Chapter 3

“I don’t like this,” Caliba muttered. “I’m cold, I’m drunk, and I don’t trust Laveena.”

“She’s been right so far,” Ariel reminded her. She looked up at the neon sign over the entrance to The Pisces. Two fish with long eyelashes and painted lips chased each other in a circle, mouths locked to the other fish’s nether regions. Human women tasted different from mer, subtly so. Ariel had managed to forget that fact during the last twenty-five years, but being surrounded by human women and their pheromones was making her mouth water.

“But we’ve had to do nothing but hurry to get here in time. I don’t like rushing anything above sea. It’s not safe.”

“I know,” Ariel began to reply, but Laveena’s return silenced her.

“We’re in,” Laveena announced. She pushed her way through the waiting throng. “And we have a table.”

Morova said lowly, “I need new songs, Ariel. It’s been a long time.”

“How do we know for sure which ones are saying they’re not lesbians?” Caliba hung back and Ariel felt a small pang of doubt. Caliba’s instincts for trouble had saved them before. “Most of these women are really lesbians. It’s unmistakable. That won’t work.”

Laveena beckoned to her right. “I’ve already started culling the selection.”

A woman with long waves of black hair stepped out of the crowd. Her short black dress was tight and cut low—not as low as mer would wear on a modest day, but low for humans. Black stockings made her legs seem sinuous and long. The only splashes of color were the scarlet coating on her lips and the red rose pinned to her dress.

She didn’t look at anyone but Laveena, who wrapped an arm around the woman’s waist and pulled her close.

In a low tone Laveena asked, “Why are you here, delicious girl?”

The woman’s reply was instantaneous, though her words were slightly slurred from drink. “To meet someone like you, baby.”

“What does the rose mean?”

“That I’m curious. Finding out what it’s like with a woman is my New Year’s Resolution. My girlfriends and I made a dare.” The woman laughed. “Winner gets free drinks for a year.”

Laveena brushed the back of one hand against the woman’s breasts. “Well, then you’ll be winning twice, won’t you?”

The woman’s dark eyes were gleaming. “Yeah, I’m not sure how I lose out. After this my boyfriend is going to have to really work.”

You have no idea, Ariel thought. A little casual sex with a lesbian was what the curious woman was after. Instead she was going to have the most memorable night of her life, one she would never forget. One that would live on in the songs of her dreams. No straight human woman ever regretted a night of mertouch. Only the lesbians developed…problems.

Ariel turned her mind from that unpleasant reality. There were lesbians all around them, maddeningly ready to share a night of passion. They were all beautiful, appealing, sexual—and utterly forbidden. Their pheromones spilled into the air like blood in water, unmistakable. Ariel found it increasingly difficult to ignore the pulsing between her legs. She drew herself up proudly, not wanting Laveena to see how badly she needed more than song.

Laveena grinned at them, one hand casually caressing the woman’s backside. “See? A room full.”

“It’s like a buffet,” Primia whispered. “A fucking fabulous buffet. We could have more than one.”

“I intend to gorge myself,” Morova whispered.

Ariel understood Caliba’s caution, but it was getting harder and harder to think. Human women needed, they moaned, they screamed, they said things no mer ever would. They even forgot who they were in the throes of their climax. Watching a human woman’s face as she transformed for those few moments into a being of pure ecstasy was something Ariel could not get enough of. She didn’t understand it and sometimes she envied it. The idea of losing herself to the trust of another, to feel that safe, that physically free—she had touched that space briefly with most of her singers, but she’d never even come close with mer.

She’d tried once to explain it to Caliba, but Caliba had changed the subject as if she did not want to know Ariel had those feelings. When Ariel had even hinted she might like to visit one of her singers a second time, Caliba had been obviously horrified. If your best friend couldn’t understand, then who could? Ariel needed it and she made up her mind. Tonight she would have it, and add as many singers as she could. Tonight she felt like she could match Morova, woman for woman.

“I want to,” Ariel told Caliba. It had been so long. “If we stick to the ones with roses, what could go wrong?”