-

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 had this cave before her. Hadn’t that had been a feast, so many centuries ago! Her stomach grumbled again, upset by delay from her games, 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?”

“Yes, just barely.”

Charybdis lounged up against the column, resting her chin in a cupped hand 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. Splendid idea!” but Pedr was already scrambling out of his shirt and trousers, tugging off his boots to toss them aside.

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 were coiling and squirming. “Anxious, aren’t you?” Not that she wasn’t. At the center of the star of her tentacles, beneath the murky cowl of her skirt, the toothless maw had begun to swell and throb.

Still, he’d stopped midway between pulling his trousers over his ankles to glance at her, as if realizing for the first time that she was 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 have some experience beforehand, so their first encounter with their love might be confident and sweet and tender, rather than rough and lustful. But you do not have this experience, I suppose? No helpful aunt or neighbor? No father’s servant?”

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

Charybdis reached toward him. Instinctively he flinched away, 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 very important attribute if you are to be a good lover.”

Warily, now uncertain of himself, he tottered toward her. She lifted herself on an elbow and nudged him from behind, pushing him right up to her mouth. With his face 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 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 overcame the urge. Of course, she couldn’t feel his kiss within hers – his lips were a speck – but she pulled him away and nodded, maintaining the ruse. “Good, good. You have some natural skill. 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 face and wriggle the tip of it between his lips. Following her instruction he permitted her full access without struggle; she could even feel his little tongue pushing back at hers. His taste was lovely, like the tenderest parts of a baby seal, and another grumble of her stomach urged her to end the game early and munch down.

“What was that?” He pulled away, face slick and dripping, to glance down at her belly. It was plump – rounded beneath her breasts – and the pale purple flesh peeked out from the slit in what had long ago been her midnight blue gown but was now a part of her. That belly was about the right size for a a human or two to fit into – she could see the thought in his eyes.

“I was about to go out fishing when you two startled me, darling. You can’t be distracted by every little noise.” 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 up here, 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 nipple in turn, then into her cleavage, where he squirmed in delight while she bit her lips to keep from devouring him. 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 in her mouth 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 ruin her little game.

Her voice shook, her breath heaved as she murmured, “I think you’ve had enough practice, darling. It’s time for you to be inside me, then straight into the tunnel.” Her heavy lids and raised brows promised him seduction. “-No, don’t worry,” she cut off his words as tentacles encircled his arms and drug him down toward her cowl. “It will make you the better lover. By the time she joins you in the tunnel, you’ll be ready to love again, but without that inflamed, overeager, greedy passion.” 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 eagerly opening mouth to feel how moist and plump it was, and to feel how tightly it could squeeze around his wrist. The way her body shuddered would surely convince him that he was pleasuring her, but that vestige of the great octopus that was her lower half had no womb. 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 pressed his hips against her eight-slitted lips and closed over him, squeezing tightly enough to hold him in place. He lasted only a few seconds between her nibbling lips before his hot seed escaped him, 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 released him; she was breathing heavily, too.

“Catch your breath, darling, and I’ll help you into the tunnel. Remember, you don’t need to rush, if you’re too 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 and let her tentacles snake out to find him; once the first brushed past his flesh, all closed in, coiling around his thrashing form to drag him back to the opening maw. They were both beneath the water now, and she was gurgling and moaning as she stuffed him inside, her lower mouth greedily engulfing his toes, his feet, his ankles. By the time she’d swallow him up to his hips, his toes would be emerging from the fleshy passage into her velvety gut; she’d have to hurry if she was to time this right. She reached out of the water to grab his clothes from the rock, then disappeared again beneath the water.

-

The female, Lisbet, startled when Charybdis emerged beside the boat in the main chamber of the cave. “Where’s Pedr?” she demanded as she watched Charybdis sop his folded clothes down into the boat.

“In the tunnel, my dear, 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, he.”

But Charybdis was only thinking ahead. Careful placement of those clothes, and maybe an oar or the boat’s lantern, might net Charybdis another meal on the next week, once the lovers were missed.

Charybdis frowned. The female’s bodice had been unlaced, yet 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, not abandon common sense for lust.

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

“But your love already waits for you in the tunnel. He trusts you to meet him. Would you abandon him there, alone forever?” Charybdis’ face was one of gentle chiding, but the boat rocked as her tentacles squirmed and coiled around Pedr beneath the surface. Her mouth had swallowed him up to his hips now and his legs struggled against the squeezing, enfolding walls. Good – deliciously good – but the air in his lungs would run out soon.

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

“Gladly.” With the bodice undone, the dress slipped 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.

“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, dear, he’s still quite alive – he’s struggling within me. If he wasn’t spending all of his energy fighting me, he might even find it pleasant.” She held the human 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 your, I’m bound to my word: he’s waiting for you in darkness, where you two will be together.”

The female’s jaw clenched, but she bore the caress in silence. After the tentacle had pushed the hair away 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 dear, your flesh is so sweet, it will be a feat 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, hairless flesh caused her to moan and quiver; beneath her, the fleshy maw used the last of its patience and gulped the male upward, squeezing his hips and chest into her gurgling stomach.

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

Charybdis let her legs fall from her lips and spoke. “Do feel free to scream and weep, my dear. It’s immensely appetizing.”

“I believe that I shall.”

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

True to her word, Charybdis’ teeth grazed only lightly, holding her in place between each hungry gulp. In moments only the female’s hips and kicking legs were still protruding from her mouth, but those, too, disappeared quickly.

The two humans emerged completely into her stomach at nearly the same moment. It was the closest Charybdis had come to an orgasm in centuries. She groaned, and slipped back down into the murky depths of her crevice. She could feel them together – making love? arguing? it didn’t matter which. They squirmed beneath the stretched skin of her belly. It was such a pleasant, content feeling, and it made her want to nap again.

As her eyes closed and she drifted into dreams, images flitted through her mind: images of the lovers’ townsfolk venturing out from their port town to search for their lost, images of unattended children left behind on sea piers, images of grieving widows walking the rocky shoreline. She was so content, yet so eager. She’d only just had the first course of decades of feasting.