This is the sequel to my story "An Exercise in Fertility." This story is intended to be stand-alone, but you might find it easier to follow if you read them in order.
All characters in this story engaging in sexual activity are over the age of 18.
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The boy's cheeks dripped with tears as his knees dripped with blood. His little body shook with sobs. He tried to sit and rest on the sidewalk, but an older girl held his hand and urged him along.
"Come on, Jakey," she said. "We're almost home. I know it hurts, but my mom will fix it. She can fix anything."
"But Jenny, what about my bike?" he asked.
"I'll go back for it later," she said. "That's a nasty scrape, we need to get it cleaned up." He stood back up and followed her. He trusted his nice cousin Jenny, even more than he trusted his own brother Howie. Well, actually he could trust Howie to be mean. He was glad he was with Jenny because Howie would have just laughed instead of helping.
"What happened, Jakey?" Jenny's mother asked when she examined his badly scraped knees.
"I fell off my bike, Aunt Giselle," he said. "I hit a big rock I didn't see."
"Oh, poor thing! This might sting a little bit." She sprayed his knees with something, and it smelled funny, and it did hurt. A lot. He bit his lip to avoid crying, because adults always told him he needed to be brave. Also, Jenny was right there staring at the blood, and he didn't want to keep being a baby in front of her.
To take his mind off the pain, he watched his aunt while she put on bandages. Her brown hair was wet, like it always seemed to be, and there were little water droplets on her skin. She smelled like swimming pool, but he liked that. She loved swimming, just like he did. He remembered a question he wanted to ask her.
"Aunt Giselle? Is it true that you're a mermaid?" She looked surprised at the question but smiled like it made her happy. Cousin Jenny burst out in giggles.
"Now where on Earth did you hear such a thing?" his aunt asked.
"My mom told my dad that you swim like a mermaid."
"Well, that was truly kind of your mother to say. But it's just an expression, I'm not a real mermaid."
The boy couldn't keep the disappointment off his face. He almost felt tears welling up again.
"I wish you could be a real mermaid," he said. His knees felt better already, like her hands had magic in them. The kind of magic mermaids might have.
Aunt Giselle smiled and stared at him with her big green eyes. They really were green, he noticed, like the ocean was sometimes green. Most people who said they had green eyes actually had kind of mud-colored eyes. Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. He thought her lips would feel dry and scratchy, like his grandmother's, or wet and soggy like his other aunts and even his mom, but instead they felt warm and smooth and soft, like he thought mermaid lips would feel.
"I'll tell you what," she said. "Since you're being such a brave boy...we'll pretend that I'm a mermaid. Just for you. Does that sound good?"
"Yeah," he said, his happiness breaking out in a big grin. "I mean, yes please."
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I had just gotten out of class when I got the text from Dalia, who was my Cousin Jenny's girlfriend and soon-to-be-fiancée.
Dalia: 'Can u come over today?'
Me: 'Sure what's up?'
Dalia: 'Bad news her mom is not coming'
Me: 'What??? Seriously? Is Jenny ok?'
Dalia: 'No she's pretty upset. We need u.'
Me: 'On my way 45 minutes'
When I arrived at the apartment they shared, Dalia put a finger to her lips as she opened the door.
"She's sleeping," Dalia said in a low voice. "Sorry you rushed over. But I know she'll really want to see you when she wakes up. Can you stay for a while?"
"Of course," I said, giving Dalia a big hug. She was a gorgeous, statuesque, rather muscular brunette who was only a few inches shorter than my 6'4" height. "So, tell me what happened."
"Jenny tried to call her mom a couple of times and left messages. She never got through. Then her Aunt Rose, uh, your mom called us. She said she got a call from Giselle saying she's too busy and can't come out for the delivery. She wouldn't even call Jenny herself."
"Fucking hell," I growled, feeling anger boiling up fast. My stuffy, traditional extended family had taken years to accept Jenny as a lesbian, but they had finally come around. Most of my relatives even seemed genuinely happy about Jenny's pregnancy.
The only holdout, though, was the most important one: my Aunt Giselle, Jenny's own mother.
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As I grew into late childhood, I was aware that my Mermaid Aunt and I shared a special bond. We were, as she put it, "dolphins." At grandma's house, we were always the first ones in the pool in the morning, and we were splashing and playing long after everyone else was sunburned and exhausted. On a couple of shared vacations at the beach, she taught me open water swimming techniques and we raced each other through the waves. She always told me I moved naturally in the water, like she did.
Giselle, my mom's youngest sister, had been a star swimmer in high school and college. For a time, she had Olympic aspirations. At 20, those dreams ended. She was impregnated by an older man, and they decided to get married. She sacrificed her swimming career for two decades of marriage to a wealthy but cold and distant man who was a philandering alcoholic.
I remember my father saying, when I was still too young to understand what he meant, that the only good thing to come out of that marriage was Jenny.
