Agnes had always told herself that nothing would change her, that no matter how high her star rose and what plaudits were heaped upon her she would still be the same girl who had been given her first break on the bill of that off Broadway play all those years ago. There was a part of her that at least wanted that to be the truth, but in her most honest moments, even she could acknowledge the reality that no one could experience a rise to fame like her own and remain the same person they had been when they set out on the path they had chosen to follow in life.

She comforted herself with the thought that things could have been far worse, she had managed to avoid the more common clichés that characterised actresses of her generation were savaged on account of in the media. There were no messy divorces in her past, no history of being caught applying a five-fingered discount in Hollywood boutiques and no habit of jetting off to remote parts of the world in search of a fashionable adopted child either. She had even been able to keep her dalliances with alcohol and illegal substances behind closed doors, a real achievement for someone who was not afraid to admit that she liked to indulge on occasion.

But of course there were some trappings of the trade that Agnes had been unable to avoid, things that became necessary when people started to recognise your face on the street. Perhaps the most obvious was her apartment on one of the highest floors of an exclusive building, which took security only slightly less seriously than Fort Knox. Others she hoped were less obvious to the casual observer and thus supported her belief that she was retaining a subtle quality to her character that connected with the real world on some level.

Whether or not Agnes chose to include the habit she had developed for wandering around the apartment in her underwear in that same category would have been an interesting subject for debate, but it was a habit she indulged on most days.

And today was no exception.

A large part of the habit came from the fact that there was a streak of exhibitionism buried deep inside her personality, tied up with the complicated need to be seen that had spurred her on to become an actress in the first place. This was amplified by the fact that her apartment had become a place where she felt totally at ease; free to express herself, in the décor, the layout and what she did within the space. Agnes was sure that the chances of someone getting a clear glimpse into the interior of her home was almost impossible and if she was honest, the idea that someone might was a little shiver of excitement that she was happy to keep alive.

Agnes also liked to indulge in the private habit because on a basic level she was exceptionally fond of underwear; it was as simple as that.

It had always seemed to her that clothes were designed to be the prelude to the naked human form in the same way that the narrative of a film began with scenes and dialogue that hinted at the story to come. Clothing lay on top of the body and created the illusion of a skin, while in reality it was nothing more than a covering that took its shape and derived its movement from that which lay below.

Some might have seen such a philosophy as deriding the role of clothing, describing it as a language of deception and a barrier between the observer and the truth. But that was far from the way Agnes saw things. To her the way in which clothes ghosted the outline of the human body was a fantastic story that gave veiled hints and fleeting clues to the naked truth below. For her the need to observe the layers that it created and penetrate them one by one only served to make the final revelation of the flesh all the more wonderful.

In the realms of her philosophy, underwear occupied a special position that nothing else could claim. Of all the clothing in existence, none came as close to the actual reality of human skin or followed the lines of the human body in the same way. Both literally and figuratively underwear strove to be a layer of skin that came as close as possible to being part of the person wearing them as possible. There was no chance for concealment with it, save for the ability to pull things tighter to the body, and instead the contours of the stomach, the curve of the buttock and the line of the leg had to be followed and accentuated.

No other type of clothing was made with the same diaphanous and almost weightless material and no other type of clothing was ever as close and intimate, spending more time clinging to a person's body than the most devoted of lovers. No man or woman had ever cupped her breasts as softly, covered every inch of her legs with sensation or brushed her most intimate parts with such devotion.

Unlike many other things in life, underwear was an indulgence that Agnes allowed herself without a hint of restraint either. While she was never short of outfits required for her professional engagements, her stock of underwear ran far wider and deeper as she felt the need to have access to whatever kind of garment might take her fancy at a particular moment in time.

Agnes hoarded bras, panties, tights and stockings of every description and from every corner of the world she had visited. She owned corsets of all shapes and sizes as well as outmoded and antique pieces of clothing that had no modern equivalent and was quite able to dress herself as a Victorian lady denuded of her outer garments, often doing so for her own amusement. Sometimes she even dispensed with the need for certain elements of underwear, substituting nipple caps for the more common bra just for the thrill of bearing her breasts proudly.

Today she had opted for simplicity over extravagance, a pair of simple panties, strapless bra and hold ups all in black beneath an opaque dressing gown. Agnes did not have a figure that could be described as voluptuous; rather she was slender and possessed of a curving backside and pert breasts. But she was secure in the knowledge that a figure like her own could inspire far greater levels of appeal than a typical hourglass if only one knew how to prepare and position it properly.

In her hands, the shape of a petite body was dynamite.

There was no sense in dressing up more than necessary on this day in particular anyway, not when all she was doing was waiting in for a delivery.

Apart from lingerie, the contents of the delivery represented one of her other major weaknesses in life, another indulgence that she tried to keep in check and more often than not failed.

Agnes was awaiting the arrival of a small piece of antique jewellery.

She was not a woman who had time for piles of expensive and showy jewellery, not interested in the kind of rocks and flashy items that could be seen from orbit. Rather Agnes had a passion for authentic and intriguing pieces that caught the eye rather than poked it out upon first sight. Her collection was dwarfed by her underwear obsession, but the occasional item that she acquired became part of a small and well chosen array of jewellery that complimented her whether she was fully dressed in public or clad scantily in private.

If she was honest, Agnes was particularly excited at the thought of her latest acquisition arriving on her doorstep. It was an unusual piece that looked in the images she had seen and the write up of the item to be a kind of brooch made of a tarnished metal and set with a small black pearl. Had the metal been pristine or the pearl a more common colour, she would have had no interest in the thing at all, but the combination made it stand out and had sealed the purchase.

An added dimension was the fact that the brooch came with nothing in the way of a back story and the sellers had been unable to find any makers mark on the thing no matter how hard they tried. So in addition to being unique in appearance, it was a complete mystery into the bargain and had stirred Agnes' imagination no end as a result.

As it happened, she was pouring coffee when the intercom sounded and left the cup half filled as she made her way to the door.

Agnes scooped up another dressing gown that was really more of a kimono as she passed through the lounge and into the hallway. She shouldered the thing on and tied the belt around her waist, making sure that she was covered as much as possible by the garment. Wandering around the apartment in lingerie for her own amusement was one thing, but there was no way that a random courier was going to be treated to the sight of a nationally recognised actress in her underwear.

She keyed the intercom and was about to tell the courier to leave the parcel on the matt, when she caught a glimpse of the man's face on the small screen. The picture was terrible as usual, but she had become something of an expert at the art of filtering out the effects of the grainy image after seeing the mess it made of her friends and relatives in the time she had lived there. Her instincts told her that the face on the screen was a lot more interesting in the flesh than the poor quality of the image she was looking at.

Agnes was a complicated person on most levels, many of her characteristics seeming to be contradictory in nature when taken out of the context of her personality as a whole. It was nonetheless quite true to say that at heart she was something of a flirt, always secretly pleased and a little validated by the recognition that she received of her status. Though she valued her privacy and thought of herself as a woman not easily given to making an exhibition of herself in order to attract attention, there was always a part of her that wanted to know that she could inspire such emotions if the need arose.

She had noted the fact that the courier was male and no more than a year or two her junior. She had also noted that he was one of those men who, if you managed to get hold of them and straighten them out somewhat, could have been called pleasant in the face department. Last and most important of all she had noticed that he had that look on his face that was a pretty poor attempt to disguise the fact he had read the name on the delivery slip and made the leap of logic that put a face to it as well.

Agnes was more then used to the expression, the one that people used when they wanted to seem as though they had not recognised you until you were introduced. After the introduction they acted in the same manner as any of the more honestly star-struck, but the attempt was always amusing.

She weighed the elements in her mind; she was in a good mood on account of her new trinket having arrived, the guy was cute to look at and in awe of her already and she was doing nothing for the rest of the day and would probably be bored at some time in the next twenty four hours.

There was no reason she had to be bored right now.

"Wait there," she spoke into the intercom, "I'm opening the door."

Agnes swung the door open and saw that she had been right about the courier.

He was quite tall and attractive in an intelligent rather than burly manner and his only drawback was an untidy brown goatee that bristled from his chin. He wore a uniform of a khaki shirt and black trousers, hair tousled from a cap that was evidently a loathed part of the ensemble and shoved into a pocket at his side in quiet protest. At the sight of her he tried to look professional and unconcerned at the same time, failing to manage either as he proffered a small plastic box for her attention.

"Ms Maidenhead," it was more of a statement than a question.

"That's me," Agnes was aware of the fact that she had allowed a leg to emerge from beneath the folds of the kimono. Though it was black against black, the nylon of the stockings caught the artificial light in the corridor, tracing the length of her leg and having the desired effect of pulling his eyes down from her face for a moment.

"Package," his head jerked back up as if he had just remembered why he was there at all, "would you please sign?"

"Okay," she accepted the box and gestured into the hallway behind her, "step inside a moment and have a drink?"

"Oh," whatever the courier had been expecting it had not been that, "I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Well...I guess I could."

"Of course you could," she turned and led him into the apartment.

Agnes prided herself on being a good judge of character and this was a man so scared of her fame that he would have jumped out of the window if she had asked him rather than cause offence. She was just after a little fun, after all, and the security in the building was so keen that they could have been in through the front door and tying his neck into a knot before he knew what was happening if she hit the panic button.

No, all she intended to do was sign for the package, give him his drink and see him on his way.

The fact that she'd be making him squirm with the presence of her body all the time was what made the whole thing worth it.

"Sit down for a minute," she handed him a glass of mineral water and pointed him to a high stool.

In response he handed the package to her and watched as she signed the slip, making no effort to take a sip of his drink or utter a single word.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"What?" he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. "No, sorry...just not sure what to say."

"You could start by telling me your name?"

"Mitchell," he shook his head, "my name's Mitchell."

"Be honest, Mitchell," Agnes could not help but be amused by his fumbling around her, "I can't be the first famous person you've run into in LA; the place is infested with them."

"No," he smiled and she noted it was a pleasant one, "I bumped into a guy who I thought was Alice Cooper last weekend, but my friend swears it was just some crazy drunk. If he's not right then that makes you the second."

"You can't have lived here long," she started to make her way towards the bathroom.

"Just over a month," he watched her go as if disappointed at the increase in the distance between them.

"I'll be back in a second," Agnes assured him before she disappeared around the door, "just need to powder my nose."

It was a lame line to use, but she wanted the chance to take a look at her prize. In addition a retreat to the bathroom meant that the kimono could be left behind when she returned and no reference to the fact be made on her part. That way he would have to either draw attention to the fact or simply keep quite while she watched him twitch.

She shrugged the kimono off and sat down on the toilet, the box on her lap.

Eager hands soon removed the plastic to reveal a far older box beneath padded on the exterior with faux leather and worn by the passage of time. She flipped this open and was rewarded with the sight of the brooch sitting in the middle of dark red padding, looking every bit as unique and intriguing as it had in the pictures.

Agnes plucked the thing out of the box and turned it over in her hand.

Up close the combination of the uncommon black pearl and the tarnished metal that might have been any number of things beneath the accumulated wear and residue of years, made the piece even more wondrous to her eye.

She was surprised however, to find that upon turning the supposed brooch over and examining its back there was no sign whatsoever of the pin or even the remnants of one as would have been expected. Indeed there was no trace of anything that might have given a clue to how the piece was supposed to be worn at all.

But as she held the thing in her hand and the metal began to warm, she was struck with the idea that perhaps the purpose of the piece was not to be worn in that manner at all.

Agnes looked down at her stomach, folded into itself as she sat.

For some reason she was becoming ever more convinced that the piece was supposed to be worn there, but from where the conviction came she had no idea.

Almost without a conscious thought, Agnes pressed the black pearl brooch into her navel.

It fitted perfectly, sinking in a few degrees before she removed her hand and looked down at it with a sense of triumph at having found a use for it.

Suddenly there was an intense pain in her stomach, so deep and unexpected that the sensation turned her bowels to water for an instant. In that moment she felt as though searing wires shot out from the brooch and sank themselves into her flesh, burrowing through her insides in a matter of seconds.

She was ready to scream with all that she had in her.

But moments later the pain was simply gone, as if it had never been at all.

Agnes looked down at the brooch, expecting to see a horrific mass of melted metal and burnt skin. But instead she saw that the thing was intact and her skin was as smooth and unblemished as normal. The only difference was that, if anything the pearl was now sitting more snugly in her navel than before the mysterious surge of pain.

She shook her head in disbelief and went to pull the thing out.

A yelp of pain saw her stop almost as soon as she started, pulling the pearl causing her a stab of agonising discomfort. She let go and tried with the other hand only to feel the same pain once more. Puzzled, Agnes poked and prodded at the pearl and soon came to the conclusion that any attempt to remove the thing would be as painful as trying to pull a fingernail from her own hand.

Was that what the terrible pain had been?

Was this some bizarre scheme or an unfathomable prank?

But then who would want to orchestrate a situation in which an actress was sent an item of jewellery that attached itself to her navel and refused to be removed? What could anyone hope to gain from such a ridiculous scenario as that?

Agnes had to admit that she was at a loss to think of an explanation for the whole thing. But on some level she was thankful that nothing more serious had befallen her. After all there was nothing outwardly problematic about having a small pearl brooch stuck in her belly button. It was far from in the way down there and she could not say that she hated the sight of it staring back up at her. For the moment she was perfectly happy to leave the thing where it was and worry about it later rather than try to pry it out and cause herself another jolt of pain.

Suddenly the thought occurred to her, was the architect of the strange scheme sitting in the next room? It seemed unlikely that a man so nervous and unsure of himself could be the brains behind the entire thing, it would have required a consummate actor to hide his true intentions behind a façade the likes of that. She was sure that the possibility was less than zero as far as that actually being the case, she was a good enough judge of her own profession to know that his emotions were real enough. All things considered she was sure that Mitchell was no more than a courier simply doing his job.

But where should she go from here?

She was sitting on the toilet with an item of antique jewellery stuck in her navel and a nervous courier in the next room.

Was the idea of flirting him to death still something that appealed to her?

Agnes glanced at her reflection in the mirror, at her delicate lingerie on top of pale skin, the dark curls that fell to her shoulders and the contrasting shades of her makeup. If anything the addition of the pearl seemed to make her feel subtly more exotic and interesting than ever. It was a small addition to the whole, but somehow she felt it lent her the air of a harem girl or a bejewelled courtesan who was used to being adorned in such a way.

She gave a satisfied smile to her own face and decided that under the circumstances, this was just what she needed.

After all, she thought, I have to live up to my reputation as a siren of the screen.

Before the thought had faded from her mind, Agnes became aware of a sensation of warmth emanating from the pearl and spreading slowly outwards. It seemed to sink into her body, reaching her very bones while touching the outermost surface of her skin and setting both alive with a flush of sudden heat.
The feeling was like nothing she had experienced before in her life. It charged her body with a sense of fluidity that felt as though she were being turned into supple clay while stimulating her to the point of physical excitement at the prospect. Agnes truly believed in that moment that if she had not fought to hold herself together, she might have simply lost her form entirely and melted into a formless liquid of pure and liberated pleasure.

It was the realisation that the intense heat of the experience was building in her lower body that finally made her open her eyes and glance downwards. Agnes stared at her legs in a half dazed state and watched as the living flesh began to shift and change before her eyes. Perhaps an inch below her vagina the skin of her legs pulled together and simply merged into one, creating a single limb.

If watching the transformation was a strange experience for Agnes, feeling it happen to her own body was far more so. As her flesh shifted and reformed, she felt everything without a moment of pain and could do nothing but simply watch in silence as her body changed more and more with each passing second.

When the merging of the limbs reached her stockings, they were not pushed downwards with the motion of the transformation. Instead they seemed to almost imperceptibly ripple for a fraction of a second before they were simply absorbed into the new shape of her legs. The texture and colour of the stockings sank into the surface of her skin and became continuation of the curving shape.

Soon the merging of Agnes's legs reached her knees and she raised what was left of the two limbs into the air to watch the changes as they happened. But her knees proved to be no more of an obstacle than her hips had and they soon sank into one another as her calves followed moments later. Once the change reached her ankles, Agnes felt her feet being forced into alignment with her legs and she was soon staring at the tips of her toes as they too merged together.

But the change did not stop there; something in her unconscious mind told her that it was not yet over.

Agnes was proved right when she felt an odd sensation of pressure in the sides of what had until recently been the sides of her feet and her toes. She heard a sound something like nylon being pulled over skin and saw a broad growth emerge from either side of her new limb. These quickly grew in a motion that was somewhat akin to a sail opening or a fan being unfurled, spreading out until they extended a good two and a half feet from the point where her feet had been.

She pointed the new growths upwards and realised that they were joined in the centre and moved in a slow, gently swaying motion reminiscent of movement under the water.

It was then that she realised what the growth was.

A tailfin, sprouting from the end of a tail...or to be more precise, her own tail.

Agnes was amazed to realise that the patterns on the tailfin were swirls and knots of lace, almost identical to those that banded the point where the tail began across her thighs. She had seen many images of mermaids in her time and been shown costumes in her line of work, but she had never even contemplated the idea of a tail that seemed to be formed of nylon and decorated with lace.

She was sure that she should have been more worried than she was at that moment, but instead she found that all she could do was look at her strangely altered reflection in the mirror.

She was a mermaid.

There was no way to avoid the fact; she had been turned into a mermaid and her tail seemed to be made of the stocking she had been wearing when the change took her.

Agnes had never really given much thought to mermaids in general; she had seen the films and come across them in the media. Perhaps she had thought they were cute when she was younger, but there was no way that she had ever entertained a wish to be one.

Or was there?

She loved the attention, revelled in the chance to show off her curves on her own terms and was amused by the idea of wrapping others around her fingers with her charms. Was not that what a mermaid was supposed to do in all the legends and fairy tales? Charming sailors from rocks was not high on her list of priorities, but was the idea of a mermaid limited to such narrow confines?

The idea was almost too ridiculous to consider, but could the pearl have been magical?

What's on the scale of ridiculous, Agnes chided herself, when the scale's being totted up by a mermaid?

Then she recalled the thought that had been uppermost in her mind just before the transformation had begun. She had thought of herself as a siren, so had the pearl simply tapped into that mental image and transformed her as a result?

Agnes began to run a bath without thinking as her mind raced.

Was this where the whole idea of a mermaid came from? Perhaps this was a power common to all black pearls, to see into the minds of women and transform them as a result of their passions. Had these pearls washed ashore in past ages, or been found by divers and from there into the hands of women who dwelled on the shores of the oceans? If they had seen into the depths of desire in those long dead women, touched their passions and inflamed their bodies, what would they have seen but the images of sleek fish and graceful dolphins as a metaphor of their physical needs.

Had those first mermaids been such women, transformed by the magic of a black pearl into a creature half human and half aquatic?

Did the pearls retain the memory of the women they had been possessed by and changed?

Now that one had fallen into the hands of a modern woman, had it simply responded to her declaration that she was a siren and changed her accordingly?

Agnes realised that in her own mind it would not have found the simple, primal images of ancient times but rather more complex thoughts of lingerie and the fine art of teasing. Where the mermaids of old would have grown scales and lured their prey to the rocks where they sang, this one would seduce with the flash of satin and the hint of impish enticement. Searching her unconscious mind, the pearl had done as best it could to reconcile the two things and in the end reached a compromise.

With the bath full, she slipped off the dressing gown and unhooked her bra before sliding into the water and feeling the sensation as it soaked her tail. Water cascaded over the side of the tub, but Agnes took no notice as the new experience of her changed form took hold. Her hands roamed over the new textures and shapes of her tail and fingers found their way to her exposed vagina as the sensual appetites that seemed to be a natural element of a mermaid's nature slowly seized her mind.

Suddenly there was a rapping at the door.

Agnes was shaken from her reverie and rudely reminded of the hapless courier, still waiting outside and ignorant of what was going on inside the bathroom.

"Are you okay in there?" Mitchell's voice sounded worried despite the effects of the door between them. "There's water seeping under the door."

"It's okay," she shouted, "the sink just ran over."

"Okay," there was all of a sudden a strange quality to his voice, as though his words were being read off a script with no real conviction, "the sink just ran over."

"Mitchell," Agnes was oddly aware of the responses he was giving before he spoke, "are you alright?"

"I'm alright."

She screwed her face up in thought for a moment before speaking again.

"Mitchell," this would answer her question, "you're a talking, purple elephant."

"I'm a talking, purple elephant."

Agnes supposed that some of the legends had to be true, so why not the tale that sirens were able to bend mortal men to their will with the power of their voices?

There was no hiding the fact that this had potential to make her current predicament a little less drastic than she had first thought. If she could command poor old Mitchell out there simply by using the power of her voice then she might be able to just tell him that he had not seen a mermaid in a bathtub and get him to disappear back off on his rounds. Longer term she really had no idea what she was going to do, but in the here and now she had a plan to make things a whole lot easier for herself.

"Come in and give me a hand," she called.

A moment later the door opened and Mitchell stared down at the sight of a mermaid, reclining in the bath and ashamed in no way, shape or form about the fact that she was naked save for her shining black tail.

Agnes noted that although Mitchell did seem to be under the effects of a spell cast by her voice, his expression was not that of a stunned animal by any means. She could tell by the way he was looking at her that the effects must have been limited to his ability to reason on a higher level as his more base instincts were reacting just as she would have expected them to under the circumstances.

"I'm tired," she was surprised that she almost pouted the words, "I don't want to walk to the bedroom...carry me?"

Mitchell said nothing, but made his way across the small room and plunged his arms into the water. He scooped the mermaid up and carried her out into the apartment, heedless of the water that soaked him and rained onto the floor.

Agnes was still shocked from the way in which she had asked to be removed from the tub. She had wanted to be deposited on the leather couches in the sitting room, but the words had refused to come out in any other way. Now that she was being carried in his arms, the same impulse was getting stronger all the time. She found herself wrapping one arm around Mitchell's neck, while the other stroked his chest, the hand undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one. At the same time she could not help breathing into his ear, so close that her lips brushed against his skin.

Was this the other side of the coin as far as being what was known as a mermaid?

It seemed that she could wrap another person around her little finger with the shape of her body and the power of her voice, but there was no way that she could stop herself now. Deep down, Agnes knew that whatever she had set in motion with the idea of flirting for amusement had been turned into something far more serious by the forces that her new from possessed. She had gone too far and there was no turning back.

Inside the bedroom, he lowered her onto the covers, neither of them concerned for a moment as the mermaid's still wet body soaked the bedclothes beneath her. By this time she had stripped him of his shirt and he completed the job, not caring where anything landed in his haste to hold her again.

Agnes raised a hand to stop him for a moment and pulled herself backwards up the bed until she was able to reach a drawer and rummage inside. He waited obediently as she retrieved a condom and handed it to him with a nod. The spell did not seem to have affected either of their deep seated common sense and the sheath was soon rolled over his erect penis.

He did not enter at first, but instead simply brushed her vagina with the head. The feeling was light and filled with intent of what might follow this first attention, as though he had managed to turn the instinct to flirt and tease around on her for a moment. Agnes felt the helpless desire she had been building in him as he tormented her and she arched her body towards him, trying to catch his member, but to no avail.

They kissed lightly, lips mirroring the delicate contact between their genitals and the very tips of tongues passing, but never delving. Occasionally he would turn his attention to her delicate breasts, fingers stroking and cupping them as if enchanted by the fact that he could cover them with the breadth of his palms and yet be aroused by their femininity.

Agnes was satisfied for a while to be the object of his attentions, petted and flattered by the manner in which he attended to her body. But soon she felt her appetites rising and knew that she would not be content to take a passive role for much longer.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and gently pushed him sideways with the weight of her body. He complied and allowed himself to be guided onto his back as she turned herself over and crawled across his body, her tail pressing down on him as she did so. Once he was where she wanted him, with his back against the pillows, Agnes began to climb him an inch at a time. What might have been an easy task for a human was a considerable effort for a mermaid who lacked legs to brace herself as she climbed. Agnes was forced to rely on sheer strength and the contours of his body to make her progress, not that the experience of being climbed by her was anything but a pleasure for him.

Finally she placed her hands on his shoulders and arched her body, lowering herself onto his penis almost as slowly as she had climbed his own body. For a time it seemed that the sensation would never end as her own weight sank the length of his member into her body. Agnes was no stranger to this act, but the effect of her transformation had rendered the whole experience and every feeling it inspired like a euphoric drug and she felt each movement as she never had before.

She felt his hands grip her buttocks just above the margin of her tail and his thighs take her weight as they began to move together. Afterwards she could not have said how long they managed to hold the position, but she would not have complained if the thing had lasted for so long she had been frozen in place like a statue. She was sure that she climaxed there, bent like a bow and braced with her tail against his legs.

Afterwards she curled her back against his chest and lay still, expecting to sleep.

But she was surprised to feel his penis slipping between her buttocks and finding her once again, his instinct revealing that the transformation had left her vagina as accessible from behind as in front. Agnes was drowsy now and in no mood to reject his renewed attentions, so she simply submitted to them instead, lazily allowing him to stroke her body and wrap his legs around her tail as he tried to cling as long as he was able to the experience of making love to an exquisite mermaid.

When he was spent, she turned and commanded him again.

"Mitchell," he was awake and alert at once.

"Yes?"

"Get dressed and let yourself out of the apartment."

Agnes watched as he obeyed her orders. She knew that it was callous to simply throw him out after she had used him like a vibrator, but he had hardly hated the experience and she needed to think what her next step would be. He was done sooner than she expected and before he turned towards the door, she called out to him.

"Mitchell."

"Yes?"

"Give me your mobile."

He handed the phone to her silently.

"You won't remember a thing about this afternoon, not where you were or what happened," she was keying something into the phone as she spoke to him. "Until you hear your mobile ring and see that the call is from...Black Tail."

Agnes handed the phone back to him and he left without another word.

What she had done amounted to keeping him around for when she was in the mood for some attention, but she could live with exploiting him so long as she was sure he was getting something out of the deal as well.

For some reason, once she was alone the panic about becoming a mermaid did not seize her as she thought it would. She soon saw the reason when she looked down and saw that her legs were slowly returning to normal, the tights becoming mere lingerie once more and the tailfin disappearing into her redefined feet.

A quick tug and yelp confirmed that the black pearl was still firmly stuck in place.

She lifted the surface of the tights and wondered to herself; would the tail appear if she were naked? For some reason she thought not, convinced that her transformation had been so closely tied to her love for such sensual clothing.

But she was sure that it could not be limited to just those stockings alone.

Suddenly her wardrobe had become something more than a collection of outfits; it now had a new world of possibilities and she was potentially the first mermaid in history capable of changing her scales with the seasons.