Leaking

by alittlebitofrainbyyourside

Summary:

I kiss her neck, still surprised that she has not yet grown gills, and then again, surprised at myself for expecting them. Then again, there is no manual for this, no support group with advice. I can picture us, a scattered group of people sitting in a church basement, exchanging stories about our spouses and their submarine missions. Some of whom never came back, some like Leah, who came back changed.

'He enjoys it when I finger his scales,' I imagine a man saying to the group, 'or at least, I think he does. He hasn't spoken since the incident, but he does this thing that's almost a purr-'

Notes:

• In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the Rare Kink Buffet 2025: A Prompt Fest collection.

Prompt:

Creator’s Choice of Fandom or Original Work

Erotic body horror, with an emphasis on the horror.

++ Femslash
++++ You get really gross with it

It feels a little funny to admit that the therapy, as limited as it was, helped. We only ever attended one session together before the Center's check bounced, but that had been enough. My admission that I was worried she must miss being under the sea, Leah's question- her asking what I thought it had been like for her down there-

It had been enough, at least, to remind us both of each other.

Increasingly I spend my days in the bathroom with Leah. Set up the TV precariously on the sink so that we might watch movies, my hand gently curled around hers on the bathtub ledge. There are days that the blue-green slinks its way up her arms, that it seems to chase after my fingertips and when it does, I rub my thumb over the bulging skin gently and watch as whatever it is spreads beneath the pressure.

Sometimes I even bring our meals in here. Mine a sandwich or whatever low effort food I was able to scramble enough energy into making, hers a soup of essentially salty water. I do not think about the fact that this is not enough to sustain a person. Occasionally I find myself staring, searching for answers for our current situation, for truth-

When she is agreeable, I measure her wrists, her thighs, her stomach, her breasts-

Somehow, even after weeks, there's been no change. For better or for worse Leah is still the same as before, only different. Only now with blue-green splotches that travel beneath her skin, almost as if they have a mind of their own. It's hard to tell if there are more or less of those than the day before, they move too frequently, congregating in such a way at times that I worry her skin might burst the same way that her eye did. That this time, I might look upon her and there will be a gaping hole, that water might drain from her until she is nothing.

Now it is spread out, I note, and in the dim lighting of the bathroom I can almost pretend it is nothing but bruise. Like the ones I used to leave, little confessions of love littered across her inner thighs.

The water is cool as I plunge my hand into the tub, impulsively reaching to trace the not-bruises. Leah's legs part, as if she knows what I am planning to do before I do. Perhaps she does, she has always known me better than I have known myself.

It has been too long since I have touched her like this, with anything other than questions. I had been dreading the three week trip enough on its own, much less the 3 months of absence it turned into. Longer still, given the days we have spent circling one another, both ghosts in our own apartment since her return.

It has been too long, and perhaps that is why she moans so easily, head tipping back even as the blue-green pushes away from my fingertips. Pushes from between her thighs upward, and I stare in fascination as her labia changes, as it fills with swirling color.

"Does that-" I am surprised to hear myself speak, but Leah does not seem to notice.

Her one good eye is closed, lips parted in pleasure and doesn't that answer my question? I watch her face as I trace along the other swells along the sensitive skin of her thighs, pushing more and more fluid up. Her lips, the lower ones, are fat with it when I palm the space between her legs-

Water dribbles out of the corner of her mouth as her breath speeds up, and I cannot help but wonder if I am doing something wrong, if I am pushing her insides out and yet, she is so beautiful like this.

When I kiss her, it is like tasting the ocean.

The bandage I had wrapped so tenderly around her head just a week ago is beginning to unravel around the edges, unable to handle the amount of time that Leah spends completely submerged beneath the water.

It is difficult to do with one hand, and yet I cannot find it in myself to remove the other from where it is, but I unwind the bandage now. I want, no need, to see her. All of her. For better or for worse this is Leah now. She need not be hidden away for my comfort.

She watches me as I tug it off, revealing the socket where her eye had once been. There's water there now, almost a little wading pool. I nuzzle her cheek with my nose and some of it drizzles down to wet my face.

"Miri-" Leah gasps as my fingers slip inside of her- "Miri-"

She is not warm, not as she once was, but I can feel her body pulsing around the intrusion- familiar and yet different- but then again, what about Leah is not those two things?

What about Leah has not always been those two things? Has she not always perplexed me? Has she not always been a marvel, a thing to study with care? Why should now be any different at all? My darling wife, with all her quirks and curiosities.

I kiss her again, pistoning my fingers in and out as roughly as I dare, still unsure that her skin might not simply rip under the pressure.

I wonder how that might feel, to have her gushing around me. She used to leave such large puddles on the bed, laughing when I insisted on her getting up so that I might change them.

Her clit has grown several sizes since I last touched it, throbbing with whatever it is that dances beneath her skin. I grind my palm against it as she arches up in the tub.

"Miri-" my name is a sob as I duck my head and take one bruise-adjacent puffy nipple into my mouth. I scrape the bud with my teeth and taste salt. She is leaking, I realize, from here too. She is leaking and I suckle, taking it in with the same fervor I once drank between her legs. If only the tub were bigger I would dive there, but it is not, and I will make do as we have been making do for weeks.

Except better. Because Leah, Leah who has been so quiet since she came back, Leah- my darling wife is saying my name.

Recklessly I add another finger, plunge them in and out, water sloshing all around us. Leah hasn't worn clothes in days, not bothered with the charade of it all since the day she dropped her robes in front of me and finally allowed me to see what has been happening to her- but I, I have not been so immodest and now my shirt and pants are drenched.

It's of no matter, the only thing that matters is this, Leah moaning loud enough to drown out the blasted sound of that stupid sound machine she insists on having playing every minute of the day. Leah with her hands scrambling uselessly along the edge of the tub, as if unsure what she is allowed to do with them.

"Hands above your head," I command and Leah, beautiful Leah, complies effortlessly. I take the discarded bandage from where I'd dropped it on the ground and loop it around first her wrists and then the spout of the bathtub. "Stay there."

It's a bit of a silly thing to say to a woman who has barely left this bathtub in the last few days, but Leah gives me that look, all soft and floaty and that's all that matters.

I kiss her neck, still surprised that she has not yet grown gills, and then again, surprised at myself for expecting them. Then again, there is no manual for this, no support group with advice. I can picture us, a scattered group of people sitting in a church basement, exchanging stories about our spouses and their submarine missions. Some of whom never came back, some like Leah, who came back changed.

'He enjoys it when I finger his scales,' I imagine a man saying to the group, 'or at least, I think he does. He hasn't spoken since the incident, but he does this thing that's almost a purr-'

Leah's whine brings me back to reality, to what I'm doing. To the way I'm bent over the bathtub, one hand on the ledge to keep me up as the other crooks inside of her. I am surprised to feel a gush over my palm and then I am horrified with the realization that her once swollen clit is no more. It must have burst, skin pulled too tight over the blue-green-

"Miri," Leah's voice is an anchor, keeping me in place. "Miri, Miri, please- more-"

I grind my palm against her again and she arches as if nothing has happened. As if I have not just caused the destruction of something wonderful, and perhaps I haven't, perhaps she has no need of it any longer, who am I to understand the changes that are happening?

This time when I lean down it is to kiss one of the splotches of color along her torso, her skin cool beneath my lips.

Water pours from Leah's empty eye socket as she looks down at me, too much water for it to just be what had gathered there beneath the bandages. Leaking, she is always leaking these days. I can remember her voice, that night when she finally allowed me to see what was happening, when she finally dropped her robe. I can remember her telling me that she thinks they took on too much water.

I kiss the edge of the socket. Her cheeks. Her nose. I suck on her bottom lip and feel it swell within my mouth, and when I pull back again, it is as if she has applied make up. The blue green has never reached this high before, but it's as if it's chasing after my touch. Like it wants to be included in this, this moment.

I suck new marks into her neck, and do not think about the fact that they aren't as red as they should be. I cover her chest in them, egged on by every gasp and whimper, by the way Leah's body continues to grind down against my palm. This time when I feel a gush I do not look down, only skim my teeth along the corner of her jaw.

"Just like that," I encourage her. "Take what you need."

It goes on like that for what feels like minutes and yet feels like hours. Time less important than this moment, than this final reunion.

When I finally pull away my palm is covered in the same pink grainy slime that I have spent weeks scrubbing out of the tub. I try not to think about what it might be. I undo the bandage around Leah's wrists allowing them to fall back into the water-

At least, what is left of it.

I turn on the tap, and Leah murmurs her appreciation, curling on her side as if to nap. I stand there until the tub has refilled, until the water has covered her skin once more, lapping at her chin.

It isn't until after I've left the bathroom, until the floor has been dried and my clothes replaced that I even think about our too high water bill. It is a problem for tomorrow's Miri, I think, as I curl beneath the blankets of the bed, Leah's night gown stretched across her side.

Somehow her absence doesn't feel quite so loud this time.