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You've learned so much about him, the merman with no name, since you threw that rock at the sea and bloodied the beast.
You know so much about him now. And not just the fact that he's male (because of the lack of a seashell bra!). Not just the fact that he loves tuna sandwiches and ham ones too - but prefers the latter without mustard, because it makes him sneeze such silly little, kitten sneezes. Not just the fact that he purrs so beautifully, just like a cat. A large and scale-covered cat. Not just the fact of how you learned, early on in your association with him, that it is sounds, like his purrs and all of the other noises that he makes, that tell you his moods. Grunts, groans, gripes, gruffs, growls, grinding of his teeth. Huffs, coughs, sniffs, whistles, whimpers, whines. All sorts of noises fall from him, but never any words. Not just the fact that there are other non-verbal forms of communication that he uses too. Like the positions of his ear fins, his facial features and how fast or slow his gill flaps are flapping. And that is how he speaks to you, without the use of words. And that's the biggest thing that you found out about him, so far - the fact that he cannot speak. You learned that fact early on in your acquaince - that he's a gentle giant and a mute monster.
Then, early on too, you learned that he could be a merman with a long, delicate finned fishy-tail or that he could walk on long, lanky, strong human legs! What a surprise that was! That he could flick between the two forms whenever he wanted to!
You did find out, however, that he much prefers his more graceful and powerful and larger, fishy form. As out there, in the seas that are his primal home, he is king of his domain, lord of his space and in charge of all he surveys beneath the shimmering, cruel sea's surface.
Yet, you wonder at the fact that he persists on dragging himself out onto dry land, drying himself out and having legs, so that he can toddle after you. So that he can follow you to your seaside house. So that he can nose about your things there. Sniffing and touching and poking at everything. Gathering information about you and your culture.
You find out that he always wants to be wherever you are. Always wanting to keep one of his gorgeous, hazel eyes fixed upon you. Being the happiest being on earth, as long as he is allowed to follow you to the ends of earth and back.And of course, you allow him to do so. I mean, who could stop that huge, powerful man, if he wanted to do anything? Not you, not that you'd ever want to. As you were growing used to having him around now too. You have grown very fond of your king of all of the seas.
You can't allow him to follow follow you to work, but you do love having him follow you to the furthest aisles of the local supermarket and back to your house. You laugh at how he tries to fill your shared shopping trolley with half a shelf of ham and tuna fish. And have to hold back tears at his confusion, when you put all but one or two tins and packs back and try to explain to a man who has never had any need for it, how money and jobs and the economy work. You find out that his hugs sooth almost everything, including your hungry stomach, when he holds you close at night. You learn that his soft trilling purrs settle your fears for the future.
As your relationship developed, from one of bright curiosity, to a glowing friendship, to the beautiful warmth of a shared companionship and then grew to be something that was more and all of the sun of the previous things, all wrapped up in one huge scaly hug, you also found out that he's got not only the sharpest of fangs and claws, but an extendable tongue. And his tongue stays so, when he's in his human form too. Oh my god, but his tongue! The kisses! Beautiful! Deadly!
You bought him some clothing, as he loitered around your home more and more. Simple, casual clothes. Ones that are easy for him to pull on and off, as he's never bothered with clothes and their complicated ties and fastenings at all before. Most often he just wears the pants that you bought him when he is wandering around your sea-front home, sniffing and touching and exploring your cozy abode. Just enough cover his modesty, in case someone knocks on the door. He's never had anything or bothered keeping company with humans before. So you laugh at how he huffs because he has to wear his pants inside your home. Explaining to him how you can't very well have him running about naked, scaring the neighbours or the delivery persons, after all, can you? The huffs grow louder and lengthier when you tell him that he needs to wear more scratchy, itchy clothes when he is out and about with you, walking along the seafront promenade.
At the beginning, when you first lay with him, as a man, he was so unsure about himself, his jerky, held-back, refrained movements told you the fact that he had never done this before. So you explained and taught him all about the perks of his human form. Perks that he never knew about. Learning how to use his body in new ways, to experience new sensations and to give you new ones too. You watched his face shift from a wide-eyed, slack-jawed, shocked expression at finding out what that is and what that's for and that's how you two fit together and that's how pleasure occurs and works. You also see for the first one, his face spread before you in the broadest, most knowing smirk, once he had figured out how not only he, but how you worked too.
Once you had shown him, a couple of times how things worked, in that department, he appeared to not only be a fast learner, but a natural at them. You found out that he was both keen and reserved - keen to try and make you scream, but reserved, because he seemed to be fearful of doing something that might make you scream in the wrong way. So while trying things out for the first time with you, after listening to you explain things, you find out that he takes care to forever check with you, looking up, waiting for your nod, to make certain that he is doing it right.
And once he found out what he could do to you, with his extra long tongue, when he kissed you down there, after he listened so attentively to you explaining about that, as he always did, when you speak to him, when you explained about that act, in as delicate a way as possible, well, he put his new knowledge into practice. And he absolutely wrecked you. Leaving you panting, useless, good for nothing, except to mumble incoherent mumblings at him, as he licked his lips and hugged you and held you and huffed out his funny approximation of a laugh at you.
Oh yes, you learned the fact that your beautiful fish man was a very fast learner!
You learned that he is like no-one and nothing you have ever experienced before. Especially with the way he is so focused on you, on giving you as much pleasure as he can. When you ask him if he's having fun too, he nods and purrs and you know he's saying yes. Then, when you ask him if he wanted you to pleasure him in a similar fashion, he shrugs and carries on taking care of you, not bothering about himself. Most of the time, that is. He soon learned that your tongue is almost as flexible as his.
So, the one thing that you learned there, when you took his hand and led your relationship into your bedroom, was that he, man, or fish, no, both, was irresistible.
Then there was that one day, a very important day, that he brought you a very special pretty trinket from his secret hoard. And this one was very different from the usual gifts that he brought you. It was the something that he had only ever hinted at before, when he brought you pretty seashells or rocks that you lined up on the windowsills of your house. The pretty rock that he had brought you that day was very different though. It was the biggest ruby that you had ever seen before. And like nothing you had ever held before, or seen in person and not on a TV set or locked away in a museum.
"Where did you get this!" you had hissed at him.
He had shrugged a reply.
"It's worth a bloody fortune! Probably three fortunes! Or more!" you shouted at him, eyes wide, mouth agape, as you stared and stared at the shiny, huge, gem that quivered in your shaking hands.
He had shrugged again and took your hand, walking you to the sea, dragging you into the water with him, his legs turned to fins and he grew in size and length. He swam on his back, with you riding on his belly, like a baby sea otter on its mother's tummy. As you clung there, sheltered from the waves by him, he took you to the cave that he had slept in every night, before he knew you. And he showed you a glittering, shining stash that was composed of what you assumed was multiple sunken pirate treasures and shipwrecks, booty that he had collected over the decades, from all over the oceans, on his travels far and wide, beneath the deadly, dark waters.
"Why! Why collect such things that you have no use for?" you asked him.
Again he had shrugged, then took up a clear stone, a diamond, you guessed at, one that was twice as large as the ruby he had given you earlier. He held it up and twisted and turned it, catching the light with it, shining its light all over his cave, making such beautiful patterns, as he made the light dance and glimmer all over the other treasures there.
"You… you collected them because they are pretty to look at?"
He nodded and grinned in reply.
You laughed at him. And danced and clapped your hands and collapsed and cried. You grabbed hold of his hands and kissed them, because he just sat there, silently, frowning at you, his gill flaps working overtime, probably wondering what the hell was going on.
"Your treasure, your shiny rocks and pretty stones… they're worth a shit tonne of money!"
Again he stared at you, frowning down at you.
"You're filthy rich without even knowing. Richer than a dozen Croesuses!"
He frowned at you and shook his head, as you laughed and cried some more.
"We have to be careful here, with your treasure. We can't just take that ruby, or this diamond to a shop and sell it. No… we need something less… obvious… Something that could be washed up on the shore and found. Part of an uncovered hoard… hmmm…"
You watched him, as he grabbed hold of the nearest golden, jewel-encrusted goblet and pressed it into your hands. Nodding at you, smiling at you. You don't know what he's telling you, but you take the cup from him and nod back.
So you sold that cup and some other similar pieces of his hoard, a select few gold coins and small trinkets, that wouldn't raise any suspicions. Legally yours because of the sea laws wrapped around flotsam and jetsam. You explained where you found those items, proving that they're legally yours. And you bought the headland that his cave was part of. Then, of course, the law stated that what's there, was yours. So other items of his stash were sold.
You built a cottage by the sea, on that headland, so you could be near him. The cottage that you had built, on that isolated headland, is your fortress, him and your home. And now there's no-one to hear when he's practicing those other things that he'd learned from you. Because he isn't bound to the waters and can love, cherish and give you pleasure even more so than before.
And also, now there's no neighbours to complain, when he's running around naked and splashing and diving and porpoising near to the coast. He can now gambol freely in the fields around that cottage, as naked as he likes, splashing in and out of the water freely. His wide smiles show you how overjoyed he was that you can be with him all the time now, because you don't have to leave him every day to work.
One day, he handed you a piece of paper, full of his writing. You expected it to be more orders for his sanctuary, but no. He had written down how he remembered how he'd seen you struggling to put food on the table for you both, and how he had ground his teeth at how he was by no means capable of applying for a job. So that is why he gifted you the huge ruby, that is why he took you to his cave. How the pressing of the gold goblet into your hands was his way of telling you that his treasure was all yours. Gifted to you. And you cry and laugh once more and fall into his hold, laughing and crying some more at how puzzled he looks, just as he did in his cave.
The only time he leaves you for any length of time, was when you assumed that he travelled back to the water, down to the deepest depths that only he knew, where he could find more treasures. As he always came back with more to show you, even though you had more than enough to live more than comfortably now. He seemed especially keen to add to your wealth now, maybe because he now knew that those shiny trinkets had a use, not just as pretty ornaments for his cave. He pointed and huffed at pages on your phone and from books and at the TV screen. Telling you what he wanted the moneys to be used for. You nodded. Understanding. So, all of the remaining proceeds from selling his hoard went towards building a marine sanctuary near that headland. A sanctuary where you made certain to make him the chief executive. No shareholders. Just him. But he can't speak. He can't talk to tell anyone what he wanted.
So, you taught him to write and he can do that well now, as of course, he's a fast learner. He wrote his orders out, in his wobbly scrawl of a scratched out script. Written with the tip of his tongue stuck out. You're the executor of his orders, the one who put his wishes into effect. He's the director of his company, the king of his own watery castle now. And he rules with a golden rod. Patrolling the waters of his territory at night. Ridding it of any poachers. The capsized, broken hulks of their ships are found along the coast. No bodies are ever found though.
You learned something so important one other day. An important day, when you were walking around the educational aquarium with him, just you two, the day before its grand opening.
He went up to the large, curved panoramic glass front of the deep-sea, cold-water aquarium. The largest in the facility, which was full of rescued sea-creatures. You stayed back, as he drew near to the main attraction, the main viewing area and watched as he rested his palms and then his forehead against the cool glass. You were about to ask him what he was doing, but instead, you stayed hushed and watched him close his eyes.
Your eyes grew round and wide and your mouth dropped open, agape, as you watched all of the sea-creatures gather around where he was standing. Then he opened his eyes and moved his hands around. Sign language, you conclude. The creatures bobbed and nodded and bubbled and floated and displayed and watched him too, just as you did.
The sea creatures followed his every gesture. Then they all lined up before him and each one, in turn tilted and twisted their bodies and waved their fins back at him. Doing what looked like bows or curtsys. Communicating with him. Offering deference to their king. And you watched as he took up the notepad and pencil that he always kept in his pocket and he started scribbling. Making marks and words for each creature. Then, once he was done, he showed you his pad and stared at you, a serious frown upon his face, as he tapped his scribbled and scratched out words. You read them. It was a list of requests or issues from each denizen of the big tank. Remedies to things that are not quite right and what also appeared to be some requests from some poor fishes to find their relatives, a child or a parent or a partner who they missed. There were even queries as to if toys could be placed in the tank, as they were bored.
You spent the following few days, weeks and months putting in place all of those requests and requirements of his. All made up from the requirements and requests and pleadings from all of the sea creatures in all of the tanks of the aquarium he was the head of.
Soon, your marine sanctuary and its associated aquarium was the top one in the world for marine research. Together, with the scientists who work for him, you rescued countless endangered species. All with his help. And all because he could listen and communicate directly with the sea and it's denizens.
But most importantly, your sanctuary is also the centre of covert operations that track down poachers and saboteurs all over the world. You stop so many illegal trades, by using the creatures themselves as informants and enforcers. It seems that this is the work that makes his eyes shine and sparkle the most. This work, his work as the fishy head of underwater espionage.
You've learned so much about him and his needs and wants and dreams too. But there's still one thing that you don't know. There's still something you don't know about, after all these years, almost a decade of knowing him. There's one thing you don't yet know about your ocean king, your marine, espionage boss. His real name. Not the one you had to give him, the one you paid some dodgy South American cartel to invent, so that he had a passport and the correct documentation. The name on his passport is 'William Ogilvy'. It's what everyone calls him. But you know that it's not his real name.
You ask, but he always shakes his head and refuses to tell you what his real name is. And you wonder why… Until he kisses you and then you forget what you wanted to ask him. You forget everything and anything. Except for him.