"Stop it you naughty thing or I won't come to see you anymore," Akiha giggled.
She dodged away from the creature - she still didn't know what it was - as it tried to slip another limber, glistening tentacle beneath her short blue skirt.
"Don't be so rude," she reproached it. "Is that all you ever think about?"
Laughing, she slipped away from the creature through the bars of sunlight that lit the floor of the abandoned boathouse.
Behind her the creature made a sound, a plaintive mewling kind of noise. Then it paused, watching her, its numerous tentacles writhing slowly in the air.
Akiha was an orphan. She was eighteen years old. She lived with her foster parents beside a wide lake. Her foster father was a fisherman.
Akiha's tight, white blouse clung to her large, firm breasts as she panted and smiled and peered back through the shadows to look at the creature.
It was so ugly she couldn't help feeling sorry for it. It was all alone in the world the same as she was.
It was two weeks since she had first seen the creature. One day after school she had observed it from a distance as it dragged itself laboriously from the lake. She'd watched it take refuge in the old boathouse. She'd never seen anything like it. It reminded her of an octopus but she knew there were none in the lake. Besides, it had too many tentacles.
Her first impulse had been to run home to the mean little house where she lived and tell her foster parents what she'd found. But then she'd had second thoughts. Her foster father killed everything he caught in the lake. The creature had looked so helpless then, two weeks ago. So pitiful and lonely that she couldn't bear the thought of being the cause of its death. In the two weeks that had passed the creature had grown considerably. Now it was almost as tall as her foster father, but Akiha still couldn't bring herself to tell anyone about it. It was her secret. And besides, the creature wouldn't hurt her. It was her friend.
Now she stood in the abandoned boathouse and they looked at each other. Dust motes drifted slowly through the sunshine that slanted here and there through the gaps in the warped and twisted roof. The floor of the boathouse was littered with old fishing gear and nets and dirty, wrinkled tarpaulins. The air smelled dry and dusty and faintly of old sawdust.
"I can't stay very long today," Akiha told the creature. Her foster mother's name was Hamako. She and Akiha didn't get along. If she was late home Akiha would be in trouble.
She smiled fondly at the creature, sometimes she had the feeling it understood everything she said. It was looking at her now. It's eyes were huge and expressive, the shape and colour of the full moon. Its mouth was a wrinkled slit. Now, again, it made the only sound she'd ever heard it produce; a soft, watery, mewling sound.
The creature had fourteen tentacles, they weren't all the same, and some were longer and thicker than others. Its skin was thick and rubbery looking. A deep emerald green. It glistened wetly. It squatted heavily on some of its tentacles while half a dozen others waved slowly in the warm, still air. The underside of its tentacles were a slightly paler green and were covered by rows of numerous pale pink disc-like suckers that sometimes puckered and dilated as its tentacles rose in the air.
"I know what it's like to be lonely," Akiha told it. Her smile faded and her attractive face fell as she thought about her situation. Sometimes she was so unhappy that all she wanted to do was cry.
She stood for a moment with her unhappy face lit by a bar of golden sunlight. Her glossy, shoulder length black hair was worn in a neat pony tail. Her taut, well-filled white blouse seemed to glow in the shadows. Her short blue skirt flared about her long and shapely legs as she took several steps towards a single dusty, cobwebbed window.
The view from the window was of the lake. Today the water was blue and sunlight sparkled on the small waves. Far out on the lake she saw a single, faded red sail. Beyond the lake rose wooded hillsides and beyond the hillsides reared snow capped mountains.
"Sometimes I think about running away," she whispered dreamily.
Sighing, she drew a deep, unhappy breath.
"But where could I go? I don't know anyone..."
She stared at the distant mountains, lost in thought, dreaming of a new life for herself far away from her foster parents. Perhaps one day she would find a young man who would fall in love with her.
"He doesn't have to be rich," she whispered.
A small, sad smile touched her lips and a far away look appeared in her dark, almond shaped eyes.
Akiha had never had a boyfriend, her foster parent's house was in a remote valley miles from anywhere interesting. She thought the boys her age at the small village school were childish and immature. She'd never been kissed. Only once had she ever been touched by a boy. He'd surprised her one day by sneaking up behind her and reaching around to crudely grope her breasts. At the time she'd been angry and embarrassed. His friends had been watching and they'd all laughed. But later, alone in her bed, she'd remembered the brief touch of his hands, the way he'd spread his fingers and cupped and squeezed her breasts. The memory had made her face burn with shame all over again, but it had also excited her and made her heart beat faster in a way she didn't really understand.
Now, with another sigh, Akiha turned from the window.
"Hamako says I daydream too much," she told the creature. Her expression brightened as she saw that it had moved closer while she'd been gazing out of the window. Two of its tentacles were almost within reach of her and Akiha giggled happily as she skipped out of range.
"You are a boy creature, I think," she said. "Just like boys you have only one thing on your mind."
Smiling, she retreated towards the shadow draped wall at the back of the boathouse. Her short skirt flapped about her legs and her pony tail bounced. Her large breasts trembled and heaved inside the taut white confines of her blouse as the creature followed her with slow and ponderous determination. For the first time she saw its thick, flexible tongue protruding wetly from its lipless mouth.
Akiha laughed and for a joke she leaned towards the creature and put her hands on her hips and put out her own tongue.
"You see? You put out your tongue at me, I can do the same."
When the creature stretched a tentacle towards her Akiha playfully pushed it away.
"No, I don't have anything for you. What you need is a girl creature, not a real girl."
The worn floorboards beneath them creaked as Akiha outmanoeuvred the creature each time it came within reach. She darted from one band of shadows to the next while the creature continued to worm its way towards her propelling itself along with its writhing, coiling tentacles. The thick snake-like tentacles shone dully where the sunlight touched them. Its mouth quivered and its thick green tongue lolled, dripping a thin clear liquid that fell in spots on the dry and dusty floor. The creature's eyes followed her wherever she moved. It watched her with a concentrated intensity that amused her.
She paused, panting, her breasts rising and falling, and she smiled as she wondered why the creature seemed so attracted to her.
"What is it, I wonder?" she asked it. "My clothes? Do you like the colours?"
Her blouse was startlingly white in the drab and dusty shade of the old boathouse. Her skirt, a deep, rich blue. She looked down at herself and as she did so the creature mewled and the dark green tip of a tentacle came within inches of her bare legs. For the first time Akiha found herself wondering how it would feel if the tentacle touched her bare skin.