Jenny didn’t realize she was dozing until Travis stirred beside her and she jolted into awareness again.

The delicious languor of sex still felt like it was weighing down her limbs, but familiar doubts were re-surfacing. Was this connection all otter and none of her own self? Would she continue to feel less human if she let herself fall further in love with this man?

The smell of crushed greens penetrated her thoughts, and Jenny realized that they were lying in one of the flower beds. She was delightfully sore in unexpected places, and felt guilty.

“Is Graham going to be angry?” She asked tentatively.

“Screw Graham,” Travis said, drawing her closer into his arms.

Jenny chuckled into his shoulder.

“I should go,” she said, finally pulling away and sitting up. “Once I find my clothes.”

Travis sat up beside her, a hand on her thigh, caressing her gently in a way that made her blood stir even after all they’d already done. “I have a room in the staff house at the edge of the resort. You can stay the night there with me.”

Jenny didn’t want to admit that she had spent the night before as an otter. She found it impossible to sleep as a human, her thoughts too jumbled up and chaotic to give her any rest. Only slipping back into otter form had brought her peace, and she’d slept in a pile of leaves under a hedge. Gizelle assumed she slept nights at Laura’s cottage, and Laura stilll thought she was rooming with Gizelle.

“I… can’t,” she said, drawing away and scrambling to her feet. She found her dress with one foot, and yanked it over her head with determination. Her sandals were next to the bench, and she stuffed her feet into them.

Travis rose from the flower garden, a gorgeous slab of naked hunk even in the very faint, shivery light of stars and distant resort lights. “Jenny…”

This was the ‘what happens next’ talk, Jenny realized, and panic rose up in her throat, choking her. She didn’t know what she wanted, even if she was sure now who she wanted. This was too fast, too much, it was all otter, not herself. She didn’t know who she was.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked, and then she fled, not even bothering to find her underwear.

You’re going the wrong direction! her otter told her shrilly.

Jenny stumbled over the path, her vision swimming as she battled otter inside her head for control over her limbs.

I didn’t ask for you, she wailed at the creature in her head.

You needed me, the otter returned, fiercely.

You can’t hold that against me forever, Jenny protested. You saved me, great. But I want my life back.

I’m not trying to hold anything against you, her otter growled back. But I clearly haven’t finished saving you. You still need me.

I need you? Jenny was outraged. I need you like I need a hole in the head. You want nothing but pleasures of the flesh, pursuing your own selfish agendas. You don’t even care that you’ve ruined my life. I can’t do my job! I can’t read! I can’t shift without claws, or whiskers, or pointed teeth because you won’t let go of me!

She thought that the silence in response was a victory, but her otter finally came back and told her softly, Did you ever think that you can’t shift completely human because you’re afraid of losing me, that it’s you not letting go of me?

Jenny’s feet had taken her inexorably to the ocean, and she stood at the edge of the deserted beach now and considered her otter’s uncomfortable idea without flinching. The chairs were all folded up and leaning against the beach bar. The stretch of empty sand was silver, with faint gossamer waves lapping against the shore. A sign proclaimed that no lifeguard was on duty.

She slipped off her sandals, and after a moment, her dress and bra, folding them neatly.

See? her otter gloated. Naked is more fun.

Jenny stepped into the sand, feeling the grains between her toes like doubts. Was it true? Was she just afraid of being alone again?

She walked out to the edge of the water and turned to look back. The resort rose above her like a castle. Only the bar deck and a few stray windows were lit, and the underwater lights of the pool gave the underside of the palm trees an unearthly glow. Darkness undoubtedly hid her from anyone who might have been watching.

Jenny turned back to the ocean. She’d spent weeks out in that dark water, always an otter, always just barely aware of who she’d been. She waded out, feeling the pull of the waves at her ankles, then her knees. Sand slipped out from beneath her feet with the power of the water. Then she was swimming, with human arms and legs for the first time since her otter had come to her, and she sucked in a breath and dove under, eyes closed.

Water embraced her, and she felt the rush of the gentle currents around her. She drove forward, memorizing the feeling of her muscles with each stroke, the way her body moved when it was surrounded by water. She had to smile at the soreness that Travis had left her, and she broke the surface with a gasp for breath before breaking into an easy stroke along the surface, swimming out into the ocean.

It felt odd, after so much swimming as her otter. In some ways, she was comparatively awkward, not at all the lithe, graceful creature her furry alter-ego was. But in some ways, she was more beautiful as a human.

It was odd to find her otter in her head, enjoying the swimming as much as she was, reveling in the differences between them.

We’re different, her otter told her, unexpectedly kind. I’m not better.

Jenny sighed. I’m… sorry, she told her. I haven’t been very understanding.

She drew in a deep breath, dove under the water, and shifted.

It was a painless shift, executed between one breath and the time she would have wanted another, and she was the small, agile otter again, diving joyfully through the water.

The shift back was just as painless and smooth, and Jenny was breaking the surface and exhaling her stale air to take another breath. She didn’t have to check to know that her teeth were only human-sharp, and that her fingers had no claws or webbing.

She rolled to her back, an otter motion that was less easily achieved by her human form.

I am better at that, otter scoffed, then added sweetly, but you’ll improve.

I think you have always been in my head, Jenny mused. You are every bad idea I ever ignored.

Maybe you’ve been every bad idea I’ve ever ignored, her otter told her merrily in return.

Jenny chuckled, arms wide as she bobbed at the surface of the water.

I still don’t know what to do about Travis, she said, after a moment of serene floating.

We’ll figure it out, her otter told her carelessly. He is our mate, and he’ll be patient while you work through your issues.

Jenny had to laugh. It’s like having the most unsympathetic psychiatrist in the world in my head with me, she said wryly.