“It sucks,” Poet replied. “But you get used to it.”
“Ask me on a good day and I’ll say it’s great,” Paisley replied. “But on a bad day it’s the worst damn thing in the world. So, I have my ups and downs. Rickshaw loves it. He wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.”
“It’s a dangerous lifestyle,” Oliver said. “Yes, there are the good things and the bad, but in general, we spend a lot of time protecting ourselves from harm. From discovery from the humans and from other predators in the sea. Like those fucking whales. We can kick ass in most battles, but whales are fucking monsters.”
“And you?” Penny said, turning her attention to Kalina. “What do you think?”
“I think you have to do what you want to do,” she said, “but make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
“Like what?” Penny asked.
“Like it fucking hurts, to begin with,” Kalina said. “Imagine your entire body exploding on the inside, kind of like one of those crash test videos when the car hits the wall and the windshield shatters. That’s the inside of your body. Your bones completely reform. Nothing about it is normal, and you feel all of it. You feel every millisecond of that transformation.”
Yeah, I don’t know if I like the sound of that.
“And you get used to that?” Penny asked.
“Believe
it or not,” Ruby said. “You do…eventually. But you will cry like a baby the first twenty times or so.”
“The good thing,” Kalina added, “is it happens so quickly and it’s not something you can stop, so you deal with it and you learn to get used to it.”
Penny stared into the fire. She knew she wanted to stay with Thane, and she knew her body wouldn’t last much longer, but was this worth it? Would he even let her change? Of course, she’d seen all the movies and knew the guy would always try to talk the girl out of it. He’d say something about how this isn’t the kind of life she wants and how there’s no turning back once it’s done. He’d probably tell her that she can never see her family again. That part she could deal with. Her father was the only living relative she had, and he was a lousy drunk. The man drove eighteen-wheeler trucks and when he wasn’t out on the road, he was holed up somewhere drinking himself half to death. It was one of the reasons she’d moved to an entirely different city.
“So how does it happen?” Penny asked again, since they’d seemed to avoid answering the question the last time she’d asked.
“Here,” Kalina said, handing Penny a bottle of beer.
She accepted the beer and was about to say something about the avoidance of her question when Ruby finally spoke.
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” she said, her motherly side obviously taking over. “It’s a combination of things. First, your consent. The psychological part of it is as important as the rest. Our kind can’t force this on someone. There’s no such thing as rape that turns you into a shark. However, you must know that the process is rough. Have you ever seen how sharks fuck?”
Penny hadn’t. She shook her head.
“Well, in the water, the male shark bites the female, really hard too, often tearing into her flesh and leaving a mark. Then, when he’s got her and he’s holding her still, he positions himself in a way that he can shove his…it’s not really called a cock in shark terms, but let’s go with cock. He shoves it in her and fucks her hard.”
“Sounds…kinky,” Penny said.
“So, in human form, it’s kind of the same thing. He will need to bite you on the shoulder, like this…”
Ruby pulled the neck of her t-shirt down and Penny saw a gigantic scar in the shape of teeth. It looked painful.
“Kino put this mark on me,” Ruby said.
“Does it hurt?” Penny asked.
“It always stays tender,” Ruby said. “But it’s…”
“Orgasmic,” Kalina said. “Or at least that’s what they say. You can see I don’t have the mark.”
“Orgasmic is a good word,” Ruby said. “If I press on it, I can practically feel Kino inside me. We’re connected through this mark.”
Now this part I kind of like.
“Anyway,” Ruby continued. “He bites you, he fucks the shit out of you, and then a tiny amount of shark sperm seeps out with his regular sperm.”
“Shark sperm?” Penny asked.