Chapter 7: Product Testing
Gavin sat at his desk in his office just outside the server room at SMS Creations. He was tracking down an intermittent problem by tediously scanning pages and pages of log files. "There has to be a better way."
He pushed his chair back and propped his feet up, trying to think of something. "Ah ha, this should do it." He immediately positioned himself back over the keyboard and managed to type a few characters before the phone rang. "Crap! Stupid phone." He picked up the receiver. "Hello."
"Gavin, can you come to my office, I want to show you something." Gavin's wife asked.
"Sure Sara, just a second." Gavin wrote a few words on a notepad to remind him where he was before heading out the door and down the hall to the corner office. Inside Sara sat behind her desk staring at a computer screen. Normally the remainder of the office contained only a bookshelf and a couple of chairs but today the chairs were covered with various boxes and cards that looked to have been delivered. "Whoa, you have a secret admirer?" Gavin said indicating the chairs.
"No, that is Nadine and Angie trying to get me to fail again on my diet."
"You're still doing that? You look fantastic. You can't still weigh more than you did three years ago?"
"Thanks, and yes I have reached my ideal weight, but I was thinking my friends could stand to be taken down a notch or two."
Gavin smiled. "I'm sure I could come up with something..."
"Actually," Sara interrupted. "I have something in mind, take a look at this." Sara pointed to her computer screen.
Gavin stepped around her desk and knelt beside her chair to get a look at the image on the monitor. It was the program used by the design department to tell the molding machines how to construct the various garments. Rotating in the center was what appeared to be half of a fish. "A mermaid's tail?"
"Yes, it has been requested on multiple occasions." Sara explained.
"Not exactly a unique product. Doesn't every costume shop under the sun sell those?"
"Yes, but we will add the SMS flare, which in this case allows for multiple configurations including, full body variants, and the ever popular extended wear option."
"Extended wear? How do you do that with a mermaid tail?" Gavin asked.
"As I understand it there is a sort of panty or cod piece if you're a man that is built into the suit. It somehow captures liquid waste and channels it out of the body through a hole in the rear of the suit.
"Gross, that's got to ruin the look."
"It's cleverly hidden and the suit fits so tight around the legs and hips it becomes feasible, though I'm not sure how they are going to do solid waste. One of the designers says he has a solution but it needs testing."
"Interesting, if it fits that tight I wonder how they maintain the illusion of being legless?"
Sara shrugged. "I don't know, but I've got them making four prototypes for our trip this weekend."
"Trip?"
"Yep, I've rented a yacht in the Bahamas and we'll be taking Angie and Nadine."
"You want me to wear a mermaid tail?"
"Don't worry, your's is a dark blue color and designed for a man."
Gavin relaxed a little. "How does this take Angie and Nadine down a notch, to use your words?"
"That brings me to our next product I'm testing." Sara went to detail her plans and by the end Gavin could not help himself but laugh. "You're taking a page from my book."
* * *
The air was warm and the sun bright, a beautiful Caribbean day. Gavin watched the dolphins frolicking in the wake of the yacht as the land disappeared behind them. Angie and Nadine were lounging at the front of the boat each wearing a bikini, Nadine's in black with fuller cut bottom and Angie's in bright green with a more daring thong bottom. Sara knew how to keep her husband's eyes on his wife. She wore a bright purple one piece that shined like it had been dipped in oil. He had to hand it to her, she knew how to draw his attention despite the yards of exposed flesh her friends were displaying.
"Where are we going?" Angie asked.
"There's a small island about thirty miles out that has a great beach and is perfect for trying out the tails since it is has a wide shallow bay. We'll anchor in deeper water, put on the tails, and swim to the beach. It would be next to impossible to get back in the boat while wearing the tails, and they are supposedly hard to get off in the water, so we'll do that on the island."
"Can we see them?" Nadine asked.
"Sure, Gavin can get them while I steer the boat."
Gavin descended into the cabin of the boat and returned with four translucent plastic garment bags. The yellow one was given to Nadine, green to Angie, and the purple and dark blue were for Sara and himself. Angie opened hers quickly. "Wow they have a bit of weight to them, don't they?"
Gavin nodded, "Yeah they are surprisingly heavy."
"The fin piece is a solid material to hide the feet, that's why they are so heavy." Sara yelled down from the helm.
Angie and Nadine held the tails against their bodies, "They are really long. I didn't expect the tail fin to go so far past my feet."
"Again to make it look more real," Sara said.
Gavin moved to the starboard side to watch the water. He turned around quickly when Nadine yelled, "What the hell is this." She was holding the mermaid tail open at the waist and gazing inside.
Gavin smiled.
"It's the extended wear option we are testing today, Nadine. It's what makes SMS designs special and valuable, but they have to work and hence they have to be tested."
"Why us?" Nadine asked.
Angie opened hers up and glanced inside but only managed to giggle, a fact which made Nadine blush. "What's the big deal, at least it's not a catheter."
Nadine swiveled around and glared at Angie, "But it's a...", she hesitated searching for the words, "an insert, nonetheless."
Sara laughed at Nadine's naiveté, "How else would you make it work? The integrated latex polymer panty contains a membrane which bisects the female vulva ensuring that all liquid waste is channeled towards the rear where it intersects a larger tube inserted in the rectum to expel solid waste." Sara quoted holding up a sheet of paper.
Nadine blushed even more furiously.
"Gavin's works slightly different though." Sara laughed. "Why don't you get started and I'll send Gavin down below until you are ready. There should be some lube in the bags."
Gavin was surprised by Nadine, he assumed because she was older she would be more experienced with these types of things, especially since she owned a costume shop for so many years. He shrugged his shoulders and went down the steps into the cabin to give the ladies some privacy. Several minutes later the yacht's engine stopped and Sara descended into the cabin. "Man do you look good in that suit."
Sara ran her hands over her breasts and down over her hips. "I thought you'd like it."
"Purple is definitely your color."
"They say it looks good on us blondes, just wait till you see me in my tail."
"I can't wait." Gavin said running his hands over his wife's body.
Sara sighed at her husband's touch. "By the way, our tails don't happen to have the extended wear options. Don't mention that to Angie or Nadine."
Gavin smiled, "I thought you might have intended that to be a treat for those two. What other surprises do you have in store for them?"
Sara smiled devilishly. "You'll see soon enough. Help me with my tail." Sara stripped out of her one piece suit and donned a purple bikini top.
Gavin pulled the shiny purple tail from the plastic bag and held it up to his wife. Sara covered her body from the waist down with a lubricant and placed her feet inside, pushing them into the bottom. Gavin then helped pull the suit up her hips which proved to be a challenge. The costume was extremely tight and it had to be stretched in order to have enough length to get over her hips. The result was perfectly outlined legs and hips which tapered down to a long flexible tail fin. Each of Sara's legs were still distinctly visible down to her knees where thicker rubber blended them into a single limb, then flaring widely into a delicate fin.
"Oh this feels sexy." Sara said as she felt the rubber bisecting the halves of her bottom. "No wonder the extended wear option is possible, I feel naked almost." A narrow fin was molded onto the back of the tail beginning from just above the cleft of her shapely butt all the way down to the knees. This fin seemed to serve as a way to protect the wearer’s modesty. "I bet you this is how the designers hid the exit hole, if you know what I mean." Sara said.
Forced into sitting on the bed, Sara helped Gavin with his as much as she could. Gavin soon discovered the tail forced his toes into a fixed en pointe' position, and therefore any land movement would have to be done by dragging his body with his hands. His tail was equally tight and getting it pulled over his waist was a test of strength.
Gavin's lack of hips meant that the tail sat lower on his waist a fact that his wife noticed. "Oh, I like that look on you." Sara said rubbing her hands across his skin just below his belly button and just above the dark blue tail.
"You look fantastic yourself, shall we haul ourselves up these steps and see how the other two have made out."
"They were nearly finished before I stopped the boat so they should be ready by now."
Sara and Gavin used their hands to swing their knees forward in a seal like fashion to get up the stairs and onto the foredeck where Angie and Nadine were basking in the tropical sun. The yellow tail looked great with Nadine's dark hair, and as always the flame haired Angie looked great in green. "I can't wait to try these out." Angie said when Gavin and Sara approached.
"First of all," Sara stated formally, "we have to go over some safety tips. Swimming with a tail is nothing like swimming with both your legs so keep an eye on each other and if you're struggling just float on your back at the surface. Ok?"
Everyone nodded.
"Alright then let's give this a shot. Gavin you go first since you're a big strong man and all." Sara smiled.
Gavin opened a door on the side of the boat and swung his new tail over the side then pushed himself away from the boat and landed in the water with a splash. Swimming truly was different. He found treading water to be impossible so he laid back on his back and floated. Sara chucked a bag of snorkeling gear over the side which Gavin caught. Then three successive splashes later and everyone was swimming. Much to Gavin's visual delight Nadine lost her matching yellow bikini top when she entered the water at an odd angle. Angie had to help her put it back on.
"Ah,” Nadine yelled. “I can feel water going inside me back there."
Angie smiled sensuously. "Yeah me too, feels kind of good."
Gavin and Sara faked understanding. "That's how it works, cleans you out."
The quartet spent a few minutes getting used to the tails then they snorkeled for a while, having a good time in the ocean. They weren't used to swimming with a tail so exhaustion set in quicker than usual and the four were soon swimming for the white sand beach and shallow bay of the island.
Gavin reached the beach first and seal crawled his way onto the sand where he flopped over on his back to take a few minutes rest. "I guess I better swim back and get some lunch for us." Gavin said when the three girls had made the beach. They all looked pretty inviting laying there on their backs with their tails still in the water.
"Yeah, and bring back my swimsuit since I'll not be wearing this all day." Sara said.
Angie shrugged. "I don't know, I kind of like sporting a fish tail, it's exotic."
Sara laughed. "That's good Angie, because you need to test the extended wear functions. Beside you can't take your tails off anyway."
"Why not?" Angie said.
"Because they are stuck on you. Both of you." Sara said looking over her shoulder.
"Stuck!" Yelled Nadine.
"Yes, it is a new product that adheres the latex polymers to your skin. Please try and get them off, it needs a good field test." Sara smiled.
The two girls pushed and pulled on their mermaid tails with all their strength but there was no movement. "How is this possible?" Angie said. "I didn't see any glue."
"It's a treatment applied to the latex before you put it on and it dries to near invisibility."
Nadine squawked. "So this thing is stuck in my...posterior?"
Sara laughed harder at Nadine's discomfort with references to her private areas. "Oh no, I didn't put the compound there, I'm not sadistic."
"Why us?" Nadine continued.
"Let me see," Sara tapped a finger against her lips. "Where did all those wonderfully tempting chocolates and candies come from that were decorating the chairs of my office?"
Nadine blushed again, and Angie giggled.
"I figure you two deserved a bit of discomfort after trying to get me to fail my diet."
"But you looked so delicious sitting up to your neck in chocolate fudge I wanted to see what Gavin would come up with next." Angie falsely pouted.
Nadine continued to try and get her tail off, she found a piece of smooth driftwood and was attempting to pry the latex from her skin, to no avail. "How long does this stuff last?"
"As far as I know, until the remover is applied."
"This was Gavin's idea, wasn't it?" Nadine accused.
"Leave me out of it. I can't take credit for such a fantastic idea." Gavin pushed the waistband his tail down a bit to make sure it was not stuck as well. "I'll be right back with some lunch."
"Don't forget my swimsuit," Sara said over her shoulder.
Gavin pulled himself toward the water grateful to be away from the angry women especially since he was having a hard time suppressing his laughter. While in the shallows he struggled out of the mermaid tail realizing early that getting back into the boat via the ladder would be extremely difficult if not impossible with the tail. He would have to come up with something to help Nadine and Angie.
By the time Gavin reached the beach again Sara was out of her tail and keeping her distance from the angry girls who struggled to grab her. "They almost had me before I got my tail off." Sara said while Gavin watched his wife darting around the beach wearing only a bikini top.
Gavin tossed her suit to her and watched as she quickly pulled the one piece over her shoulder not bothering to take off the bikini. "Are you ladies going to eat or just be mad at Sara all day. If I know my wife, she doesn't even have the solvent on the boat."
Nadine and Angie paused their struggles and looked from Gavin to Sara. "You do have the solvent, don't you."
"I have it, but I don't remember where..." Sara said while tapping her index finger against her cheek.
Angie snarled at Sara's secretive response. "Let's eat and get back home."
The food was laid out on some rocks near the beach, a simple and delicious lunch that left no one desiring more. The weather was perfect and the ocean beautiful. Sara and Gavin could not keep their hands off each other. "You two fishes go out in the water, I need to fulfill my marital obligations here on the soft sand." Gavin said while pawing at his wife.
Nadine shook her head and quickly seal dragged her yellow covered legs toward the water obviously not wanting to be near the erotically engaged couple. Angie however, was not so quick to leave. Sara lifted her eyes from nibbling Gavin's neck to see her watching. "Do you mind, Angie?"
Angie smiled and slowly followed Nadine. "Have fun kids."
Nadine and Angie swam in the shallows, basked in the sun, and of course spent every syllable of their voices planning devious revenge on Sara and Gavin. After an hour or so, Gavin and Sara returned. "Let's get back to the boat."
The journey was easier since Gavin and Sara only had to carry their tails and were able to help Angie and Nadine. They arrived at the boat without incident. "How are we supposed to get up into the boat, I can't manage the ladder?"
"Yeah, I know." Gavin said. "I have something that should work." Gavin ran below and grabbed several feet of heavy rope and ran to the front of the boat where the anchor bracket extended out over the water to prevent it from banging into the side. There he tied a rope through a pulley and tied a slip knot into the rope before tossing it down to Angie and Nadine. "Put the knot around the end of your tail."
"No way, I'll just hold on to it." Nadine protested.
"Sorry ladies, I want to test the strength of the suit, this is a perfect real world test." Sara explained.
"But..." Nadine began.
"No buts, just do it." Sara responded sternly.
Nadine did as instructed and soon Gavin hauled her out of the water by the tail. Her bikini top was never designed to be supportive upside down and her breasts fell out forcing her to grab them with both arms to maintain her modesty. She swayed back and forth in as the boat rocked on the water. "Hey help me up." She could not grab for anything or else show the world her chest. "This is not funny."
No one was laughing. Gavin quickly tied off the rope while Sara snapped picture after picture.
Gavin tossed a second rope down toward Angie. "You're not going to let me in the boat until I do, are you?" Angie said holding the rope.
Sara shook her head.
"Fine let's get this over with." Seconds later, Angie swept out of the ocean and gently swayed back and forth in her bright green tail beside Nadine, except she didn't bother to hide her displayed bosom.
Sara continued to snap photo after photo from every possible angle of the helpless women. "There now, we have extremely compelling evidence of the strength of the products, both the tail and the compound that is holding it to your body."
"Wonderful, can you let us in the boat now."
"Gavin," Sara looked back at her husband.
Gavin smiled, started the engine and slowly turned the boat for home over the screaming protests of the two mermaids dangling from the front of the boat.
A few miles before they reached port, Gavin and Sara helped their scowling friends into the boat. Sara gave each girl a small container of white cream which they had to slowly work between the suit and their skin to break the bond. Gavin smiled as his wife stood beside him while he steered the boat. "Do you suppose they'll attempt to get us back?"
Gavin shrugged. "I don't doubt it."
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03.09.16