by Trainmaster
Allean Chemicals had a tiny problem. An overflow valve stuck shut on a vat brewing one of their best-known pesticide products, so instead of the spillage draining safely into a holding tank, it spilled onto the manufacturing plant floor.
Before the problem was discovered, some of the still-quite toxic material escaped down a storm drain, where it lay dormant from July to the end of October, when the weather patterns changed from dry summer to rainy autumn. Then it mixed with the first runoff and was carried into Lisketon Creek.
The extent of the runoff was unknown. The stuck valve wasn't even discovered until late November, when the batch of pesticide was portioned into containers and the vat taken off-line for routine maintenance. By then, the under-cooked spillage was long gone.
Lisketon Creek is part of the Clear River drainage basin, so that is where the runoff went. And the Clear River drains in the Westmont Bay. But scientists at the state university research center on Westmont Bay knew the salt-water inlet had some of the most treacherous eddies and currents in the world.
During their 30-year study of the Bay, they found areas where sea water with identifiable characteristics lay dormant and unmoving for years, until major storms churned up the entire waterway. And places, especially near downtown Parkesbury, changed with every tide, refreshing nutrient-rich water flowing like an undersea river directly through the sea-pen enclosure of the university's undersea viewing facility.
Like any public institution, State University depended on outside revenue to enhance programs like the undersea research center. So the facility was also operated as a tourist attraction, the biggest in Parkesbury and almost the biggest in Westmont County. People came from all over the western United States and Canada to see the wild proliferation of well-tended sea life.
And one of the research center's biggest stars was an old octopus named Gretel. She'd been in the area for at least 10 years before the undersea viewing area was built around her grotto, so when she discovered the staff was quick to hand out juicy tidbits, she made the glassed enclosure her home.
Because it offered protection against the storms, and also because her major threats, the bay's orcas and dolphins, were effectively walled out of the enclosure, Gretel found life about as comfortable as an octopus could ever hope to enjoy.
That made her easy-going, so she stopped hiding in her grotto and became rather playful around the divers who dropped in four times each day to entertain tourists and feed the underwater citizenry.
Parkesbury's research center was so well-known in academic circles that students fought for the handful of job postings each quarter and it was always a standout who found himself or herself hired. Usually, previous SCUBA skills solidified the entrant's chances of winning a position on staff, and if they were versed in marine biology as well, they stood an even better chance.
But, nonetheless, they came into the undersea enclosure as rookies, greenhorns who had to learn the ways of the inhabitants and the routines of the tourist trade and the ongoing research. The inhabitants, after 20 years of haute cuisine captivity, were as eccentric a lot as can be imagined — and Gretel was the star attraction.
Into the water, then, dropped 20-year-old April Denfield, late of Honolulu, and newly hired to the task of greeting and feeding the eight-legged oddball. With 30 minutes of air strapped to her back in two 50-pound tanks, April knew she was the main focus of at least four-dozen tourists, mostly families, watching through the three-inch-thick glass of the visitor gallery. She waved at the youngsters staring wow-eyed at her and several waved back.
April was not only an expert diver and a third-year sea geology student but she was an extremely attractive girl, with long shapely legs, a well-rounded derriere, and a pair of mammary lobes that did her skimpy Speedo suit proud. She kept her long hair free, rather than tying it back as did some of the other female divers, so it swirled around her face like a water-born halo.
This was her fourth day of solo diving. For the first week, she'd gone down with another diver named Chet, who'd demonstrated the things she needed to accomplish in 30 minutes. After feeding the slowest and clumsiest of the center's watery occupants, her duties were mostly show-biz — like finding Gretel and coaching the prima belle to twine her tentacles around April's arms and upper body.
As always, the octopus performed best when she was encouraged with a bucket full of hake and mackerel. Gretel first tried to explorer the bucket directly, so April had to pull her focus away from the goodies. Once convinced that it was in her best interest to cooperate in order to get her just rewards, Gretel always became quite playful. She was careful not to hurt her diver trainers with her great strength or the incredibly powerful and quite sharp little parrot's beak hidden in the center of her disk of unfolding flesh — and her disk was approaching four feet across.
Neither April nor Gretel was aware that the previous evening's storm had breached a pocket of stagnant water near the mouth of the Clear River, and it was quickly mixing into the faster-moving waters at the center of Westmont Bay. And those waters, heavily filled with brine and plankton, coiled directly through the center of the state university's undersea research center's main gallery.
And that food-rich water now contained an offensive but unstoppable surprise, courtesy Allean Chemical's carelessness. Into the middle of it with a splash dropped April. Through her breathing mask, she detected the foul material but she wasn't about to let a bad taste deter her from her rounds. She truly enjoyed her job and she was so elated at having survived the cut that she felt a heightened sense of loyalty to her watery dependents.
Gretel, too, knew her water was different, dislikable. It spoiled her appetite. she was a little cranky for the first time in years, and not ready to play, not even for the pail of fish dangling visibly at her handler's waist. She edged back toward her grotto when April approached, letting herself turn redder than the human had ever seen her star turn before.
Still, with the crowd eager to see Gretel in full flower, April pressed after the octopus. She caught the tip of a tentacle, and though Gretel resisted by gripping the rocks with her other legs, April gradually pulled the sea lady into view.
Gretel was becoming thoroughly put out at the manhandling, which was unusually rough for the first time in a long time. April was aggressive, and Gretel suddenly decided she could be, too. She squirted a massive cloud of black ink at her tormentor, hiding them both from the eyes of the families safely inside the glass. There was, dimly, evidence of a struggle inside the ink cloud, as it was swirled and re-swirled by flailing limbs and tentacles.
When the cloud began to clear, pandemonium broke out behind the glass. Parents quickly hid the eyes of their young children and rushed them toward the stairway topside. The center's staff, caught off-guard by the mass exodus, pushed their way downstairs to determine the cause.
At first, as the cloud dissipated in the current, April's status seemed unaffected. But then, she was revealed in all her naked glory. Her Speedo suit floated freely to the outside enclosure and pasted itself to the thick rubber-covered wire fence. Her air tanks sank, bubbling freely, to the anemone-covered rocks.
April's body, from the shoulders up, was Gretel's — no human head, neck, or arms could be detected by the horrified watchers in the viewing room. The aging dowager octopus and the energetic nubile diver, were one creature. Gretel's tentacles waved from a disk that merged at its rear with April's upper torso. Gretel's huge sack-like head hung forward — big eyes swiveling to take in the expressions of the staff behind the glass — but not enough to hide April's impressive breasts, crowned with stiffly sensitized chocolate nipples.
The octowoman began to circle her enclosure, as though inspecting it for the first time. She stopped now and again to touch, sometimes gingerly, places that caught her interest. Her human legs kicked as though normal when she swam, while her tentacles were folded back to allow her to power herself octopus-style with her huge siphon. It was clear to the observers, this new creature had all the instincts, intelligence, and awareness of both its progenitor species.
April-Gretel continued to swim and explore until she/it was satisfied with her surroundings. Finally, she arrived back at her starting point, where she'd dropped the bucket of fish scraps. With gusto, she helped herself, shoveling chunks of gray and pink meat into the center of her disk of tentacles, where it all disappeared.
Mealtime over, the octowoman sank refreshed to the rocks, where she horrified the more prudish witnesses with aggressive self-stimulation. To those voyeuristic types who chose to stay and monitor, it was clear that the octopus part of the creature's brain was fascinated with the sensations coming from her nipples and clitoris. She was extremely horny and octopus instincts gave her no baseline to analyze her hormonal reactions. Like a new-born child, she repeatedly touched the parts of her body that felt delightful.
And the human part was equally fascinated to learn the variety of sexual movements possible with unjointed arms and thousands of sucker disks. She wrapped herself around herself in a flurry of graceful swirls. The great halo of human hair growing from the top and back of the octopus head swirled in patterns and weavings no artist could hope to duplicate.
To the observing humans, the April-Gretel creature was by turns the ugliest they'd ever seen, yet so beautiful they couldn't tear their eyes from her. But oh, that "girl" had legs — in fact, ten of them.
© 2001, Trainmaster, All Rights Reserved.