The Mermaid

Breaking into the acting business was hard.  Everyone had read of new starlets being discovered working in a restaurant, handling a machine in a factory, or whatever.  Most hadn't read of the countless others who'd not been discovered, who'd been passed over.  For many, the desperation can be immense.

Kandy was one of those.  She'd served famous directors and producers at the restaurant but still hadn't been noticed.  Until that fateful Halloween.  The director had, after paying, tilted his head and handed her his card with the cryptic line "Call my people tomorrow."

It turned out to be a screen casting call.  They were decked out as mermaids and had to play the mermaid in front of a camera.  The others were hyping up the sexuality.  Kandy, seeing everyone else do pretty much the same, decided to play the demure mermaid. 

After a few weeks without a call, she sighed and decided that she hadn't been selected.  The story of her life.  To her surprise on arriving home, she discovered a secured email from the director offering her a long term contract as a mermaid.  The pay seemed pretty good (better than she was making serving at the restaurant, for sure) so she electronically signed the document and returned it.

The next day, she took the bus to a building in the Corporate Research Park.  That seemed odd to Kandy but it was the address given.  Upon entering she was interviewed, her information taken and told to wait.  The waiting area, it turned out, was well stocked and she was told to help herself.  After a single cup of green tea, she felt strangely sleepy.

When she awoke, she noticed the world was distorted like it was being viewed through glass.  She tried to push herself upright only to make a series of definitely unwelcome discoveries.    First, her arms were gone, replaced by rayed fins.  She'd spent enough time in the local aquarium to recognize she now had the pectoral fins of a lionfish.   She then discovered that she was now a mermaid as her legs were a lionfish tail.  Startled, she felt something rise between her buttock cheeks and along the back of the tail.  Twisting her head, she discovered the dorsal fin of a lionfish, too.

Another most unwelcome change of all came when she realized she was underwater in what appeared to be a huge bowl of water.  She'd been underwater for many minutes while she investigated her new body.  It was then she realized she'd not exhaled a single breath.  She had gills just below her ribs.  After each breath, the water left by the gills.  She had no doubt she had gills now.

Pressing her face against the glass, she realized that she was now barely 30 centimetres long and that the bowl that held her was on a desk.  The director's desk!  Beside her on the desk was a tablet.  It showed a copy of her open (and signed) email agreeing to be a mermaid.

Swimming about was just about all there was to do.  Kandy soon became bored but decided to make the best of it.  After all, if she entertained the director well enough, she might decided Kandy would be converted back and become a star.  

The final indignity came after six months.  She was unceremoniously scooped out of the water in a net (damn the air burned) and dumped into a larger tank.  Here there was a male version of herself who, in typical male fish manner, proceeded to accost her, and within an hour or so mate with her.

She was soon transported back to her little tank.  At the end of the week, though, Kandy felt a horrible internal pressure.  Swimming eased the pain but soon she discovered a round lump protruding from her vagina (yes, they'd left that part even as they'd converted her to a mermaid).  Within moments, she laid it and a dozen just like it.  Shiny, gelatinous eggs.  Just as she was trying to wrap her head about the idea of being a mother to such a huge brood, the lid lifted and a small net scooped them all out of her bowl.  She wasn't even going to be allowed to raise them.

Kandy let herself sink to the sand at the bottom of the bowl.

"Don't worry, little one," a female voice boomed.  "There will be others."