Don't Drink The Gene Juice

21

Jenna dove into the water, welcoming the pull into the underwater world.

Within moments, she felt the pleasing feeling of her legs joining together into one whole, and then her tail further growing its large, flowery fin.

She giggled, as she saw Tommy swishing his own tail over to her.

He smiled, looking over her special aqua blue mermaid dress.

"You look very beautiful Jenna," he smiled.

"Thanks Tommy," she grinned even wider, "I don't know where Bethany got it, but I love it."

"How do you like mine?" he asked.

He was bare chested, except for wearing some straps and stuff with fake weapons on them, to make it look like he was some kind of warrior merman.

"You look very handsome," she said. "I'm sure all of the little boys will walk away today wanting to be just like you."

They swam around the tank for a bit, amid the passive marine life that dwelled in this tank. They practiced some of their routines, working especially hard on the part where they had to swim in a circle formation, but in sync so that they would be opposite each other as they swam.

After a half an hour of going over their ten minute long routine, Jenna was exhausted, and they swam to the exit of the tank, pulling themselves up onto the deck on the edge.

"This is the most annoying part about being a merperson," Jenna said. "You have to get out of the water, and sit in the chill as you wait for your tail to disappear, and you don't really want it to..."

"Yeah," Tommy said, "but it's a small price to pay to be a mythical creature. imagine what it would be like if someone from a hundred years ago, in the 2020s saw what we can do."

Jenna laughed. "They'd probably go nuts."

Tommy laughed in return. "Have you read anything about that time? Those people already were nuts."

They laughed some more, as they saw Bethany walk through the door into the room.

"Hey fish friends," she waved.

"Hey Beth," Tommy greeted their fellow employee. "Everything ready to start in an hour?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "you two are drawin' a bit of a crowd. There's already people waiting outside in line."

"Gosh," Jenna exhaled, feeling a bit of stress coming on. "I feel ready, and I don't think I'm gonna mess up, but what if they aren't very impressed. We are just swimming to music."

Beth shrugged. "While gene changes are becoming more common these days, merpeople are still surprisingly uncommon, at least in the sense that people are used to seeing them. The novelty will wear off in a while, but hopefully, we can have more merfolk by then, and make this a lot more interesting."

Jenna and Tommy smiled warmly at the thought. Having a whole team of a dozen or more merfolk, all trained in the art of underwater dance.

"There's some other people waiting to see you," Beth said.

"Who?" Jenna asked.

Beth walked back up to the door, and opened it a bit. "You can come in now," she said through the opening. Beth walked through the door and left the room.

The door swung open to reveal...

Cathy.

Jenna squealed in delight, leaping onto the tile floor with her tail still drying, and her friend knelt down to hug her.