Cohost writing prompt: @Making-up-Monsters — Monster who, for the last time, does NOT have any control over the weather
Two blue-black eel-tailed women are sunning themselves in a tidal pool, a silt-floored clutch of rocks at the foot of a sharply eroded promontory. At high tide, the sea scours anew at the foot of the cliffs; now, at low, the bay's ribbed expanse of sand is exposed. Here, some way off its softness, there are little spots of temporary luxury, a short wriggle from the surf.
"There's that girl again," says one, nudging the other and giving a sly smile full of points. "Eh? Whatever her name is? Jam?"
"Jane," the second says, defensively.
Jane is a speck, still, a silhouette upon the cliff. It'll be a while before she works her way down the paths to the beach, and along the sand, around the inhospitable rocky curve of the bay to here.
"What do you think she wants today," says the first, and her sister heaves an enormous, put-upon sigh.
"How should I know," she says.
"Do you think it's weather again."
"I don't know."
"How many times do you think she's going to ask for weather."
"I don't know."
"Do you think she listens at all when you tell her you can't control the weather."
"She keeps asking." She scoops up a handful of water with a tiny, swimming crab in it, watches it whiz round and round her webbed grasp.
"What do you think she'll offer you for it today."
She studiously ignores the question.
"Do you think she'll offer you her virginity again," the first says, smiling hugely with lots of teeth, coaxing with a sharp elbow. "Eh? How many times is that, now?"
"Virginity is a social construct," she says evasively, and lets the crab loose in the water.
It's more times than seem remotely plausibly motivated by any actual concern for a fleeting change or hold in the weather.
"Maybe you could offer to swap her for yours."
"Maybe you'd talk less if someone tangled you in a drift net and you washed up for the gulls to pick at."
The first gives a throaty, throbbing laugh, and heaves her torso onto the rocks. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" she taunts, and slithers across sunwarmed stone and the pockets of damp sand between, into the sea's edge, only a distantly-glimpsed shape from the distance of the cliff paths.