Mermaid's Treasure (Transformation, MD, BE) Part I

Hisss-shhhh… The sound of the regulator was loud in Julie’s ears as she swam through the crystal-clear waters.  She’d always enjoyed scuba-diving, and the warm waters of the Mediterranean let her do it in nothing but a bikini, which had been an added pleasure as she showed off for the guys on the beach.

Julie had a good body, and she knew it. Toned, tanned, and just suited to rocking a bikini and scuba tanks. But today she was diving alone. Sometimes Julie liked to be fawned over, and sometimes she liked to be alone.

And today, she wanted to be alone.  Julie knew that normally you didn’t—ever—scuba by yourself, but she was close to the resort, the water was fine and there were no storms predicted.

And she just loved the way the water was playing over her, like a full-body massage. She could see some fish moving below her, their silver forms gleaming in the light that cam through the clear water.

Julie smiled behind her breather, and then dove down deeper, the pressure growing heavier against her body. Sometimes she envied those fish, their freedom, to go wherever they wanted, free from demand, free to indulge their desires…

Of course, they’re fish, she thought. Their desires were fairly limited. 

But they could go places Julie could never follow. Deeper than the deepest any scuba diver could go, below the point where the pressure would crush any human without very special preparations…

And going down to the bottom of the ocean wasn’t very fun if you had to do it in a suit of high-tech armor, now was it. You weren’t in the water. No, you were perfectly dry, the water kept away from you…

It just wasn’t… 

Julie blinked. She’d seen something down there on the shallow sea floor. Something gleaming, gleaming like gold.

Treasure? Julie dove lower, the pressure growing greater, more intolerable, the light from above starting to fade. She shouldn’t do this. This was dangerous, but there was something about that flickering gleam that just called her.

Something she needed.

Julie was at the limits of her endurance, the regulator actually sounding strained when she finally reached out, reached out and snagged the little golden statuette.  It was heavy in her hands, the sand and mud sliding off the statuette, revealing the gold underneath.

Gold? This is really gold? It couldn’t be bronze, because there wasn’t any sign of corrosion to it.  She had to… I’ve gotta look at this up top. 

With that, Julie started for the surface of the water, clutching her new treasure in one hand.

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Get ready for another segment on Friday. We'll be issuing updates, God and the computer willing, on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.  This is a short story, so don't expect it to go much longer than a week or two.