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hurt. It was a deep, sharp pain that made me recoil and try to scramble away from him, but he held tight, surging inside me hard and fast.
    He smelled salty, like the sea, and I breathed him in like a substitute to try to soothe away the pain. But we weren’t really together just now. He was in his head; I was in mine.
    For a moment my mind went down a crazy track where I thought perhaps my humanity could have been reversed, perhaps my fin would have regrown if we hadn’t breached this one, final territory.
    While I hadn’t felt my fin rip apart, this was different. Two things lost in one night. After several minutes, he let out a roar and stopped. I had to look into his eyes to determine if it was a good sound or a bad sound, to see if he was somehow displeased with me. But his face looked peaceful and contented.
    At least one of us was peaceful and content. I didn’t have another orgasm because my head wasn’t in the right place for it. No one had told me that for a woman, losing one’s virginity could feel like a trauma. I’d never been indoctrinated with any particular views of sex, except that it was some dirty thing animals did, and yet still, this felt like a bigger deal than I wanted it to be. And I hadn’t even been there for it. Not really. I felt like it had happened, and except for the pain, I’d missed it.
    For my own pleasure before, yes, I’d been there. But this new activity … sex … it felt more isolating than joining, and I worried it would always feel that way. I didn’t say any of this to Kyros because I didn’t know what he’d do with me if I couldn’t enjoy the things humans enjoyed.
    But he didn’t demand a peek inside my head; he just held me cuddled against him while I cried.
    “I’m sorry it hurt. I tried to be gentle. You felt so good wrapped around me.” He stroked my hair, holding me close, and I didn’t know what to feel. I only knew that something completely primal and final had been invoked between us. Something sealed in blood. As if to prove the point, I moved my hand between my legs. Just as I suspected. Red.

    ***

    That night was the first night I didn’t sleep in the pool. It wasn’t just that I didn’t, but that I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe underwater anymore, and so I had to sleep in the bed with Kyros.
    It was odd sleeping with someone else’s skin pressed against mine, our limbs entangled. I could feel his erection pressed against me most of the night. It would be so easy for him to shift just slightly and be inside me, since we were both naked under the blankets. But he didn’t.
    Neither of us got much sleep that night, me because I was mourning the loss of the sea and the finality of what I’d allowed him to awaken in me, and Kyros because my crying kept him awake. But he didn’t yell at me or hurt me or send me away to another room. I knew he could have done any of those things. His castle was large and surely had many rooms where he could stow me away until morning so he could sleep undisturbed by my anguish.
    Maybe he was afraid I’d run away. But where would I run? I didn’t even know how to run.
    I had no clothing, and I was highly aware of that fact, as well as what the other men might try to do with me now that it would be so easy for them without the logistical quandary of a fish’s fin. How would I care for myself? Where would I go? He had to know I would stay.
    He stroked my back for so long I lost track of the time. He didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I wondered if he regretted it, if he felt guilty for taking so much from me. But all he did was rub my back until I finally cried myself to sleep.
    My dreams were of the sea. My family. The entire time I’d been with Kyros, I’d dreamed of him and the great temptation I’d succumbed to. And now I was dreaming of the sea. It seems we always want what we don’t have or can’t have, never what is right in front of us at the moment.
    When I woke, Kyros was already dressed,