1 My fiancée, Sienna Hartley, didn’t just buy a merman. She bought a twelve-million-dollar investment. To house this “specimen,” she had a custom-built, climate-controlled saltwater pool installed in the basement of our beachside villa, and she personally curated a menu of the highest-grade sashimi-quality seafood, flown in daily. The problem was, this piece of exotic wildlife actually started believing he was the man of the house. While Sienna was away on a three-day corporate retreat in Aspen, he cornered me. He was lounging at the edge of the pool, his tail shimmering like a dying rainbow under the LED lights. “Let’s be real, Ethan,” he sneered, his voice a strange, melodic rasp. “Every night, she comes down here. She brushes my scales, inch by inch, with those soft hands of hers. She uses a special wash that smells like jasmine and ocean salt.” He looked at me with a pity so thick it was nauseating. “The way she looks at me… it’s pure, raw possession. I’ve already made up my mind. When she gets back, I’m going to take a specialized serum to shed this tail. I’ll endure the pain to become human. For her.” I stared at him for a long beat, then slowly reached for the waterproof tablet he’d been using. I didn’t say a word as I uninstalled the trashy, over-the-top soap opera app he’d been binge-watching. “You’ve been watching too many ‘Forbidden Alpha’ shorts, pal,” I said, my voice flat. “Sienna wouldn’t spend twelve million dollars to date a fish. She’s a venture capitalist, not a romantic lead. My advice? Enjoy the free buffet while you still have a tail. Stop trying to win her heart, or you’re going to regret the day you ever saw a hook.” He took my genuine warning as the desperate gasps of a jealous man. He was hell-bent on becoming the king of this castle. What he didn’t know was that Sienna sent me updates every single hour. Husband, her latest text read, I used that professional-grade deodorizing wash on him again. He’s starting to smell less like a pier and more like expensive silk. When I harvest those scales for your custom wedding suit, you’re going to look breathtaking. No one in Manhattan will have anything like it. A follow-up message popped up: He’s still a bit lean, though. I told the caretaker to double the tuna. We need to fatten him up. Once his vitals peak, that internal pearl should be large enough to finally cure your chronic migraines for good. My poor babe shouldn’t have to suffer anymore. I honestly didn’t think a fish could be a “pick-me,” but here we were. Eventually, I reached my limit and showed the screen to the “Sea Prince.” “Wake up, Beau,” I said. “Her only interest in you is your skin and your internal organs.” He didn’t believe me. He hissed, a sharp, aquatic sound, and swiped my phone with a speed that caught me off guard, hurling it into the deep end of the pool. He flicked his iridescent tail, shimmering with an arrogance that only the truly beautiful and truly dim-witted possess. “I know what you’re doing,” he spat, his eyes wide and wild. “You’re terrified I’m replacing you. You’re using pathetic lies to drive us apart. But I am the rose she chose to cultivate. I am the one she whispers to at night. Unless she says it herself, I won’t believe a single word out of your mouth.” I didn’t feel like arguing with a creature that lived in a tank. I grabbed my tablet and initiated a FaceTime call with Sienna. When she picked up, she was in the middle of a gala, a glass of champagne in her hand. I didn’t bother with a “hello.” I pointed the camera directly at the pool. “Tell this fish exactly why you bought him. Right now. He’s having some identity issues.” On the screen, Sienna brightened up, waving a manicured hand. “Oh, hey! Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Because Beau is so much more handsome than the other specimens on the market. Look at those colors!” She blew a kiss toward the water, her eyes crinkling in that way that usually meant she was closing a deal. “Be a good boy, Beau. Eat those extra octopuses I ordered. You need to be big and strong to look your best.” I stared at the screen, a fresh headache blooming behind my eyes. She’d been gaslighting this creature for months with this romantic script. Even a golden retriever would have caught feelings after a performance like that. “Sienna, for God’s sake,” I snapped. “You’re playing with his head. He thinks he’s your boyfriend.” Sienna pouted at the camera, looking incredibly innocent. “Ethan, honey, I’m the victim here! The breeder’s manual specifically said that if they get depressed, their scales lose their luster and fall off. If I told him I was planning to skin him and harvest his heart-pearl to fix your head, he’d probably die of a heart attack on the spot. That’s twelve million down the drain. Do you know how hard it is to find a merman this size?” In the background, Beau was already calling the caretaker over, demanding fifty more octopuses. He wanted to film a “good boy eating” video to send back to his “Lady.” I looked back at the screen. “Sienna, your twelve-million-dollar investment just polished off thirty pounds of bluefin tuna thirty minutes ago. At this rate, he won’t die of a broken heart; he’ll explode from overeating.” Before I could finish my sentence, the tablet’s battery died. The screen went black, leaving me in the dim blue light of the basement. I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar throb of pain. Fine. Let him believe whatever he wants for the next few days. He’s a fish. Why was I even competing with him? But I underestimated how far a desperate merman would go. In the middle of the night, I was woken by a strange, wet dragging sound. Beau had actually dragged the caretaker into the pool and held him under until the terrified man agreed to overnight a black-market “Transformation Serum.” When I walked into the basement the next morning, the pool water was a murky, dark crimson. A thick layer of grey, shredded scales floated on the surface like dead leaves. Beau was crawling out of the pool, gasping for air. His lower half was gone—the magnificent, shimmering tail had been replaced by two pale, long, human legs. He looked like a ghost, shivering and wincing with every agonizing movement. Each step seemed to be a fresh torture. But when he saw the shock on my face, a triumphant, jagged smirk touched his bloodless lips. He ignored the pain, his voice raspy as he threw down the gauntlet. “I didn’t have legs before,” he wheezed, clutching a silk robe from the lounge chair. “It made it difficult for Sienna to… be close to me. When she sees me like this, she’s going to be thrilled. If you have any dignity left, Ethan Miller, leave before she has to kick you out herself.” He purposefully shoved past me, stumbling like a newborn fawn. He imitated human mannerisms, grabbed a silk robe, and stumbled up the stairs to Sienna’s bedroom. He collapsed onto her bed, eye-ing the door with the pathetic devotion of a loyal dog waiting for its master. The caretaker stood there, soaked to the bone and shaking. “Mr. Miller, I’m so sorry. That serum… it’s high-risk stuff. It has a horrific side effect. If he doesn’t get back into the water within seven days, his internal pressure will build until he… well, he’ll burst. His organs can’t handle the atmospheric shift for long.” I looked at the grey, lifeless scales floating in the pool and went silent. Sienna was a lot of things, but above all, she was a control freak. She hated when things didn’t go according to plan. She had spent months meticulously cleaning those scales, preparing for that custom wedding suit. It was supposed to be our “exclusive legacy.” And now, the raw materials looked like something scraped off a discount fish market floor after a long day. I pulled out my phone and texted Sienna: For dinner tonight, do you prefer your fish grilled or steamed? She replied instantly: I like it braised in red wine, babe. Why? Everything okay at home? I sent back a grimacing emoji. Nothing. Just wait until you get home and see for yourself… By the time I got back from the city after finalizing our wedding venue, the caretaker had spent the entire day trying to talk sense into the merman. But Beau wouldn’t budge. He was determined to be the master of the house. To prove his point, he’d gone around the villa and smashed every single one of our engagement photos. The frames Sienna had spent hours picking out, the specific angles she obsessed over—all of it was in shards on the floor. When he saw me enter, he pointed a shaking, pale finger at my face. “You’re just trying to trick me back into that tank! You’re terrified she’s going to fall hopelessly in love with the man I’ve become, aren’t you?” I sighed, feeling more pity than anger now. I reached out and patted his damp, messy hair. “Listen to me, Calamari. Go back to the water. If Sienna sees what you did to those photos, she’s not going to be ‘thrilled.’ She’s going to be terrifying.” I wasn’t lying to him. My plan had been to convince her to release him back into the ocean once the “harvest” was over—give him a chance at a normal life. But he was making it impossible. Between the wedding stress and his constant tantrums, I was running out of patience. The caretaker was practically vibrating with anxiety. “Please! I’m just an employee! You cost twelve million dollars! Your scales are ruined—how am I supposed to explain this to her? Get in the water! If you do it now, they might still grow back. After tonight, it’s permanent!” Beau shoved him away, his eyes manic. He refused to move from Sienna’s bed. I looked at the caretaker. “Fine. We tried the nice way. Use the gear.” The caretaker, who had been pleading like a saint seconds ago, reached into his pocket, pulled out a high-voltage taser, and dropped the merman with a clinical efficiency. When Beau woke up, the pool had been converted into a reinforced glass containment unit. He was underwater, staring at me through the glass, pounding on it with his fists. “The caretaker said the water is the only thing that will keep you alive,” I said, my voice muffled by the glass. “And for the record, I don’t want your scales or your pearl anymore. Once you’re healed, I’m sending you back to the Atlantic. I’m done.” The idea of being “discarded” back to the ocean made him even more hysterical. He pounded the glass until his knuckles bled, the red wisps of blood curling in the water. “Sienna brought me here! You have no right to kick me out!” The caretaker paced nearby, frantic. “Just take the win, kid! Most creatures caught by collectors never see the ocean again. Mr. Miller is giving you a life!” But Beau was lost in his own soap-opera narrative. He started sobbing, bubbles rising from his mouth, as he talked about how much Sienna loved him. “She gave me a name! She called me Beau!” I almost laughed at the name again. Ever since Sienna dubbed him “Beau,” his eyes had turned more and more soulful. But I knew my fiancée. She hadn’t been calling him “Beau” (B-E-A-U). She’d been calling him “Bow” (B-O-W)—as in “Bonito,” the fish she liked to use for her miso broth. I didn’t have the heart to crush his romantic spirit entirely, so I stayed silent on that. But I couldn’t let him keep believing the rest. “Beau, listen. She wasn’t telling you bedtime stories to comfort you. We had a bet. She bet me that merman tears turn into pearls. She wasn’t trying to soothe you; she was trying to make you cry so she could collect the profit.” Beau froze. Then, he shook his head violently in the water. “Liar! You’re just jealous because she spent more time with me. She came to see me every night to drink wine. She only did that because being with you is so suffocating that she needed an escape!” I frowned and turned to the caretaker. “Wine? Can fish even process alcohol?” The caretaker looked pained. He leaned in and whispered, “That was Ms. Hartley’s ‘pre-seasoning’ technique. It wasn’t wine. It was… cooking sherry and a ginger-garlic marinade. She said it helps ‘neutralize the fishy odor’ from the inside out so the scales would be easier to process.” I stared at him. I actually felt a moment of genuine shock. “Jesus. Is Sienna a human being or a sociopath?” Beau heard us. The realization—or perhaps the insult to his ‘Lady’—was too much. He slammed his head against the reinforced glass and knocked himself unconscious. His last words, muffled by the water, were: “Don’t talk about her like that… she loves me…” At 3:00 AM, I got up to look for my painkillers. My head felt like it was in a vice. I found the caretaker still by the tank, looking somber. He knew that for all Sienna’s talk of “investment,” the main reason she bought this creature was to cure me. He looked at the bottle in my hand and hesitated. “Mr. Miller… should I just harvest the pearl now? To help with your head? He’s already unconscious.” I swallowed the dry pills and shook my head. “No. It’s too cruel. Besides, I told him I’d send him back. I’m keeping my word.” The truth was, I didn’t want to deal with the screaming. If he woke up while we were performing surgery, he’d howl loud enough to wake the neighbors. This whole thing was already messy enough. But then I realized how quiet the room was. I looked at the tank. It was empty. “Where is he?” The caretaker’s eyes shifted. He pointed toward a dark, shadowed corner of the room. “Mr. Miller, I didn’t mean to disobey you. But his skin started cracking. The glass made it worse. I had to pull him out to apply a medical-grade antiseptic, or he wouldn’t have made it to morning. Forget the pearl—he wouldn’t even have been a whole fish by sunrise.” I sighed with relief. “It’s fine. Just keep him stable.” The caretaker had twenty years of experience with exotic marine life, but this merman was clearly the “Titanic” of his career. As long as the thing was breathing, I didn’t care. I didn’t want to leave the man alone with the mess, so I stayed to help. I never imagined I’d spend my night sitting on a cold floor, helping a professional rub iodine on a half-man, half-fish. By the tenth bottle of iodine, I was ready to quit. This was all Sienna’s fault. Her and her “projects.” I grabbed my phone to call her and tell her to get her ass home and dump this fish properly, or the wedding was off. But her phone was off. As I was about to leave a blistering voicemail, the caretaker’s face went pale. “Mr. Miller… something is… very wrong.” I groaned. “Please tell me he’s not dead. I can’t deal with a twelve-million-dollar corpse.” The caretaker pressed his ear to the merman’s distended stomach. He listened for a long time, his expression shifting from confusion to absolute horror. “Based on my experience… he’s extremely… full. And… Mr. Miller, I think he’s been like this since the day Ms. Hartley brought him home.” I froze. A terrible, logic-defying thought entered my mind. Mermen are biologically unique… but surely… Sienna and a fish? No. Impossible. But Beau chose that exact moment to wake up. He heard the caretaker’s words and let out a piercing, joyous shriek. “Are you saying… I’m finally carrying Sienna’s child?” He lunged for the phone on the table with a clumsy, staggering gait. “Give me the phone! I have to tell her the news! We’re going to be a family!” I broke into a cold sweat and pinned his hands down. “Beau, stay calm. Sienna isn’t that kind of person. Whatever is in your stomach… it’s probably not hers. Did you have a… ‘friend’ back in the reef?” I tried to sound mature, but I was panicking. Beau shoved me off with a look of pure triumph. “Oh, so now you believe she loves me? Now that we have the fruit of our passion? If you have a shred of self-respect, you’ll pack your bags and get out of our house.” I pulled my hand back, feeling sick. “Beau… brother… I’m not trying to be mean. But… how exactly did you two… ‘do it’?” The room went silent. You could hear my heart thudding. Beau’s face turned bright red. He looked away, dodging the question. “That’s none of your business! It was private!” Since I couldn’t get a straight answer, I turned to the caretaker. “Should we… call a vet? Or a doctor? I don’t even know who handles merman maternity.” The word ‘vet’ triggered an immediate reaction. “No! I won’t let you neuter me or my baby!” He lunged, bit my arm hard enough to draw blood, and shoved me into the empty pool. The caretaker jumped in to pull me out, but in the water, even a leggy merman has the advantage. He used some decorative kelp to tie us up like Christmas hams and dragged us into the storage closet. Before slamming the door, he leaned against the frame and sneered. “I know you won’t give up on her easily. So, you can stay in there until she gets home. I want you to watch the look on her face when she realizes she’s going to be a mother.” I tried to scream at him to get back in the water—that his life depended on it—but no sound came out. My throat felt paralyzed. The caretaker struggled beside me. “The bite,” he wheezed. “Merman venom. It paralyzes the vocal cords for at least two weeks. We’re going to be mutes.” We sat in that dark closet, exhausted and tied in kelp. Just as I was about to give up hope, I heard the front door chime. Then, Sienna’s high-pitched, playful voice echoed through the hall. “Hubby! I’m home early! How’s my little fatty doing? Are his scales ready for harvest?” Beau, of course, was the first to meet her. Through the crack in the closet door, I saw him trying to sashay toward her on his new legs. To him, he probably looked like a supermodel. To anyone else, he looked like a shivering, iodine-stained wreck in a bathrobe. Sienna froze. The silence stretched for five long seconds before she finally spoke. “Wait… where are your scales? Where the hell is my twelve-million-dollar fish?!”
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