The Mariner

Slowly, something began to rise out of the water. An arm, pale and delicate, stretched, gripping the surface for leverage. The Mariner caught his breath at the sight of the feminine creature climbing out to lure him. He leaned forward, one hand steadying himself, the other reaching into his trousers, teasing his member to life.

Forgotten was the roar of the waterfall, only the sound of his pounding heart in his ear. He would watch just a little, and then go below where he’d be safe. Just a little. Just a minute.

A second arm and then a head pulled up from the waves, and the Mariner began to stroke himself, imagining what was about to appear.

But what did froze his heart and froze his wrist.

The fantasy pulling itself up out of the water was Grace. She was dressed as she was now, though less detailed, more like a hasty copy that kept the key details whilst jettisoning those too complex to replicate.

“Grace?” he asked, baffled. Why had the eels pulled her out of his mind?

The Grace-illusion stood upon the waves, shimmering weakly in the light of day, occasionally translucent as through the image was difficult to maintain. Her eyes were closed and face quite blank, as if in sleep.

Frozen to the spot, the Mariner still had a hand wrapped around his engorged penis, but the shock at this unexpected sight had rendered his own gratification forgotten. Or was it? If this had been dragged from his deep guttural desires, hadn’t it been what he’d been praying for? Wasn’t this his true desire?

He watched, unable to move, as her hand slid up from her side, crossing her stomach. The movement was sluggish and dreamlike, definition about the arm blurring. For a brief moment the fingers upon her hand melded together into one solid flipper, only to return to individual digits a second later. They paused as they reached the neck of her dress, a stillness dripping in anticipation.

Understanding what was about the happen, the Mariner tried to look away. A mixture of shame and confusion had paralysed him. Any second his shipmates could return and see his demons made real, his shame in the flesh. They would see his dark fantasies and condemn him, for only a monster could lust for such a thing.

And as he’d dreaded, Grace moved her tiny hand down, pulling the dress with it. It peeled like fruit, falling purposefully apart to reveal pale young flesh. Except it wasn’t as he’d expected, the flesh was bruised and beaten, great red welts and scratches dragged across, tiny nipples surrounded by bite marks instead of the swellings of puberty.

Her face was still, and the Mariner realised that it was not through sleep, but from death. Grace was dead, and yet still her hand descended, down past her belly and between her legs.

The Mariner finally broke from the scene and vomited. In the struggle to remove his hand from his trousers to steady himself, he tangled, sending the bile down his leg instead of the deck.

Was this his nature? Was he no better than Tetrazzini? No, he was worse; his desires were darker, more destructive. The eels did not lie, this was the truth.

Vision began to waver as he staggered away, but still he kept moving. He had to get below deck, he had to blot out this monstrous fantasy displayed for his pleasure. Groaning to disguise the sounds of sexual abuse reaching his ears, the Mariner staggered below, slipping and falling down the steps in his haste.

“Arthur?” a voice called from inside. Panic and shame erupted once more, sending a jolt through his body.

“Stay the fuck in there!” he screamed, staggering to his feet and like a wounded beast flung himself down the hall until he reached a room he knew to be empty. With a heavy slam he closed the door and put his weight against it, breath entering in huge gasps.

Jittery hands were raised to cover his face, but he couldn’t hold them still. Instead he folded them across his chest, brought in tight. Curled in a ball, he rocked.

He hadn’t been maintaining control, that much was clear. Deceived by companionship, he’d forgotten his true nature. Well, not any-more. In the future he would be stricter. He had to be.

The cat ‘o’ nine tails was nowhere to be seen, lost some time ago, and he wasn’t going to go looking for it. There was no time, he needed a distraction now; besides, there was a knife he kept sheaved in his boot. That would do.

Clumsily drawing it out, heart thudding so hard in his chest he thought he might die, the Mariner had little time to prepare. He brought it up in one swift swipe, slashing at his shirt sleeve, slicing through cloth and then the skin beneath. Fresh blood seeped into the already stained garment.

And yet the pain was too light a payment to blot out the vision, too feeble to end the horror. He twisted the blade and it grated against the bone. Was that a scratching he could hear? He imagined the blade carving a groove, a notch into the bone, a promise to himself to banish the demons.