Page 10 of Sink or Swim

Oona’s eyes drink in the ink on my chest and abs, and then they meander down to my cock. I’m at half-mast, and I don’t even know why. It’s not like danger gets me off. Leeches are definitely enough to make me go soft forever, but something about the way her dark eyes take me in makes me feel … I don’t know, desired? I haven’t had a woman look at me like that in a good long while, so maybe it’s just an instinctive response.

Because I don’t even know if Oona is into sex, for one thing, and we’re not the same species, so….

I scratch my chin as she continues to stare, then lower myself down into the water. My breath leaps into my throat from the shock to my system. The water’s a lot colder than it felt on my legs, and I decide to just bite the bullet and submerge myself. Get it all over with so I can acclimate more quickly. When I dip down to let the water cover my shoulders, I hiss again, and Oona chuckles—actually chuckles—at me.

“I bet this is hilarious to you,” I say with a roll of my eyes, but nonetheless, I’m grinning. “Do you even feel the water? Or are you like other reptiles and amphibians, and are cold blooded? I wish we could have a real conversation,” I murmur.

Oona wades further into the water, up to her inner thighs, and that’s when I spot it—the opening down there. At first glance, it didn’t seem like she had any sort of genitalia to speak of. No nipples on her breasts, so I know she doesn’t feed young the same way humans do, and no cleft between her thighs. Or at least, there wasn’t before, but there certainly is one now.

My eyebrows inch up my forehead as the slit between her legs grows, revealing a very human-like cunt that wasn’t there before. My length hardens as my eyes roam over the swoop of her emerald curves. Oona has a sensual elegance to her that I hadn’t noticed before, because I was always doing my best to not look at her, too fearful that she’d misconstrue my curiosity for a challenge.

When I meet her eyes, she looks away immediately and lets out a soft chuffing sound. The sentiment is clear: I wasn’t supposed to notice.

“H-Hey, no fair. You looked at me,” I tease, and splash in her direction. “But I get it. I won’t look without permission anymore, promise.”

Oona takes three steps through the water, and she’s already looming over me. I should be intimidated, screaming, running for the hills. But if she wanted me dead, I’d already be a digested piece of meat in her gut by now. She’s had plenty of time to kill me, yet she hasn’t. In fact, she’s been keen on protecting me, and I’m still not sure why. You’d think she’d be eager to get rid of me, because I’m only hampering her ability to care for herself the way she’s used to.

She brings a webbed hand up, and I assume she’s going to ruffle my hair again like usual. But instead, she strokes my cheek with a tender fondness I haven’t experience in decades. I flinch, then move against the coolness of her palm, resting my face in her hand.

“Thank you,” I say. “For bringing me here. I needed this, I think.”

Oona’s lips curl back into that almost-sinister grimace as she tries to smile at me. I can’t help but laugh at the sight, because … dammit, it’s just too funny. She tries so hard to smile, to broker a connection with me, and it’s great. How she tries so much. I place my hand on her wrist and smirk. Then she lowers herself down into the water so she sits in front of me, her face hovering inches away from mine. At least now I don’t have to crane my neck and strain a muscle just to make eye contact.

For the next half hour, we bathe in silence, occasionally stealing glances at one another. When I get out of the pool to dry off, I notice her eyes dip down to my hip bones. She’s not human. Not even a little, though she is womanly-shaped. And yet I suppose there’s no denying the universal power of the Adonis Belt. Or, as Maurice once called them when he was drunk out of his mind, “cum gutters.” Gross. V-cut, hip bones … anything would be better than cum gutters.

It’s been nice being away and in more feminine company for a while, even if the feminine company is a giant lizard woman. She’s still a lot more hygienic and much less annoying than the guys in the mafia.

Before we leave the pond, I doggy-paddle over to one of the ginormous lily pads hovering on the water’s surface to get a better look at it. I’ve never seen anything quite like these before. The soft blush coloring of the flowers is pretty and reminds me of the toybox roses my mother used to grow in her garden when I was a little boy. Before Stim ruined our lives.

This might be a stupid idea, but I push myself up out of the water to hoist myself up onto the lily pad. I want to see if it’ll hold me. The muscles in my arms strain as I clamber out of the water and roll across the pad on my side with all the grace of a drunk at three in the morning.

When I sit up and cross my legs, I spot Oona watching me with that tilted head look I’ve become so fond of. She dips underneath the water’s surface, and within seconds, she’s beside the lily pad and grinning up at me.

“I wanted to see if it would hold my weight,” I explain with a shrug, then run my fingers through my wet hair.

Oona chuckles as she follows my lead and climbs on to the lily pad. It rocks back and forth, sloshing water around, and I’m almost knocked off into the pond. But Oona reaches out to grab me by my waist and pulls me against her chest, steadying me.

I crane my head back and stare up at her, a grin plastered on my face. “T-Thanks. Wow. These things are a lot stronger than they look,” I say.

Oona lets out a soft chuffing sound as she traces one of her dark claws across the nape of my neck. I shiver against her body, cool and damp from the water, as she runs her claws down my skin. She moves from my neck, trailing a little circle slowly across my shoulder blades, over the twin rose tattoos. If I could purr right now, I absolutely would. It’s been eons since I was touched in any sort of way. Years without a hug. Hadn’t even realized I missed being touched until Oona first ruffled my hair, and then I surprised myself by craving more.

“What is this?” she asks. Last night around the fire, we spent some time learning conjugation, state of being verbs, all that exciting grammatical stuff. I’m not the best teacher, I know I’m not, but I’m thrilled she’s retained this much.

“It’s a tattoo,” I murmur as I lean forward on the lily pad, allowing her to get a better look. Her light scratching makes my skin burn and heart thunder in my chest. I hope she doesn’t notice how pink my skin is getting right now. “Ink. It’s … art.”

“Tattoo,” Oona says, trying the word out for herself. Her voice is light and feminine and plucks at my heartstrings like a guitar. It’s funny how her voice seems to change with her moods, like a human. “Tattoos are art.”

“Yep,” I say, smiling. “Most of the time, they are. And then sometimes you get someone like Maurice, who has a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos tattooed on his right leg because he thought it was funny.”

Oona blinks. Of course she didn’t understand any of that. I need to slow down when I speak so she picks things up more easily, I remind myself.

Before my brain can catch up to the fact that she’s still running her nails across my skin, I’m suddenly swung up into Oona’s arms so she can hold me like a baby. Her strong arms, covered in scales, cradle me against her chest. Despite her size, she’s amazingly gentle when she wants to be. I could put a stop to this. I could say no and move away. She keeps her grip on my body loose enough that I could free myself at any point, but I don’t want to. Her claws rake against my cheek, and her eyes flicker from dark purple to green, then finally settle on a soothing pinkish hue that mirrors the petals of the lilies surrounding us.

She hisses something under her breath like a question, and I nod.

“Yeah, this is okay,” I say. I’m not even sure if that’s what she was asking, but at this point, I don’t care. I allow my muscles to relax in her arms. Unconsciously, my hands reach for her face, and I stroke the soft underside of her chin. I blink as Oona begins to purr, the vibrations from her throat rumbling against my fingers. “Oh, you like that, huh?” I tease, and her eyes glint in the dying sunlight.

A few stars overhead twinkle as evening gives way to twilight, and the crickets in the underbrush chirp. Fireflies flicker in the distance, reminding me of late summer nights in my backyard as a kid. Evening is finally here, and normally, the two of us would be sitting beside a fire for our language lessons.

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