Chapter Two ~ Learning
The rest of the day and night my heart surges with emotions. Of joy, of lust, of infatuation, of curiosity. Oh Dib, what a wonderful human. I've finally met a human man. I wonder what love feels like, if he could ever fall in love with me. How wonderful it would be if he could love me. To feel his arms around me, to make love to him, however it works, my naivete doesn't lend for much. As I swim fast laps, I jump and somersault into the air, euphoria and happiness enveloping my being. I sing, I daydream, I don't even feel hungry because my belly feels full of twinges and pangs.
A long week passes before Dib finally returns. I am sleeping, it's very early in the morning and the sun is just peaking over the horizon, warming my rock. I lay on my back, my head and hair hanging lazily off the edge. His excited voice rouses me immediately.
'Luna! I'm back! And I brought…stuff!"
I open my eyes and see him upside-down at the edge of the beach. I twist, dive into the water, and jump magnificently for joy across the morning sun before coming to him. I want him to see how happy I am that he's returned.
"Wow..." He says, a huge smile on his face. The bruise has faded a bit.
"I have so much I want to show you! Get ready to be amazed." He says proudly. I notice he has a very large satchel with him. I beach along the water shore, but am careful to keep my chest covered fully with my hair and lake kelp to avoid making him uncomfortable again.
"I brought my backpack today with my laptop, my cameras, pictures, videos, cell phone, and audio recorder. I thought I could help you learn more about humans and the lives we live."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. And um, sorry it took me so long to come visit again. I have skool and other things I gotta do during the week. But I looked forward to the weekend and made sure I cleared an entire day to spend with you."
Dib talks animatedly, showing me all sorts of things I've never seen. He tries his best to explain to me, but it is all very overwhelming. I learn more about photographs and see many of them. He shows me one of his home, of his family, he has a father and a sister.
"My dad is a world-renowned scientist."
"You are the son of royalty then?"
"Heh, no…well…actually I guess you could say that in a way I am, but people don't treat me like royalty."
More photographs. Pictures of buildings, structures, places he goes that I will never see. I recognize something he brought as a book, as I'm familiar with finding them at shipwrecks. He calls it a yearbook. It is a book full of other young humans, male and female. They are beautiful. They all wear strange clothes like him. He tells me all about "skool" and how it is a place for learning that humans go to from ages five to eighteen. He tells me about the different tiers of skool. Elementary, middle, and high skool. He says he is sixteen, and just started as a junior in high skool.
"These blank pages in the front and back are meant for other students to write things on. Goodbyes, good lucks, signatures, nice things y'know?"
"Why are there not any writings in yours?"
"Uh…No one would sign mine, err…no one wanted to, or ever wants to for that matter."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm…weird. Everyone else thinks so anyway. I'm not very well-liked in the human world." He sighs sadly, turning more pages.
"These are the 'cute couple' photos. I always skip over these because I hate seeing them. There's a lot of that at my skool. It seems like everyone has someone…and they love to flaunt it by making out- er, kissing and touching each other constantly out in the open. Like a competition."
"How vulgar! Shouldn't that be done in private?"
"That's how it should be I think." He makes an irritated click with his tongue and a dark tone coats his voice. "But I wouldn't know."
He snaps the book closed in a huff and moves on to the next thing. I awe at the first video recording I see. It is of him, showing me where he lives, where he sleeps, what he does during the day. He calls it a vlog. I laugh during the video when he holds the camera toward himself and talks, the up close angle is silly. He says he recorded all of these just for me throughout this past week. He shows me recording after recording, explaining everything as they play through. Vehicles, human methods of transportation. The city, building, noise, humans everywhere in droves. He shows me something he calls his own paranormal footage. I already know about phantoms and spectres and he seems thrilled at that. He talks of extraterrestrials, aliens, which I also already know of. He seems so happy when I begin to understand things clearly. I never forget anything, so I soak up every word.
Then he shows me the internet. Websites. A place where information is stored as well as pictures, videos, and music. It seems so vast and boggling. Eventually he shows me music in video form. He says it's a new website called YouTube with videos of all kinds. I am entranced by the humans in these so called music videos. Dancing, wearing shiny clothing, strange sounding instruments, their bodies moving in ways I could never. I'm totally mesmerized. Videos of animals I've never seen before, some of them make me laugh so hard I can't breathe.
What a world there is, and I have never seen the likes of any of it until now. It's a miracle. Dib is a miracle.
"This is called a polaroid camera. See, you look into the lens here, now put your finger on this button but don't press it. That's it…okay. Oh wait, don't cover up the slot here or the flash right there. Good! Now I'll move back a bit…there. Can you see me through the little window? Okay, now press the button halfway and it'll focus. Then when you're ready, press it all the way and it'll flash and take a photo of me."
I am astonished at this little device. I hold it tight after centering him in the frame, and press the button gently and he becomes clear. I press down, flash! This time it's not right in my eyes and I'm not frightened. Then suddenly it spits something out and I start.
"Oh! What is that?"
"Haha, it's the picture you took!"
"What do I do now?"
"We wait about five minutes. Just leave it there face down for now. In the meantime, do you wanna take a photo with my digital camera? Here it is, the one that scared you before."
He hands me the thing, it's tiny compared to the polaroid one, and apparently works similarly but doesn't produce a physical image.
"Just like the polaroid, choose what you want to photograph, press the button halfway down to focus, and then press it all the way."
I'm smiling, this is so much fun. I decide to photograph the lake, and in a second the picture appears on the little screen. Fascinating! He tells me I can take as many as I want.
"See these buttons? Press this one to zoom in and that one to zoom out. You can get a closeup photo."
I enjoy this tremendously, taking closeups and normal ones of the trees, bushes, rocks, sand. The flash no longer bothers me as I understand it now. Then I point the camera at him again and zoom in on just his face. He smiles sheepishly and my heart races, causing me to lower it, much like he had done that day when he first saw my face.
"Uh…the polaroid picture is probably done developing now. Here, now all you do is peel this part off and there! You have an amazing photograph of me…uh…sitting in the sand." He laughs after looking at it.
After admiring it for a moment, I hand it back to him.
"Keep it. So you can remember the day you learned how to use a camera."
Without thinking, I press the photo into my collarbones, hugging it happily.
"Just don't ever let it get wet. None of these devices can ever get wet or they'll break okay? So now that I've shown you lots of human stuff, do you want to tell me more about you? Can I interview, err, ask you some questions and…record your voice with this?"
He holds up the device I saw him speaking into that first night. He presses a button and says,
"This is a recording. I'm saying stuff."
He presses it, then again and I hear his voice come out of the thing, clear as day, exactly what he just said and how he said it.
"This is a recording. I'm saying stuff."
He asks how old I am, how and where was I born, how my skin, fins, and gills work to allow me to live in the water, how did I end up in this lake if I was born in the sea, many questions. Then he gets quiet and asks,
"Also, I uh…actually have been really wondering about this, and if you don't want to answer, you don't have to. But um…do mermaids…mate? I mean, are there mer…men?"
He seems very uncomfortable again, much like he was when he first saw my bare breasts. I tell him the truth and say yes.
"Oh…and um…h-how does it work?"
"The same way humans do I think. Though I've never mated or even seen a merman."
"So…you have a…place in your tail for…?"
"Dib, what's wrong? Why are you suddenly so uneasy?"
"I…feel weird asking you a question like that I guess. Talking about sex is..."
I realize the subject of mating must be a sensitive thing of discussion among humans.
"As a mermaid, I see no shame in speaking of sexuality, as it's just as natural to us as eating or sleeping. But it is such a sacred thing for us, we mermaids make love for pleasure, and sometimes if we choose, to procreate. The act of sensual, physical passion is the truest form of love we can experience. Is it not like that for humans?"
"Humans do it to make babies yeah, but mostly they do it because it feels good, and babies are the result. A lot of people at skool do it, sometimes in the locker rooms or bathroom."
"Do humans love the ones they mate with?"
"I…I wouldn't know. I think some probably do but most of the time it seems it's…a pleasurable activity and that's it. There isn't any love involved that I've ever seen. Some of the girls at my skool have done it with multiple guys, and vice versa. Sometimes multiple people at the same time."
"Oh…Oh I can't imagine. That seems terrible to me. Why would it be called lovemaking then?"
Dib seems very jittery now, very much distressed and colored in the cheeks. He won't look at me and I'm worried.
"Dib?"
"Is it possible for um…has there ever been mermaids that…can a human…has that ever…agh!" He cringes and laughs nervously, looking away and running his hand through his hair. "Actually um, nevermind. I dunno why I'm asking you that."
"Yes, Dib. Mermaids can mate with human men. It's rare, but it's possible and happens."
He flicks his eyes to mine, but won't turn his head. I feel sad now, sighing deeply.
"But humans have for ages hated us…and so…we are cursed to live secretly, away from them. We are hybrids, we cannot help or change it. We are seen as monsters, and that's why men kill us instead of love us."
His expression changes, he turns to look at me now with sympathy.
"I don't think you're a monster, Luna, and I could never hurt you."
We look at each other for a moment, and I feel something, something strong and throbbing inside my belly. I believe him, I trust him. Then a sound emits from the device, ruining this moment.
"Oh wow, it ran out of space!"
"What does that mean?"
"It only has a limited amount of time to record and we used it all up. But it's a good thing!"
"Will you show it to other humans?"
"No. You said before you didn't want any other humans. It's just for my ears only."
I realize the sun is now low over the horizon. We have spent all morning and afternoon together, yet it all went by in an instant.
"You are going to leave now?" I ask.
"Yeah…I should prolly get home. But I had a lot of fun today! And you were fantastic at remembering and picking up all of this stuff so fast! Before you know it, you'll be a human expert."
"So you will come back again?"
"Of course I will, we're friends now! Until then, I want you to keep the polaroid camera. Use up all the film in it and next time you can show me all the pictures you took."