THE MERMAID

The 1st of two monster mermaid stories that I have written over the decades

Helen Plover looked lazily out through the portal of the four-man submarine. She did her best to seem interested as she studied a pair of silver-red Horned Squirrelfish flitting in and out of the coral of the Great Barrier Reef.

I never should have come this year, she thought, realising that the underwater work was not taking her mind off the recent death of her husband, Joe, as she had hoped that it would. At forty-eight, Helen had been helping Professor Trevane catalogue the marine life of the coral reef over the summer holidays for the last fourteen years. Usually accompanied by Joe, sometimes alone when her husband was too busy running the family business. When Joe had died of a heart attack six months ago, her first instinct had been to cry off this year, but she had convinced herself that the work might help her to forget. But now she realised that it had been a mistake.

Seeing a flash of black and white out of the corner of her left eye, her first thought was that it was a moray eel. Both the yellow-and-black Abbott’s and the black-and-white Tessellated morays were plentiful around the reef and had taken to mooching around the sub, hoping to be hand-fed by the divers.

On closer examination, though, the black and white turned out to be the colours of a man’s wetsuit. Joe’s wetsuit was black and white, she thought. But she realised it couldn’t be her husband outside the sub. Joe is dead, she reasoned. Still, she wished that the man would turn round so she could see his face. The man was over 190 centimetres tall, and his wetsuit seemed to bulge from his muscularity. As it did with Joe, she thought.

For God’s sake, turn around, she thought, trying to will the man to move. But for an agonisingly long time, he bobbed about outside the sub examining the coral reef, seemingly unaware of the stationary vehicle only a few metres behind him.

When at last he did turn round, Helen gasped aloud and cried, “Joe!” Then she flushed from embarrassment, knowing that the three men behind her must have overheard.

The diver did look like her Joe. Same high forehead, same long, black hair, same handsome features. But it was difficult to say for certain, since the rubber diving mask concealed so much of his face.

Come forward, dammit! thought Helen, trying to will the diver to swim toward the sub. However, he stayed his distance, although he raised a hand to wave to her.

Behind her, Orville Trevane watched Helen in dismay. He had been surprised when she had offered to help out again this year, despite her husband’s death. But he was so short-staffed that he couldn’t afford to refuse her offer. Theoretically, he was financed by the Australian Federal Government, but in reality, his funding was so pitiful that his work would have been never ending, if not for the small army of volunteer workers who helped out whenever they could. (Even the small submarine he had been using for the last three years had been donated by a private benefactor.) Many of his helpers were university students who helped out over the Christmas break, most were seasonal around the summer holidays, and virtually all were only available (or willing) to help out two or three seasons. Regulars like Dave and Rob, who had been helping out for six summers now, were a rarity. Someone like Helen, who had donated her last fourteen summers -- long enough to become a marine authority in her own right -- was a godsend. So the professor had accepted her offer to help, hoping that work might be a therapy for her. Now he feared that she was not yet ready for the workload involved.

For the last ten minutes, she had been staring out at the coral reef. Orville almost thought that she had fallen asleep when he heard her cry “Joe!” and realised that she was brooding over her husband’s death. He started to call to her when he saw her staring fixedly at something out near the coral reef.

What the Hell can she see? he wondered.

After a moment, she turned round to face him and said, “I think I’ll go outside for a while, it’s a bit stuffy in here.”

Orville started to argue, then thought, Maybe the cool water will do her good? He wondered if the cramped quarters were getting to her. He knew from experience that the small sub could be claustrophobic at times.

“All right, but don’t stray too far from the sub,” he said. Although he knew that she was a better swimmer than any of the three men.

“Okay,” she agreed as she put her wetsuit on over her swimsuit.


The icy cold of the water made a sharp contrast to the slightly over-warm stuffiness of the sub. But after her initial shock, she found the cold to be bracing, helping to calm her mind.

Expecting to see the diver -- Joe? -- waiting outside the small sub for her, Helen was crestfallen to find herself alone in the cold ocean. Joe? Where are you? she thought. She swam toward a school of blue-grey needlefish, which scattered at her approach. It can’t have been Joe, Joe’s dead! logic told her. But she wondered why a stranger would have waved to her. Waved then vanished? she thought in dismay.

She swam about the reef for fifteen minutes, wondering where the mysterious diver could have gone. Then, remembering Orville Trevane’s injunction not to stray too far from the submarine, she turned to head back....

And saw a flash of white from the coral ahead of her.

Treading water, she peered at the bobbing white, thinking at first that it was a fish. Possibly a cardinal fish or a Moses snapper, she thought. But the more she watched it, the less it looked like a fish and the more it looked like a white-gloved hand waving to her. It’s him, she thought, seeing the inky blackness behind the white. It’s him waving from a cave in the reef.

Normally, she would have been wary of undersea caves, for fear of sharks or other aquatic terrors. But deciding that the man would not be waving her over unless he had already checked out the cave, she swam across.

To her disappointment, there was no sign of the man when she reached the cave. Where the Hell could he have got to? she wondered, starting to worry about the level of her remaining oxygen.

She turned to start back to the sub. But her way was blocked by a shimmering white film. At first, she thought that it was a school of millions of tiny fish. But then she realised that it was a single, semi-transparent sheet, like a large voile curtain floating underwater.

As the “curtain” approached, however, Helen saw that it was open at the bottom and was roughly bell-shaped. A jellyfish of some kind? she wondered, aware that comb jellies and other bell-shaped jellyfish are usually lethal.

It’s too large for a jellyfish, surely? she thought, slowly backpedalling away from the phenomenon. As the bottom of the “bell” began to open upwards, she realised that it was large enough to swallow her whole. And she knew that that was how comb jellyfish devour their prey.

The “jellyfish” swam toward her in a strange undulating manner, the bell-shaped base still slowly raising like a gigantic mouth opening to near-impossible dimensions. Looking around, Helen saw herself trapped by coral on two sides, with the cave behind her. No, she thought, that way means certain death! Looking upward, she saw the ocean reaching up to the surface many metres above her and wondered if the jellyfish could survive closer to the surface. She kicked her feet to propel herself up, knowing that if the bell closed around her, she would die in excruciating agony.


Inside the small submarine, the three men awaited Helen’s return. After twenty minutes, they became worried, knowing that her air supply must be running low.

“What could have happened to her?” asked Dave Carmichael.

“Maybe we should go out and look around the reef for her?” offered Rob Gallani.

Orville Trevane looked at the two younger men. Both in their mid-thirties, tall and dark-haired, Dave and Rob always came on their working holidays together. Over the last half dozen years, Orville had begun to suspect that the two men were gay. But despite that, both men had become very close to Helen Plover, and their concern for her now was clearly genuine.

Knowing that if anything had happened to her, they had no time to waste, the professor said, “All right, you two go out to look for her. I’ll stay here and wait in case she returns by herself.”

Watching the two men scrambling into their diving gear, Orville felt a twinge of guilt at not going with them. But he knew that they were both younger and fitter than he and much better swimmers. Not wanting to slow them down and possibly kill Helen Plover, he realised that he had to stay behind.

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” warned the professor as the two men headed for the airlock.

“We won’t,” replied Dave, as Rob exited the sub.

The two men swam nervously through the icy water around the varicoloured coral reef. Normally, both men enjoyed the cooling feel of the water and the bright flashes of yellow, green, orange, and blue as the small fish flitted in or out of tiny crevices in the reef. But today they were too concerned for their missing colleague and friend to enjoy the sights of the ocean. For the first time in six summers, the beautiful coral reef took on an ominous feel for the two men. They knew that the reef housed many dangers for the unwary: Numerous types of shark swam round the reef; lethal stone fish hid on the ocean floor -- their dorsal fins concealing wicked barbs ready to inject poison into the foot or hand of the inexperienced: poison which caused excruciating agony and even death if medical attention was not fast coming.

But Helen would never make that mistake! thought Rob, looking down toward the ocean bottom. Seeing a giant clam, lying on its back, its shell opening pointing toward him, he shivered. Although he knew that the clams were harmless, he couldn’t help thinking of horror films he’d seen as a youth where divers had been caught in giant clam shells and drowned. He knew that it was nonsense, but still he shivered picturing Helen Plover with an ankle caught in a great clam, struggling futilely until her oxygen supply ran out and she drowned. Crap! he thought. That kind of thing couldn’t really happen! But logic failed to convince him that the four-hundred-kilogram clams were harmless.

Looking ahead, he saw Dave Carmichael vanishing around a bend in the coral reef and hurried to catch up with him, not wanting to get separated and possibly get lost himself.

The two men searched the reef for nearly three kilometres. From time to time, they encountered large caverns in the coral. Despite their natural concern about meeting sharks or angering moray eels, they forced themselves to enter each cavern as deeply as possible. All the time wary of brushing the coral, some of which was razor-sharp and could slice through a rubber wetsuit into flesh in a split second.

Seeing a dark shadow appear overhead, Rob looked up, startled, expecting to be attacked by a shark. Instead, he saw the shape of a grey-blue Manta ray. He had to stop himself from sighing his relief -- for fear of inhaling too much oxygen or losing his mouthpiece. Like giant clams, the Manta was a harmless creature -- on more than one occasion, Rob had hitched a ride on the back of a docile Manta. But now the giant, bat-winged fish seemed sinister as it hovered metres above the two divers. Get away, devilfish! thought Rob, using the name that South Sea Islanders still used for the gentle creature.

Apart from disturbing a few bright orange sea horses and varicoloured fish of all sizes, their search was unrewarded. Until they turned to head back to the four-man sub.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Rob almost panicked, but calmed down upon seeing it was only Dave. Looking round, he saw that Dave was pointing to a cavern in the coral, ten metres ahead of them. They had already searched the cavern on the way out, but Rob could see the flash of white, like a dress flapping from the entranceway, which had attracted Dave’s attention.

Helen! he thought, but realised that it was unlikely. Helen Plover had not been wearing a dress when she had left the submarine. She had been wearing a black and yellow wetsuit over a blue swimsuit! he recalled, hanging back a little as Dave swam across to investigate.

It can’t be Helen! thought Rob. But to his astonishment, he saw a dainty female hand protrude from the white blouse (as it now could be seen to be) and wave toward them. His curiosity piqued, Rob swam closer to the cavern, then stopped, shocked by the sight before him:

A beautiful green-haired mermaid, wearing a torn white blouse, unbuttoned to reveal her ample breasts. Beneath her, a long scaly, green fish tail treaded water, like a mermaid in a children’s picture book.

Bloody impossible, I must be hallucinating! he thought. He wondered if he had been out long enough at this depth to suffer from deep-sea hallucinations. At depths of more than a few metres, divers can get “drunk” on the rich oxygen mix in their tanks if they stay down too long.

It can’t be a bloody mermaid! he thought, treading water to watch as Dave Carmichael swam across to examine the creature.

Dave ran a hand through the long green tendrils of hair to feel that they were real, then reached down to caress her full, firm breasts with the other hand.

The mermaid swam backwards just out of reach of the roving hand and wagged a censorial finger at the diver. However, she was smiling sensuously and soon swam forward again to wrap her long, alabaster white arms around his neck.

To the astonishment of Rob, the mermaid and Dave engaged in a long, open-mouthed kiss. He watched transfixed as the soul-kiss went on and on, wondering how far his friend expected to go with the creature, since she had a scaly tail from a few centimetres below the belly button down. Feeling like a voyeur as they continued to kiss and caress each other’s bodies, Rob began to turn away....

When he realised that Dave was no longer caressing the mermaid, but struggling against it, attempting to break free from the creature’s embrace.

Hold on! Rob thought, starting to paddle across to help his friend....

Rob stopped a few metres away to stare in shock as the mermaid began to alter strangely ... Like a cartoon character stretching and compressing to impossible dimensions first horizontally, then vertically ... Until it began to lose all resemblance to a beautiful mermaid....

Its limbs and tail seemed to melt into its almost translucent white body. Its green hair vanished into its body, and its facial features flattened out until the mermaid resembled a large white bed sheet. Or a giant jellyfish! thought Rob as the creature swallowed Dave Carmichael into its giant mouth and began to devour him in front of Rob.

I’ve gotta help him! thought Rob. He saw the look of stark horror on the silently screaming face of his friend through the transparent body of the jellyfish. Rob reached for the knife at his belt and started forward. Then, as his courage failed him, he dropped the knife to the ocean bottom. Turning, he fled as fast as he could swim back to the safety of the small submarine.


“A mermaid that transmogrified into a jellyfish to eat Dave?” asked Professor Orville Trevane as the two men sat together in the sub.

“I know it sounds crazy!” said Rob Gallani, almost crying from terror at what he had seen.

“No, no, not crazy,” said Orville. The old man scratched his chin ruminatively as he pondered the tale that Rob had falteringly told him.

“Then what was it? What did I really see?”

Sitting near the viewing port where Helen Plover had seen “her husband” less than an hour ago, Trevane said, “I think you saw exactly what you thought you saw. During the fifty years that I’ve been exploring the ocean, I’ve seen many strange things and heard even stranger legends. The South Sea Islanders have a legend of an aquatic shape-changer. Sort of like the werewolf of European legend, which changes shape between a man and a wolf. Except that according to the islanders, this shape-changer can change into anything that it likes. And can steal thoughts out of your head, then change into anything (or anyone) you desire, to lure you to your death.”

“But what is it? What’s it called, and why did it appear to Dave and me as a green-haired mermaid?”

“What is it?” repeated the professor. He paused to consider carefully before saying, “The name isn’t that important. Sailors for centuries have called it the Mermaid. The ancient Greeks called it the Siren; the Romans the Nereid; the druids called it the Water Elemental ... Any of those names is acceptable.”

He paused again to think for a moment, only able to guess. “As to why it appeared to you as a green-haired mermaid, maybe it picked the thought out of Dave’s head. Or maybe it’s a form that the creature has used successfully many times before, and knew that most men could not resist it. According to legend, the Mermaid is one of the few marine creatures which actually likes the taste of human flesh and actively hunts swimmers and divers.”

“But why...?” began Rob. He stopped, startled by the sound of a tap-tap-tapping on the glass viewing port behind the professor. Looking up, he saw the naked figure of Dave Carmichael floating outside the submarine.

“Dave? What...?” began Rob.

He stopped in embarrassment as he saw the rampant and enormous penis of the naked man. Just as he had imagined the many times that he had fantasised about his friend down the years. He had longed to tell Dave how he felt about him for ten years, but had been afraid of rejection, terrified of losing even his friendship. But now, as Rob watched, the naked man began thrusting his hips obscenely toward the viewing port, openly inviting sexual congress with him.

“Hold on, Dave, I’m coming!” called Rob. He ran across to pick up his wetsuit and breathing apparatus.

“What are you doing?” demanded Orville Trevane.

“I’m going out to rescue Dave. Can’t you see that he’s lost his breathing equipment? He’ll drown without my help.”

“Come back, you fool,” called Orville as Rob headed toward the airlock. “That isn’t Dave, it’s the Mermaid trying to lure you outside.”

Rob hesitated for a moment as though the older man’s words had got through to him. Then, looking toward the viewing window again, seeing the naked figure of Dave Carmichael thrusting its rampant penis toward him, he said:

“Of course it’s him. Don’t you think I know what he looks like?”


Half fearing that the figure might be a hallucination, Rob was relieved to see Dave still effortlessly treading water in front of the sub. Still naked, still rampant, and still gesturing toward him with both hands and thrusting loins.

It’s just the cold water making him erect, thought Rob, shivering, despite the wetsuit, from the coldness of the ocean. And reluctantly, he conceded that the sexual thrusting might be only spasms caused by cold or by lack of oxygen.

My God, he’s drowning! thought Rob. He kicked his flippers furiously, propelling himself across toward the other man.

I should have brought a spare oxygen tank! realised Rob, cursing his stupidity as he held his mouthpiece out toward Dave. However, Dave refused the air pipe; instead, he reached over Rob’s shoulder.

What do you want? wondered Rob as Dave tugged at his wetsuit. To his dismay, Dave began to tear away his clothing, until both men were stark naked underwater, the oxygen tank fallen to the ocean floor. What are you doing? Rob tried to mime, unable to speak underwater.

By way of reply, Dave pushed him up against the glass viewing port of the submarine, grabbed him by both knees to raise his legs up to his waist and thrust forward with his hips to penetrate him.

Oh God, not here! We can’t do it here, we’ll drown! thought Rob, loving the penetration, yet not wanting to die.

Dave lunged forward again, fully entering Rob with his oversized penis. Rob screamed, then found himself drowning as water rushed in through his mouth. Having clamped his eyes shut to block out the pain of the brutal, yet wonderful penetration, as his lungs filled with water, he opened his eyes....

And saw that instead of Dave Carmichael, it was the bell-shaped jellyfish holding him pressed against the viewing port. A long tentacle, covered in dollar-coin-sized suckers, protruded from under the bell bottom to penetrate deep into his backside.

Oh God, no! he thought, knowing that it had already done irreparable damage to his innards, as he watched in horror while blood gushed from his ripped and torn anus to stain the viewing window behind him crimson.

Overcome with pain and shock, already more than half drowned, Rob was too weak to struggle against the jellyfish as its lower rim slowly raised like an opening umbrella to envelop him.


Inside the submarine, Professor Trevane watched as Rob swam over to the naked figure of Dave Carmichael. Although he had suspected that the two men were lovers, he was dumbfounded when Rob allowed himself to be stripped naked, then sodomised up against the viewing port underwater.

It isn’t Dave Carmichael. It can’t be Dave, he’s been underwater too long without any breathing apparatus! thought Orville Trevane.

Even as he thought it, the creature took on its true form, and blood began gushing from Rob’s anus, covering the viewing window, almost blocking out Orville’s view. The professor only wished that it had blocked off his view as the bottom of the jellyfish lifted upward to swallow Rob whole.

Through the transparent flesh of the creature, the professor could still see the naked figure of Rob Gallani. Although sickened, Orville was unable to look away as the giant jellyfish began contracting and expanding, like a giant fist clenching and unclenching. Inside the creature, Rob’s body was quickly crushed to a bloody pulp by the clenching.

The clear water inside the bell became crimson with blood. But gradually it began to clear again as the creature digested the blood and flesh of its victim, leaving behind only a gleaming skeleton. Having closed its bell completely to envelop its victim, the bottom of the creature now opened again to allow the skeleton to drift down to the ocean floor.

Holy Mother of God! thought Orville Trevane, crossing himself. He was too stunned to move away from the viewing port. He sat spellbound, staring out at the skeleton on the sea bed for almost ten minutes. Then, returning to his senses, he reached for the sub’s controls to begin the trip back to the surface.

During the ascent, Orville did his best not to look out the viewing port. When he did, instead of the giant jellyfish, he saw the gorgeous, green-haired, full-breasted mermaid that Rob Gallani had described to him earlier.

“My God, you’re beautiful,” he said aloud.

As though hearing him through the glass, the mermaid began rubbing her large breasts with her hands, leering at him invitingly.

Although his crotch hardened with lust, the professor was too wise to repeat Rob Gallani’s fatal mistake.

“Yes, you’re beautiful now,” he said, “but I know what you really are.”

The mermaid cocked her head prettily, looking puzzled for a moment. Then her eyes lit up as though understanding....

The creature began contracting and expanding again, its green hair replaced by auburn, its naked limbs covered in yellow and black. Until it took on the form of wetsuit-clad Helen Plover. Helen Plover drowning and pleading with Orville Trevane to rescue her.

“You can’t get me like that, I know what you really are!” Orville shouted.

After a moment, the creature stopped feigning drowning. It reached up to take down the top of the wetsuit, to reveal its large breasts.

Professor Trevane gulped at the sight of a bare-breasted Helen Plover beckoning to him. You monster, you picked that out of my mind! he thought. So now you know my weakness.

For the last fourteen summers, since she had first started helping him, Orville had been sexually attracted to Helen Plover. But because of his respect and friendship for her -- and fear of being rejected -- he had never dared make his feelings known to her.

Sorry, Helen, but I’m not going out there even if it is you! he thought, trying to force his eyes away from those perfectly formed breasts. But too weak to do so.

He watched in dismay as the creature posing as Helen Plover removed the rest of the wetsuit. Then it lay completely naked, spread-eagled, pressed hard against the glass of the viewing window, so that he could see all of its luscious form.

“It won’t work! I know that you’re not Helen Plover! You’re not Helen Plover!” he shouted as much to convince himself as anything else. He watched transfixed, almost lowering his resolve as the figure of Helen Plover reached up to rub and roughly paw its apple-shaped breasts with one hand, its other hand dipping down to probe with two fingers into its full-lipped vulva.

“You’re not Helen Plover!” he shouted. “Oh God, you can’t be Helen Plover!”

Again, the creature looked puzzled. Shrugging, it changed again to become the naked, sexually rampant figure of Dave Carmichael, its giant penis now pressed invitingly against the viewing port.

“That won’t work, I’m not interested in men!”

The creature looked puzzled again for a moment, then rapidly changed into the figure of Rob Gallani. Rob Gallani was drowning and silently pleading for the older man’s help.

“That won’t work either!” Orville shouted, thinking, Sorry, Rob. He felt like a coward abandoning the drowning man, although he knew it wasn’t Rob Gallani.

Having exhausted its repertoire, the creature reverted to its true form to watch Orville Trevane through the thick glass. Seeing the great jellyfish which had eaten Rob, the professor shuddered and quickly looked away.

After a minute or so, it changed back to the green-haired mermaid, then to Helen Plover, then Dave Carmichael, then Rob Gallani, then the mermaid, then Helen ... and so on. Going through its full repertoire rapidly now, Helen, Dave, Rob, Mermaid, Helen, Dave, Rob ... As though it thought it could somehow wear down Orville Trevane’s resolve.

I wonder how close to the surface you can go? he thought as the shape-changer stayed by the viewing window throughout the sub’s slow ascent. To Orville’s relief, the creature dropped away from the window and began to descend beneath the sub when it reached the eight-metre mark.

Reaching the surface at last, Orville saw a yacht not far away, numerous small pleasure craft, and dozens of swimmers. His first thought was to hope that none of the swimmers would dive deep enough to encounter the mermaid. His second thought was, How the Hell do I explain to the authorities what happened to Helen, Dave, and Rob, without getting myself locked away in a padded cell?

THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia