Sleep Story: Selkie’s Coat (To Tame A Bisexual)

Drift into a dream with "Selkie’s Coat (To Tame a Bisexual)” a modern, queer twist on the myth of selkies. In legend, selkies shed their seal coats to walk on land, but if their coat is stolen, they can never return to the sea. In this retelling, set in a bustling city, Selkie’s fur shimmers in fuchsia, teal, and goldenrod as she falls for a man who wants to keep her - but she belongs to both worlds.

A story of love, freedom, and identity, let this gentle tale carry you into sleep. Background music by Samuel F. Johanns from Pixabay

Transcript

Selkie's Coat.

A queer and modern retelling of the myth of Selkie's.

Selkie met him on a Friday night.

The club was alive with color and movement,

A glittering kaleidoscope of queerness and flashing lights.

Those on the club floor were unapologetically themselves,

In wild outfits and shaggy bright hairstyles.

Selkie herself was impossible to miss in her coat,

A cacophony of fuchsia,

Teal,

And goldenrod fur shimmering under the neon lights.

The coat was as loud and captivating as she was.

People turned their heads to get a better look at her as she danced by.

She was magnetic.

She moved effortlessly between her friends,

Snuggling close to yell into an ear over the thrum of the bass,

Stealing wet playful kisses on cheeks and dancing with reckless abandon,

Arms thrown in the air.

He was watching,

When at one point Selkie made her way to the bar and ordered a cocktail that arrived in a glass like a small rainbow storm.

It was blue at the bottom,

Shifting to a rich purple and crowned with pink foam.

She dipped into it playfully with a tiny white straw and turned to her friend with a grin.

It's the bisexual flag colors,

She declared,

Raising her glass in a mock toast.

Cheers,

To bi-representation in liquid form.

Her friends laughed and leaned in to clink their glasses with mock solemnity and bows.

He was a stranger that night,

Watching from beside the bar.

He couldn't take his eyes off her,

Drawn in by the sheer vibrant life she radiated,

And not just from her coat of chaos.

When their eyes met for a brief moment,

She smiled,

And he knew he had to talk to her.

He awkwardly made his way to the dance floor,

Where he accidentally bumped into her and stammered an apology and a compliment about her coat.

Thanks,

She grinned,

Pulling him into her orbit.

Her eyes sparkled under the club lights,

And she leaned closer.

It's my armor.

Then,

With a cheeky tilt of her head,

She asked,

So,

Are you here to dance or just stare at me all night?

He laughed shyly,

His face reddening.

A little of both,

Maybe.

Selkie laughed,

The sound bright and genuine.

Good answer,

She said,

Grabbing his hand and tugging him toward the center of the dance floor.

She moved with a confidence that made his head spin,

Her body swaying to the music and perfect rhythm.

At one point,

She leaned in,

Her lips brushing his ear.

What's your name,

Stranger?

When he told her,

She repeated it back,

Slowly,

As if tasting the syllables.

Nice to meet you,

She said with a grin,

Pulling back just enough to look him in the eye.

I'm Selkie,

And for the record,

You're a decent dancer.

That was how it started.

He was so utterly charmed by her.

She was bold and able to command a room without trying.

She was intoxicating to him.

The next morning,

He awoke with thoughts of the magical dream girl Selkie in her brightly colored coat and couldn't stop thinking about her.

He sent her a message on social media,

Asking to see her again.

One date became two,

Then three,

And soon they were inseparable.

He loved her wildness,

Her freedom,

Her style.

At first.

Months passed,

And their relationship deepened,

But things began to shift,

As they tend to do.

It started small,

With offhand comments about how her coat attracted attention.

I don't know why you feel the need to stand out so much,

He said one evening.

She had just arrived home from a night out with her friends,

And he'd said it to her in the entryway as she unfastened the buckles on her shoes.

She let the comment brush past her as she shrugged off her vibrant coat,

But the words lingered in her mind.

The seasons changed,

And the two of them fell into a rhythm.

It was one that felt familiar to him,

But increasingly restrictive to Selkie.

He insisted on date nights that followed a specific pattern of dinner at places with dim lighting and quiet ambience.

Movies with neatly tied up endings.

Weekend mornings spent at the market or out to brunch.

She went along with it,

Appreciating the comfort of predictability.

Over time,

She noticed the absence of spontaneity.

The way her suggestions to try out a new club or join her friends for karaoke were met with half-hearted excuses and soft no's.

When they went out together,

She noticed his discomfort whenever strangers complimented her coat or when her queer friends kissed her cheek too warmly in greeting.

His smile would tighten,

His hand gripping hers a little harder.

He seemed determined to mold their relationship into something he could understand,

A version he had seen in movies or gleaned from advice columns.

Boy meets girl.

Boy and girl settle down.

Boy and girl build a life that looks good on paper together.

Over time,

Selkie started wearing the coat less.

It wasn't that he had asked her to stop in those words.

It was just that she didn't want to fight.

It wasn't worth the argument.

Their life together was so much better when it was peaceful and predictable.

And still,

When she hung it in the closet,

It felt like closing the door on a part of herself.

But she convinced herself each time that it was temporary,

That she would bring it out for special occasions with her friends.

The coat was part of her,

A declaration of who she was,

Of the queer world she belonged to.

It reminded her of nights filled with laughter,

Connection,

And the freedom to love who she wanted,

How she wanted.

Those nights were fewer now,

But they still mattered.

One morning,

After her particularly wild evening documented in photos of her tangled up with her closest friends,

He snapped.

She woke up to find him sullen,

Scrolling through her social media.

You're practically draped over her,

He accused,

Pointing to a picture of Selkie leaning on her best friend,

Forehead to forehead,

Giant grins on both of their faces.

Selkie rolled her eyes.

She's my best friend,

We're not- It's disrespectful,

He interrupted.

You like girls too,

So it's like you're basically cheating on me.

He didn't have the words to articulate what he was feeling.

He only knew that it scared him,

The way Selkie seemed to have a life that existed outside of him,

A life he couldn't quite understand or control.

That night,

While she slept,

He hid the coat.

He buried it in the deepest corners of their shared storage locker,

Inside a box of forgotten winter clothes and underneath another box of old books.

Without it,

The jealous part of him thought,

Things would be simpler.

At first,

She didn't notice its absence.

Their lives fell into a comfortable domestic rhythm.

She stopped going out as much,

Her nights once filled with music and laughter replaced with quiet evenings on the couch.

They got engaged,

And she threw herself into planning their future together.

She wanted to believe this was what she wanted,

What she should want.

But still,

Something was missing.

They spent their evenings cooking meals together,

Watching tv shows he liked,

And talking about wedding details.

The shelves in their apartment filled with cookbooks,

Matching his and her mugs,

And photo frames showcasing their carefully curated love story.

On the surface,

Everything looked perfect.

But Selkie could feel an emptiness creeping in,

Like a photo slowly seeping its saturation.

She felt it most in the still moments when the apartment was silent,

And she could hear her own thoughts.

The Selkie,

Who danced under neon lights,

Who moved effortlessly between worlds,

Seemed like a distant memory.

She'd become quieter,

Smaller,

Dimmer.

He noticed the change,

But didn't question it.

He thought this was how it was supposed to be.

She was stable,

Reliable.

His.

Yet her sadness lingered like a ghost in their home,

And he couldn't understand why.

One rainy afternoon,

As they sat on the couch folding laundry,

Selkie's voice broke the silence.

Have you seen my gay furry coat?

She asked,

Her tone casual,

But her eyes searching his face.

His heart skipped,

But he kept his expression neutral.

I thought you donated it,

He said,

Folding a towel with meticulous care.

Didn't you say something about cleaning out the closet a while ago?

Selkie frowned,

Her brow furrowing.

Maybe,

She murmured,

Though the explanation didn't sit right with her.

The memory of donating the coat felt blurry,

Non-existent.

Still,

She let it go,

Not wanting to dig too deeply into a question she wasn't sure she wanted answered.

More and more often,

She scrubbed the apartment with a fervor that bordered on desperation.

Every surface was polished,

Every crevice dusted.

She cleaned baseboards,

Wiped down cabinets,

And even organized the kitchen pantry by color and size.

Yet the restlessness persisted.

On a particularly gray afternoon,

She stared at the storage locker key hanging by the door,

And decided to tackle it.

Anything to keep her hands busy.

The storage locker was a mess of forgotten things.

Boxes of winter clothes they never wore,

Stacks of old books,

And holiday decorations coated in dust.

She sifted through the chaos,

Pulling out items and sorting them into piles.

Her hands were grimy,

Her knees sore from kneeling on the cold concrete floor.

But still,

She kept going,

Determined to impose order on the disorder.

It was then,

Elbow deep in a storage container,

That her hand brushed against something soft and familiar.

Her breath caught as she pulled it out.

The coat,

Vibrant and untamed,

Exactly as she remembered.

The colors seemed to glow even in the dim light of the storage room,

And she stared at it,

Her heart pounding and eyes filling with tears.

Memories flooded back,

Unrelenting and vivid.

The nights of laughter,

Of dancing,

Of feeling alive and unashamedly herself.

She hugged the coat to her chest,

The smell of the faux fur allowing her tears to unburden from her eyes.

How had she let this part of her disappear?

When he came home that evening,

He found a note on the kitchen table.

Her engagement ring was set,

Just so,

On the paper with care.

The note read,

I found my coat,

And with it,

I found myself.

I've tried to be the version of me you wanted,

But in doing so,

I've lost the version of me that I loved.

I can't do this anymore.

I'm leaving.

Staying here would mean burying who I am,

And I won't let that happen.

I'm sorry,

Selkie.

Selkie moved in with her best friend,

The one he had always been so jealous of,

And for the first time in years,

She felt like herself again.

The apartment was small and cluttered,

With mismatched furniture and a balcony overflowing with potted plants,

But it felt alive.

It felt like home.

She threw on her coat every chance she got,

Revelling in the stares it drew on the subway,

The compliments from strangers,

And the way it seemed to breathe life back into her.

She didn't realize just how much she had missed it,

The weight of it on her shoulders,

The way it swished dramatically when she turned.

It wasn't just a coat,

It was a declaration of who she was.

She spent her days surrounded by people who knew her,

Really knew her.

They danced in the kitchen,

Cooked elaborate meals just for fun,

And stayed up late having deep conversations about love,

Identity,

And changing the world.

She started going out again,

Returning to the clubs she had once frequented,

Where her coat shimmered under neon lights and her laughter rose above the pulsing music.

She wasn't the subdued,

Predictable version of herself anymore.

She was Selkie,

Uncontainable and unapologetic.

One evening,

Months later,

He saw her from across a crowded street.

He had been walking home from work,

Caught in the monotony of his daily routine.

Then,

There she was,

A beacon of colour and chaos.

She was with her friends,

The coat glowing like a living thing under the city lights.

She was laughing,

Her arms slung over her best friend's shoulder,

Her face so light with joy.

For a moment,

He felt a pang of longing.

She was radiant,

Untouchable,

Complete.

But as he stood there,

Watching her move with the freedom he now recognised he had tried to take from her,

Something clicked.

He had loved her wildness,

Her vibrancy,

But he had wanted it on his own terms.

He had tried to fit her into a world that was never meant for her,

A script that demanded she choose one side of herself and leave the other behind.

He realised then that her sadness hadn't been a mystery.

He had erased her,

Piece by piece,

Until she no longer recognised herself.

And for what?

To soothe his own insecurities,

To keep her tethered to a life she was never meant to live.

Watching her now,

He understood that she had never belonged to him.

She belonged to herself.

And she always would.

Selkie happened to glance up then,

As if sensing his gaze,

And their eyes met for the briefest moment.

She didn't look away,

Didn't falter.

Instead,

She smiled,

A small,

Knowing smile that held no malice,

Only the kind of peace that comes with reclaiming what was lost.

Then,

With a toss of her brightly furred shoulder,

She turned back to her friends,

Her laughter ringing out as they disappeared into the crowd.

He stood there for a long time,

The city rushing around him,

Until he finally turned and walked the rest of the way home.

The end.

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