Jiro clawed his fingernails against the wall of the bath, trying to pull himself back up to the surface somehow. His vision was fading. Not much breath left now … What a stupid way to meet his end.

But no. Just as suddenly as Jiro had gone under, the thing gripping Jiro’s leg lifted him out of the water and tossed him out. He landed at the edge of the bath and skidded over the tiles. His head hit one of the wooden bath stools. There he lay, choking, spluttering, panting for air.

“I thought humans had a thing,” said a voice, low and mesmerizing, from the center of the pool, “A thing against talking behind the backs of others.” Jiro sat up. He knew that voice.

Standing in the center of the pool was the blue kaiju woman: shimmering breasts, golden eyes, cat irises, and a fleshy two-headed tongue, a tongue with the power to make any man or woman bend their knee and moan …

“I heard you. Calling me a bitch.”

Jiro looked at Sheena with his mouth open. Sheena looked at Jiro. He looked at her. She looked at his crotch. He looked at his crotch. Little Jiro was stranding up, straight as a toy soldier. Jiro snapped his legs together and hid his soldier with his hands.

“Sheena, what are you doing here?!” There was no way he was letting her sting him again.

“The same thing you are. Taking a bath.”

“Underwater?”

Sheena pointed to the gills on the side of her neck. “It’s all the same to me. Did I scare you? You poor little thing.” She hissed and fluttered her tongue. Was she laughing again? As Sheena’s dexterous tongue moved, a thin trail of saliva, caught between the two meaty heads, grew longer and then shorter, glistening in the morning light. Sheena seemed different somehow today. In a better mood. And, Jiro swallowed, she seemed somehow more erotic. He felt little Jiro, who had grown limp from surprise, stiffen slightly under his hands.

As if reading Jiro’s mind, Sheena came up out of the pool and lay down on the stones, with her oval head propped up on one hand, naked body in full view. And that was not all. Something was happening to Sheena’s body.

Before Jiro’s eyes, the shimmering blue scales, which had covered the near-entirety of Sheena’s body like a sleek coat of armor, were fading away. It looked like some great heat was melting them. At first the blue scales turned transparent like bits of glass, revealing pale skin underneath. Then they faded altogether, until Sheena’s body almost resembled that of a human woman. The scales only remained in a few places, as if for decoration: around Sheena’s neck like a brooch, on her deltoids like shoulder pads. And also two triangles: an inverted one beneath her breast and another patch between the legs, where, on any human, the hair should have been …

Jiro licked his lips. Suddenly, little Jiro was standing at full attention. “Your scales … What’s going on?”

“Oh this?” said Sheena, her tongue fluttering. “I thought this might help you to relax. You seemed so terrified during our last … confrontation.”

“Relax … yea … sure …” He didn’t know where to put his eyes. He was also pretty sure both he and little Jiro were feeling anything but relaxed. Sheena’s breasts, he noticed, were shaped like peaches: they ended in soft tips that pointed upward, as if reaching for the sky. There were no nipples.

“You can change your body at will?” he asked.

“To a certain extent,” said Sheena matter-of-factly. “A necessary skill for deceiving humans. And speaking of deceiving humans, I want to have a little discussion with you,” Sheena said, fluttering her tongue again.

Jiro nodded slowly. As long as Sheena was talking, his logic told him, she could not also be sucking. Sure, with this transformation, Sheena had suddenly become a lot more attractive. You could even say there was something sexy about her sharp dagger-like teeth. But there was a problem of her … personality.

“I hear you are in need of money. You humans always need money.” Sheena heaved her peachy breasts in a sigh and waved her tongue at Jiro as if to scold him. “So selfish and so short-lived. You poor pathetic things.”

“Yes, we do need money …” Who had told her about the poor state of the bathhouse finances? Kaori? Ichizo?

“Money is of little concern to me,” Sheena said. “Perhaps that is why I have so much.”

“I see …” said Jiro, not seeing at all. So the kaiju had money. He wondered how she had obtained it. Or how she stored it. He could imagine Sheena, deep under the ocean’s surface, stealing chests of golden medallions from sunken Japanese warships. Or perhaps she had stolen money from the samurai, noblemen, merchants, and sailors of Edo: men and women who she had put to sleep, slurped over and over, and then left, penniless and naked on the floor, where they lay, moaning and muttering, with their dreams of terrible perversion.

“I have a high-yield savings account in Switzerland,” Sheena was saying. “The wonders of compound interest you know. My money just grows and grows. But it is of little use to me. And I am willing to make a loan.”

“You are?” Jiro perked up. Well, this was going easier than he had expected. At this rate, he wouldn’t even have to figure out how to convert golden medallions into modern currency.

Sheena nodded absently. She brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed on the nail. Then she stuck out her tongue, spread the two tips like the legs of a woman, and enveloped her own thumb. The glistening heads ran up and down the shaft, leaving a trail of shiny saliva. “Of course,” Sheena continued, as if this were perfectly normal, “I can not provide a loan without something in exchange. It is a matter of face … of honor.”

“Oh …” Of course, there was a catch. “What kind of something?”

“Oh … a small service,” she said. “You could allow me to, what is it that you humans say? Oh that’s right: suck you dry. You could allow me to suck you dry.”

Jiro gulped.

“What do you say?” asked Sheena. “It is, as you say, a win-win deal. You are of feeble mind and feeble spirit. But of a good bloodline. Ichizo’s relation. Very nutritious and delicious. I got a little taste yesterday … Perhaps we can settle for a payment plan of sorts. You allow me to suck you dry, twice a day, morning and evening. Until the debt is paid …”

“Until the debt is paid …” echoed Jiro, turning away to hide little Jiro from sudden assault. Sheena’s tongue had hit the floor, and was crawling across the tiles toward him. “And how long would these payments last?”

“Oh …” Sheena scratched a gill with a finger. Those had not faded away. “Two hundred years or so seems like a fair price.”

“Um, no thanks.”

“What?” Sheena seemed surprised. “Why? A single prick, to make all your wildest fantasies come true.” As if to emphasize, Sheena’s tongue had begun to try to wriggle its way up between Jiro’s legs.

Jiro pushed the tongue away with his foot. Sheena was hot. But did he want to let her prick him and make him see more dreams of Misha? Probably not. Besides, who knew how his body would react. “I, um, have allergies. You saw me sneeze. It seems I have a weakened response to monsters but … there’s no way we could, um, do oral administration without some side effects.” He thought about Shina’s sharp dagger-like teeth. And all potential side effects to little Jiro.

Sheena reigned in her tongue and shrugged. She looked disappointed. “Well that’s too bad. No money for you then.” She rose and walked past Jiro. “I’ll see you some other time, feeble human.”

Jiro watched her go, still cupping little Jiro for protection. He really needed that money. And, like Kaori had said, it was just a little bit too early to shortchange himself. “Wait,” he said. “There has to be some other way. I’ll do it. If it’s anything other than that.”

Sheena turned, too quickly. “Now that’s more like it.”

Jiro had the feeling that this had been her intention all along.

“There’s a small favor I need,” Sheena said. She came toward him and sat down on one of the bath stools. The armor of scales had rematerialized on her body.

“The favor,” Sheena continued, “will be of benefit to me, of course, but also as proof that you can be a capable proprietor of the bathhouse …”

“What kind of favor?” asked Jiro.

“It’s a very simple task,” said Sheena. “I’m sure it will be easy for you. All I need is for you to go somewhere. Into Koko Town.”

“Koko Town?” asked Jiro. That was the name of the town nearest the bathhouse, down the main road. A charming little seaside town. “Go there and do what?” he asked.

“I want you to go there,” said Sheena, “and do something very simple. I want you to go there and kill a man.”