Maurice

Maurice was an huge eight-foot octopus. The red kind. He wasn’t quite as slimy as you might think, although even he’d admit he was slimier than you or me.
Maurice lived a happy and carefree life in the Mediterranean Sea not far off the coast of Toulon in France. He dined on shellfish and expensive French wine.
There were rare occasions when he went up to the tide pools and lay in shallow waters sunbathing. Sometimes small children would sneak up and watch him, trying to be brave in front of their peers, most of the time Maurice saw them there but as long as they didn’t have spears or fishing hooks he didn’t care.
Maurice was an educated octopus.
On one of these rare occasions up there in the tide pools, Maurice fell asleep. He had just had a very large meal of crabs and lobsters and china-hat-mollusks, along with a big bottle of Merlot and so was feeling quite sleepy to begin with, that and the warm afternoon sun and the gentle tide rolling in and out put Maurice out like a light, or a sleepy octopus.
Maurice awoke only half submerged in water with a vague headache. His skin was getting a little dry too. But none of that mattered because right there next to him, not inches away, was a naked ape. The female kind. Maurice thought he was dreaming for a short second. She was the most exquisite creature Maurice had ever seen. He found her more beautiful than any octopus he’d ever laid eyes on and he’d laid eyes on quite a few.
That was because she wasn’t really a regular naked ape but one of them whacked out Greek gods from ancient times who had the hots for animals and in this case sea creatures. Without getting too sordid let’s just say they made love. Maurice liked it better than octopus love making because he didn’t have as many arms to deal with. The whack-o liked it because there were so many arms to deal with.
Once or twice a month Maurice would head up to that same tide pool and wait for her. She didn’t always show, but the times she did made up for all the rest.
One time she brought a bottle wine with her that she purchased in America. They drank it and made passionate love and then Maurice died because, wouldn’t you know it; he was allergic to sulfates. She cried and cried because she wasn’t one of those gods that could bring the dead back to life. She mourned bitterly but this didn’t stop her from eating Maurice after boiling him in onions and meat tenderizer.