An excerpt from Sextant
by Maya Merrick

There's a tapping on the tank. Sandy head and lean, tanned arms. Terry. "Cassy," he mouths, motions for me to go to the top of the tank. I rise, meeting the air, a huge smile cracking my cheeks.

"Hey, Terry! What's up?" I lean my arms over the edge of the tank.

"Freakboy's back." And he points to the end of the bar, the seat filled every single night I work by the same guy. He somehow knows my name, my schedule, even when I pick up a shift, he knows. He's always here when I am. He missed my last two shifts, though, and we were all kind of hoping he'd left town or had a massive blow to the head or something.

"Damn." I say, my mood still not punctured, a grin still stuck to my face. "Well, what're ya gonna do?" I shrug.

"Uh, no... he's got money tonight."

Mood is cracking, not good.

"Enough money."

"Fuuuuck," I say as I sink back down to the bottom of the tank. I hang out near the bottom, not swimming so much as sort of just fighting the natural inclination for a body to float. Freakboy's watching me, as he always watches me, turning his full attention on me, unabashedly, not even trying as some guys do to pretend they're looking at something, someone, somewhere else, observing intently, like he's eating me with his eyes.

From the bottom of the tank I can see how Freakboy sits with curled shoulders, leaning heavily on the bar, how he drinks right out of the bottle without ever once taking his eyes off me, how he pats his left tit occasionally, something in the pocket there he obviously doesn't want to lose or want anyone to know is there, but by his very worry and constant touching is basically inviting someone to rip him off. I can see Terry, over in his booth, putting on his cheese voice and he catches my eye and smiles big and invites the audience to FEEL THE POWER OF HER NU-DI-TY and I blow him a soggy little underwater kiss. Now Freakboy is giving Terry a certain unfriendly eye, and so because it's part of the job, I turn slow with my underwater hair, dressed up in seashells and fake algae and shimmering with that mermaidy glow, that swishing out like a dream of gold behind me and I can almost see this me which is in some ways really not really me at all and I can almost see me through his eyes as I turn slow and shining and press a couple of fingers lightly on the inside of the glass, near where the leak is, and just slightly and almost invisibly smile, and hold his eyes for just a second, and turn away quick, like as if to play it coy, and do a couple quick rolls before heading up to the surface.

Terry comes over as I'm climbing out of the tank, pitching myself from water to the little ledge where I sort of roll around, having no legs still.

He bends to help me out of my tail, I lie back and lift my ass so he can pull it right off from under me, peeling me like a grape from my waist to my toes, all wet and sticky.

"You don't have to, you know."