textfiles/sex/EROTICA/T/the_fish.txt

                                The Fish
       by
                             S. B. Douglass
 
                                  1991
 
                  This work may be redistributed freely
                  over USENET and connected networks.
 
"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.