The Mermaid of Marquadt

Sunlight and shadow strobed through the bus windows as Scylla contemplated the ancient forest beyond the winding country road. She had to admit the southeast of France, at the foot of the Alps, was beautiful this time of year. A rich feast of greens and earthy rusts, dotted by the occasional contrasting farmhouse.

A passing sign for the town of Marquadt sported a smiling mermaid, her painted colors faded by long exposure to the sun. Her short bobbed hair topped a broad smile, a forties pin-up girl with a fish tail.

The bus rounded a broad curve and Marquadt itself hove into view, the watery blue crescent of Lac d'Antoine beyond. Small, squat, and picturesque like a thousand other unremarkable towns in the countryside, Marquadt sported numerous houses with stained alabaster stone walls and red clay roof shingles, with the occasional incongruous satellite dish jutting up here and there.

Scylla played idly with a strand of her long dark hair as the bus passed a plaster statue of the same mermaid that had been on the sign, sitting on a rock above a sea of waving spring grasses just beyond the town's first line of houses. The statue was stained and weathered and worn, three fingers from her right hand missing. Inside the town, more of the same; mermaid cafes, mermaid boulangerie, mermaid librairie, gift shop with mermaid memorabilia, and more.

Marquadt was the home of an old legend, of a half-fish girl--a sirene, a mermaid--living in their adjoining lake. It was the whole reason she was going to the town. The mayor of Marquadt had advertised in regional papers for a model to participate in a 'mermaid-related activity.' She imagined putting on a musty mermaid costume with her bosom stuffed into paper mache sea shells, titillating teen-agers and tourists at some yearly faire tourist traps like Marquadt always held.

The bus pulled to a stop in Marquadt's small excuse for a downtown. Just a single street lined with brownstones, not one more than three stories tall. She was the only one who disembarked, and the vehicle zoomed away five heartbeats after the driver retrieved her suitcase from the bus's storage compartment.

A deep but feminine voice sounded behind her. "Pardon." Scylla turned to see an immense tank of a woman dressed in a skirted, navy blue business suit. Behind her stood a tall and reedy man, his thin beard and mustache amplifying his disapproving frown. "Mademoiselle Rambeau?" The woman asked.

"Oui," Scylla said. She had been in the country for a few years now, and could speak the language fairly fluently. "Are you from Mayor Charlois?"

The immense woman sported an equally immense smile. "I am Madame Charlois, the mayor, and this is my assistant Monsieur de Lombard. Welcome to Marquadt."

Pleasantries were exchanged--or at least what passed for pleasantries with the dour de Lombard--and the mayor asked to talk as they walked the short distance to her office. The mayor beamed. "Ah, you are lovely, mademoiselle. I think she will fit the part well, Jacques."

"So you don't mind that I'm American?"

"Not at all. I spent my college years in Buffalo myself. Don't worry about your accent. We won't need you to speak that much anyway. We are much more concerned with how you will look the part. And you look perfect. Almost like the last one we had."

"Hmph," de Lombard said unhappily.

Charlois rolled her eyes. "Oh, never mind him. His sausage curls to the left, if you know what I mean. Dislikes anything feminine. He is especially unhappy that so many of the euros that roll into town depend on a feminine icon."

"A feminine icon you want me to play," Scylla observed. "What exactly is that going to entail? Am I going to put in public appearances, or pose for ads or something?"

"Oh no, mademoiselle. We want you to be the mermaid."

"So your emails said. But..."

Charlois shook her head even as she herded the three of them into a small office building. "Mademoiselle, we want you to be the Mermaid. The one that lives in the lake."

Scylla blinked at the mayor as she held the door open. "I think you better explain."

A few minutes later they were in Charlois' office, while de Lombard fetched them coffees. "You see, mademoiselle, the legends of the mermaid go back to the fourteenth century. She has been a curiosity for a long time, drawing many from around the world to seek her out. To some she is a biological curiosity, a mutation. To others she is a spiritual manifestation. To others still she is old magic, the last connection to the time of the Celts and druids and pagan gods..."

"But to us she is euros" de Lombard said as he brought in a small tray of steaming cups.

Charlois laughed. "Very true. Tourists bring in millions of euros to our town because of her. So we need a new mermaid for the lake. That's where you come in, Mademoiselle Rambeau. We want to use you to create more mermaid sightings. We'll use you in the lake, most likely at night, and stage 'encounters' from time to time to drum up good rumors and publicity."

"I--that wasn't anything like what I was expecting. In fact, it sounds very much like fraud. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn down your generous..."

"We will pay you half a million euros," the mayor interjected. "Plus bonuses."

Scylla gaped at her open-mouthed. "I can't have heard that right."

"Oh yes, this is very serious to us. But that's over a several year period, and of course for that money we expect you to go to unusual lengths in performing your part."

Scylla swallowed. Five hundred thousand euros plus...more money that she could ever expect to see as an actress or a model in this country. She always was not skinny enough, not bitchy enough, not French enough. "What do you mean by unusual lengths?"

The mayor smirked. "Oh, I know what you are thinking, mademoiselle. Do not worry, you will not have to sell your pretty derriere on the side."

"Hmph," de Lombard said, with clear distaste.

"But we want our mermaid to be convincing. The rubes are not as easy to fool as they used to be. No silly costumes or body paints, I'm afraid. You will have to do these encounters nude, and you will have to get tattoos."

"Tattoos?" Scylla said with alarm. The nudity didn't bother her. This was France after all, and she'd already done a bunch of nude work for billboards and commercials. "I really don't know about that. I wouldn't be able to get too much other work if my skin was marked like that."

The mayor set her thick lips into a thin line. "And how much work have you gotten so far? You are not so successful that you didn't have to ride half a day in a smelly bus to apply for a job I'm sure you thought meant wearing a nylon fish tail and waving at old farts. By the time the contract ends, you will be getting close to thirty, and your modeling career would be kaput by then anyway. But this way, at least, you will have a very comfortable nest egg to retire on. And you will certainly have enough money for laser surgery to have the tattoos removed, n'est-ce pas?"

Scylla had to admit she had a point. Slowly, reluctantly, she let the mayor talk her into it. They signed the contracts, and the Mayor said they'd start the tattooing early the next morning.

---

They put Scylla up in a quaint bed and breakfast, and during the night she went on a walking tour of the town. Marquadt proved a small but oddly charming blend of the provincial and the modern. A sign by the waterfront even advertised a Starbucks was moving into an old wineshop.

De Lombard fetched her shortly before dawn, the only illumination shades of gray smudging the horizon. The sleepy Scylla zombie-walked behind the tall man, who pretty much treated her like a smelly chien he was forced to walk as a favor.

Mayor Charlois met them at the tattoo parlor on one of the squalid country roads on the edge of the town, water from Lac d'Antoine lapping gently not twenty feet away. The building was an old farmhouse with an attached rundown storefront. Faded yellow drapes were pulled over the display window.

Scylla was introduced to Gilberte de la Rue, the tattoo artist. Scylla had kind of been expecting some ancient evil-looking gypsy crone, but Gilberte was well-dressed with short dark hair and tasteful jewelry, no more than thirty five at most. Her smile was earthy and friendly.

Gilberte looked excitedly at Scylla, grabbing her chin with her fingers and twisting her face this way and that. "Ah. Good skin! Very good, as I hoped! She will indeed do very well." Gilberte ushered her into the house as the mayor and her assistant left. "Let us lose those clothes, ma coeur," she said breezily as soon as the door was closed. Scylla was a bit hesitant, as Gilberte just stood there and smiled at her, but she eventually realized she was being silly and complied. They couldn't very well tattoo most of her body clothed, could they?

Gilberte smiled at Scylla as the younger woman peeled her shirt off and wiggled out of her jeans. Scylla could swear there was almost a gleam of something predatory in her grin.

After she was nude, the older woman led her into the house's surprisingly spacious bathroom, complete with broad octagonal skylight. Scylla blinked up into reddening dawnlight as Gilberte pinned up her long hair and brought out a large bowl of greenish cream. "What's that?"

Gilberte stirred the bowl with a long, soft hair brush. "It removes hair. How you say, a depilatory cream."

"Oh! Like that australian stuff."

"Oui, but this is my own recipe made from local ingredients. Many herbs and plants, but no chemicals, so do not worry, it is very safe. Now just relax. I must massage this in as I go."

Scylla jumped a bit as Gilberte's hands made contact with her shoulders, covering them with the cool cream. It had an odd smell, like seaweed mixed with strawberries. After just a few seconds on her skin the cream warmed up and tingled just a slight bit, helped quite a bit by Gilberte's surprising gentle fingers on her soft skin.

To Scylla's surprise, as Gilberte worked the cream into her shoulders and arms, the older woman began a soft chanting. Scylla asked what she was doing.

"I am, how you say nowadays, New Age." She smirked. "Or Old Age, depending on how you look at it. My chant entreaties the goddess Demeter for her blessing."

"Demeter--the greek goddess? Of plants, right?"

"Oui. This is an herbal mix, after all." Gilberte continued with her long and relaxing massage with the depilatory cream, moving down her arms and back up again, down her spine and flanks, lingering a bit over her taut buttocks before continuing down than back up her legs. Gilberte's hands were strong and assured in their movements, making the process surprisingly sensual. The cream's tingling warmth wasn't hurting either.

By the time the process turned to Scylla's front torso, it was clear Gilberte was enjoying the process as much as she was. The tattoo artists' hands traced the broad curves of her breasts lightly with her fingertips before massaging the greenish cream in with unusual vigor, all with a pleased grin as she lingered at Scylla's tight nipples. Fingers glided down the younger woman's taut stomach, over her sensitive pubis and finally into the cleft between her legs.

Gilberte stopped her chanting and smirked broadly. "We must make sure we get everywhere, after all," the older woman said as her fingers rubbed and massaged in the cream vigorously. Scylla, already breathless, found herself moving her hips eagerly in time to the older woman's movements. After only a few heartbeats Scylla shuddered and gasped as an orgasm washed over her, sending her rigid as her sex spasmed over Gilberte's fingers.

Gilberte laughed, delighted, but reluctantly removed her fingers and arced wistful brows. "Ah, sadly, no time for more such games today, ma coeur. Far too much work to do. Some other time perhaps, non?" She reached behind her for a plastic razor with the blade removed, and quickly and efficiently scraped away the cream and the dissolved hairs it contained. Afterward she instructed Scylla to shower off and meet her in the storefront's main room afterward.

Scylla was toweling off as she walked into Gilbrte's workspace nude. After what had just happened between them, it seemed silly for her to act modest around the tattoo artist, even if she was feeling a bit vulnerable. Scylla was led to a wide, leather-cushioned massage table and instructed to lie down on her stomach. Gilberte fiddled around with her needle guns and ink vials, before settling on a stool on Scylla's side. She glided a hand experimentally from Scylla's shoulder down to her thigh, making the younger woman shiver slightly in pleasure. "Much better," she cooed. "You will slide through the water like a missile, with such smooth skin."

Scylla saw Gilberte heft the small needle gun, a vial of greenish ink sloshing on it barrel. "How much of it are you planning on doing today?"

"The tattoos? Why, all of them, ma coeur."

Scylla flinched. "All of them? But won't that, you know, really hurt?"

The older woman laughed and playfully kissed the girl on the rump, before lightly slapping the same spot. "Worry not, ma fille. The pain will not be what you think it is. Like the cream, this ink is of my own creation, a special herbal recipe with special properties, and I use custom-made needles that are no small expense." Gilberte's hand rested lightly on Scylla's bottom. "Just relax. I do not think you will find this unpleasant at all."

Scylla sucked her lip apprehensively but eventually nodded. "Okay."

Gilberte bent down to start her task on her subject's shoulder. At first, Scylla did feel a distant pinching as the needle bit into her skin, but almost immediately afterward she felt a surge of warmth in the exact same spot as the ink spread into her skin. Within seconds, the pinching sensation died away.

The ink must have some kind of anesthetic properties, she thought, spreading into her skin and dulling the nearby nerves as it went. Gilberte began her chanting again.

"Who are you asking for blessing from now?" she asked idly.

"Triton."

"Triton? Isn't he supposed to be a sea god?"

"Oui. I am creating a mermaid, non?"

Gilberte continued with her work. Time passed. Scylla noticed that she had started to really enjoy the sensation of the needle gun on her skin. She could occasionally feel a faint prick, but it was immediately followed by the sensual gush of the ink into her skin. It almost felt similar to the sensation of losing her virginity repeatedly. Every pore of her skin was a hymen, breached by the needle, injecting her with the warm seed of its hue. Over and over again, first over the back of her arms then the back of her legs and finally her rump. She squirmed especially at the sensual sensations as the needle worked over her sensitive buttocks.

Gilberte turned her over, and she could see the strong afternoon sun pour in around the window curtains. Was it really so late?

She also inspected the new tattoos on the back of her hand. The greenish ink had somehow transmuted into a golden hue once in her skin. And the scales--they looked so real! Gilberte was obviously a master artisan at her craft.

But then Gilberte began her tattooing and chanting again, and Scylla was quickly caught back into the sensual trance she had been in for hours now. Gilberte finished up her arms and hands, even getting in between her fingers, then started on the bottoms of her feet and worked her way up the young woman's legs.

Her second orgasm of the day hit her when Gilbert was just finishing her inner thighs at the seam of her hips. Her legs were spread wide, with the tattoo artist right between them. The position and manipulation was too suggestive, the tension had been building for too long. It began as a gentle warmth throughout her body that built and built until it crashed over into her most sensitive parts. Gilberte stopped what she was doing, saw Scylla begin to quiver and gasp, and almost instinctively shot forward and molded her hot tongue over Scylla' exposed clitoris. The younger woman shivered violently then suddenly went rigid, shuddering for two full minutes as her button spasmed against Gilberte's slick tongue.

When Scylla finally recovered, Gilberte licked her lips like she had just sampled exquisite wine and pecked her subject affectionately on her smooth pubis. "Ah, so you decided to have more fun after all? C'est belle. Brava."

Exhausted, Scylla quickly fell into a deep sleep afterward.

She dreamed of gentle currents, of blues and greens shifting over her skin. She looked around and realized she was underwater, but it didn't seem to matter. She had fins and gills, scales on her legs shimmering greenish-gold. No, not legs, though they still bent and moved a bit like them. A long, sinuous fin that terminated in a large gossamer flourish of a tail.

She flipped through the water with a light flick of her tail, exhilarating in the freedom and openness all around her. She could feel the water was chill, but she was warm, and knew somehow that she would never get cold again. She just wanted to keep swimming forever.

Suddenly a dark cloud shifted through the water like a thousand gallons of spilled ink, surrounding her, enveloping her. "Daughter..." she heard it whisper in a voice that could not be human.

Scylla's eyes snapped open. Gilberte was gone, but she could see it was night through the gaps in the curtains.

She looked down at her body, and noticed that her breasts had been tattooed with scales as well. She pursed her lips wistfully. As pleasant as the process had been with her legs, she wished she had been awake for that.

Her eyes flicked down over her tattooed legs. Even in the sterile fluorescent light, Gilberte's tattoos looked beautiful. She ran her hand over them in wonderment. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

She went to swing her legs off the table, only to find they were stuck together. That was odd--did the ink do that? There might have been some leakage or something, then it stuck together as it dried. She pulled harder at her legs, and couldn't get them apart. How was she supposed to get dressed like this?

"Hey, anyone there?" she called. "I'm kind of stuck. Can I get some help?"

To her surprise de Lombard strode into the room, wearing a long dark robe. Scylla shrieked and covered herself with her hands. "What are you doing? Get out!"

De Lombard simply walked over and, with a look of supreme distaste, scooped her up into his arms like she was a kitten. She tried hitting him hard a number of times, but he seemed unfazed. She had no idea he was so strong! But naked and with her legs stuck together she had little choice but let him carry her off. "What's going on? Get away from me!"

He carried her into the farmhouse's broad, musty basement. lit by dozens of tallow candles. She saw Gilberte and mayor Charlois standing there, wearing robes similar to de Lombard's. There were two broad tables, both covered with heavily embroidered cloths sporting strange symbols Scylla had never seen. One table was empty, impeccably clean.

The other was awash in generous pools of blood. It held a fresh corpse, his chest ripped open, ribs poking into the open air.

Scylla screamed, long and loud. She only stopped when she felt Gilberte's calming hands stroking her hair. "There, there, ma coeur," the tattoo artist said. "There is nothing for you to fear. He was the sacrifice, not you. Silly tourists, thinking our town and its gods would actually tolerate the sick debauchery he committed."

"Gilberte! What's going on?" She saw with alarm that the tattoo artist's hands were covered in fresh blood. "Don't hurt me!"

The older woman smiled. "It would be very unwise for us to hurt you now even if that was what we wanted. Triton has accepted you as his daughter. Did you not hear his voice in your dream? We wish the god's boon, not his wrath."

De Lombard set her down on the empty table, strapping her down with ropes that seemed to be tightly corded water plants. She was near choking in panic, naked and helpless. "I don't understand! What are you doing?"

Mayor Charlois lit a cigarette. Gilberte frowned, but the immense woman exhaled smoke heartily. "We need a mermaid, and that's going to be you. For real. Costumes and even tattoos won't fool tourists nowadays. We've got to compete with hollywood movies and video games and all their special effects. Plus you signed the contracts and agreed to everything, even that part about us turning you into a mermaid."

"But I thought you meant just the tattoos, maybe a costume! You can't do this!"

Gilberte leaned over and kissed Scylla very sensually on the lips. De Lombard clucked and turned away in a huff. The tattoo artist ignored him. "Do not worry, ma coeur. After you are changed, we will have much fun together for years to come, like we had in my shop earlier. I am the one who chose you from all our resumes. You were by far the prettiest to my eyes. I am the one who takes care of the town's mermaid, you see, and in return--" she ran her fingertips suggestively down Scylla's stomach, and further "--I get to have a very unique toy to play with. Oui?"

"But even if what you're saying is true, I'll tell someone! Someone will help me! You can't..."

De Lombard stuffed a fresh linen cloth in her mouth and taped it over. The mayor took a long drag on her cigarette then crushed it under her shoe. "Gilberte's spells will make sure you don't remember your life before, I'm afraid. Your life as a human will be a dim dream. You won't be able to tell anyone anything. You'll be a fresh innocent."

Gilberte chuckled. "Or perhaps not so innocent after a while, oui?"

The three of them began chanting, Gilberte spreading the dead man's blood over Scylla's naked form in odd, geometrically complex patterns. The tattooed scales glowed brightly as they shimmied up from her skin with bright sparks of magic, becoming the real thing.

The blood began burning, and she saw acrid smoke rise from her own skin. She watched in fascinated horror as her legs elongated and merged together into a single fin. She could feel the bone and muscle inside stretch and shift and fuse, but the process was thankfully painless. Her feet flattened and spread out, twisting and twirling together to form a large broad gossamer tail the same color as her golden scales.

She felt other changes deep within her body, the purpose of which she couldn't even guess at. Twin wounds opened up along her neck, cloying and sticky. Something was happening to her eyes, a gummy kind of blue-green haze slid over them. A membrane?

Scylla suddenly felt her thoughts fragment, turning slippery in her head. She couldn't quite understand what was going on, who these people were. Who she was herself was quickly becoming a mystery.

All she knew, suddenly, was that she desperately wanted to be in some water, to swim endlessly...

---

Two months later Mayor Charlois was enjoying a cup of espresso outside the town's new Starbucks overlooking Marquadt's broad lake. Gilberte sauntered up to her table and sat, ordering chai tea with honey.

Tourist business was booming, thanks in part to new sightings of the town's legendary mermaid. Of course Mayor Charlois had taken great care to milk the sightings for all the publicity she could with the local press and tabloids.

"So how's our new mermaid coming along?" Charlois asked.

"Oh, exquisitely!" Gilberte teased. "You would not believe the things she can do with that transformed tongue."

Gilberte giggled at the mayor's stern expression. "Seriously, she is adjusting very well. It did take her a while to learn to catch her own fish, but she is in no danger of undereating now. She is also quickly learning how to tease the tourists without actually being openly seen." She tossed her hair. "We picked a good one, this time. Smart as well as pretty."

Charlois sighed. "Good. But there's still the problem of the contract. You know Triton's conditions, the spell on her will only be good as long as the contract is. And you know what he does to oath breakers." The large woman tried, and failed, to suppress a shiver.

"Oui, but we could have hardly expected to get her to sign a lifetime contract, could we? Besides, if we cannot get her to renew on her own, we can always do to her what we did to the last one."

The mayor set her thick lips in a grim line. The last mermaid's contract had come up only a few days before Scylla had arrived, and had demanded to be transformed back and set free. The mayor had taken the money of that pig they had ended up sacrificing, and let him have his murderous way with her. Triton had been so angry he readily wiped out all traces of the man's physical existence so they could sacrifice him without raising suspicions. "I don't know," she said. "If Triton ever finds out..."

Gilbert sipped her cup and waved dismissively at the mayor. "Do not worry. Did Triton find out about the last one, or the one before that? He still thinks we are paying tribute to him, instead of using his 'daughters' to make us rich." She smiled at her partner. "One does not have to be a genius to be a god, non?"

The mayor just smiled, sipped her coffee, and stared in contemplation at the lake. She thought she saw, in a newly-born ripple, the flick of a broad golden fin just below the water.

The End

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