Taken By The Shark

Chapter 5

When Chelsea opened her eyes she half expected that she’d find herself asleep in her bed, having dreamed the whole adventure. However, she found herself lying next to Mark on the beach instead. He looked just as human as ever, and he was also sound asleep. Surreptitiously she sat up and examined him more closely, looking for gills or some other telltale sign that she wasn’t completely insane.

But as she did this, she also realized that she had blood all over her right arm. It must have hit the corals along with her head. She was surprised that Mark hadn’t discovered the injury as yet, so she nudged him awake.

“Hey, looks like I’ve got a boo-boo you may need to take a look at,” she told him as he opened his eyes and smiled up at her.

“You do!” he gasped, not surprised at all since he’d found it there himself. Now that she was magically changed, her injuries were relatively harmless and would surely be healed by morning. But since he wanted the two of them to remain here long enough to explain the truth, he needed a reason why they couldn’t leave and latched onto the idea wholeheartedly.

“We’re going to have to remove your wet suit to get a better look at that,” he said then. “And it looks like the wound on your head needs further attention as well. Are you feeling dizzy at all?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Chelsea answered.

“That’s not a good sign, with an injury like that one,” he said. “I think we’re going to have to lay low here for a few days. I don’t want you trying to swim like that. You might pass out in the water or something.”

“I really don’t feel that bad,” Chelsea told him. “Besides, I’d hate to worry the others. What do you suppose they’re going to think if we both show up missing?”

Grinning wickedly, Mark replied, “They’ll think we went off for a couple days so we could be alone together. And that we are probably having massive amounts s*x while we’re at it.”

“Oh yeah,” she chuckled. Giving it a moment of thought, she added, “You know, now that I think about it, I do have a bit of a headache.”

“We can’t have that,” Mark teased her. “Headaches are hardly conducive to massive amounts of s*x on the beach.”

“I thought you said we couldn’t have s*x yet,” Chelsea reminded him.

“I lied,” he said with a grin as he pressed her down into the sand and proceeded to kiss her soundly. “I totally, totally lied.”

“Mark!” Chelsea gasped as his tongue slid into her mouth. Suddenly, she was seeing rainbows. Her heart was fluttering somewhere on the breeze. And she had an insatiable need to rip off his clothing. Interesting combination.

She opted to follow the latter urge, brazenly working at the zipper of his wet suit as their kisses continued. Neither of them seemed to care that she probably needed to put an ice pack on her head or that the wound on her arm had not stopped bleeding.

Mark didn’t care because he knew she would soon heal, but Chelsea just plain didn’t care because she was finally going to get what she wanted. Her body thrummed with anticipation and longing, and as soon as she’d managed to undress Mark, she was already working at her own zipper with even more gusto.

Before she could unzip it, however, Mark was already on top of her, pressing her into the dirt as he rubbed his underwear-clad pelvis against her. Chelsea moaned, and continued to rip at the zipper, which apparently was stuck.

“No!” she wailed as she sat up. Mark moved aside just enough to try to get it to move as well, but with no success.

“It won’t budge,” he said, contemplating the idea of using supernatural means to move it. He thought better of that idea since that really wasn’t how he wanted to bring up the topic of her newly acquired gift.

“I really can’t believe this is happening!” she groaned as she flopped back down onto the dirt, staring up at the stars above. “This is just my luck.”

“Maybe we should get some more rest,” said Mark with a heavy sigh. “We could always cuddle instead.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she agreed, though she didn’t like it one bit.   “You’ll probably get cold like that, though. Might as well put your clothes back on.”

“Maybe later,” he replied, and laid down again, pulling her into his arms.

*****

The sun was just beginning to rise when Chelsea woke up again. They were still twined together the same way that they had fallen asleep a few hours ago, and she needed to extract herself so she could empty her bladder.

Chelsea stretched and opened her eyes, feeling slightly disoriented as she sat up to look around. After moving off a few feet to deal with her ‘bathroom issues’ she remembered the stuck zipper and looked at it more closely. Somehow a huge piece of seaweed had gotten stuck in it, and now that she could see it, she easily managed to pull it free.