Octopassion (taboo exercise)

Two weeks ago, Mrs Greer, a widow with no children, agreed to take her young nieces to the aquarium. While the two girls ran ahead chattering with excitement Mrs Greer took her time, peering into each tank and feigning curiosity. Honestly she would have preferred a flower show.

And then it had happened—the experience she (privately) referred to ever after as the true beginning of her life. Mrs Greer had visited the aquarium at least ten times since then. Maybe more. She always returned to the same rectangular tank, and each time found herself more enthralled by what she found there. Glistening iridescent skin, sinuous tentacles, a gracefully bobbing head, and those eyes—bright and penetrating, eyes of extraordinary intelligence. This was no insensate fish; the octopus staring back at her had a mind, it had memories and emotions. From the first she never doubted it.

Mrs Greer put a finger on the glass, and on the other side, in the very same spot, the octopus placed the tip of a purple tentacle. It was their ritual. Each alone, yet together. As she met the creature's gaze she felt her cheeks flush and her chest constrict. When had she last been looked at in this way, what man had known her—had wanted to know her—so deeply and so well?

Mrs Greer looked around. It was late in the day, near closing time. She dipped a hand in the water and the octopus extended a tentacle. When they made contact she felt an electric shock of pleasure so acute she had to stop herself from plunging into the water. The octopus unfurled another tentacle. It was holding a lump of red coral; a gift. Mrs Greer's eyes misted over as she gently accepted the coral. There had been other gifts; a strand of shimmering kelp, a green pebble, the jet-black eye of a fish. She kept these treasures wrapped in silk in her jewelry box.

At night alone in her bed, Mrs Greer could hardly bear the pain of their separation. Those tentative daytime touches were not enough; she craved the embrace of all eight tentacles, imagined the exquisite sensation of the tiny suction cups on her bare skin, the beaklike mouth plucking gently at her earlobes. Mrs Greer knew that her octopus, having spent its life exploring secret caves and crevices, would eagerly investigate the most secret spaces of her body, and she cursed the chilly water and unforgiving Plexiglas that kept them apart.