life. He was satisfied with being alone.

But he had not wanted her to go either, and he still felt her inside him, a quiet hum like her heartbeat through his chest.

“When had she become HIS Pixie?” he thought.

He sat up, running fingers through his beard, then moved through his Wednesday morning routine on autopilot– coffee, steak, eggs, more coffee, computer, and email. Nothing worked.

The arachnid ponies stirred restlessly. He was aware of them.

He tried to write on his book, but he could not concentrate.

He was between jobs, so he had too much time on his hands. He did the laundry and tidied the small apartment. He even cleaned the bathroom, although he would rather hire someone else to do that. He sat back down at his desk and pulled out a model he was working on. Again, he could not focus.

His thoughts were drawn to the past–to his late wife, and the good marriage they had for more than 20 years. It could have even been a great marriage, had they not been working such insane hours just to keep the house running and raise the kids. They barely saw each other. Maybe that had been the secret.

He had stayed drunk for a time after his wife died. He no longer needed to shave, because he did not have the professional jobs he had for many years in the same industry as his wife, so he stopped cutting his hair and shaving.

Then there was the crazy lady. He had met a lady on an online dating site. They had moved in together too rapidly, and soon he found out her hairy dogs were more important than he was. He moved to the other end of the house, and one day he woke up to find her gone. Since the house was in her name, he packed his stuff and moved to the apartment. It was small, but he had not been there often as he had a driving job escorting large trucks. His certificate called him a ‘professional escort’, which always amused him. The small one-bedroom apartment had not become home yet but it would do. Then the job ended, and here he was, not knowing what to do. He had always hoped to have time to work on the books he was writing, but now that he had time, he had writer's block.

By day three without her, he had pulled out the kitchen stove and cleaned behind it, mopped the floor, vacuumed, and dusted. He had straightened the table down to a small stack of important mail and recycled the junk mail. The pull in his chest became pain. It was like the pulse of the tide. In his mind, he saw the ocean with its endless horizon and her cave.

He felt her hesitation, her longing, her fear.

“I wonder,” he said aloud. The closet door slid open. He saw that her coat was gone, and his world shattered.

His resolve steadied him. He had given her freedom, but he wasn't about to lose her now for his clumsy stupidity. He was sure he had said or done something to drive her away, although he couldn't think of anything.

The ponies shifted. They were no longer scattered; they were marching now, single file, leading him out the door.

He grabbed the dress she had left behind, making a mental note to buy her a whole closet full of clothing, and walked to the beach.

As far as he could see, there were nothing but waves.

“Behind you,” whinnied the ponies, clear as a thought in his head.

He turned and saw a beautiful white harbor seal with black spots sunning on the sand. Their eyes met, and he knew.

Selkie slipped free of her coat. The dress went over her shoulders, hiding her trembling hands.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“I am…” She hesitated, “different.”

He waited.

“I swam for days,” she said, “but the sea felt empty. I used to love to swim.”

“And?” he asked.

“You were missing.” Three words that meant everything hung between them.

He cupped her face. “I missed you, too.”

Their kiss broke something open. This was something different than Charlie had ever experienced in his life. He had found himself. This was what he wanted.

“Let's go to your cave,” he whispered.

She clutched her coat tight and led him back to the cave. She carefully placed a rock in front of the entrance after they went inside. “We don't want any sprites watching,” she said lightly.

Charlie laughed and took her coat to put it on the sleeping shelf. He found her bed was piled high with ferns and moss in a thick, unfamiliar mattress. Above it was a fluorescent lichen that allowed him to see her plainly.

“Friends,” she said dryly, with a wry smile, “can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

Charlie held up a note pinned to the moss: ‘We told you so.’ They laughed, shattering the tension, and sank into the ferns together.

The ponies waited.

“I was afraid I’d lost you forever,” he said as he ran his hand over her skin.

“I tried, but I couldn't…” her voice trailed off. Familiar sensations ripped through her body as he touched her most sensitive spots. She reached down and found his dick half-hard.

He grew when her fingers wrapped around him until he gave a muffled moan.

“My Pixie,” he growled, as he bent over and took a nipple in his mouth. He rolled his tongue around it until she screamed, “Charlie!” He then moved to the other one and gave it the same attention. Moving down, he licked down her body to her clit, and dug his tongue into that most sensitive spot. He licked her over and over. He felt her fingers go to his nipples as he came back up to kiss her face. He grunted, never having felt such a delicious sensation. “This must be what she feels,” he thought, before all thought left his mind. He put his finger in her, then a second, as his thumb brushed her clit.

Replacing his fingers with his cock, he thrust hard into her. Her hips bucked against him. In their minds, the ponies and the Selkie danced a tango to the rhythm of their fucking.

With a scream, Pixie came. “I am sorry,” she said.

He looked at her in surprise. “For what? I will give you more before I get mine.”

She realized that he was still hard inside her, and he started pounding her again. His breathing was getting labored, and she didn't think she was going to cum with him. Emboldened, she started playing with her nipples, mimicking what Charlie had done to her.

“Scream for me, my Pixie,” whispered Charlie. She came with a scream that shook her body.

“Yesss!” he shouted, and shot his load into her pussy.

This time, their dance felt like coming home.