The Poseidon Adventure

by: Lilith Langtree

**Winner of the 2009 May Day Writing Contest**

Meriel should have died from the tidal wave that destroyed her yacht.

"Mayday! Mayday! May…oh shit."

I checked the weather. I really did. Not a freaking cloud in the sky for hundreds of miles. That was a little over an hour ago. After making sure my breast forms were firmly attached I donned my new bikini and joined a few dolphins at play off of port.

Two and a half months out of every year I get to be who I want to be, Meriel. It's Irish — means shining sea. It's also the feminine of the name Merrill, my boy name. I thought I'd keep it to honor my mother, not so much my dad. Mom was a trendsetter in the '60's when she had me, alone, with no father to help. Of course that was the beginning of the whole 'woman power' thing. I guess I should count myself blessed that I missed certain events.

Confused yet? Yeah, I'm a guy nine and a half months out of the year. The remaining time, I board my yacht and sail around the oceans of the world as a woman. I'm not exactly what you would call passable. I try, I really do, but nature is a cruel bitch. When you are over six feet tall, with a strong, male, square-jaw, your options are kind of limited.

Back to the mysterious storm, you remember, the 'oh shit' part. My world was upside down and side ways right before I lost consciousness.

~O~

The strong smell of salt water, contained air, and fish woke me up. I hadn't even opened my eyes yet, but I immediately thought I was at Sea World. The sound of water lapping close by, the really high humidity, all the cues. Now this would be a neat trick since I was about a thousand miles from the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention nowhere near the North American Continent.

A low booming voice echoed in the enclosure as I opened my eyes. "How hard is it to find one man? I gave you the exact location. All you had to do was bring him to me."

I blinked away the stinging salt water from my eyes and I saw a tall man dressed in a beach bum outfit, complete with a really loud Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and green flip flops, scolding a teenage looking girl half out of a pool of water.

"She was all that was there, Sire," the girl whined.

"Bah!" He spun around and his sea green eyes fell upon me. "Awake are you?" A handful of steps brought him within mere feet of me. "Where is he?"

I pushed away from the towering man, only to slip on the smooth wet rock. When I scrambled to my feet I received a decidedly weird look. The man noted my height and then his eyes trailed down my body. I tried to find a way out, but from the… cave, I was in a cave. The only way out seemed to be through the pool. The look on the man's face was a familiar one. It was the penetrating gaze of the purely over-heterosexual male when confronted with a transgendered person for the first time: confusion, realization, disappointment, and then disgust.

"Uranus' balls, you're him!"

I ran my hand through my shoulder length brown hair, pulling it out of my eyes. "I'm transgendered. Don't be rude." I really hate my low-pitched voice.

He cocked his head and looked at me in astonishment. "You're worthless, I can't have you representing me looking like that. I'd be laughed out of the pantheon."

Now, contrary to popular belief, not all trans-girls are wimps. In fact I take very good care of my body. I'm not all with the bulky muscles, but I am definitely fit and I know how to defend myself. "Um, fuck you?" See? Straight to the point, with just a hint of sarcasm.

The man looked surprised that I insulted him. Apparently he doesn't get talked back to that often. He eyed me for a second, turned around and walked to the other side of the cave. My attention was drawn to the girl, half in and half out of the water. She smiled innocently at me and waved before a really large fish tail flopped out of the water behind her. I raised my hand halfheartedly, and then side stepped to the edge of the natural pool. The water was crystal clear, so there was no mistaking what I was seeing, a girl, half human and half fish. I blinked in disbelief for a second and wiped at my eyes.

I'm dreaming, or dead. That's it, I'm dead. This is some electrical cascade thing that my brain is going through right before death. I read about it in a magazine a couple of years back. Residual electrical impulses left over in the brain produce hallucinations. That's why so many people think they see long tunnels or glowing lights when they die on the operating table in hospitals. They get brought back to life and claim they were in heaven or something like that. This was obviously my hallucination: a mermaid and a beach bum to insult me. Makes perfect sense. Did I tell you that I'm somewhat insane? No? Apparently I am if I'm dreaming this shit up.

"I read about mortals like you," the man said over his shoulder, as he seemed to be digging through an old beat up trunk full of junk. He tossed out a bent license plate followed by a toy sea horse. He pitched his voice in an annoying falsetto. "I'm a girl inside. Lalala. Everyone feel bad about me and treat me like a girl even though I look like a man." He spat to the side and resumed with his normal voice. "Pathetic."

Okay, I'd had about enough of the insults. "Well, if you want to point the way out, I'll be more than happy to get back to dying, fuckyouverymuch."

"AHA! Here it is!" The man stood erect and held out a… trident?

It was green and very tarnished. He looked at it with mild disappointment and brushed off the cobwebs at the tines. After giving it a cleansing blow he seemed satisfied enough and looked back up at me. "Stand still now. My aim isn't want it used to be."

What the hell? He was going to skewer me! "Whoa!" I held up my hands and prepared to jump in the pool if he even looked like he was going to rear back with the thing. Instead he pointed it toward me and a crackle of green energy lanced at me. Being that it was moving at the speed of light I probably didn't have enough time to move. I could be wrong. I'm sure there are lots of people that can dodge blasts of energy. Haven't you seen any sci-fi movie out there? Happens all the time. Of course I am not the lead in a sci-fi flick. It just so happens I appear to be a Red Shirt from the old Star Trek show. You know, the one that always dies?

It felt like my body was on fire and the only way to put out fire was… to jump in the pool of water, but seeing as I had lost all bodily control I just decided to fall right where I was. It was a plan. A poorly conceived plan, but a plan nonetheless.

~O~

"Huh." The booming voice came back. I really didn't care all that much, seeing as I was a big pile of goo laying on solid rock. Then a little thought came to me. If I was a big pile of goo laying on solid rock then how was I able to hear anything? Didn't being goo preclude hearing, since goo doesn't really have any ears?

My eyelids flickered open and I saw the trident wielding beach bum stand over me holding his said trident.

"Bffrpht," I muttered with as much dignity as I could muster.

The bum looked totally dumbfounded. "Who woulda thought?" He scowled at me and then tapped the base of his big pointy stick right in front of my face. Now, what are the odds that the exact place he tapped would spout a little geyser of salt water at me, or more to the point, right up my nose? I gagged and sputtered as I rolled away scrambling to my hands and knees. Ah, human form. I was gooless!

Well, electrified pointy spear or not, I was going to kick this guy's ass. His back was to me so I had a good chance for a nice cheap shot. Maybe a firm kick in the balls if I catch the angle just right. I got to my feet, rather shakily, and took my first step. I almost fell straight on my ass, because my balance of completely off. I caught myself and then concentrated. Maybe the shock he gave me hadn't worn off yet. I withheld the ass-kicking for a moment. I really didn't want to jump this guy and not be able to follow through. That would be a bad thing.

Instead, I took inventory of my body, just to make sure I didn't have any cuts or bruises that would prevent me from delivering the aforementioned ass-kicking. Arms, slim and trim. A little too trim from what I remembered. Legs, smooth and shapely, and my bulky calves were gone. Huh. Hips, a little wider, and apparently that diet I've been on had been working pretty well. My waist is very…

Okay, I'm blaming the shock of being dead, hallucinating, being zapped with a three-pronged cattle prod, and being turned, however briefly, into a big pile of goo. The thing I'm getting at here is that there was something missing between the trim waist and the wider hips. I tentatively slid my hand between my legs and felt around where I distinctly remembered tucking a certain male appendage away earlier. Uh huh. That's when I also made the connection to my breast forms… or lack thereof. I'm drifting aren't I? I should say that the forms weren't there, glued to my chest like before, but there was something else in their place.

"Through playing around with yourself, missy?"

I jumped… up, back, to the side… who cares? Oh, also included in the jump was a really girlie squeak of surprise coming from me. I don't mean a guy-girlie squeak. It was very female sounding.

Okay, I know I'm dead now. I'm a girl. Finally. There is a god and he, she, or it has given me my just reward for worshipping them when I was a kid. I'm a lapsed Catholic. After I figured out how much life really sucks I kind of gave up my faith. But I guess I worshipped just enough to earn a few brownie points for a little present.

I looked up at the beach bum for a second. Oh god… tell me this isn't… and I was going to kick him in the balls… and he's omniscient, so he knows exactly what I'm thinking right at this moment. Oh Christ. Whoops, sorry. Stop thinking insulting thoughts! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Have you ever tried 'not' thinking about something really hard? It helps if you think about something innocent… like puppies, or Anne Hathaway, before that movie where she takes drugs and gets naked. Oh crap, now I'm thinking about Anne Hathaway naked and taking drugs!

I could tell he was getting a little impatient, as his tongue was working overtime in the cheek of his mouth.

A prayer! Um… Yea, though I walk though the shadow of the valley of the dead I will fear no resident evil. Fuck! Oop, sorry. Oh, give it up already. I'm going straight to hell now.

I closed my eyes and ran my hand through my hair, took a deep breath and waited for my doom.

"Okay, you really were a girl inside."

I snapped my eyes opened and gave him my 'wut?' look. I know it's spelled 'what', but sometimes all I can get out is 'wut?'

"Huh?"

He shook his trident at me. "I gave you one of my 'reveal true self' shocks. Works real good for those Faerie things that like to magically disguise themselves. What can I say? I'm a big enough god to admit when I was wrong. Not like Zeus with his thunderbolts and 'I'm never wrong' attitude." He waved his hands and wiggled his fingers to show me exactly how much he thought of the guy.

Zeus? Oh crap. This wasn't God. "Neptune?"

He pursed his lips in mild annoyance. "I prefer, Poseidon. Much more of a presence if you ask me."

Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye I noticed the girl from earlier, nodding and giving me a sympathetic look. Another little shock. She's a real mermaid. No hallucination.

"Anyway, enough of that nonsense. We have better things to talk about."

"We do?"

I shuffled along as the Greek god of myth turned and went to sit down. He looked tired and pale. Well, if you're going to live underwater, and in a cave, being pale is part of the package. After he made himself comfortable in beat up chaise lounge he set his trident aside and sighed.

"As you can probably tell, things haven't been so good lately."

I gave him a noncommittal shrug, not really wanting to say anything that might get me changed back into a guy. A little jolt of happiness shot through me. I'm a girl now! Boing Boing!

"Worshipping has been down another three percent this year and pretty soon I'll be off to the forgotten gods home." He leaned forward and gave me a scowl followed by a disgusted grunt. "Imagine me! Relegated to playing Parcheesi with Kronos, or Nix."

I know he was bigoted, hateful, bitter old man, but I kind of felt sorry for him. Poseidon was like my Uncle Charles. My uncle grew up in 'the old days' so he was still stuck thinking it was 1950 or something. By his thinking, if you felt like a girl inside then you should ignore it, go out, get drunk, and beat the shit out of someone. Apparently that was supposed to work. He was ignorant, but he was still family. All he really got out of me was my pity.

"Are you listening to me?" Poseidon snapped.

"Uh, yeah… Kronos, Nix."

The old god leaned back in the lounge and jutted forth a single nod. "Right. So here's the deal. I need more worshippers."

I ducked my head and gave him a look as if to say, 'and what do you want from me?'

"You're going to be my High Priest… er, Priestess, whatever." He ran a hand over his face. "This would have been so much easier if you were a man."

I crossed my arms underneath my breasts, my real breasts mind you, and looked offended. "I'll have you know that women can do anything a man can do."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Fine, turn around and piss in that water from where you are standing."

The mermaid squeaked in alarm and I heard a splash.

I didn't need to turn around to know that the water was at least five feet behind me now. "Okay, women can do anything 'worthwhile', that a man can do. Everyone's got to be a comedian."

Poseidon looked somewhat amused. "Right, I seriously doubt you could round up more than a handful of faithful worshipers."

"Pfft, it's all a matter of talent. A woman, with the right tools, could do anything."

"What kind of tools?"

I pondered for a second. "Well I can tell you that the major reason that people lack faith in any god is because there is no proof of their existence. They never show themselves."

"Bah," he snarled. "The Christian and Muslim gods won't let us interfere directly anymore. They have the most power right now."

I shrugged. "How about if you picked someone, a human, and gave them some power, like in Greek Mythology. Hercules, Achilles, those guys had some power."

He stared at me with a calculating eye. "They were demi-gods. So I should choose a demi-god and gift that person with some of my power. Maybe let them go forth and do my will on the plane of man.

"And woman," I interjected.

He nodded once. "Right!" He grabbed his trident and hefted himself up. "You're hired."

I blinked and almost reeled backward. "What? I…I'm not a demi-god."

"You're my son… er, daughter. Close enough for you?"

My knees suddenly became very weak. "Wut?" There it was again. The 'wut' thing. "But…but… I thought…"

"Oh, he's your father too. We both are. Don't you know how demi-gods are made?"

I shook my head slowly in disbelief. I still hadn't gotten past the whole Poseidon is my father thing.

"Your mother was in heat and your father boinked her. He went downstairs and fell asleep on the couch watching television. I came in after, assumed your father's shape and rocked your mother's world."

I think I'm going to be sick. My mother never had sex. It just wasn't done. The thought of it… A cold chill ran down my spine. Eeeeeewwwwwwwww.

Poseidon buffed his nails on his Hawaiian shirt. "I still got it after all these years. Made her whinny like a mare with her first stud. Ahh, good times."

Bile rose in my throat. Oh god, say it isn't so.

"Mortals provided the egg and seeded it, and I came along and gave it that UMPH!" He thrust his hips forward. "That's how demi-gods are born."

I dropped to my knees, which hurt. It wasn't carpet that I lost my equilibrium on.

"Now that's more like it!" Poseidon looked excited for the first time since I'd awoken in his presence. "My first new convert in a decade." He waved me on. "Go ahead. Hit me with your best prayer." He leaned back like he was trying to soak in the rays of the sun, basking, for lack of a better word.

I couldn't hold it any longer and emptied the contents of my stomach right there.

~O~

Another geyser of salt water in my face and I was sputtering awake.

Poseidon's face hovered above mine. "Last time I checked, vomiting on your god's sandals wasn't considered worshiping." He harrumphed. "But whatever gets the job done I suppose."

Poseidon walked over toward the mermaid waiting on the other side of the pool. "Maybe a nice ritualistic slaughter, a goat, maybe a nice cow. Temples! That's where the big worship is at. Try a temple next time. You, Ssreeetcheesch! Make sure my… daughter gets back to shore properly."

I flopped over on my back feeling drained. I sure didn't feel like a demi-goddess. Shouldn't I be all… powery and stuff? I even voiced as much.

Poseidon crossed over to me once more. "Here, grab my staff."

I arched an eyebrow at him.

"Not that staff." He looked me over, judging me. "Not that I wouldn't mind."

The bile came back. "Aren't you my father? That's incest."

"You're part of the pantheon now, sweet cheeks. It's all part of the gig. Hell, Zeus married his sister. Can't keep it in the family anymore than that."

"I think I'm gonna throw up again.

He held out the staff of his trident to me. "Grab on. I'll give you the magic touch."

I reluctantly reached my hand out to grasp the thick shaft… of the trident. That's when I passed out.

~O~

I blinked awake, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"Well, good morning young lady."

I turned my head and saw someone come into my hospital room. Yeah, it didn't take a genius to figure out where I was. The smell of antiseptic alone was proof of that. The nurse that came in the room walked over to the bed and flicked on the overhead light.

"You are the center of attention in this sleepy little town." The nurse was a little too bright and cheery for my tastes, but what the heck. I was alive and back in civilization. It was all just a dream.

I looked down at my breasts, my real breasts, and my breath caught.

"Something wrong, sugar?"

A weird little smile crossed my face. "No, I think everything is just perfect, actually."

I heard the unmistakable sound of Velcro being ripped open and saw the nurse held a blood pressure cuff for me. "I need to take your vitals then we'll see about getting you some breakfast, okay?"

I nodded and then took a better look at the nurse. There were tell-tale signs that I knew by heart that outted her to me. Maybe a girl in transition or through with transition, but she definitely didn't start off life in her current gender. She slipped the cuff over my arm and pumped away with the little bulb, while I stared.

A flicker from her eye and she frowned. "It's rude to stare, sweetie."

I was suddenly horrified at what I was doing. "I'm so sorry. I just…" I thought about it for half a second before continuing. "I just went through transition recently."

Now it was the nurse who was staring. Her eyes dropped to my hands, my throat, my hairline, and face. "Damn! I want the number to your doctor."

Something niggled inside my head. "Are you sure?"

The nurse laughed. "Honey, I've been in this business for decades and I can spot a sister at fifty yards. You are perfect. So give it up."

I smiled knowingly. "Give me your hand."

Yeah, Poseidon gave me the magic touch all right. You'll get your worshipers, you beach bum, and I have just the idea to bring them in droves. Thanks Dad.

Pic Credit: Michelle Ryan from "The Bionic Woman". All Rights reserved to the owners.