And What Happens on the Sea Bed...

By Felix O'Malley

When I try to sleep, I like to imagine I am a mermaid. I wrap the bedsheets around my legs so tight I cannot move them, and it feels wonderful. The others complain about the feeling this kind of restriction gives them. If their shoes or clothes are too tight, it is such a bother. They cannot breathe underneath thick, tight layers which drown their bodies, but I have always been able to breathe, through almost anything. I can remember, when we were all much younger, I would sometimes ask Diana to stand on my feet just so I could feel some kind of pressure – some kind of difference – that would discomfort me. She always wore those black buckle shoes with the short pointy heels, and when she pierced those spikes between my toes, I suddenly elevated into a whole new realm of breath. My eyes would shut tight, a gasp would escape me, and suddenly I was under water. I was moving like a fish, breathing not through my nose, but through gills that had been slit painlessly across my torso. Underwater, I was royalty - a princess - if only for a few seconds. Diana would always stop quickly. I knew that she enjoyed it, but my gasps must have been quite loud, because she always looked at me with such concern and even a slightest tinge of nervousness. She must have thought she was going to get into trouble. When I think back, I realise that this feeling was not discomfort. This feeling was displacement.

It was shortly after that I began to remove my pyjama top when I was in bed. Unbuttoning the scratchy cotton was a soft, curious thing at first. I took every button with cautious placement of my fingers. I was sure that I did not want to rush this. When my torso finally heaved a great gasp the moment it was laid bare to the cold Autumn draught, I felt a tremendous relief. My hands found their way across my stomach, around my neck, clamped to my arms, sliding over my chest. It was so liberating. I sat up and clutched my breasts, feeling my way around the new, bouncy skin and fresh pink nipples. Never before had I felt a freedom like this. With my legs bound in bedsheets and my torso bared to those stone orphanage walls, it was the closest I had ever come so far to being the underwater mermaid I so desperately fantasised about. That first night, I pulled my duvet over my head and breathed the new salty air of my surroundings, submerged under this new sea bed.

One Saturday morning, I woke to find Mr. Hoffman staring at me. In the instinctive rush to cover my modesty, I clutched the duvet to my chest and quickly burst my legs free from their makeshift mermaid tail. My head and eyes were still blinking from sleep, and I'm not quite sure what came over me when I blurted out, "I was trying to be a mermaid."

With a surprising smile, he reached out to me,

"You are getting older," placing his hand on the bare flesh of my shoulder, "do you not think you should be letting go of fantasies?"

My skin pimpled at his touch,

"Perhaps."

From that day on, I was invited to Mr. Hoffman's office regularly. He would often explain his work to me, his research. He enjoyed discussing the current political issues in Germany. I had never been one for politics during his lessons in the past. I could only nod and hang onto those large words he used with such looseness of the tongue. Everything seemed to just flow to him. He was a natural, gifted talker.

"Clara," he spoke with a heavy voice, sipping at his tea, "do you sometimes feel a little bit different from the other children?"

I remained silent. I wasn't sure exactly what he meant.

"Do you ever feel... more mature?"

I nodded. It had to be said that I was getting a little tired of playing games with the others. They were getting boring and stale.

"Would you like some more responsibility here at the orphanage?"

My head nodded furiously. A wide grin attacked my face.

"Oh Mr. Hoffman, that would be wonderful... I do get so bored some days. I know that I'm a little more advanced than the others. I am older."

He smiled gently, his eyes falling to my feet and then quickly back to my face,

"Yes... you are," a slight laugh escaped his lips, "How would you like to assist me in the medical room? You can learn more about nursing and help me take care of the other children when they need help."

So from then on, I was known as "the Assistant". Cleaning up vomit and disposing of bloody bandages became second nature to me. But I loved it. Having more to do was a pleasure.

On a rainy day, I sat with Mr. Hoffman in his study. I was nibbling on some sugary shortbread he had offered me whilst he read some book at his desk. Soft music was playing from the wireless in the background. It was nice to be able to sit so comfortably in silence with an adult. Nothing like what it was when I was a child.

"What are you reading, Mr. Hoffman?" I asked, my curiosity growing.

"A book about mermaids," he replied, "do you know a lot about mermaids?"

"Oh yes!" I exclaimed in excitement, "They're my favourite legend. So beautiful, mysterious... and their voices!"

"Yes," said Mr. Hoffman, "and dangerous too. They lure sailors into the rocks with their singing."

He looked at me then in a fashion that would soon become regular. It was like he was seeing through my skin. Not in a bad way by any means. There was something... hungry about that look. Something that made me see him in a different way. No longer was he the old, strict teacher who I helped out in the medical room. Suddenly, his eyes were full of life – a life that had been lived far longer than mine. His features were defined, prominent... his hands large and warm... his face the aged look of a man I could see was very attractive when he was my age. I saw the beauty of him then. I think he also saw the beauty of me too.

Before long, the images of that face, those hands, those once handsome yet aged features, found themselves travelling from my head, down my arms, and into the fingers of my right hand.

In my dreams, my body filled up with some intense sensation I had never felt before. Radiating from between my legs, I found his head down where I have been told so many times no man should be found. Not at my age, anyway. Yet there he was, his mouth open, his tongue wetting itself all over the curious entrance I was never told about properly, up into the small button at the top. I ran my fingers through this dream Hoffman's hair and threw my head back into the pillow. He kept going and going and going until my back arched, my legs shook and waved uncontrollably in the air, and all of a sudden I needed to scream in ecstasy.

Then I would wake up.

I needed to have him. I didn't like sleeping with my makeshift mermaid tail anymore. I wanted my legs to be open. I wanted Mr. Hoffman to be the one opening them. And then, one day, he did. Only it wasn't what I had fantasised at all.

His head lay between my legs for only a few moments before it was quickly replaced with something else. What happened then made me shut my eyes tight as some horrible pressure forced itself inside me. It stung me, it pushed me, it was tighter than anything I had felt. Tighter than any pressure Diana had placed on my feet, or any bedsheets wrapped around my leg.

Then I just... let him carry on. And he did carry on. He kept on carrying on.

I managed to escape from that feeling by closing my eyes and turning it into a mermaid fantasy.

I am an aged mermaid who has long lived her time. I am growing old, and I understand that my remaining time is short. I perch on a rock above the sea surface. I sit here for a few days, awaiting my final moments. I notice some children playing on the rocks across the bay. They do not notice me. They are all happy and loud, splashing each other, teasing seagulls, flipping the waves with their tails. Soon, they are summoned by some unseen caller.

They disappear back down into the sea bed.