[GLBT Fairy Tale Week] Guest Blog: Jay Di Meo Dreams of Mermen

Today’s guest is Jay Di Meo, author of “Merman’s Tail” which appears in Bedknobs & Beanstalks anthology of gay fairy tales. Visit her online at http://jaydimeo.wordpress.com/published-stories/

MERMAN’S TAIL is based on the classic fairytale The Frog Prince. Karan nearly drowns in a storm when Tir, a merman, saves his life and demands a place in Karan’s life for three days and three nights. Repelled by the merman’s bestial form, yet drawn by the parts of Tir that are all man, Karan wavers between following through with his promise, or returning Tir to the water. Will Karan find the courage to break the spell over Tir, or will they both lose their chance at happily ever after?

As a child, I always loved mermaids. I’m not entirely sure why, as I hate fish (slithering, scaly, silent creatures). But these lovely women, half fish and half human, sitting on rocks and combing their long hair, singing to the sailors who fell in love and to their deaths, fascinated me. Perhaps it was because of my love for the sea. Having been born not too far from the Mediterranean seaside, I connected the golden sand and the blue surf with a pure magic that had everything to do with fairytales and their timelessness. I half-expected to see mermaids behind the rocks I climbed, or inside the sea caves with their blue reflections and glistening walls.

Disappointed that I never saw one, I read tales of mermaids from around the world – how they dragged down to the depths of the ocean the pearl seekers and the fishermen, how they came to shore to observe the mortals’ strange ways, how they lived in palaces of red coral underneath the waves.

I think somewhere deep inside I wanted to be like them, as much at ease under the water as out of it, living on the threshold between worlds.

Many years have passed since then. I became a writer, and an erotica writer at that – but when I saw the call for an m/m anthology of fairytales, ‘mermaids’ was the first word that sprang to my mind.

Now, as the word suggests, mermaids are women, and I wanted to tell a story between two men.

Thank the gods of the sea that theirs is not a domain exclusive to women half-fish. Mermen also roam the oceans and feature in the tales of many cultures. I could see them in my mind’s eye, handsome, long-haired men, gliding gracefully in the clear water, wearing pearls around their necks and coral pieces in their earlobes, jumping out of the waves like dolphins – but deep inside, they would yearn for land and its strange creatures, curious and afraid, ready to give anything to try standing on two legs and roaming the world