Once upon a time, there died a girl who adored water. Not so much to drink, unless she was very thirsty. No, her name was Cody and she loved to be surrounded by water.

If you asked her, she would have said her favorite room was the bathroom. She liked the sounds a toilet makes, being used or being flushed. Washing her hands at the sink calmed her, and she loved to take a bath. But Cody’s favorite thing was the sound of water on water: the tones she heard when she lifted a handful, cupped in her palm above the bath, and then let it fall back on itself like a silver bell.

Her mother told her she swam like an eel when she was only three. Cody remembers the free release of stroking underwater in a clear lake or a chlorinated pool, darting like a pearl fisher across the wavy medium, when she was seven years old. She swam on a team in her early teens but she didn’t like that enough to continue: too much regular breathing involved with the crawl, she thought, for when she was under she wanted to stay under, tumbling zipping hovering, flying in water.

Freestyle wasn’t free enough for her. She craved immersion, where the sound of water on water was even finer than in air. She quit the swim team but continued to hang around the pool. She spent so much time in the bathroom at home that even her dirt-loving brothers complained.

But she wasn’t a mermaid, no matter her fantasies. Most of the time her hair didn’t have water to billow in, her legs didn’t have currents to stroke. Cody was a girl and she had school most days and homework or home chores most nights. She had at least one girlfriend to giggle with, at least one boy to be uncannily aware of. She grew.

She became more buoyant as she aged. While her brothers put on bulky shoulders, Cody built a butt and hips and other curves that made her float. It was no longer easy to dart underwater. She swam less. She bathed more.

The new fat was not her friend. Cody hated that she couldn’t swim like before. The ease of underwater left her as she matured, and boys got faster. They beat her to the tile. They grabbed at her ankles. They rough-housed. Boys always reminded Cody of her brothers. They all seemed to want to get girls dirty.

Cody always meant to fall in love. That was the whole point of the early mermaid fantasies: perfect grace and beauty earning the happily-ever-after. It’s true the kingdom Cody envisioned was beneath the sea, but it was exquisitely romantic nonetheless.

First she selected silence, thinking it meant strength, and dallied awhile with a dull man. Bill was tall, competent, quiet, and inclined to open up to Cody only, which initially seemed as flattering as a horse who threw off everyone else. But he was so grateful to have Cody that he nearly suffocated her with air kisses and loving declarations. He grew as talkative with her as he was quiet with others, till his chatter made her nervous, like clutter. Their union was so important to him she soon couldn’t find Bill-the-person in it, and she had to follow her heart away from it (him). She promised herself she would look for a man who didn’t have a hole in his soul.

Next she allowed (sincerely and openly) the attentions of a bonafide nerd. Ian was bright enough to be often interesting, but he overvalued brains. He was often supercilious, and so full of policies that no new information could enter. He’d long ago settled his opinions about politics, religion, education, choice, guns, settled his opinions like sludge in his soul. And the sex proved impossible without external costume and internal script, so unnatural to her she began to feel like a whore, and that quickly lost any kick. She tried at least to take a lesson away from the experience; what she learned is she couldn’t mate well without sex.

Despairing she ran from the smooth arms of that failure to a desperate marriage her mother advised. Cody’s mom was the one with the biological clock, and it was ticking perilously close to alarm, so she endlessly urged. Cody was surrounded, in fact, by mother and suitor and promises. And Gene was strong. He reminded her of her father and stepfather. He seemed sexy.

The problem was, Gene was brute strong. He moved her to a lovely house with a year-round musical creek in the yard, and that was great. He penetrated her body with a gratifying sort of authority, but then he sought to penetrate her mind. He called Cody names till she felt self-conscious. He mocked her laugh. He hugged her too tightly. With fingers he bruised.

When it was good, it was very good. At first their sex was compelling, and she tried to please him in bed. She obeyed. But soon he wanted her passive for him in everything. His commands drowned out the sound of the creek.

He tried to impregnate her, but that at least she could avoid. She defied her mother and Gene with prevention. Cody made sure Gene didn’t make babies with her. Finding her birth control pills was the last straw, for him.

At the end, she was in the creek. The strength of his arms overcame her buoyancy. Then rocks took the place of his hands on her chest and his fingers finally circled her neck.

At the end, his head swelled above her, balloon-like, through the undulating tendrils of her hair. His features seemed to craze behind silver bubbles. Cody emptied her lungs. She felt her heart fill with clean clear hatred for him as her spirit poured into the creek.

(This piece was evoked by Nick Cave’s “Little Water Song”)

Under here, you just take my breath away
Under here, the water flows over my head
I can hear the little fishes

Under here whispering your most terrible name
Under here, they’ve given me starfish for eyes
And your head is a big red balloon

Under here, your huge hand is heavy on my chest
Ah, and under here, Sir, your lovely voice retreats
And yes, you take my breath away

Look at my hair, as it waves and waves
Sir, under here, I have such pretty hair
Silver, it is, and filled with silver bubbles

Ah, and under here, my blood will be a cloud
And under here my dreams are made of water
And, Sir, you just take my breath away

For under here, my pretty breasts are piled high
With stones and I cannot breathe
And tiny little fishes enter me

Under here, I am made ready
And under here, I am washed clean
And I glow with the greatness of my hate for you.