Charybdis woke from her slumber – a deep slumber of several weeks – to the sound of gentle lapping reverberating in her water. It wasn’t the constant slush of the tide against the rocks of her sea cave, nor the winter sound of the surface freezing and cracking, and not even the splashing of the creatures who sometimes wandered too near – this was steadier, rhythmic, and hollow. It was a sound foreign to her cave, yet familiar to her ears.  She could almost imagine what it was – the image was at the edge of her mind’s grasp.

She uncurled from her favorite crevice and stretched away a month’s worth of sleeping cramps, sending the eight tentacles spiraled up beneath her splaying out into the water like a giant star – and carefully, lest she make a wave and alert whatever visitor had come to her cave. The smaller tentacles on her back had their turn next, reaching out as straight as a sunbeam to give her the appearance of a winged angel, if only for a moment before they returned to their individual curves and corkscrew.  Each arm and tendril finger reached out through the water, and she rolled her neck. Finally, her lekku lifted away from the back of her neck, trembling as she permitted herself a silent, but dramatic yawn.

Now properly awake, she slinked along the floor of her cave, gliding through the unresisting sea grass to find the source of the noise. The moon – that wicked moon! – shone through the mouth of the cave and cut through the surface of the water in dancing shafts. To her large eyes even the murky depths of the cave were lit like day, so she found the silhouette of the small boat at the surface quickly.

A boat! It had been nearly a generation since any of the coastal people had forgotten or ignored whatever old wives’ tales they told of her cave. A score of years at least since any boat had strayed near the cave, much less inside it.  She didn’t even know of a fishing village close enough to reach in a day – she’d emptied them ages ago.  But this was a small boat – it could not have come far. The smell of the humans – two of them, she thought, a male and female – had filled the cave air and begun to waft down through the water.  Giddily she filled her mouth and gills.

Her belly rumbled and twisted on itself like a tentacle. She patted it silent and sighed. She had filled herself with fish and gulls and even a sea lion before her nap, but it was a pit now, and humans were the kind of tasty meal that taunted her from her dreams. Had it been almost half a century since she had lured the child from the beach?

Ngah! She could scarcely concentrate; at the surface, a slender hand trailed from the side of the boat, fingers dabbling in the water.  The taste of it tickled her lips, and she quivered with anticipation. The boat was almost above her now, and she had only to direct one curling tentacle up to the surface to spiral around that wrist…

No. That was too fast, too easy. She wanted to see them first. Maybe speak to them, if their people hadn’t changed languages again.  There was little difference between a seal and a human if she didn’t speak with them first; either meant a swollen belly, but a conversation could be a memory, too. Their expressions, their reactions put such a delicious edge on her anticipation. Besides, there was the possibility of more humans, if she did this just right.

She skulked along the bottom floor of her cave again, slipping between the shadows, through the waving green-brown of the sea grass so they had no chance to see her, until she reached her alcove and broke the surface behind a stand of barnacle-covered rocks. Her fingers curled around the edges of the rock, and her crown – once a regal thing of made from bronze and gems and the bones of her prey, now green with the patina of the sea and grafted by time through her skin to her very skull – bobbed only a few careful inches from the mossy stone ceiling. Her eyes narrowed to slitted crosses as they adjusted to the surface light and found the boat again. The oars were drifting in their sockets, and the humans had twined their limb – kissing, it seemed. Kissing held an appeal for her – it was foreplay for her tongue. Her head tilted, and her smile spread wider. Young love… her mouth watered.

The two were so completely caught up with each other that Charybdis went unnoticed as she glided along the surface toward the boat. She was as silent as a shadow, but quite large relative to the humans – her chin skipped at the surface, and her crown rose above the level of their heads. When she reached the dinghy, her fingers curled tightly around its brim, and the villi squished and conformed to the shape of the painted wooden surface, sticking as well as any suction cup. She was particularly careful not to rock the small boat as she lifted her shoulders from the water, but it didn’t seem that it would matter – the lovers were completely lost in their kisses and refused to notice her. Hmmm. Now they were just being rude.

She rocked the boat a little. Ahhh – the melodious screams of fright! Still entwined, the lovers crowded into the bow of the tiny boat. And why shouldn’t they scream and cower in fear? She was a monster, a nightmare, she knew it. Once a goddess, now a demon; her face had a similar shape to theirs, but the smooth grey skin, the double-lidded eyes, the wide mouth filled with rounded, bone-gnashing teeth made her clearly monstrous. A skull – a human skull – was fixed prominently in her ancient crown, and the tooth mark grooves in the bone made clear just what was her interest in humans.

Once she’d had time to drink in their fear, to let her face fill their mind with terror, she spoke. “What have we here?” Her voice was low and smooth, like the gentle rolling of the sea. It was soothing, without hint of threat. They seemed to understand her words, so she continued. “Two humans, far from their village, slipping into a dark cave? I think, perhaps… secret tryst?”

The male nodded shakily.  He was cowering, but still shielding the female behind him.  How charming.

Charybdis made sure her widening smile displayed her teeth, and gave them a glimpse of the dark gullet behind it. That was good for another round of shivering. She didn’t want to overdo it, though – not yet. It might ruin her plan. “So… lovers, then. Snuck away to spend time with each other’s flesh.” Her brows furrowed slightly, perhaps with concern, perhaps curiosity. “Why aren’t you naked? Don’t these clothes get in your way?” They certainly got in her way. They tasted bland, like sea grass – nothing like the savory, juicy flesh beneath. So often the clasps were too small for her fingers.

The female’s face widened in shock and outrage. “We’re not married!” she sputtered.

“Not yet,” her man quickly added. “But we will be by new moon, no matter what our parents say. I’ve engaged a priest.”

Charybdis nodded in consideration. “The two of you are binding for life? Then congratulations are in order, I believe. That is still the custom?”

The female seemed smugly pleased; her fright was fading.

“A dank cave, my home though it is, is no place for lovers to celebrate. You belong in the Tunnel of Love. Yes, such a beautiful place.  Much …cozier, much warmer.  More intimate.”

The male seemed wary, but curious. “What is that?  Is it near?”

Charybdis could not help but grin. “Very near. Close enough that I could show you there at no inconvenience to myself.” She placed her elbows on the edge of the boat and rested her chin on her wrists. “Do you mean to tell me that you have no such tradition among your lovers? It is a dark tunnel – completely dark so none can see, and there can be no shame – yet as I mentioned, warm.  No sharp rocks.  It’s a wonder. Lovers enter from either end, meeting in the middle to share their private passions. The tunnel is a keeper of secrets. No rumor – or sin,” she added for the female’s benefit, “- escapes it.”

The male nodded, eager now. “You can take us there?”

The female glanced at him, uncertain, but also nodded.

“Consider it my wedding gift to you.  One at a time, though, so you meet in the middle, yes?”

The male kissed his female on either cheek, then stood in the boat. “I shall go first, then.”

Charybdis nodded. “Of course. It is proper.” One of her tentacles snaked up from the other side of the boat and looped around his waist. Both he and the female gasped, but Charybdis smiled, was gentle with him, and kept him clear of the water as she pushed away. “Can you hold your breath?”

“Very well,” the male boasted, his chest swelling. “I am a pearl diver by profession.”

“Very good,” Charybdis cooed. “For you the entrance is further away and the passage is beneath the water. You, my sweet,” she glanced down to the girl, “shall wait here, with your patience and your lantern for company, until I return.”

The female shivered. “Will you be long?”

“Minutes only. Be patient, child – you shall be with him soon enough. If you wish to pass the time and reduce the waiting, you might remove your clothing while I am away.”

* * *

Charybdis whisked the male (he had given her his name as Pedr before she pulled him beneath the water) to the chamber deeper in her cave, where she kept her memorabilia – some treasures, some trinkets, some bones. A narrow crack in the ceiling allowed fresh air and a glimmer of moonlight, but no sound would pass through the flooded passageway to her main chamber.

Pedr gasped for air as she lifted him free of the water and placed him atop a fallen column – one of the remnants of the human cult who’d occupied this cave when she found it. Hadn’t that had been a feast, so many centuries ago! Her stomach grumbled again, upset by delay her games caused, but she calmed it with a soothing rub beneath the surface. Pedr squinted as he glanced about, and wiped the sea water from his face.

“Where’s this tunnel, then?”

“Just there, in the shadows – can’t you see it?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Can you see your own hands, darling?”

He held them a few inches from his face. “Yes, just barely.”

Charybdis lounged up against the column, resting her chin in her cupped fingers just a foot or so from him. “Perhaps you should undress here, then, so you will be able to find your clothes later?”

“Ah, yes. Good idea!” But Pedr was already scrambling out of his shirt and trousers, tugging off his boots to set them behind him.

Her eyes fluttered as the smell of him filled her. She had to remind herself not to lick her lips, but beneath the surface of the water her tentacles coiled and squirmed. “Anxious, aren’t you?” Charybdis purred. Not that she wasn’t. At the center of the star of her tentacles, In the murk beneath the cowl of her skirt, the toothless maw had begun to swell and throb.

Still, he’d stopped midway between pushing his trousers over his ankles to glance searchingly at her shadow, as if realizing for the first time that she might be watching him strip. He continued more slowly, more self-consciously.

“Fold your clothes, darling. I know a few things about your people, and your females do not appreciate a slovenly male.”

He nodded and obeyed.

With her lekku flicking in amusement, Charybdis continued. “They also do not appreciate overly eager males. Most males come to their love with some …youthful experience, so their love’s first encounter might be confident and sweet and tender, rather than rough and lustful. But you do not have this experience, I judge. No helpful aunt or neighbor? No father’s maidservant?”

Pedr shook his head woefully. “The priest had told us to save ourselves for the wedding night, but that felt wrong – I knew it. What shall I do? I wouldn’t frighten Lisbet from the wedding bed, not if there is another way!”

Charybdis reached toward him. At her touch he flinched away by instinct, but then held himself still while a curling finger traced down his chest, over his stomach, between his legs. “Come here, darling, and show me how you kiss. This is a necessary skill if you are to be a generous lover.”

Warily, now uncertain of himself, he stood on the pillar and took a half-step toward her. She lifted herself on her elbow and nudged him from behind, pushing to the edge of the pillar. He teetered, inches from her face.  With his head dwarfed beneath hers, she murmured, “Wet your lips.” She did the same, tracing her lips with the tip of her tongue until they glistened, plump and dark, then puckered and closed her mouth over half of his face. She could have easily taken him then – a quick snap of her jaws would have engulfed his entire head and shoulders; but eager as she was for his taste, she dismissed the impulse. Of course, she couldn’t really feel his kiss within hers – his lips were a speck – but she pushed him away and nodded, maintaining the ruse. “Good, good. You have some natural talent. Be firm, be gentle, and always show restraint. She may attack you with kisses, but you must show restraint? Do you understand?”

He nodded as he wiped her saliva from his cheeks and forehead.

Without warning she pulled him to her lips again, this time parting them to wash her tongue over his cheeks, to wriggle the tip of it between his lips. Following her instruction he endured without struggle; she could even feel his little tongue pushing back at hers. His taste was lovely, fresh like the tenderest parts of a baby seal – not gamey like the sea sailors she remembered – and another grumble of her stomach urged her to put an end to the ruse and munch on him.  But she’d promised him the tunnel.

“What was that sound?” He pulled away, face slick and dripping, to stare into the dark in the direction of her belly. It was plump, despite her gnawing appetite – rounded beneath her breasts – and the pale purple flesh peeked out from the slit in what had long ago been a midnight blue gown, but was now a part of her as much as her crown. That belly – what hint of it his eyes could see – was about the right size for a human or two to fit into; she recognized the thought in his eyes.

“Nothing, nothing. I was about to go out fishing when you two stumbled into my cave, darling. You can’t be distracted by every little noise.  You must attend to your lover.” Charybdis rolled over onto her back, drawing the great bulk of her body – tentacle skirt and all – from the water and tapped her belly with her fingertips. “Come to me now, and I’ll show you how to touch.”

He gave it a wary glance when her belly growled again, but let her lift his naked body atop hers. With few words and the shepherding tips of her fingers and a frequent tentacle, she guided him to her breasts – still full and motherly despite their permanent fusion with her gown – to each concealed nipple in turn, then into her cleavage, where he lost his hesitation and squirmed with delight.  She had to bite her lips to keep from devouring him then. Ages ago, such attention to her body would have tickled her urge to reproduce, but those urges had long since been subsumed by hunger. Her mouth filled with saliva, and her stomach twisted; the taste of him on her tongue burned like fire. But that was not the mouth for which he was destined; she’d have to do something quickly or she’d lose control of herself and break her promise.

Her voice shook, her breath heaved as she murmured, “I think you’ve had enough practice, darling. It’s time for you to enter me, then straight into the tunnel.” Her heavy lids and raised brows promised him seduction. “-No, don’t fret,” she cut off his words as tentacles encircled his arms and dragged him toward her cowl. “Even a moment of practice will make you the better lover, and spend the part of your passion beyond your control. By the time she joins you in the tunnel, you’ll be ready to love again, but without that inflamed, overeager, greedy passion.  You will be generous.” Another tentacle closed over his mouth to prevent any protest, and he disappeared beneath her skirt. She closed her eyes blissfully and murmured her instructions, though it was her tentacles that brought his hand to the eager, gaping mouth to feel how moist and plump it was, and to understand just how tightly it could squeeze around his wrist. The way her body shuddered would surely convince him that he was pleasing her, but that vestige of the great octopus that was her lower half had no womb, no maiden’s channel. She was all shuddering, quivering, digesting belly inside. That mouth had no tongue, no sense of taste, but the blubbery skin there was a hundred times more sensitive than her fingertips, and could feel the tendons in his hand, each knuckle of his finger, the muscle in the pad of his thumb with delicious, drooling precision as she pulled his arm free of her.

They were both trembling with delight when she drew his hips against her eight-fold lips and closed over his manhood, squeezing tightly enough to hold him in place. He gasped when her octopus mouth sucked. He lasted only a few seconds before his hot seed escaped him – she could feel every warm gush, each drop – but she held him there still, tentacles coiling inward to enfold him beneath her skirt, while she relished the feeling and allowed herself to moan with pleasure.

He gasped for breath again when she finally loosened her lips and let him slip free; she was breathing heavily, too.  His musk burned in her gills.

“Catch your breath, darling, and I’ll help you into the tunnel. Remember, she will be several minutes behind you.  You don’t need to rush, if you’re to meet your love in the middle. Deep breath now? It’s back into the water for you.”

He barely had a moment to nod before a tentacle caught him by the waist and flung him into the water. She slid in after him, cowl flaring, and let her tentacles snake out to find him on their own; once the first brushed past his flesh, all closed in like greedy eels, coiling around his thrashing form to drag him back to the wide-spread maw. They were both beneath the water now, and she was gurgling and moaning as she stuffed him inside, her lower mouth engulfing his toes, his feet, his ankles. By the time she’d swallow him up to his hips, his toes were emerging from the fleshy, muscle wrapped passage into her velvety gut; she’d have to hurry if she was to time this right. She reached out of the water to snatch his clothes from the rock, then disappeared again beneath the water.

* * *

Back in the main chamber of the cave, the female, Lisbet, was startled by Charybdis’ sudden silent appearance beside the boat. “Where’s Pedr?” she demanded as she watched Charybdis sop his folded clothes down into the bottom of the hull.

“In the tunnel, my sweet, waiting for you.” Charybdis eyed the clothes as well. “He didn’t want either of your clothes to be lost in the excitement of it all. Thoughtful, considerate fellow, him.”

But Charybdis was only thinking ahead. These things – the clothes, the oar or the boat’s lantern – were bait.  They might net Charybdis another meal on the next week, once the lovers were missed and the searchers came.  Or she might be patient enough to follow them back to their village when their search failed.

Charybdis frowned. The female’s bodice had been unlaced, yet she still clutched the upper half of the dress over her chest and had not abandoned her skirt. She was sniffling, too, and glancing anxiously toward the cave mouth. The time alone had allowed her to reconsider.  Her lust had withered, allowing common sense to grow in its place.

“I’m not sure about this… I want to go.”

“But your lover already waits for you in the tunnel. He trusts you to meet him. Would you abandon him there, alone?” Charybdis’ face was one of gentle chiding, but the boat rocked as her tentacles squirmed and coiled around the last bits of Pedr beneath the surface. She’d swallowed him to just beneath his shoulders now, and his legs struggled weakly against the squeezing, enfolding walls of her gut. Good – deliciously good – but the air in his lungs would run out soon, no matter how good of a diver he was.  He had no gills.  “Not entirely alone…”  She smirked.

“No, I suppose not.” She stood, and Charybdis steadied the boat. “Help me with my dress, then?”

“Gladly, my sweet.” With the bodice undone, the dress slipped up over her head and fell into the front of the boat. The female unhooked her own undergarments and let them fall around her ankles. Charybdis watched with the thinnest veneer of patience.

“You’ve eaten him, haven’t you?”  The female faced her with a calm resolve. “You’re looking at me the way a cat does a mouse.”

Charybdis blinked in surprise. This was unexpected. Despite a quivering lip, this human was bold, and not from ignorance. It was a strange smell she had, but not unpleasant. “You have good eyes for the dark.  For a human.”

“Was it – was it dreadfully painful for him? Did you chew him or bite off his fingers?”

The female didn’t flinch as Charybdis lifted her, naked, from the boat. “No, no pain.  He’s still quite alive, quite whole, and he’s struggling. If he didn’t spending his energy fighting me, he might even find his tunnel pleasant.” She held the female aloft, and one tentacle emerged from the water to stroke up her thigh, along her buttocks and back, and around to breasts and neck. “Regardless of my intentions for you both, I’m bound to my word: he waits for you in darkness, where you two will be together.  You may satiate your fleshly lusts as you wish.”

The female’s jaw clenched, but she bore the caress in silence. After the tentacle had stroked the loose hair from her face, she continued, “Will you swear the same for me – no gnashing, no chewing of my bones. Our last moments might truly be together?”

Charybdis brought her to her mouth, opened it fully so her large teeth framed the cavern of her throat. Her tongue lashed out, slathering over Lisbet’s face, neck and chest. “My sweet, your flesh is so tender, it will be a feat of reserve to avoid nibbling.” She savored the female’s moment of shivering. “But I have given you my word, and I shall keep it. Remember – it my wedding gift.” She dangled Lisbet’s feet near her lips and slurped them inside, sucking her legs in to the knee. The taste of the smooth flesh, clad neither by scale or fur, caused her to moan and quiver; beneath her, the eight-lipped maw used the last of its patience and gulped the male upward, squeezing his arms and head into her gurgling stomach.

Still Lisbet bore her torment quietly, only blinking away tears.

Charybdis let the girl’s legs fall from her lips and spoke. “Do feel free to scream and weep, my sweet. I find it quite appetizing.”

“I believe that I shall.”

The monster’s tongue flicked over Lisbet’s face, lapping eagerly at her eyes and mouth as she began to sob, before she was shoved headfirst, up to her shoulders, into Charybdis’ monstrous mouth.

True to her word, Charybdis’ teeth grazed only lightly, holding her in place between each hungry gulp. Her jaw popped as she stretched it wide to accommodate the human without crunching her to pulp or sucking the meat from her bones, but it was a delicious ache.  Lisbet’s screams were muffled in the depths of her throat. Breasts and elly followed shoulders, knees and feet followed hips, and in moments Lisbet had disappeared into her mouth.

Charybdis swallowed, her attention tracing the lump fighting its way down her throat, until Lisbet emerged in her gut, joining the weight of her lover. It was the closest Charybdis had come to an orgasm in centuries – perhaps there was still some vestigial organ somewhere within her. She groaned as they squirmed together in the tight quarters, and she slipped back down into the murky depths. She could feel them still moving together – making love? arguing? it didn’t matter which. Their joined lump writhed inside her, distending the already-taut skin of her belly. It was such a pleasant, contented feeling, warming her from within. It drew the strength from her limbs; it made her want to nap again.   And why not? She’d not had such a fine meal within recent memory.  She allowed herself to drift into the depths of her crevice, to find her favorite niche.  Sleep came.

As her eyes closed and she slipped into dreams, images flitted through her mind: images of the lovers’ families venturing out from their port town in search of their lost; images of a village; images of unattended children left behind on sea piers; images of grieving widows walking the rocky shoreline. Her contentment was not satisfaction – never that. She would always want more, and where there were two humans, more was what she was sure to find. She’d only just had the first course of her feast.