The Maidening Ceremony

Chapter Eleven - Scene 2

Arilya made an excuse to come see Millicent sooner than she would have had they not more of the story to get through. The girl was burning with questions, but she held back and let Millicent go at her own pace.

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Our population began to dwindle almost immediately. Without love, the merpeople did not protect or defend one another – not from sharks and other sea dangers or from each other. Fights broke out constantly, especially among the men, and death was common. I wanted to point the irony: we fled from certain death in our human lives but brought it about non-stop as merpeople.

When the number of males got to a dangerous level, William took on the task of procreation. No one had considered sex since we arrived, but now it was a necessity. The remaining males were paired with females and instead of an intimate, loving act, sex became a public spectacle. Live theater. Entertainment for a bored Community.

I never went to watch, but I heard it discussed when I made my regular trips out for food. It was the most popular gossip, which male paired with which female, whether the female was pregnant yet, would William pair the male with someone else if she did not produce an infant.

It sickened me. I could not believe the depravity we had fallen into. From the gossip, I gathered the participants took no pleasure in the act, but no one questioned it. William said it must be done, so it was.

The worst moment of my life, and there are a lot of terrible ones to compare it to, came because of the mating ritual. I swam out of my cave to find food and at the center of the Community one of the shows was taking place. The crowd watching laughed and sneered at the couple, some even booed if they found a particular moment to be unsatisfactory. I tried to keep my eyes down, I did not want to see anything, but then I heard someone shout, "Come on, Samuel! You will not get her pregnant like that."

It was as if my heart exploded in my chest. I collapsed in a heap on the ocean floor.

How had I been unprepared for this moment? I had not allowed myself to think about the shows at all let alone imagine Samuel in one of them. Rebuff after rebuff, my heart still believed he loved me and would one day become himself again and throw himself at my tail. I knew he was not having sex with the other mermaid out of love, but it was still excruciating thinking about him with another, doing that.

The crowd eventually quieted and I realized the spectacle must have ended. I tried to lift myself off the ground, but was too weak to do so. Merpeople swam above me, some chatting, others laughing at what they had just seen. Lastly came Samuel and Elizabeth.

"I hope we never have to do it again," he said. "It was so uncomfortable."

"I agree. Let us hope for both our sakes it worked and produces an infant. William is losing his patience. If someone does not produce one soon, there is no telling what he will do."

"He will not do anything. He cannot lose any more merpeople." They laughed and by the time their laughter died down, they were too far away for me to hear any more of their conversation. But I did not want to hear any more. Nothing mattered. I did not care if the entire population was taken out by a shiver of sharks or an infestation of parasites. I did not want this life. I said no! Why was I being punished?

And so it dawned on me, the reason I still felt love for Samuel, and could remember how wonderful our former lives had been – it was because I said "no." I did not agree to exchange death for life. My choice to let fate guide us had led to my being an outsider in the new world. I managed to drag myself to my cave, fully prepared to starve myself to death, but even though I could remember being human, my new mermaid body had instincts to follow, too, and hunger was a powerful one.

When I did emerge, unable to hold out any longer, I learned by catching snippits of gossip the mating shows had not worked as William hoped. Only three infants had been produced so he devised a new plan: arranged marriages. He reasoned marriages would work better because he would be able to keep track of who was mating with whom to prevent inbreeding. I think he also realized family units would be important in preserving the lives of the infants, but he said nothing to validate to my theory. The arranged marriages were similar to the mating shows except the husband and wife were forced to repeat the show over and over again until they finally produced offspring.

Samuel and Elizabeth weremarried.