A Seaman's Tail/ Tale?

Ping, ping.

I turned around, looking for the source of the sound. There shouldn’t be any pinging down here.

Ping, ping.

I stepped closer to the hatch, leaning over to listen.

Ping, ping.

“What on earth?” I looked around to see who was playing a joke on me. I’d already been made the fool of once, and the sub’s version of Candid Camera was playing it all the time. Nobody was around. It couldn’t be coming from the torpedo tube. Nothing should be in there now. The drills were complete. I was just getting ready to clean up and everybody else had already headed to dinner. I opened the hatch. A hand reached out from the shaft.





I came to expecting to see a corpsman. “Oh man, I really must have hit my head. Corpsman, you look like… like a naked woman!” I started scooting back away from the woman. “Where did you come from?”

“I knocked, you let me in.” She smiled so demurely. Her eyes sparkled. She looked so sweet hovering over me. “Are you alright?”

I felt the sore spot on my head. That’s it! With a goose egg that size, I was seeing things! “I need to get to the corpsman; he’ll know what to do,” I mumbled to myself.

A soft hand grasped my forearm, while two mesmerizing blue eyes looked into mine. “Let me help you, you’re not very steady.”

I reached and brushed her cheek with my hand. “Damned, this is worse than I thought. You even feel real.”

“That’s because I am real.”

I sat down with a thud. “Real? Really real?”

She nodded and firmly grasped my hand. She sure felt real. She gently guided my hand back to her cheek. My fingers ran through her long silky hair, it was still damp and starting to curl wildly. I gazed into her azure eyes. It was like I could see…

This was crazy! There can’t be a woman on board! This is one of the guys dressed up to trick me again. But, I rubbed my eyes, yep, she was naked. There’s no costume that good. Oh man, I really am in trouble. I’ve knocked myself plumb senseless.

“Alright guys, you’ve had your laugh, come on out. I’ve got to get the torpedo tubes cleaned out.” I looked around expecting, no, hoping that Gordy would pop out of hiding with the video camera.

She looked disappointed. “I’m the only one here, besides you.” She stood up and walked over to the open torpedo tube door.

She was pretty, so much prettier than the pin up model above my bunk. Her hair trailed down her back stopping slightly below her waist. She had a swimmer’s build, not bulky but petite, and oh… so… curvy in all the right places. I checked to make sure I wasn’t drooling as I watched her hips gently sway as she walked away. From the top of her head to her pretty little bare feet, she was all woman.

She turned back to face me. “I’m as real as I can be. I’m sorry I bothered you. I thought after I saw you swimming with the others that we could be friends. You did wave to me, remember?”

I tried to remember seeing anything while the guys and I were swimming off the bow yesterday. We did see a whale shark, but absolutely nothing that looked like she did.

I walked over toward her quickly removing my shirt and handing it to her. “Here, you better put this on before someone comes back.” I breathed in; her scent was clean and soft, kind of musky. She slid the shirt on, and looked at the buttons. I ran my hand over my buzz cut and shook my head. There are NO women on board. I’m just buttoning up my shirt over the perkiest breasts I’ve ever seen, and my shirt tail is covering the cutest little fanny that Poseidon ever created.

“You sure are pretty.” It’s official, I’m nuts. She’s got all the right parts, and boy oh boy, they are all in the right places. She’s definitely causing parts of my body to come alive.

She laid her hand on my chest. Her touch made my skin sparkle and shivers ran up my spine. I leaned over briefly touching her soft lips with mine. Oh yeah, this was definitely a woman. I pulled her closer and she wrapped her arms around me. Her body molded to mine. I couldn’t believe how I felt. Everywhere her fingers touched zinged with electrical currents. I felt like I was floating in the salty waters, free from all constraints, flowing in the current with her. I broke the kiss, panting trying to find my sea legs. With our foreheads touching we stood, holding, touching, completely lost in each other.

“You are real,” I whispered.

She kissed my chest, “Yep, I’m real.”

“What’s your name?”

“Angel.”

“That you are,” I whispered, placing a soft kiss on her hair.

“What’s yours?”

“Anderson, Kalvin at your service ma’am.”

“Anderson Kalvin, I’m starting to feel a little parched. I need to get back into the water. Can I go back the way I came in?”

“Uh, no. You can’t go back out that way. It’s for torpedoes. We have to have orders to fire torpedoes.” I looked around the room trying to figure a way out.

“Anderson Kalvin,” she smiled up at me, brushing her thumb over my pebbled nipple, “How do I go home? I came in here.” She looked into the huge torpedo tube. “Open the other door, and I’ll go back out.”

“If it was only that simple,” I thought about the process, there was no way. I didn’t know of any way. The only way off was going topside, millions of thoughts were buzzing through my head.

Angel tapped my shoulder. “I really need to get in the water, Anderson Kalvin.”

I could see the desperation in her eyes. “Just Kalvin,” I smiled down at Angel. “Come on.” I took her hand in mine and headed for the showers.

In all of the time that I’d spent on the sub, it was the first time I’d ever had to sneak a woman around. It was the first time I can ever remember not seeing anybody when going from point A to point B. There was always somebody hanging around.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I opened the hatch to the showers and it was empty. I shoved Angel into the shower. She threw me my shirt she looked, “Kalvin, where is the water?”

“Oh,” I popped my head, bad move! That goose egg started throbbing. I reached in and turned on the water. “It will take a minute to get warm.”

She turned her face toward the shower head. Water splashed over her, cascading over her svelte body. She shimmered in the dim light. “The water’s fine. Come, see for yourself.” She held her hand out beckoning me to join her.

I had my pants and skivvies off in a heartbeat. I stood proudly, showing Angela all of my desire. I wanted her to touch me again. I wanted to feel her next to me again. I wanted, oh I wanted so much.

Angel’s hands slid up my chest stopping and delivering pulling pinches on my nipples, before moving up around my neck. Her gentle touch guided me right back to those wonderful lips.

I don’t know how, but kissing Angel wasn’t like kissing any other girl. With each swirl of our tongues’ dance I felt more alive, more powerful. I’d never felt like this before. I could feel the blood rushing, roaring in my ears as my desire to take Angel as my own increased exponentially. As the water continued to wash over us, I’d completely forgotten the time limits, the number of other people so close. There was only Angel and me, in the water, on fire.

I pushed Angel up the side of the shower, my hands sliding down over her bottom. My hands tingled. She pushed on my shoulders. “Kalvin, turn the water off.”

Like a man in a drunken stupor I looked at her questioningly, “Huh?” Stepping back, I lowered Angel down to stand on her feet. She gripped me tightly.

“Please, don’t let go. Just turn the water off.”

Something brushed over the top of my feet, tickling as it feathered back and forth. I pulled back and looked down. I didn’t want a mouse or bug to scare Angel. “Where are your feet?” I was staring at a tail. Not a girl’s tail, but a fish tail complete with scales that were sparkling.

My eyes must have been bugging out of my head, again. Angel sighed, staring into my eyes. “Cut the water off, and they’ll come back in a minute.”

I scrambled to cut the water off. When slam, the hatch threw open! I turned around, with Angel in my arms. The scales on her tail, I mean legs, well whatever it was changed back in to pretty girly legs.

“Anderson!”

I dropped Angela, stood at attention and saluted. Thank God, my flagpole wasn’t at half mast.

Angel landed solidly on her two feet, and slid behind me. Her hand found its way around my waist as she held on tight. I could tell she was trying really hard to hide behind me, but it there wasn’t really anywhere to hide.

“Anderson! Get dressed!” Master Chief screamed as he turned to leave, “and she’d better be well worth it, Anderson!”




I stood before the Master Chief, my head hung down like my old hound dog when he’d done something really bad. I was trying to figure out how to explain what I was doing when he caught us. Nobody would ever believe what really happened. My brain was trying out opening sentences…It all started when I was following orders getting ready to clean the torpedo tubes, or maybe- you’ll never believe what I found in the torpedo tube.

The veins stood out on the master chief’s neck. His eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of his head. I stood there watching while he mouthed several words. He’d shake his head, swallow hard and try to start again. It was like he just didn’t know what to say, or how to say it in front of a young woman. But the red in his face kept getting darker and darker. He was really ticked, and I was going to bear the brunt of his anger.

He stood up, poured himself a cup of coffee, and took a long drag. He slammed the mug down, “Dag gum coffee’s cold!”

Well it was a start. At least he’d found some words.

He turned back at me with a snide look on his face. His mood hadn’t improved any. “How long have you been on board, Anderson.”

“Sir, a couple of months.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Then you should know better by now! What on God’s green earth ever possessed you to bring a woman on board?” With his nose inches from my face, I felt every word as it pushed me back.

“I didn’t bring a woman on board, Master Chief.”

He glared at me incredulously. “What the…” He sputtered, he shook, his eyes got that I’m gonna do some major damage to you glint. “Then who the hell is THAT?” His hand shook with rage as he pointed toward Angel.

Angel dropped her head, sniffling. She was about to start crying. If the chief was mad now her caterwauling would really tick him off. I dropped down to my knees, “Angel, please don’t cry. It’s going to be alright.” I brushed her tears away, falling right back into the wonderous depths of blue.

“It’s all my fault. You shouldn’t be getting into trouble for my curiosity.” Tears rimmed her shimmering blue eyes. She cowered under the Master Chief’s contempt filled stare. She took a deep breath. I could see her steeling her determination.

She stood up to face the Master Chief, “Kalvin didn’t invite me on board. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I alone, am responsible for my actions.” She gently cupped my cheeks, and placed a gentle kiss upon my tender goose egg. I stood behind her as she bravely faced the Chief.

“Sir, it’s all my fault. I was warned not to come. It would cause nothing but trouble, but I was curious and I came anyway. I now fully regret not following my father’s directions. If you would kindly release me, I will go to face my father. I assure you, it will be far worse than anything you can do to me.”

The Master Chief plopped down in his chair, “So, Angel was it? Tell me how you managed to get on the Clamagore.” He leaned back, crossed his arms and stoically listened to Angela’s tale.

Her arms gracefully rose above her head then slowly lowered by her sides. My shirt covered her, but as her arms reached her waist, things started to change. Below the hem of my shirt, scales started to form on her legs; they closed together creating an intricate pattern of blues and gold. Once they reached where her knees had been, the Master Chief stood up gaping.

“See Master Chief, I didn’t bring a woman on board. I didn’t sneak her in, I didn’t do anything wrong,” I tried to interject. “Angel, you can stop now.”

Angel continued to stare at the Master Chief. In a low voice, she calmly and slowly stated, “I told you, I knocked on the door, and Kalvin let me in.” She stopped the process and sat back down in the chair.

“Master Chief, you caught Kalvin trying to help me.”

“Help you?”

I stepped forward, “Yes sir see, she was getting dried out and needed to get back into the water. So, I took her to the showers. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t let her get sick. How would I explain to the corpsman?”

“In all my years in the sea,” the Master Chief sighed. He head gripped tightly in his hands shaking his head from side to side, staring down at his desk.

Wham! The whole sub shook.

“What the…” The Master Chief looked up at Angel.

“Ut oh,” she turned her head down, just like I’d been doing and looked up through her eyelashes. “Daddy’s here.”

I stared at her, terrified at the thoughts of meeting her Daddy.

Wham!

“I really need to get back home.” She pleadingly stared at the Master Chief.

Wham!

“Come on let’s go!” I grabbed Angel’s hand and followed the Master Chief toward the sail.

The radar was going nuts, we were completely surrounded by whales. The Captain had called all stop and red alert in one order. The whales were pushing us to the surface. The sail had breached the surface and our trip up stopped.

The Master Chief grabbed Angel’s hand, “It’s time to send you home to Daddy.”

The Captain, XO, well everyone just stared as Angel headed toward the observation post.

“Where did that woman come from?” The captain demanded.

“Sir, it’s a long story,” I shook my head and watched mournfully as the girl of my dreams headed home.

Angel turned and looked back down at me one more time. “Anderson Kalvin, I will be in touch, but next time, I promise not to cause so much trouble. I have a feeling Daddy’s going to have me on punishment for quite a while, but sooner or later I’ll find you again.” She smiled and blew me a kiss. I swear, I felt all of those tingles again.

The Master Chief closed the hatch behind Angela and the whales scattered leaving the sub alone in the water. Within minutes life aboard the Clamagore was back to normal. Well, almost back to normal. It seemed like I was on ‘punishment’ too.

It was a couple of days before I had a minute to myself relax, sleep and get a shower. It was the strangest thing. I turned the water on. The spray hit my face and cascaded over my body. I thought about Angel and our brief time together. Just thinking about her made me feel that sparkly, tingly feeling again. I sighed, oh well I’d probably never see her again. I grabbed my soap and started to scrub down, I didn’t have long since the Master Chief cut my shower time in half. By the time I got to my down to my feet… I mean, I blinked several times. It couldn’t be, seriously, it couldn’t be…a caudle fin?



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