Speak to the Ashray

Thus far, Adella has not heard the Ashray — or any Ashray, for that matter — speak. She attempts to speak to the watery creature in front of her.

“Do you have a name?” she asks.

The Ashray does not speak, but his smile grows even wider, and his face more joyful. He holds out his hands in a welcoming manner, encouraging Adella to join him in the water. She looks down and sees that she has come to the very edge of the water. The Ashray is about ten feet away, the water coming up to his waist. Adella wonders if that is the limit of his ability to rise out of the water and be able to retain his form.

“Can you speak?” she asks him.

The creature again smiles broadly, and repeats his welcoming gesture.

“Perhaps he can only speak through physical contact,” Adella wonders. After a moment’s consideration, she removes her robe and tosses it onto dry sand before taking a few steps into the water.

The Ashray responds to her approach with excitement and dives into the water, only to spring up again a few feet away. He repeats this, going back and forth.

“Why, he’s almost like an eager puppy,” thinks Adella. “He wants to play!”

She takes a few more steps into the water. The ground drops away in a steep slope, and it isn’t long before the water reaches her waist. It is colder than she thought it would be, and she stops, shivering.

Her thoughts turn away from the cold when she sees the Ashray, in a burst of exuberance, leap completely out of the water, and, porpoiselike, loop in and out of the moonlit waves. Adella is captivated by his gracefulness. At the same time, she notices with a bit of a shock, that he is not wearing any clothing. She can see humanlike male genitalia between his legs as he clears the water.

She scolds herself for the surprise. “Of course he is naked,” she tells herself. “He’s made of water! What did I think — that he would be clad in fabric?”

A squeal and laughter off to her side catches her attention. Adella looks and sees Shilette a few yards away. She appears to be standing by herself in the water. Her face is joyful. Adella looks around for the source of her friend’s enjoyment, and sees nothing. She returns her gaze to Shilette and then notices two watery feet emerge from the waves in front of her, followed by a watery hand that rises up from beside her waist and moves up her back. At that moment, the waves subside enough that Adella sees the watery male form of an Ashray, submerged directly in front of Shilette, floating with his stomach downward. His head is between Shilette’s legs. The bottom of her swimming clothes is gone, and the Ashray’s hand has nearly completed its task of removing her top.

Adella’s observations are interrupted by a warm, wet feeling on her shoulder. She looks, and with a start realizes she is face to face with her Ashray. He still smiles broadly at her and then, looking at Shilette, looks once again in Adella’s eyes, and motions with his head for her to follow him further into the water.