Page 30 of Chasing Tail
Chapter 17
The door to the bathhouse was splintered and hanging off the frame, but Beck still knocked anyway. He just kicked it in and came running when he heard me screaming. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen everything. This was his house, and I wasn’t sure why he needed my permission to come in.
I was already dry, and Taron had helped me peel my tail off. We were trying to figure out my clothes. Taron was already dressed. There were many things about land I really liked, but I didn’t understand why the clothes for females were so much more complicated than the males.
Forrest and Callum always talked about how much Beck liked women. He certainly kissed me like he did. He kissed Taron like he loved everyone equally. I didn’t think he was being cruel with these clothes. I was reasonably certain all women on land were expected to wear this, but I didn’t know which person was being mean when they started this trend.
Beck stuck his head in and didn’t even blink. Taron and I were standing next to the remnants of my tail, trying to figure out how to keep the top of this dress from falling down and exposing my breasts. Personally, no one cared about that in the ocean, and I wasn’t ashamed of anyone seeing them on land, but I was far from the sea, and this is what people did here. Even if I thought it was worse than having to listen to a chatty starfish.
Beck barely glanced at my tail on the floor. Instead, he sprang to attention to help me with these clothes.
“I wouldn’t have suggested the bath if I had known changing was this traumatic for you. Some of the old-school druids don’t believe in bathing in water. Instead, they cleanse themselves in blessed oil with herbs. My stepmother is all about that, and my father has demanded we make it for her on many occasions. Maybe that will allow you to get clean without having to deal with all that pain.”
They worried about the strangest things on land, but I didn’t enjoy stinking like that, so I was willing to try his magic oil. With Beck’s help, I was dressed in no time. He stepped back and gave me a gentle smile.
“A lot makes sense now. You probably eat flounder way differently where you come from. I hope I did it justice.”
Beck was just so perfect, and he was handling this much better than I expected. I needed to let him know the flounder was delicious, but I had to start that stupid idea of pretending not to talk. If I had known everything I knew now, I wouldn’t have tried that because I thought I needed to manipulate them. I felt worse about that the more they proved to be amazing men.
Still, there were other ways to show him I enjoyed the fish. I grabbed him and kissed him. That was something we both would enjoy, and it would confirm the fish was good. Beck broke away first and smirked at me.
“Mermaids are certainly affectionate. Taron didn’t have a tail, but whatever he is seems to enjoy giving out kisses too. Of course, the two of you need to be careful. The safest thing for you is to go back to the ocean, but if you keep giving out kisses like that, I’m going to get attached. Forrest made one of his epic breakfasts, and Callum is putting the final touches on his potion. You ready?”
Beck held out his arm, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do with it. I just stared and waited for him to explain. Beck grabbed my arm and wrapped it around his. It was nice being close to him, and he smelled good, but I wasn’t sure why he did it.
Taron wasn’t one to be left out, and he seemed to be a lot more friendly with Beck than he was with Callum and Forrest. He took Beck’s other arm and wound his around it. Beck didn’t blink, and I loved he was so kind to Taron.
“Shall we?” Beck said, moving towards the door.
I didn’t need help walking, and I knew where the house was. I was unsteady at first, but I’d figured out my legs already. Still, this was a little nice. I didn’t think Beck was trying to control me or that he thought I was ignorant and couldn’t find my way to the house. He just wanted to be close.
This felt supportive. We didn’t do this in the ocean, but sometimes, it was nice to swim close and let your fins brush against each other. Beck looked over his shoulder at the remnants of my tail.
“I’ll clean that up after you eat. I’m not sure if there’s something special I should do with it to show proper reverence. Honestly, it would be best to burn it, so no one finds it. But, if you left this on the beach, I should probably go out there and deal with it.”
I just nodded and rested my head on his arm. He was nicer than most mermen I’d met, and that was unexpected considering he was a prince. A merman would have wanted something in return for all of this. They certainly wouldn’t have offered to clean up the mess you made without immediately demanding something for it.
When we got inside, Forrest had gone all out with breakfast, but it wasn’t like what he served us the day before. He looked about ready to burst.
“Hi! Beck told me. I understand why you kept looking at the fish like you didn’t want to put it in your mouth. You seemed to enjoy it, though, so I decided to cook you an entire feast to show you how we eat seafood here on land. I know it’s not the same, and you might hate it, but we eat it here too, and I just wanted to show you how we enjoy it here.”
Forrest was adorable. He was babbling like a hatchling who had just been allowed a little bit of freedom and got to see one of the colorful reefs outside our community. I was still mad about that fish in the basket we stole, but the flounder Beck had served us was delicious. I was actually happy to try more of it here.
Forrest had this look on his face like he didn’t know if he had done something wrong. He looked like I would totally crush him if I didn’t eat this food. I was going to and would do so gladly, but I didn’t like that sad look in his eyes, so I kissed him.
I broke away and sat at the table with everyone. Taron had already scooped massive amounts of food on his plate and seemed to be eating it without a care to what it was, but then again, he did that in the ocean all the time too.
Some of the food, I recognized, and some had been altered in ways I didn’t. For example, the lobster was a strange color, and the mussels looked strange. The oysters looked like what I was used to, but they had already been opened, so I didn’t have to deal with the hassle of doing it myself.
I could have gone straight for the oysters since that was familiar to me, but I didn’t. These men knew my secret and had been nothing but kind about it. They were trying to show me the best things about their world and how it was similar to mine in some ways. I wanted them to teach me.
I pointed to everything before I put it on my plate. Forrest and Beck told me what it was and how they had prepared it. I didn’t hesitate this time, and I didn’t need to talk myself into trying it. It tasted different than what I was used to, and when they cooked it, it changed the texture. It wasn’t horrible. It exploded in my mouth with different flavors, and everything was excellent.
What was more than that was that everything they served me was things we ate too. We didn’t get angry about them taking these things from the water to eat them because most everything in the ocean viewed them as food too. Before I came to land, I thought they should only take things from the land instead of eating things we ate, but I got it now.
We ate the things we did because they were delicious, but also because they often bred enough that we could stay fed without causing a famine. I used to think land-dwellers would cause my people to starve with their nets, but now that I’d dined with them, I knew that wasn’t the case.
The brothers lived near the sea, and yes, this meal was all seafood, but it wasn’t the entirety of their diet like mine was. I had been served plenty of delicious things that came from land. They had plenty of options for food, and I wasn’t angry they decided to take some from the sea anymore. They didn’t eat every part of the fish as we did, but they weren’t really made to.
