'Breathe' by Donna M Day

 

the first time I saw him was among flotsam of a shipwreck and I needed to be near him to breathe every part of him in so I went to see the witch who took my voice for three days and she gave me a tail but no gills so I couldn’t get near him and just floundered on the surface forcing that anchor of a tail back and forth as fast as I could just to stay afloat and alive before sunrise on that last day which signalled my last chance to be with him for always and breathe in his beauty and his love and I felt myself caught tight in the reckless net of desire and swallowed a lungful of air before throwing myself below the surface where salt filled my eyes with fire and I couldn’t find him and my scream as my shimmering tail shredded into two useless legs filled my lungs with water as he grabbed me in his strong arms and I saw that the smile that had hooked me was a wreck of pointed teeth but I had been right about one thing because with him I could breathe and he hauled me to a cavern filled with his collection of sailors and pirates where I was the only female and I have been here for so long I have lost count of the breaths and I want to go home