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Elias always knew he was going to marry a mermaid.
He had a dream when he was seven, so very vivid he found he still remembered it for years, where he fell off a dock and was saved by the most beautiful mermaid he’d ever seen. The mermaid kissed him, and he had felt such immense love that he had woken up crying.
That’s when he knew that this dream mermaid was his true love. There was no other explanation. He then told his father that he wanted to take swimming lessons, which he was given, and that he wanted to go to the water that summer.
And every summer after.
They did go, every summer until his father got too sick and Gabriel too selfish, so he began driving to docks standing there every summer waiting for his mermaid.
No mermaid came.
Elias started to grow worried that maybe he missed his mermaid and went to docks all over Denmark, but when thirty became forty then forty-five, he began to think maybe it really was just a dream.
The summer of his forty sixth birthday he decided to call it quits and went to a dock close to home sitting down as he cried and knew he wouldn’t be back again. Then, out of nowhere, he heard, “LOOK OUT!” and was promptly hit in the head with a ball, falling into the water. He could hardly keep his eyes open, struggling to swim as everything dimmed, and then was shocked awake by someone hitting his chest.
Elias spit and coughed, the burn hurting almost more than the hitting.
“Are you alright?”
He turned, vision still hazy, and looked at the most beautiful mermaid he’d ever seen.
The mermaid had shoulder length brown hair with a seashell at the corner and had a very pretty multicolored tail that seemed to almost glow in the sunlight. Elias took the mermaid’s hands.
“Marry me!”
The mermaid, his savior, laughed and patted his hands.
“I’m not the marrying kind, darling, but I’m flattered. Let’s get you—-oh this stupid thing!”
The mermaid, who was to his confusion not a mermaid but a merman, suddenly stood, peeling off his tail, and yelled out, “AIDEN CALL THE AMBULANCE!”
Elias frowned. “You’re not a mermaid.”
The other man knelt down and put a hand on his cheek. “Only on weekends,” he said, “On weekdays I’m a prince.”
Elias burst into tears.
“Hey, darling it’s ok! You’re—"
He sniffled. “I was supposed to marry a REAL mermaid! You’re—"
“I’m an out of work column writer who just almost got killed jumping in after you in that stupid tail. I’m sorry you are obsessed with mermaids but that’s not my bloody fault!”
“But…”
“Just lay down and shut up.”
Elias did, even as he cried, and he was surprised when the not mermaid came in the ambulance and even stayed beside him as he got looked after.
His name was Adam, he heard him tell the EMT, kept his hand on Elias’s arm the whole time he was at the hospital. Adam even came with him in a rideshare back to the dock after he was given a clean bill of health, then even walked him to his car.
And that’s when Elias kissed him.
Adam pushed him back gently, smiling, and said, “No more kisses, darling I’m all out.”
“I think you’re not,” he said, hands on Adam’s cheeks, “I….i think I was meant to find you today and I will find you again.”
Adam smiled. “Don’t bet on it.”
Elias got in his car, still staring, and drove home thinking Adam was wrong. Adam was going to be his husband. Elias might not be gay but he was very attracted to Adam - with or without the tail.
They were meant to be.
Two days later he was walking across the parking lot of the grocery store when he saw a man walking that was about to be hit by a truck. He dropped his bags and ran, pushing the stranger ou tof the way.
And he woke up to Adam staring with at him. Elias smiled. “I told you.”
Adam sighed. “We have got to quit meeting like this. You could’ve been killed! You—"
Elias took his hand and kissed it. “Please go out with me.”
Adam groaned. “Not in public. Those hideous clothes would make me a laughingstock more than I already am. I’m only doing this to thank you. Nothing more.”
“Thank you.”
Adam squeezed his hand. “You’re welcome.”
They have dinner at Elias’s home that night and end up having sex for eleven straight hours.
A year later Adam takes him to a movie premiere and tells him he loves him after Elias punches Adam’s asshole actor ex that calls him a whore.
Two weeks later they get married on the same dock where they met. Elias has to be hospitalized on their honeymoon for a fractured penis after they attempt to check his stamina by having sex for almost fourteen hours. They go viral online when someone takes video of Elias crying about not being able to have sex on their honeymoon and Adam gets asked to write a book.
The title? “I’m Gonna Marry A Mermaid & Other True Lies My Husband Told Me”
Elias always knew he was going to marry a mermaid.
And it turns out, he was right.
THE END