He turned the key to shut off his engine, tucking his keys into the pocket of his swim trunks and grabbing a towel from the passenger seat before heading down to the beach. It was abandoned at the moment- there were more accessible places along the beach further down the coast, but he preferred it this way. Nobody around to bug him as he spent the day relaxing.
As he spread his towel out on the sand he saw something washing up on the beach not far away. It looked like an orange starfish. Curious, he got up and approached, looking over it for a moment. It was fairly large, almost a foot across from the tip of one of its five legs to either of its opposites. "Never seen on that big before..." he murmured to himself as he leaned down to pick it up and throw it back into the water, but just as his fingertips were about to touch the starfish, a sound stopped him.
"Hello."
He almost lost his balance from surprise, catching himself before he fell and looking around. There was nobody else on the beach, but it sounded like someone right next to him had spoken. "Er... hello?" He called, raising his voice a bit.
"Hello again." The voice came, still sounding awfully close. Blinking, he looked a little closer at the starfish at his feet. There was a pinkish spot in the middle, looking almost like...
"Um... hello... How are you?" He asked the starfish, watching it closely. To his surprise, the pink spot- actually a pair of very human-like lips, he realized now that he was watching them- opened up and the voice he'd heard came from the creature's mouth.
"I'm hungry, but aside from that I'm well," the starfish replied.
"Oh? What do you eat?" he asked, looking around again. This must have been some bizarre kind of prank... what the punchline was supposed to be, though, he couldn't tell.
"Algae and plankton, but at the moment I need protein."
"Protein, huh..." he mumbled to himself, his eyes locked on the starfish's mouth... it moved exactly like a person's... "How much?"
"Very little," it responded, slowly crawling across the sand towards him. "A mouthful would do."
"A mouthful..." he mumbled to himself, not really believing he was actually thinking what he was thinking. "I might be able to help you."
"I would appreciate that," it said, one of its thick orange legs probing at the top of his foot curiously.
Crouching down, he looked around again. Nobody else around. Turning his eyes back to the starfish, he lightly drew his fingertips over one of its legs. Despite its mottled and rough appearance, it was very smooth and supple, and surprisingly warm. This thing was bizarre, but it looked too real to be some kind of puppet. "Uh... you might have to help me get it, but it won't be hard. Here..." he lightly touched the starfish's lips with one fingertip. "Take this into your mouth and very gently lick and suck at it. Don't bite it," he instructed, his heart starting to beat a bit harder.
The starfish's mouth opened and took his finger in between its lips, doing as he'd instructed, suckling tenderly at his finger, the creature's tongue licking at the digit. "Yeah... like that..." he murmured, looking around again, feeling a bit paranoid that he'd be spotted. After a few second he gently slid his finger out of the starfish's mouth.