Page 2 of Little Saint Nautilus

I rubbed my hand over my chest as I stared at the waves crashing against the shore. Whenever this feeling came over me, that face I envisioned came to me again. No amount of bike shorts or thongs made me feel the way those eyes did when I pictured them.

A throat cleared, drawing my attention. I snapped my head back to see an older woman standing before me with a young child at her side. “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt.”

I blinked hard to clear my thoughts and focus on my customers. “Oh, no. No interruption at all. How can I help you?”

The woman held out a small snow globe that had sand and a surfboard in it. “My grandson would like to buy this.”

“Sure thing. Let me grab some paper to wrap it up in.”

“It’s my first time seeing the ocean,” the little boy squeaked out and offered a toothless grin. I saw it every day and had grown up only miles away. It was easy to forget that it wasn’t a sight everyone had access to. The wonder on the boy’s face was pure magic, and I understood it, I still felt that wonder.

The woman chuckled. “Henry didn’t believe me how cold the water was, but it didn’t stop him.”

“It never stops me either, kid.” I gave him a wink.

“I wanna come back and learn to surf.” He watched the globe as I wrapped it up.

“We have the best surfing in the world here, no better place to learn.”

The grandma added, “It takes a lot of time and practice, Henry.”

“I will. I’ll practice, I promise.”

She pursed her lips with amusement and patted the boy’s head. “All right. It might be a little tricky back home in Nebraska.”

I chuckled as I rang her up and handed her the bag. The boy waved as he led his grandmother out of the shop. I couldn’t help but watch with a smile, remembering when my grandpa used to bring me down to the beach as a little kid.

I spent more time with him than I did my own parents. They both worked a lot, and my grandpa lived close enough that I could skateboard to his house after school. He’d lived in the same house for fifty years. It was small, but only a short walk to the beach, which is what we did whenever I went to his house. There wasn’t a lot to do for a young boy to stay busy in his home, but he’d been as addicted to the water as I was now. Once it sunk its hooks into you, you could never leave.

At sundown, I tallied up my sales, and closed out my register, before sliding the metal rolling door down and locking it with a padlock. With one last look at the ocean, seeing the last of the sun’s lights twinkle over the surface, I headed to my truck.

My apartment, well, studio really, was a fifteen-minute drive from the beach. It, too, was small, but I didn’t mind that. I was much like my grandpa in that regard and had probably learned it from him. The size of the space didn’t matter, it was about the location. Being able to open my windows and smell the ocean air was all the space I needed.

I flicked on the light and scanned around the room, which functioned as a bedroom, living room, and dining room, all in one. My bed was against one wall with a dresser and a free-standing clothes rack with a shoe shelf beside it. A small loveseat was in front of the TV, and there was a bookshelf on another wall. My dining area consisted of a round table that comfortably sat two chairs. It was just enough for me, by myself. Though I could admit, I wouldn’t mind having someone else share my space, small as it was. Maybe I would have to consider upgrading before inviting someone to share my life and my space. Not that it was anything urgent.

Here I was, spending another night alone, with no prospects. I flopped on the couch and opened a hookup app to see what was out there. At thirty, I wasn’t old enough to be out of the game, but I was no longer able todo the acrobatics I could have before my injury, and it got in my head. After scrolling for a bit, I sighed and put onNetflixinstead.

Hookups were meant to be hot, fast, and horny, and I hated the conversation of having to explain my limitations with someone who was just looking for a quick fuck. If I was going to go through all of that, I preferred for it to be someone who was going to stick around for a while. Taking that first step was the hardest part, though, and I got too in my head about it.

There was also the fact that none of the people on the app were the man I saw in my dreams. He was perfect, beautiful, and I subconsciously compared them all to him. So… I was fucked. Following a dream and stuck in my head.

When I went to bed that night, the brown hair flowing under the water and the rich brown eyes stayed present in my mind and I dreamt of him once more.

Pushing my body inward it caused the stored water in my inner chambers to expel out, propelling me through the water. I shot backward, not seeing where I was going, but it didn’t matter. Not in this form. Nestled inside of my shell, I was able to sink into myself and rely on my nautilus’s natural instincts.

My eyes were mere pinpoints in my shifted form, but in the depths of the ocean, where the sun’s light didn’t reach and water distorted, sight wasn’t the most important sense. Smell, taste, touch, vibrations—they were all the vision I needed. My tentacles, or cirri, were constantly feeding me information about my surroundings, all while I stayed tucked into the safety of my shell.

Another push inside, expelling the water in a form of jet propulsion few other sea creatures could accomplish quite like my kind. We were some of the oldest beings in thesea. Well, not me personally, but nautili. Our ancestry goes back to when creatures first left the waters to explore the land. Some of our kind had as well, giving birth to those that could adapt and shift to live on two legs and walk the earth or live in shells with tentacles.

Not every nautilus had this ability; some were base animals who knew no other life. They were smaller, common types. There was only one species of nautilidae remaining that was tethered to the ones of the past who could shift. They once were over ten feet in circumference in their shelled forms, and giants when they took to land. As the world changed and humans began crossing the seas, their size was no longer a benefit, but a weakness. In the millennia since, our forms have decreased in size and comparatively in human form as well so that we no longer stood heads above them, but could blend in. They would never know we didn’t belong if we didn’t want them to.

I was young, younger than most of the higher nautilidae I knew. At twenty-nine years old, I was still considered a youngling. Unmated, untethered, simply floating my way through life. Those of my kind who had developed into sentient beings mated for life. One partner with a bond that linked them, so no matter how far they might drift from each other, they would always be able to find their way back to one another. As if they had been buried so deep inside of the other that they could never beseparated again.

Sigh. I darted again, slicing through the water, following the pull I felt inside. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a mate. Idid, more than anything. But there weren’t a lot of my kind left, and even if there were, my inner compass always led me to the shore. There had been some that had taken to living on land among the humans, enjoying what it had to offer. It wasn’t for me, though.

I liked the ocean; I liked the comfort and safety my shell provided, and I liked the peace that came with sinking within and letting my creature’s instincts take over. It wasn’t that I never went to the shore. I did, on occasion, visit small islands, preferring ones that weren’t busy, which allowed me time to stretch and release my human body bound up inside. I wasn’t always steady on two legs, but I did enjoy feeling the sun kiss every part of my skin or feeling the air whisper over my body.

There were also sensations I could only experience while in my human form. Things that were not merely for the purpose of living. Ecstasy and pleasure. When I first discovered my penis, and watched it extend, like my cirri, my tentacles, only much different, I nearly went blind for a moment at the lightning sparks of pleasure that rippled through me. With one simple action, I could almost understand the temptation to leave the sea behind.

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