Here’s a story I’ve been working on for creative writing. It started as a question: Do fish have orgasms? I began several pieces related to that question and subsequently abandoned them until I stumbled on this little gem. I love the characters, the hackneyd story, and of course, the outlandish setting. I don’t give a crap if anyone thinks it’s too gimmicky. I think it’s charming. i hope you like it. (also it’s currently untitled)

Fish Story

Steve’s first time was as clumsy as the next guy’s. Was he doing it right? Too fast, too slow? Would he regret it in the morning? In all honesty, it was more the peer pressure than anything. By that time, it seemed, he was the only one in his school that hadn’t done it. Well, he’d done it alone a ton of times before, but it was different when a girl was involved. He hadn’t wanted to screw up.

Of course, like all rights of passage, Steve endured it and moved on. Gone were the days of tangled fins and errant currents carrying his sperm past rows of neatly deposited eggs. Steve was a god among fish. The ladies knew it. The other guys, all envious, knew it. But most of all, Steve knew it. His confidence in himself kept him swimming to the Love Bed every weekend.

The Love Bed was the hotspot for all young fertile fish. A thick curtain of kelp that provided a bit of privacy and intimacy surrounded it. It caught the moonlight sensuously as it writhed back and forth in the pulsing current.

Each Saturday night, Steve would survey the landscape before him. Males and females danced around each other in erotic displays. Each fin stroke and twitch was calculated to allure the opposite sex. One young male would wriggle seductively, hoping a bit of moonlight might glint slightly along his belly. Instead he’d accidentally swat another male, similarly occupied, right in the face with his tail. Thus would begin a frenzied tussle which did no more than send the bored females in search of some “serious” males.

Amatures, Steve would think to himself. They’ve got the drive, but they don’t have the skills.

It took patience and confidence to woo a female. Only then could one display his true skills. That was the whole reason for the dance.

The wide-open space at the bottom of the Love Bed was perfect for one thing: eggs. Eggs, as far as the eye could see. Millions of them, ruby colored and faintly glowing as they rested in bunches on the fine white sand of the ocean floor. Each one carried half of the necessary genetic material to make one full-grown fish.

The females came in groups all laughing and talking in the late afternoon. By early evening they had laid a crimson carpet over the Love Bed and were casually waiting for the right male to come and supply the necessary complement.

However, before he could do the job, the male had to submit himself to close scrutiny by any prospective females. A girl had to be careful with her eggs. Each one was precious. She couldn’t just let any little flounder come by and spray his genes all over them. No, a classy girl was choosy. Hence, the elaborate, unique, and always amusing mating dances performed by the males.

***

One Saturday night, in the middle of July, Steve swam stridently into the love bed. It was already a quarter past nine. The moon was casting its silver rays in among the coral outcroppings. All told there were almost two hundred fish that had come out that night looking for amorous engagement. Most of them were just swimming around getting a feel for the crowd and planning their moves.

A couple of eager males whistled past Steve wiggling their dorsals at a group of bright yellow females. The girls giggled and rolled their eyes. The water that night had a certain quality that seemed to loosen all inhibitions. The males danced just a little more seductively. The females were just a little more forgiving.

Incidentally, just six hours earlier, the captain of a Spanish merchant ship fired his newest employee for accidentally dropping a case of Red Rock Tequila into the water three hundred feet up current from the Love Bed.

Tequila or not, however, when Steve drifted casually into the center of the Bed, everyone stopped to watch. The slow wave of his tail was precisely measured to cause corresponding amounts of jealousy and lust in the male and female onlookers. His sleek body cut downward towards the ocean floor. He scooped up a mouthful of gravel. He could feel the fish eyes on him. So many eyes running over his long flat gills, across his silvery scales, and lingering on his thin translucent tail as it gently and sensuously curved back and forth.

After a certain amount of time, with the crowd silently staring, as if waiting for permission to begin, Steve spit out the gravel and shook his body head to tail. The water erupted in activity as a hundred fish thrashed and convulsed to an erotic ocean rhythm. The dances were hot that night.

Steve swam slowly through the crowd of bodies, sizing things up. He noted a few females that interested him. One had a sexy red stripe that made him look twice and gave him goose bumps when he stared at it for too long. Still, he kept his cool, knowing that the night was young and he could afford to be picky. A couple of females hovered a respectable distance away, hopefully. Steve gave them a passing glance but no more, They were too plain, too average. A fish like him wanted a little color, not some flat, boring grey.

Two smaller fish followed him as he swam around the Love Bed. Unsuccessful with their own methods, they hoped to gain some insight by watching the master. Steve didn’t mind this. It would be selfish and ungrateful for him not to share his talent with his fellow fish. Besides, it took years to master the moves he made look so effortless.

By ten o’clock that night Steve had found the one. He spied her darting coyly between two rocks, bathed in moonlight. She was a little shorter than the girls he usually went after, not even four inches, but the way she turned in the water and flicked her tail from side to side made his gills flare. Steve swam up to her and circled a few times before flicking his own tail. She opened and closed her mouth several times. Obviously, she was interested.

“What’s your name, baby?” he said, in a manner that is far too complicated to explain here.

The rose colored female giggled and said, “My name is Adelai, what’s yours?”

Steve found it hard to believe that a female existed within ten miles who didn’t know his name. She must be playing hard to get, he thought. Well, no matter, I can play along.

He cleared his throat, “Well, most people call me Stefan Cailente Arribu, but you can call me Steve, baby.”

He waved his fins in such a way as to communicate what sort of privilege it was to call him “Steve” and how she might repay him for the honor. Instead, she made a quick circle around him and asked, “Ever heard the saying Big name small brian? ”

This was the first time in his life that Steve had gotten a sarcastic response to his sexy pseudonym. It was a full ten seconds before he realized his mouth was hanging open.

“Maybe you haven’t heard that. They say it a lot where I’m from…”

Adelai laughed playfully and darted behind a tuft of seaweed. Steve felt compelled to follow her and assert the authority that she failed to realize he had over her.

“So where exactly did you say you were from?” he asked stiffly.

“Well, I grew up in the Gulf of Mexico. I traveled a bit when I was in school, but I just got out last year so I’m thinking about finding a warm bay to settle down in.

The words “settle down” struck Steve in a way he had been completely unprepared for. After so many years of playing seahorse to an aquarium full of hermit crabs, the idea of slowing his pace was strangely inviting. No!, he thought. I’m a ladies fish. I can’t go exclusive now. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the girls!

Steve snorted condescendingly and said “Settle down? Here? You’ve come to the wrong place. The water moves too fast here, baby. He smiled seductively and curved himself to the left, giving Adelai a good look at his underbelly.

Adelai smiled wanly and turned away.

“Maybe you’re right. It’s getting late. I should probably get going…”

She started to swim back toward the kelp, away from the Love Bed. Steve’s heart thumped faster. It wasn’t working! Why wasn’t it working? The belly trick always worked! He had to do something to stop her, make her stay. For the first time in his life he didn’t care about fertilization. There was something different about this fish that was worth figuring out.

“Adelai wait!”

She stopped and turned around.

“What?”

“Um..do you..uh..want to go get some plankton or something and…talk?

Steve floated uneasily in the current. He expected he rto say no and swim out of his life forever.

“Yeah okay,” she said. “I know a nice place not too far from here.”

Adelai turned and swam back toward the kelp. Steve hurried after her. Part of him felt foolish. He felt like one of the young sardines swimming after the yellow snappers and always getting a face full of sand. But another part of him was exultant. This small pink fish, whom he hadn’t known for more then fifteen minutes, was more exciting than the last fifty girls he had fertilized for.

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