Fur, Feathers, and Claws

Chapter 1 September, 1979. Just like that, the last summer of the 70’s was over. A decade, Tucker thought, as the water ran down rocks and ledges, then over his naked body. An entire decade gone by since the happiest days of my life became the worst. He closed his eyes and imagined human fingers, as the trickles of rain and the rushing falls teased his flesh and trailed down his front. He tried to conjure the image—the memory—of a romantic lover doing the same: someone from his past, someone he had never quite gotten over. Tucker let out a breath that turned into grunt, shifting his thoughts to his actions. His shoulders met the rough wall behind him as his lower half thrust forward. “Hey, Sam. Took you long enough,” Tucker offered in greeting, not at all shy or bothered by the intrusion. He was happy for the distraction, in fact. “What’s up?” He hadn’t meant it as a straight line, really he hadn’t, but Sam’s dirty mind—the simplicity of it—had to go there, as he tilted his head and glanced toward Tucker’s crotch with a wink. “Yeah.” Tucker said. “Ha ha, Sam!” Sam snuggled into the back of Tucker’s neck, working his way under the drenched, raven corkscrews, teasing one ear, taking a nibble at the lobe. A strong gust of wind slammed into Tucker. It brought back a feeling of someone on top of him. “I’m going to c*m, Sam,” he warned. As Sam kneaded Tucker’s bicep, Tucker touched his own lips, applying pressure, pinching the lower one, pulling at it as he softly called a name, almost as if trying to block it and the memory of his first true love from coming out. “f**k!” Sam pinched him. “Yeah, I know, Sam. I wish.” A burst of laughter from Sam echoed off the rocks. Tucker stroked himself vigorously, concentrating only on getting it done. “Shush.” Sam’s touch neither aided nor diverted. The clinking metallic sound, however, on certain days, still did. Tucker should have been used to it. Mostly, he was. But suddenly, he was in a mood, maybe because he’d been thinking about the past. Tucker tried to focus on the water, to use it, as he often did, to wash away his thoughts and his sorrow. But his grasp on his own erection, feeling Sam’s touch, it just reminded him how long it had been since he had been with someone he loved, since he had felt someone else’s hot flesh in his grip or someone’s warm body pressed to his. Tucker wanted that so much that it hurt. Maybe that meant he was finally beginning to heal, and was finally ready to consider starting over. “Or maybe I’m just horny, like you, Sam, huh?” There was nothing to be done, except what Tucker was doing. “So why even think about it?” But still. He continued to think as he pumped—until he suddenly stopped and quit stroking himself, just short of release. Sam objected loudly, no doubt waiting for the money shot. “Chill out, man.” Tucker shivered. The fierce wind was blowing variably both warm and chilly, because of a tropical storm wreaking havoc up and down the Atlantic seaboard states that also ushered in nip in the air, signifying autumn would soon be upon them. “Brr!” But Tucker knew the breeze wasn’t to blame. “Something ain’t right, Sam.” An eerie feeling had overtaken Tucker. The park had gotten quiet. Too quiet. “Someone’s here who shouldn’t be,” he said. Tucker reached for his shorts. “An intruder. I can feel it.” Sam complained again. Damn, man! Don’t be putting on clothes!—or something to that effect. But then he was quiet, too, frozen in place. Sam knew why s*x play was over, hot as it was. He sensed it as well: something unsavory was afoot. Mere moments ago, things at Animalistic had seemed rather normal, or as normal as they could in a closed-down animal theme park during a hurricane. A group of others, including Sam, had been gathered under a metal awning, protected from bullets of rain falling from a newspaper gray sky, as Olivia held court, and Tucker Bishop stood beneath Animalistic’s raging jungle falls for his ritualistic morning shower. “Tucker Wade Bishop IV came here hurt, angry, and unsure,” Olivia recounted. “His history has plenty of sweet moments, but parts of it were troubled, even tragic. Tucker Wade—” “His name is ‘Tucker Wide’? Like big, fat, and ‘wide’?” Sam asked. Olivia, a sophisticated, gorgeous, older Aussie with golden hair and dark, gentle eyes, had arrived at Animalistic just before Tucker. Tucker could easily imagine Sam, a middle-aged, smart-aleck lothario, teasing her about her accent as she told his backstory to new arrivals Penny, the epitome of a plain Jane, and Paul, the most flamboyant heterosexual male Tucker had ever seen. Shy, handsome Zeb, enjoying his later years, and timid, young Bunny were there as well, and also Jake, who was rail-thin and somewhat skittish. They’d heard Tucker’s life story before, and so had Sam, who knew the tale backwards and forwards, and therefore couldn’t help but interrupt with stupid comments or questions. For that was just his way. Tucker Bishop was one of the theme park’s two dozen employees, most of whom had the day off because of the storm. But Animalistic was much more than a workplace for Tucker. It was his sanctuary, as much so as it was to any of its other allegedly more beastly inhabitants. Tucker lived like one of them. So, while those gathered listened to Olivia under protection from the downpour, Tucker was right out in it—naked. “She’s certainly shared this story a sufficient selection of times,” Jake said, “to satisfactorily share it sans your silly intrusions, Sam.” “What do you think? Did he look fat and wide to you?” Olivia looked to newcomer Penny. “Not really,” she said. Though the others faced away from Tucker, off to the side, where Tucker knew he’d be shielded from their line of vision as not to offend, Sam was facing the other way, purposefully craning and staring. “Well, part of him does. Woof!” But Tucker didn’t mind. Standing under a noisy rush of cool water, tall and slender, with muscles obtained by work, and not working out, etched deeply into shiny, tanned skin, coated in fur, head to toe, Tucker noticed as several admirers stole more than passing glances. He imagined what the others might be saying, as he reached his arms up over his head, letting the water tickle him all down his hairy front. His black mop, which was made of long, disheveled, springy curls when dry, fell in dripping, limp strings over his sad, dark eyes. The trickle from his unkempt beard, longer than it should have been, flowed down his chest, then trailed down his torso, splitting a plentiful pelt of black into two banks on either side. The water pooled momentarily in a mass of thicker bush at his pelvis, then, just like the hair itself, scattered wildly in all directions. Some ran down Tucker’s muscular legs. Some turned the corner and followed the hip bones, fingering the back side of him, into his buttocks, awakening him there, like a lover’s gentle touch. A single stream ran forcefully from the end of impressive genitalia, then scattered, like summer midnight fireflies, as Tucker took his organ in his grasp and shook it back and forth. Sam apparently liked what he saw, and whistled boldly from across the green. There was a time in Tucker’s life—early on, and then more recently—when bathing had lost all pleasure, when his own touch repulsed him, but the rainforest waterfall, smack-dab in the middle of upstate New York, had brought back his love of water almost from the moment he had first stepped foot on the grounds. It was 1974, and Tucker, accompanied by a rather large companion, had “talked” himself into a job within no time at all, almost instantly proving himself invaluable. Animalistic was originally developed as a retirement village for elderly circus creatures. It was subsidized by a wealthy animal-lover named Mack Kirby. Over time, the park grew in both space and purpose to include several beasts who had been injured or abused while working, and also some that needed to be relocated after their original parks and zoos had been foreclosed upon. Most of the four-legged refugees, already somewhat used to handlers, accepted their new human trespassers cautiously, though willingly, out of necessity. Those who’d been mistreated, however, though distrusting of most, were always less wary of him. Tucker was certain that they spoke to each other. He imagined entire conversations in his head, and was all but certain that Daisy reassured them he was cool. Daisy, a one-armed koala, terrified, malnourished, close to death at one time, according to Mack Kirby, had fought any human who tried to offer aid. And then she met Tucker. Perhaps she had sensed that he needed love as much as she did, for within minutes, he’d had the frightened beast cradled to his chest and eating from his hand. A pathetic soul that others had condemned to euthanasia—for humanity’s sake—was allowing herself to be held by a man who’d given up on humanity altogether. It was at that precise moment that Tucker knew he was home. If his own appearance offered any indication, it probably seemed to Mack and the others as if Tucker had even given up on himself as well, but the hair that covered him, especially his face, was probably what had made the koala respond positively. She’d kneaded it with her one paw and nuzzled into it as she’d slept. “Fur to fur,” Mack Kirby had said with a chuckle. “We’ve wrapped tires in sheepskin for certain creatures and whatnot, but your warmth and real hair…you’ve worked wonders, Tucker Bishop.” He’d offered him a full-time position on the spot. “Direct care, we call it. Welcome aboard. You pick your schedule. As many hours, as many days as you wish.” Tucker had wished for 24/7. A grand and magnanimous idea at the start, Animalistic had quickly become a money pit. Even with the help of local businesses sponsors, it soon became evident that Mack could ill afford to keep throwing money down it without somehow bringing some in. New inhabitants born in captivity had always created a thrilling and celebratory atmosphere among the employees, and that had given Mack the idea to share it with outsiders. So, in 1976, Animalistic had opened to the public to great success. Mack had hired a few more employees once the park went public. Some led tours and lectured on natural habitats, mating rituals, prey versus predator, and the like. Others were cleaners, and there were two more feeders brought onboard. Far behind the scenes then, still strictly behind the scenes in 1979, Tucker often pretended it was still just him and the animals. The money coming in all summer definitely took some of the burden off Mack’s back and bank account, at least for the first several years. By the end of the decade, however, bigger parks, inflation, tapped-out sponsors, and “been there, seen that” syndrome forced Animalistic into the red once again. Mack had taken out a huge loan to install some fancy features—like the waterfall that Tucker bathed under—to make the place more enticing. The visitors liked it. Tucker loved it. The animals, they could care less. All of that aside, a final balloon payment was due in October. A huge one—twenty grand. Though Animalistic would be out of debt once that was paid, and the day-to-day operating expenses, even the yearly taxes, were pretty much covered by revenue from the summer season, coming up with an extra twenty thou was going to be a struggle. If Mack couldn’t do it, the summer of ‘79 might very well be Animalistic’s last. Closing the place, relocating the animals: it would be brutal for its inhabitants, heartbreaking for Mack, and as for Tucker, it might just literally kill him. Tucker still did most of the animal tending himself. He liked it that way, and so did they. He roamed freely where others dared not tread, often wearing as little as possible around the truly magical grounds, where a lion would roar a ‘good morning’ and Tucker would roar right back, where a toucan and macaw serenaded him with a screeching duet, vacant of melody, as he bathed, and a snake or two would rub against his leg, like a housecat anticipating breakfast. “What’s happenin,’ Bo?” Tucker would say to a constrictor. “Gimme some snakeskin, man.” Animalistic’s front entrance boasted ‘Every creature from A-Z’ and featured a crude etching of an aardvark and a zebra carved into distressed wood. It was a lie. Though there was an aardvark and a zebra, many species and letters of the alphabet were not represented at all. It wasn’t Noah’s Ark either, as there were only four pairs: two tigers, two turtles, two bunnies that quickly became fifteen, and recently, two peacocks. Though some occupants had to be kept apart to be kept alive—the peacocks were kept separate from the grizzly bear, saved from a trap, and the motherless fawn and her antelope pal never played with the crocodile—whenever possible, the animals were left to mingle. Visitors, on the other hand, were caged, with a protective layer of Plexiglas between their hands and anything with big teeth. The only place people were allowed within touching distance was in the section set aside for the cuddly, pet-able critters. There, kids could walk up to, feed and touch rabbits, de-scented skunks, llamas, and a goat.