The Octopus

New Year's Eve champagne had me in a spin. If we had to post up under-grad duty on a holiday, I'm glad it was with Sam.

I checked him out, but he already had his eye on me as I leaned up against the aquarium tank breathing hard – trying to clear my head. Sam, of course, wasn't his real name; it was Sandal – originally from Delhi through Oxford.

He ogled me, but I didn't mind. I'd heard he wanted to score with an American blond and I really liked him. Oh, God, that proper British accent of his gave me goose flesh. He looked more suntanned than dark, the proper cross mix of genes: a Delhi father and a British mother. He walked over and placed his hand on me just in time. I swooned into his arms.

He said, "Not that I mind a smashing bird in my arms, dear, but maybe you ought to sit down. I'll do the walk through on the tanks, jot down the numbers and all that."

"Hey, Sam. Why are you so freaking cute?"

"Could be the booze? Or maybe it's fate, what?"

I eased down on a bench nearest a tank containing several cuttlefish. The champagne rush lashed through me. The smell of salt water and cephalopod did not mix well with booze. I was raging hot, I stood to fan myself and unbuttoned a few buttons on my blouse.

Cuttlefish eyes peered out from the thick walled tank.

"Sorry", I apologized to the cephalopods. They stared back. "Hey, listen, don;t be so judgmental - my boobs aren't that big, my bras are all dirty and there was no time to wash today. So you'll just have to avert your big-eyed gaze; you damn dirty minded things."

I laughed out loud, and then slid back down on the bench. The next thing I remember, Sam shook me awake.

"You take a doze?"

"Yeah, I guess so." My head was strange, like some of my circuitry was rewired. I had always been the girl to hold my beer, even taken shots of tequila when the pre-med girls were puddles on the floor. What was wrong with me.

"Well, good. I checked on the tanks and everything is fine. Paperwork all filled out until the six in the morning checkup. Even the new kraken-thing is straight out all right."

"Octopussy?" I asked.

"Right. Bizarre turd." Sam related. "I finally got a chance to take a good look at it and its charts. Professor Neinhuils usually won't let us near it, so this is as close as I've been. You know, Old Nine Heil, is wrong, it's got an extra pod – or well, it looks like a pod. Just doesn't show it when the lights are full blare, but I saw it just now."

"Sam, I don't think it's right to call him a nazi. He is world known; the reason I came here to Ark in the first place. And it's a bit disrespectful since he is Norwegian – not even German."

"Yeah, I thought the same thing for a while. I worked a lot of more angles to get here to Arkham U. and be part of his graduate program. However, you wait until you take BIO 567. Damn, blackguard, he - makes Gehring look like a fumbled Adam Sandler. Sod a dog, sixty bloody books to read in one semester and the godawful hours of dissection."

Just then a moan crept through the facility. "Pretty damn creepy, here, at night." I said.

"I've pulled six weekends this semester, trust me, you get used to the noise. The tanks are so heavy the the concrete wails as the temperature cools outside. Not as bad in the summertime."

"So what's Octopussy like?" I asked.

He said, "It's not a bad sort, not to be pulled from the coast of New Zealand and dragged back to Arkham. I was crankier when I flew over from Heathrow."

I laughed.

"Actually, It's damn sporting of you to pull a shift with me on New Year's Eve."

"I needed the credits." I lied.

"Well, I think I'll have a run at another glass of bubbly." He said.

He walked over to the makeshift ice chest – a specimen bucket of shaved ice - and poured the chilled bottle into a paper cup and he sipped. He was such a hottie and I loved how he took little sneaks at my open blouse. Damn, why was he being such a gentleman?

Just come closer, honey, I thought.

As if by telepathy or whatever they call it – he did.

He handed me a cup of champagne and I drank it down.

"That's a bit fast, Luv, don't you think? That'll go right to your head." He said.

"Not my 'head', babe, a little lower. I have a nice - wet rush."

He got the message and moved in fast, one arm quickly around my waist. I moved my shoulders so he could get a better look at my breasts. His hand dipped to my ass, and he leaned in. The kiss was deep and hot, exactly what I hoped for. More warmth shot through me; made me tingle between my legs. My hand went to his pants and he responded to the encouragement. He felt so thick and nice.

Then he pulled back and exclaimed, "Hell, I've got no bleeding condoms."

"Shh, babe," I whispered back. "I have one in my purse. I'll go get it."

I wobbled past Octopussy to the desk where I'd placed my purse in the bottom drawer. I glanced at the aquarium tank sign through bleary eyes. I read: New Species: Architeuthis Neinhuysius.

I took the condom packet out of my purse, but when I looked up, the cephalopod was pressed against the glass. It had turned a deep pink color.

I must have screamed.

Sam came running stark naked – he had certainly been prepared for my return with the condom.

"What?" He yelled. "What's wrong?"

"Octopussy – it turned pink."

He looked. "Luv, it's the same gray-blue it's always been."

He was right. I looked again and it had its normal colors, but now I noticed that it had a tentacle resting against the glass – at least I thought it looked like a tentacle.

"Well, this is awkward. I'm standing here naked, and you're ogling the squid."

Tan top to bottom, he had a skinny ass but a nice hairy chest. Too many beers in England had given him a slight paunch, but I wouldn't toss him back in the sea for that. I glanced at him, he had flagged, and his face flushed.

"Oh, bloody fucking hell, I'm sorry ..." He muttered apologetically.

"Nothing that can't be remedied, Sammy!" The floor was hard and cold, but he was worth it. I shed my clothes, scrunched my jeans up like a pillow and kneeled on them in front of him.

"Mm. Oh, God, that's good." He moaned.

The salty glans was smooth as silk as I pulled his foreskin back and it provoked a wild buck in him that gave me a sense of authority. Drunk or not, I could give good head. I first pulled it in to rub against the inside of my cheek and then let him thrust to the back of my throat.

Next, I grasped the base of his cock and slipped my lips up and down the shaft. I pulled and sucked until I felt the veins of his penis tighten like thick threads.

"Enough! Dear God! My turn." He said.

He eased me down to the floor so he could lick me, but when my back touched the floor I shouted, "Shit!" I bucked off the icy floor and knocked him off balance.

"Goddamn it," he said, "I'm an unthinking brute. That floor must be like ice. Let me find a blanket or something."

"No, never mind, baby. Look, we'll just fuck, okay? I'll get on my knees; it won't be so cold." I had the most urgent – need – I had to have him inside me, I needed him to fuck me in the worst way.

Despite my encouragement, he was only so big, but he wasn't bad. He moved in and out, but with the drinking I guess, he never found a good rhythm. He began to pant, out of breath, and banged away. I began to watch Octopussy out of the corner of my eye. It was pink, damn it, I swear it was. Moreover, one of the 'tentacles' now lay on the outside of the tank, waving in the air like some – Jesus was it? – a phallus?. Somehow it twisted over the tank lip and it raised itself a little out of the water – the engorged "thing" lolling in the air.

"Aw, goddamn! Fuckity-fuck, shit." He groaned. "I lost it."

The booze had taken its toll; he'd flagged out.

I got up and said. "Don't worry, Sweetheart There'll be later." Well, maybe. Actually, I thought, Probably not. There just wasn't the chemistry I wanted; but it had helped to kill the quiet lonely oceanic lab spookiness. I lied to make him feel better, though, "I've had that happen a lot to me. It's no problem."

Neither of us bothered to put on any clothes; but Hell, I didn't know why. Not then, at least.

"I am so goddamned sorry." Sam said. "You're so damned pretty. Look at you, you're like an American Amazon goddess."

"Nice of you to say, but I don't think so. My blonde hair is really dyed, and my 34 B's would never to get me to Hollywood, but I do need more champagne. I'll be back in a few."

My head buzzed even without the alcohol, as if eerie music played through my skull. I closed my eyes a moment and it was as if I was floating in a wine dark sea.

When I returned with my champagne dixie cup full, the freaking cephalopod still hung his 'whatever' over the outside of the tank and Sam was holding it's "whatever" in his hands. I could swear Sammy's cock was twice as big as before and he was at a full erection - standing straight out.

"What the –" I began.

"Isn't it great? It's like a pet. Look at the organ on the tip, it's orange and spongy."

"Don't, Sam, I don;t think that's an extra, um, tentacle and the thing might be dangerous."

"Silly ass; Look, it's harmless." He touched it with his palm, and an oily liquid spilled out of the orange tip and down Sam's arm.

"Bloody Hell. Ashley, this stuff is warm. Good God, it's so warm." He rubbed some on his chest, then returned to milk more and more of it. He rubbed some on his balls and cock.

"Quit! You may kill yourself." For some weird reason, though, when I should have called 911, I just stood there, fascinated – fixed in place. My mind seemed eerily soft and fuzzy – but not an alcohol buzz, something – different.

"It's like LSD; I can see forever. I see back in time, into other dimensions. The deep underwater buildings of Lemuria. Atlantean warriors, side by side with squids armed with weapons made from alien metal. Man and 'pod killing the demonic hordes. Man takes the land, the squids take the sea. It was meant to be, always should have been." He babbled in some tongue, "Cthulhu pftagn."

"Stop, Sam." I begged.

"Try it old girl. Come – here!" His deep British voice fairly commanded.

I closed the distance, compelled, and touched the spongy mass. It was silky leather, damp, and the orange tip had drops of oil on it. When I touched it, it felt on my skin like pickle juice would to my tongue, but after a moment I felt a white heat between my legs. I rubbed the thick stuff over my breasts and on my thighs.

"It's ambrosia. Ashley, please, I've got to fuck you. "

"I only had one condom, Sam."

"I need you! Please! Now!"

He embraced me, rubbed his cock over my belly. We were both wet with sweat and squid cum. He smelt so damn good, like the most expensive cologne. Oh, Hell, I was twenty-one, off the pill, and really what was I waiting for? I needed a baby. Why not? Sam was a bronze God and we might make a gorgeous baby.

"Oh, Jesus." I said, as he slipped in. Damn it felt good. I heard myself moan, "Oh, oh, do it babe, oh, oh, uh, oh, God!" I hadn't had a fuck orgasm in ages, but the O was incredible.

He kept pumping. My eyes closed. "Oh my lord, sweet god of the stars, oh, oh, oh!" It happened again.

Then, my eyes still shut in ecstasy, Sam exclaimed his pleasure. He began to feel – different. He still filled me up. He thrust deep, but he kissed me with now thin, wet, cold lips. His new claws dug into my skin lightly, but not hurting me. His wet skin clammy on mine. I opened my eyes, but there was no fear or dread. It was still Sam – but the change in him was astonishing. He had to hurry while he was still a man.

I screamed out encouragement. "Oh, shit, shit, oh sleeping god, oh, fuck me, baby, fuck me Sammy, fuck me you goddamned son of a bitch. Uh!"

Three orgasms now and I was spent - rubbery. Then, relief. I at last felt his ejaculate burn deep inside my cunt.

Sam lay there on the floor, flopping about as the transmogrification finished. He was no longer human; he'd come just in time. The amphibian- Sam rolled about, gray, no eyelids, and his hands almost like flippers.

He croaked, "Ashley, quick. I have to get into the tank. Get a ladder. I'll die in the air. The words trailed off and were more in my head than in my ears.

I drug a tank ladder to Octopussy's home. Sam crawled up to the top just in time. On floppy, spindly legs; his gills dry, scaly and rasping in the dry air, his body oozed over the side and plopped into the water. He bobbed in it looking out at me with soulful black eyes.

In my brain, I heard a voice, a telepathic thought. "Take care of our baby. Don't ask me how I know, but it'll be a quick pregnancy, but the embryo is so small; you won't even show until the last week. But it has to go into the sea, right away - promise me, it has to go into the sea."

Sam's voice continued. "Nine Heil speculated that when he had captured the creature it was pregnant, but the fool, it procreates through humans. Octopussy let itself be captured to propagate after all these centuries of life – it was time.

Then it was done - I never heard another telepathic word from Sam ever again.

I left Arkham the next day for Innsmouth and rented a small loft near the sea. They never came or questioned me about Sanal – Sam – or what he had now become. That was the way at Arkham U. - hellacious things had happened there for more than a century. The staff and faculty just shrugged and moved on.

Months later, the baby slid out of my womb on the twilit beach, virtually pang free. The sun had set, and the sea foamed in deep purples. I cried for it, it was so beautiful. Eight tentacles, a sweet bulbous head, what mother could want more?

It was so small, so tiny, but it's weak legs wriggled forth to the sea. I walked into the sea with it. The chemical reaction I had witnessed with Sam now began with me, but different. My arms and legs swelled to tremendous strength, talons replaced my painted fingernails. Transformed into a beast of some sort, I didn't care. It was my baby and it had to be protected - and now, I was equipped to do so.

I let it slide into the water. Immediately, a predator, a sea shark of some kind sailed toward it.

The sharp talons on my powerful hands tore at the shark. More came, to sniff the blood of the shredded shark, but they were no match for my agility and strength. In the end, the bloody red carcasses floated in froth. The young cephalopod feasted on their brains.

The baby and I anchored ourselves to an old bridge several hundred yards off shore and silk eased slowly out of my body cavity.

The cocoon formed around me and the baby.

I would be food for the tiny cthulhu-spawn and the little boy would eat me a small piece at a time, lovingly, gingerly and I could watch the new life grow. At last it would feast on my brain, too, and full sized, we would move together as one – my life inside his - into the depths of the ocean and ply our lives away in the undersea world.