“More wine?” Estefania asked her companion as she played with the bottle in her hands.

“Okay, then. I hope the meal was to your liking.”

“Oh, I just love to experiment! Besides, it was good to cook for someone else again, especially a person I love so much….” said the Spaniard woman, caressing Chloe’s lips with the tip of her right index finger.

“That’s it? Care? I was hoping for a little more than that, sweetie.”

“That’s what you always say…” Estefania sighed, visibly disappointed. “I hope you still have the stomach for dessert though.”

Estefania got up from the table, headed into the kitchen and came back with a tray filled with tantalizing chocolate brownies. Some of them were pure cocoa, others were raspberry-spiked, and there were still some with mint frosting. All of them looked positively delicious.

“Nothing is too good for the ones I love. I had trouble choosing the best recipe, so I prepared them all. This is no time to hold back, so be the glutton I know you can be, my dear.”

“Good.” Estefania smiled whilst sipping another bit of wine. Then, she took a mint frosting brownie from the other end of the tray and munched it, happily.

“Are you okay, Chloe? You look a little… pale!” Estefania noted.

Estefania started clearing the table as the other woman experienced a turmoil of vast proportions in her bodily and mental functions. It started with a momentary loss of balance, followed by a weightlessness of both arms and legs, but instead of her vision becoming blurry, it was as if everything grew too vivid, all the colors of the apartment exploding simultaneously before she slowly collapsed into a state of dullness.

“I’m testing a theory, sweetheart. I laced the brownies on your end of the tray with a mild sedative, just enough for you to lose your strength while I do what I have to do.”

“Don’t… do this….” Chloe whispered as the warm liquid came in contact with her bare skin.

Chloe looked at her with half-sleepy eyes and then, soundlessly, allowed her entire body to go limp. As her head submerged, a phosphorescent glow irradiated from the center of the bathtub, engulfing the entire division in pure white. As it subsided, returning the surrounding world to its natural state, Estefania saw what she had already imagined being true in her mind. Her friend’s long and gorgeous legs had disappeared from view, replaced by a sparkling green tail with hints of yellow, sometimes phasing in and out as if they were alive.

Chloe looked at her, still submerged, before sticking her head out, her dripping blonde hair making her an even lovelier sight to behold. She didn’t seem under the influence of the drugs anymore, as if the contact with the water had cleansed her whole from inside out.

Estefania removed a small digital camera from one pocket in her leather pants and took three pictures in a row, capturing all the details of the tail and the way it fused with Chloe’s torso, leaving no doubt that she was for real and not an elaborate hoax.

“You’re going to doom me to be a science project in the hands of greedy humans who know nothing of the mysteries of the sea? I can’t allow that, Steffi!” Chloe replied, her eyes twinkling.

“You can... and you will. Have you forgotten what the legends say about our kind?” Chloe smiled mischievously and began to sing.

“Come to me, Steffi.” Instructed the mermaid in her musical voice to the completely mesmerized woman. With a simple phrase, the mere mortal moved willingly towards her in a resolute pace.

The mermaid’s tail wrapped around her waist like an organic straitjacket, keeping her in a pinned position where she could easily be taken advantage of. Then, the music faded and gave way to a passionate kiss, the taste of salted water infiltrating Estefania’s lips alongside something else, and a surge of bio-electric luminescence that caused her head to spasm.

“Down….” she cooed. “Sink into me.”

As she looked down to the place where her lower limbs used to be, she saw a gorgeous fish tail with red, blue and purple streaks in-between. Chloe was next to her, holding her hand, and they both started to talk to one another using a psychic string, an advanced form of telepathy.

Why did you turn me into a mermaid? I didn’t ask for any of this.

Should I be grateful to you then?

I don’t think I can. Not yet at least. This is still all strange to me.

I guess so…

Wonderful. Come along, Steffi. There’s plenty to see.