A Love So Deep: Chapter 22

I hesitate.  I felt like I had just missed something important, that sense that an opportunity had just passed me by, but I didn’t know what I should or could do about it.  The Mistress wanted a natural submissive…and I wanted to be that for her!  Now that she expressed even this modicum of interest in me it was like a starting pistol had gone off and given my bottled up attraction for this great, powerful, terrifying woman permission to run free.  Was I still afraid of her?  Oh yes!  Did that do one thing to dampen my desire for her?  Quite the opposite!

I look up at her, right to the apex of her great height, then pan my eyes down her powerful arms and muscular torso clothed only in tight leather straps then continue on her eight mighty tentacles.  I remember from the night before how she had crunched up scallop shells as easy as potato chips with the strong sharp fang-like molars.  Seeing her always came with that same feeling I had as a kid when I saw my first live grizzly bear in a zoo, that humbling realization that without a gun in my hand there wasn’t a god damned thing I could do to stop a creature like this from doing whatever the hell it wanted with me.  With Nanea though that feeling of helplessness came with an intense sexual attraction.  It didn’t stop there though.  The Mistress was also socially dominant, she commanded the respect of everyone I’d met thus far which added another facet to her allure.  She was like the most popular girl in school and every authority figure I’d ever met all rolled into one magnificent creature.  In my eyes…she was a goddess!

My shoulders slowly sag as wind that had been billowing my sail dies.  She really was a goddess.  If that term had meaning in the real world this woman embodied it.  She was a goddess, and I was me.  I hear that whisper from deep inside.  ‘You are not worthy.’

For a second there I almost had myself fooled.  A natural submissive?  Yeah right!  A wimp, a coward, a sissy, a fuck up, a stupid bitch…these were who I was.  A submissive, as if I could be so noble.  True submissives were confident, they knew their place in the world and they had an inner power that I could only admire from afar.  I saw all of that in Kelrak’s enviable servitude.  That was a man who knew who he was and what he was put on the Earth to do.  I was no Kelrak.

The whisper gets louder.  ‘You were just a fetish for Stheera.  Nothing more.  She held you last night not because she liked you, but because she pitied you.  Ellerie is only kind to you because you are a novel new plaything for her to pass the time with.  They only put up with you because Haali is paying them.  You are nothing but a curiosity to them.  You don’t belong here.  The Mistress hates the trouble you cause her.  SHE HATES YOUUUUU.  EVERYONE HATES YOUUUU.’

Bowing my head I close my eyes and turn back for the door.

“Human.”

I stop and look back to the Mistress.  She studies me a moment, trying to look in my eyes but I cannot bring myself to meet her gaze.

“I hope Ellerie can teach you to speak.”

I flash her a false smile and nod.

She doesn’t quite smile back but her expression brightens just a little.  “I look forward to learning your name.”

I nod again and for her to give me leave to go again.  She eventually does with a wave of her nearest tentacle.  I turn and leave the room.  The moment the door is closed behind me I break into a swim and hurry for the next door.  In the common area I see that Kelrak still busies himself here but Ellerie had not yet returned.  My eyes dart around the room.  I just needed to be alone right now, even just for a moment so I could quiet the monster.

‘There!’  The voice says.  ‘The Clutch offices.  You aren’t allowed down there.  It is forbidden.  She will catch you and kill you and you will not burden her or anyone else anymore.  Finish the job you COWARD.’

I shake my head trying to throw the voice from my head.  My head snaps to the door leading to the rooms.  There!  My room.  I could crawl beneath my covers and hide and cower until the bad feelings go away.  Yes!  In a frantic scramble I claw my way through the water, not even caring if my dress rode up.  Kelrak looked like he wanted to talk to me but I ignore him.  I just needed a moment alone.  I needed to be alone…NOW!

‘He’s looking at you.  He’s wondering what you’re doing.  He’s judging you.’  My chest tightens and my breathing becomes erratic.  ‘How pathetic you must look to him.  He will will laugh at you when you aren’t here to see him.  They’ll all laugh at you once you’re gone.’

God please!  Why couldn’t this beast inside of me have been left back up at the surface?  Why let it follow me here?  Haven’t I suffered enough?

‘NO!  You suffer because you deserve to…'

“EEEP!”  Comes a startled voice as something hurtles toward me.

“HAH!”  Comes my own exclamation.

I nearly have a heart attack as, just as I was reaching for it, the door to the rooms flings open on its own with a dashing Ellerie zipping through from the other side.  We stop just short of slamming into each other.  Ellerie’s shifting skin flashes brilliant yellow for a second before settling back down into her usual pinks and blues.

“HA HA HA HA!”  She bursts into laughter at the fright as I float there huffing and struggling not to burst into tears.   Damn it!  I was hoping she wasn’t back yet.  I desperately needed to be alone right now!  “You scared me!”  She wriggles and giggles in that way of hers.  “Hey!  Look what I found.”  She scrunches her whole face and whispers.  “I actually stole it.  He he he.”  

From around her back, being passed from one tentacle to the next while her hands clap together in a sort of excited applause, comes…a toy.  Not a sex toy, like the one Stheera gave me, but a literal child’s toy.  Molded from a material similar to plastic it was a figure of a bright pink angler fish with huge cutesy eyes, comically tiny fins, a gaping mouth, and where the light would be at the tip of its ‘angler’ bit there was a milky crystal marble.

“It’s a Grumplepud!”  She says brightly.

Holding it up between us with her front two tentacles Ellerie looks down on it the a proud smile…which quickly fades as she looks up to see my confused expression.  In my fragile state of mind I didn’t know how to cope with confronting something so cheery and fun.  Also, I was genuinely baffled at why she had it.

“It’s to help you learn to talk.”  Mistaking my barely concealed anguish for disapproval she hurries to explain.  “I know it’s for babies but…honestly, I’m not sure there’s ever been someone your age who couldn’t talk yet.”

I look up to her face barely comprehending.  “Wha?”

“EVERYONE has a Grumplepud when they are little.  Mine was red.  Here look.”  She spins the toy around to stare at it face to face, her eyes narrow in concentration.  “Hello Grumplepud.  How are you today?”

As she speaks the marble glows, brightening and dimming with each syllable.  Ellerie’s big eyes widen and her grin grows as she waits with building anticipation.  A few seconds later the little fins start to wiggle, the eyes look back and forth, and the gawping mouth starts chomping up and down.  It only lasts a moment before culminating in a big belching bubble burbling from its mouth to float up to the ceiling.

“HA HA HA HA HA!”  Ellerie squeals with girlish delight.  “See!”  She spins the silly thing back to face me again.  “Grumplepud!”

I…I just…lose it.  The laughter starts deep down and gradually builds up through my chest before it seizes my whole body to erupt from my mouth in a gale of uncontrollable giggles.  “HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

It was so ridiculous, so stupid, and so absolutely wonderful!

“Hee hee hee!”  Ellerie titters.  “I knew you’d like it.”

Still laughing I reach out to touch it.  Placing my finger in its mouth it suddenly chomps down on it, not nearly enough to hurt but just enough to startle, which sets me off again.  “HA HA HA HA HA!”

“Careful!”  Ellerie giggles.  “Grumplepud bites!”  She playfully scowls and wags a stern finger at him.  “Mean old Grumplepud.  Be nice!”  The marble glows and the eyes loll about and the tiny fins flap and big mouth chomps and another belching bubble burbles up.

“Ha ha ha ha!”  I laugh as much at her as the infantile toy.  This girl was a treasure!

Ellerie is beaming at seeing me so pleased with her clever gift.  Nodding across to the door opposite us she says.  “We can start anytime you like.  Wanna start now?”

I glance past her shoulder to my door at the end of the hall where my dim room and bed waited for me and then down to the goofy big-eyed brilliant pink angler fish in front of me.  Suddenly I didn’t want to be alone anymore, my cowardice would have to wait for another time.  Moving off to side I clear the way for Ellerie and nod my readiness to learn.

“Great!”  She peeps, then adds as an echo to what her Mistress said.  “I can’t wait to learn your name.”  She swims by me in a flash.  “Come on!  Follow me.”

Chapter 23