Merpeople as Romantic Partners: The Ultimate Unknowables

I mention in my latest taboo post that although bestiality is generally mocked in stories, sex with shapeshifters is entirely accepted--as is sex with mercreatures. 

The story of Kopakonan, which I summarize in my book about medieval saints and lore, like many tales about mermaids and seals, has an underlying pathos. My first published short story, "The Birthright," which uses a similar backstory, is more drama than romance.

That is, mermaids have a long history of romance and amorality. Without getting too philosophical, they are fairly perfect representations of the sea: placid on the surface until a storm arises; dark and unknowable beyond the surface. As someone has pointed out somewhere, more people have been to the moon than to the bottom of the Marina Trench.

An instant corollary exists here since romantic entanglements are also unknowable and sometimes risky and often involve a "plunge." My novella Nerites Amid the Stars is possibly the most romantic of my sci-fi novels, and it involves merpeople or Siphons. 

All my couples tend to be "working" couples--that is, they are people who care about researching doctrines or handling parishioners or tracking down antiques or trying to stay employed or helping farmers or managing a restaurant or ensuring fair trade or figuring out sainthoods or investigating crimes. 

Meke and Rill from Nerites Amid the Stars are a diplomat (who discovers he actually likes being a diplomat) and an enumerator (a specialist in demographics). They are also star-crossed lovers, a kind of Romeo & Romeo (without the pointless deaths) who connect after falling out many years earlier. 

The title is based on one of the lesser known Greek myths. As Meke reflects:

Siphons spoke of Nerites and Helios. Some Siphons paired Nerites with Poseidon, as did human mythology. But the oldest Siphon tales presented Nerites as a Siphon charioteer in his bipedal state, commended for his quick eye and expert skills as he raced along the shore and into the waves. He fell in love with the sun and drove his chariot into space. In art, Nerites was pictured chasing light rays against a background of stars. Always in pursuit. Like the human Icarus, he would never reach his goal, not without perishing. Yet his love never abated. 

Did Helios love him in turn?

How could he not? 

The passage is a good example of how characters live beyond their authors. My reaction to that story is "Oh, please." 

But Meke is a romantic. He chases Rill across a nine-month voyage by ship to Mars. 

He is also something of an outlier within his own culture. My merpeople or Siphons are a tad like Vulcans: logical CEOs of large corporations who prefer to make marriages based on business dealings. Not given to warm fuzzies. 

But because they are tied to the sea, romance and a sense of the incalculable lurks.