Dedicated to When The Tide Comes In …

Lyrics used: "Dangerous" by Michael Jackson and "Toxic" by Britney Spears;

Toxic

The way she came into the place, I knew right then and there
There was something different about this girl.
The way she moved, her hair, her face, her lines;
Divinity in motion…

He was sitting on the beach at the spot where he was supposed to meet his tan-skinned girlfriend and her friends. His eyes were wandering far beyond the horizon and the wind was playfully twisting his blond hair. When he heard feminine laughter he turned around and saw Cleo, Rikki and Bella coming slowly towards him. They were in a deep conversation and had just burst into laughter. His eyes travelled all over the three girls to finally land on one in particular. The way she walked, the way she gracefully moved around the space, the feeling of her presence, were toxic for him. She reached with her hand and released her hair off the messy bun it was in; curls softer than silk fell heavily on her shoulders. He tried to look everywhere else but at her. That one woman was the reason his whole life had changed.

As she stalked the room, I could feel the aura of her presence
Every head turned, feeling passion and lust
The girl was persuasive, the girl I could not trust;
The girl was bad, the girl was dangerous
I never knew but I was walking the line
Come go with me; I said I have no time…

Thanks to her passion, her boldness, her mischievness, her constant need of sex, her wildness, her amazing body, her smile and laughter, her cleverness and bright mind even, his entire world now had morphed into new, different dreams and aspirations and expectations. As a matter of fact one of the things he found most attractive about her was that her mind could never be read. And most of all – she never asked questions because she never needed answers. He remembered what her reaction was when she and the others had found out they were mermaids. Yes it was weird for her, but she never rejected or hated what happened to her the way Cleo did. She never complained. She took it with an open mind and accepted it. Until she started loving it maybe too much. What's more, there was this strange passion inside her that allowed her to be rational even in the irrational.

She came at me in sections with the eyes of desire.
I felt trapped into her web of sin.
A touch, a kiss, a whisper of love;
I was at the point of no return.
Deep in the darkness of passion's insanity
I felt taken by lust's strange inhumanity…

Now, being intoxicated by her he just wanted to grab from life as much as he could, because she had taught him the art of being your own master, of living on the wild side and of believing in your abilities of doing everything. Now he liked living dangerously and that was the only thing that mattered to him. Even the thought of her, when not being there physically, was reminding him of the nights full of pure joy and ecstasy and fireworks when he was on top of her (or she was on top of him) and nothing else mattered. Nothing had felt sweeter than her kisses all over his body at the breaking of the dawn and the feeling of her body curled in his own and the sensation of her hot, soft skin rubbing in his in the darkness of the night. She was his drug, his best escape from reality and that was all he wanted and needed.

And then it happened
She touched me
For the lips of a strange woman
Drop as a honeycomb
And her mouth was smoother than oil
But her inner spirit and words
Were as sharp as a two-edged sword
But I loved it
'Cause it's dangerous…

Yes, she had poisoned him with her wild eagerness for sex and love for life itself. She was his way of escaping from the boring, ordinary life into his wildest imagination. Head to toe she was pure lust; full of life, joy, and tempting eeriness. Everything could be expected by her and he loved that fact.

He moved his eyes from her to his girlfriend and wandered what was keeping her from being more like her friend. But then a smile ran through his lips. That was Cleo after all; beautiful, funny, shy, gentle, innocent. And it wasn't that he didn't love her. But she was always too overprotective, too stressed, too overactive and sometimes that was too much for him. It was practically stifling him and his only wish was to get away from her for some time. He wished she could change, although he knew it was impossible; she could never be like the infatuate fiery woman walking next to her and that was one of the reasons the curly blond was attracting him maybe a little too much. She was like an endless vacation, a break he wanted to never end.

Sometimes he felt a little bad for not feeling guilty, but he was twenty goddamit. He had his whole life ahead of him. He knew Cleo would probably want them to get married in a couple of years and have kids, but he didn't want that. He felt young, and bold, and joyful, his only wish to grab from life as much as he could. So, yeah, he didn't feel guilty, just like Rikki didn't, because like her he knew people come and go in one's life and it wasn't worth it to take it too personal. He was a loner, just like she was, and they felt perfectly fine on their own. They didn't need anyone else but themselves. They loved life, they loved sex and most of all – they loved the freedom.

Too high
Can't come down
It's in the air
And it's all around
Can you feel me now
With a taste of your lips
I'm on a ride
You're toxic I'm slipping under
With a taste of a poison paradise
I'm addicted to you
Don't you know that you're toxic
And I love what you do

"Be adventurous!"

"Adventurous?", Cleo raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, let's do something wild tonight!"…

"Like what exactly?"

"I don't know.", Rikki answered with her so painfully familiar to Lewis mischievous smile. "We can go to a bar and have sex with a random stranger maybe? Or we can fly to Las Vegas and have some real fun?!"…

"Very funny."

"I'm serious."

"You're unbelievable.", Bella rolled her eyes, with a smile.

They reached the spot he was sitting at. Cleo gave him a kiss, sitting next to him. Bella sat a little further from Cleo and Rikki just slid off her clothes and stood a bit closer to the water, the wind playing with her hair. His look travelled all over her body, and it was indecent, yet innocent. With Cleo not noticing she gave him a smile that said "Two thumbs up for last night" before she ran to the water.

Everything that followed would be left to the imagination.