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It became a topic I wanted to tackle. And this is what I ended up with. It had a punny title when I started, but it ended up so bittersweet and serious that it just didn't seem appropriate. I hope you enjoy. \n\nThe thumbnail art is by [iconname]Iztli[/iconname] from art I commissioned.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "When I'm talking with friends, I have an odd problem with explaining my age and the question of my first sexual experience. It became a topic I wanted to tackle. And this is what I ended up with. It had a punny title when I started, but it ended up so bittersweet and serious that it just didn't seem appropriate. I hope you enjoy.

The thumbnail art is by \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIztli\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t		\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIztli\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
from art I commissioned.", "writing": "Hi there! It’s Carey again, with another story. This one isn’t Halloweeny, but I guess it’s kinda science-fictiony? Which is weird, because it’s the story of…well…me. It’s also the story of the first guy I really, really liked.\n\nNo, let me be really honest here. It’s the story of the first guy I loved. And it’s a sad story, in a way. But telling it makes me happy, too. Like, it’s good to look back and be sad, when you remember something that brought you a lot of joy, even if that something’s not in your life any more.\n\nNow, this story has some kinda weird stuff in it. Like I said, it might sound like sci-fi, but it’s true. I’m gonna change some names to protect myself and some other folks I owe a lot to, but this is what happened when…well…you’ll see.\n\nThe first thing I really remember is still kind of like a dream to me. I remembered opening my eyes, and everything was blurry. There was something over my mouth and nose, and I was floating, suspended in some kind of liquid. A few years after these events, I saw all the Star Wars movies, and, like, that scene of Luke when he’s floating in the bacta tank? That triggered my memories of this moment. It was like that, except I don’t think I had anything on. The stuff around me was kind of syrupy, but I could move my limbs slowly. I was dimly aware of a band around my head and plugs in my ears, and I was learning things, incredibly fast. It was overwhelming, but it was like someone had a pitcher of knowledge, and they were pouring it into my brain. \n\nA face loomed beyond the liquid…a big bear with brown eyes behind round glasses…that word flooded my brain, associating itself with the person. I startled, but then I relaxed and more words flooded and attached themselves to the face. Dr. Anatoly Koslov. Somehow I felt reassured. He wasn’t a threat. I relaxed and closed my eyes, and then I don’t remember anything for a while.\n\nWhen I came to again, I was no longer in liquid. I was laying, naked, on some kind of padded surface. I could feel something around my neck, and something around my biceps. I blinked, laying there, hearing a whirr and click sound, over and over.\n\n“The whole thing is so crazy,” said a male voice. “So he’s not anyone’s child? Not a clone?”\n\n“He is not,” said another, deeper male voice. “I used my own genetic map as a starting point, but then I made customized choices from the computer. Gold eyes, a lighter fur tone than mine. A slender build. And, of course, we have a standard set of improvements. His memory is currently eidetic, though that will likely fade with time. He’s much sturdier and resistant to illness and physical damage than a normal boy, and he will heal and recover much quicker from sickness or injury.”\n\n“Ideal kid, then. No skinned knees.” That whirring and clicking seemed to move around me, as did the younger voice. “Can he hear us?”\n\n“Let me check,” the deeper voice said. One of my eyelids was gently opened, and a light shone in it. “Judging by the dilation of his pupil, I would say yes. He’s aware, but he’s likely experiencing disorientation. It is his first day of full consciousness, after all.” I felt a big hand gently rub my belly. “Hey there, Lil Bear. Can you open your eyes for me?”\n\nI wanted to comply, but it took a little doing. When I did, I could see a surface above me. Ceiling came into my head, as if someone had murmured it in my ear. I also saw several glowing fixtures giving soft radiance, and the word lights came into my mind. There was an indistinct shape next to me, so I turned my head to look. It was Dr. Koslov again. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. “Do you know who I am?” he asked in a gentle tone.\n\n“Yes, sir,” I said, hearing my own voice for the first time. It was a soft voice, but a little raspy. “You are Dr. Anatoly Koslov, M.D., Ph.D. You graduated summa cum laude from the University of Vienna with degrees in biology and advanced genetics. Your senior paper…”\n\n“That’s fine, Lil Bear,” he said, giving me another pat. “Very good.” He looked at someone I couldn’t yet see. “As you see, the neural transference has been completely successful. He has been given the education of a twelve-year old boy, and his body has been vat-grown to that age. For all practical purposes, he’s a normal twelve-year old brown bear cub.”\n\nI turned my head to see who Dr. Koslov was speaking to. There was a gray wolf there, much younger than the doctor, who was holding an object. Camera, the word came into my head. He was taking photographs of me. I looked at the wolf, examining him. He had dusky gray fur, with a white underbelly coat and brown marking on his face that almost made him look like he was wearing a mask. Wolf, the word came, followed by canis lupus sapiens. But no name followed. I furrowed my brow. \n\n“Ah, yes…you don’t know this gentleman, Lil Bear,” Dr. Koslov said with a gentle smile. “This is Barry Winslow. He’s documenting your creation and, well, birth. He’ll be part of this project for a few months anyhow. Would you like to introduce yourself to him?”\n\nI smiled. “Hello, Mr. Winslow. I am Lil Bear 001. I am a product of Generizons Enterprises, a prototype for a new line of genetically created cubs.” The words just flooded out of me, as if they’d been there, waiting for a chance to be unleashed.\n\n“Wow!” Barry said, chuckling, coming over. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lil Bear 001.”\n\n“It is nice to meet you to, Mr. Winslow,” I said, politely.\n\nBarry smiled at me, then looked at the big bear. “So the 001 means…?”\n\n“Well, eventually,” Dr. Koslov said, “we hope to have many more Lil Bears…002 to 999 and beyond. Just as we hope to have other lines – Lil Wolf, Lil Lion, Lil Deer, and so on.”\n\n“That’s amazing!” Barry said, looking at Dr. Koslov. He looked back at me. I was looking at my arm, curiously. “Look at him…like, thirty minutes ago, he was floating in a tube, unconscious, and now it’s like he’s a full person!”\n\n“Well, almost,” Dr. Koslov said. As he spoke, he was looking at a screen that seemed to be suspended above my feet. “Vitals all good,” he murmured, then he looked to Barry again. “He has all the knowledge, but he lacks experience…interaction with people. As he is around people, however, he will absorb how they behave.” He winked at me. “You’ll be a real boy, Pinnochio.”\n\nI blinked at him. “I’m not made of wood, Dr. Koslov.”\n\nThe big bear laughed. “So you say, little wooden-head.” He knocked gently on my forehead and made a clacking sound with his tongue. “Would you like to sit up?”\n\n“I think so?” I tried to, but I slipped back down. “Ow!” I said with a giggle.\n\n“Now, now…it’s okay.” The doctor put a big hand behind me and helped me sit up. “There we go.” I looked around, and words flooded my head. Laboratory. Computer readout. Mirror, likely one-way. Counter. Door. “The first few days will be disorienting for you, I suspect. You have a great deal of knowledge that we’ve put into you, but there’s a brief latency in feeding it from your sub-conscious to your conscious mind. Over time, however, it will all become second-nature.”\n\n“And the collar and armbands?” Barry asked, curiously.\n\n“They contain telemetry to help monitor his location and his general state of being,” Dr. Koslov said, nodding up at the computer screen. “Let’s us keep track of him. We want him to be able to freely roam and experience the world, but his creation caused a considerable expenditure of resources. Our investors want to be able to know that the asset they helped create isn’t going to vanish.”\n\n“Sure, sure, I get that,” Barry said. “But…um…the kid looks twelve. “Don’t you think the telemetry should be something a little less…racy? I mean…black leather with silver studs?”\n\nDr. Koslov cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. “Science sometimes makes for strange bedfellows,” he said, awkwardly. “One of our branches here is responsible for the Little Lovers line of living dolls. While Lil Bear is leaps and bounds beyond those tacky, disposable things, they are interested in possible applications of this technology in their own products. The money for the telemetry came out of their pockets, and the design came from their offices. I suppose they wanted to make him more appealing to their own markets.”\n\nI listened to them, and finally, I asked, “May I see myself, Dr. Koslov? I do not have a good idea what I look like.”\n\nHe seemed surprised, then chuckled. “Of course, Lil Bear. Do you want to try to walk to the mirror?”\n\n“Yes, please,” I said. He assisted me in slowly swiveling my legs over the edge of the table, then sliding down until I was on my feet. Words kept coming. Floor, they told me, then added, cold. Dr. Koslov’s strong, gentle hands helped me make the first steps, until I began to get the hang of it. Then I began to walk with more confidence.\n\n“Nice job, buddy!” Barry said encouragingly. I grinned at him, then continued to walk to the mirror, where I finally got to look at myself. I was a bear, too, which was not surprising, given my name. My fur was more of a golden-brown, where Dr. Koslov’s was like dark chocolate, and my eyes were golden. I was much smaller and skinnier than him. I had a small set of genitals, but it seemed proportionate to my slight form. I was wearing a collar around my neck of black leather with small silver studs. The bands around my biceps matched the collar. Neither seemed designed to be easily removed, but they were comfortable. I tugged on one, curiously, and Dr. Koslov shook his head.\n\n“No, Lil Bear. As long as you have those on, we can find you, so you’re safe. Keep them on and stay safe.”\n\n“Yes, Dr. Koslov,” I said, leaving it alone. “They stay on, and I stay safe.” I looked in the mirror again, and I could see moving shadows. A new phrase popped into my head – one-way mirror. “Who are the people on the other side of the mirror?” I asked curiously. As I asked the question, I saw more movement behind the mirror.\n\nDr. Koslov seemed surprised again, but he chuckled. “Some of them are scientists. Some are investors. Some are reporters. You are very important, Lil Bear.” He came over and squatted down to be more on my level. “You are the very first of your kind, but hopefully not the last. Most little bears are born, but you were created. Do you understand?”\n\n“Yes, Dr. Koslov,” I said with a nod. “I understand the project. I was made for couples who cannot have cubs of their own, or who have lost cubs. I am a prototype of a new line of products from Generizons.”\n\n“Very good, Lil Bear!” he exclaimed. “Very good indeed.” He turned to Barry. “Have you been getting good photos?”\n\n“Absolutely. Took some video of him walking, too. It’s amazing. You can literally watch him learning to balance.” Barry looked down at me, his tail giving a flicker of a wag behind him. “It’s like watching you go from 0 to 60, little dude.”\n\nI blinked at this. “I am Lil Bear, Mr. Winslow, not ‘little dude’” I said. “And 0 to 60 what?”\n\nBarry looked confused, and Dr. Koslov stood up, chuckling good-naturedly. “I’m afraid that our education program doesn’t allow for a lot of idioms, Mr. Winslow. You’ll have to explain some things to him.”\n\n“Oh,” Barry chuckled. “It’s just an expression, Lil Bear. Some cars…do you know what a car is? Well, some can go from 0 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour very quickly. We call that going from 0 to 60.”\n\nI puzzled over this until I understood. “Oh, I think I see! You do not literally mean I am accelerating my ground speed to those rates. You mean I am learning to do things very quickly?”\n\nBarry ruffled the hair on my head. “That’s exactly what I mean, little dude.”\n\n“I am Lil Bear,” I reminded him again.\n\n“I…” Barry shook his head, then chuckled. “It’s just a nickname. Like if I call you Kiddo, or Buddy. It’s because I like you, and I’m just calling you something affectionate.”\n\nConcepts whirled in my brain, and I smiled up at the wolf. “You like me?” I asked, curiously.\n\nHe seemed a bit taken aback. “Well, sure I do, bud. You seem like a great kid.”\n\n“Thank you, Mr. Winslow!” I exclaimed happily. “I like you, too.” A new word added itself to my repertoire as I looked at him. Friend.\n\nThe first few weeks of my existence were pretty routine. I was moved out of the tank room into a room that I would equate now to a hospital room. It was painting in soothing greens and blues. It had a bed, a desk and chair set, a computer, a drawer for my clothes, which were largely a series of pastel-colored jumpsuits, and some books. I was regularly examined and tested by Dr. Koslov, as well as several other members of his team. I got to know them all and to consider most of them friends, and something of a family. I still remember them all very vividly.\n\nCarl Clinton, a chestnut horse, was a cognitive learning expert. He regularly tested me to make sure I had learned everything I was supposed to. Through conversations with him, I gained a better idea of how my learning process had worked. During my “incubation period”…the floaty tank times…I had a series of neural interfaces hooked up that fed my brain directly from a computer in a series of electrical pulses. They had fed me everything they felt a 12-year old boy should know, though I would later realize the gaps between knowledge and experience could be. He took his job very seriously, and it was hard to connect with him very personally, as he really felt that I was just a project he was working on.\n\nDr. Marion Bailey was a tabby cat who specialized in hard genetics. She was amazing. She had mapped Dr. Koslov’s DNA, then, based on their discussions, had altered it enough to the point where I was a wholly separate person from him, with my own physique, eye color, facial features, and more. She was also wickedly funny, and we would sometimes relax after our tests and talk. She made me laugh a lot, often because she could be so inappropriate. Amazingly, although she had literally built me from the ground up, she really thought of me as a person. I never had a mother, but she was pretty close.\n\nProfessor Gupta Khatrim, a mongoose, was a behavioral psychologist. It was pretty much his job to make sure I was a well-rounded kid. He got into a lot of arguments with Dr. Clinton over what I should’ve been sped-taught in order to make me less of a…well, a robot. I hated those arguments, because they always made me feel like an object, especially when Dr. Clinton looked at me. I know Professor Khatrim meant well, but he just fed it by pointing out imperfections in my education. “He knows Beethoven’s Ninth,” Professor Khatrim at Dr. Clinton growled one day. “Did you ever think to teach him Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”\n\n“That song is hardly popular among 12-year olds,” Dr. Clinton scoffed.\n\n“Right, but, to be a fully cognitive 12-year old, he needs the basis a 12-year old boy would have,” Gupta said, gesticulating angrily. “You need building blocks in order to build him up, or else his brain is like a Jenga tower. It’s ready to topple over when things veer into unfamiliar territory.”\n\nDr. Clinton rolled his eyes at the mongoose. “He’s made to interact with adults, to show them what we can do. He’s not going to be playing with other kids.”\n\nI took all this in. I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but it was hard to ignore them. They were in the same room where Dr. Bailey was giving me another check-up. She must’ve seen the distress on my face.\n\n“Can you idiots take this outside?” she finally called. “He’s right here, you know. He’s artificial, not deaf.”\n\n“Sorry, Lil Bear,” Professor Khatrim said. Dr. Clinton said nothing and just exited, with Gupta right behind him.\n\nDr. Bailey continued to examine me, but she finally put her medical instruments down. “Do you want to talk about it?”\n\n“I am missing things,” I said, sadly. “Professor Khatrim is right. Barry says things, sometimes, and I do not understand. And it is not because I am ignorant of the words he is using. I am ignorant of the context.”\n\nShe considered this. “Well, Professor Khatrim wants you to be more well-rounded. Part of the complexity of this project is in figuring out what we need to do to make you as real a person as possible. That will be the appeal to parents. Of course, many will be ordering models that’re infants, so they’ll learn normally, but there are many applications an older cub could have.”\n\nI was quiet for a bit, then I cleared my throat. “I know I am a prototype,” I said, softly, “but I do not enjoy feeling incomplete.”\n\nDr. Bailey looked in my face, then raised a hand to touch my cheek. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk with Professor Khatrim and Dr. Koslov. We want you to be happy, and part of being happy is liking who you are.” She smiled. “We’ll figure it out.”\n\nBesides the three of them and Dr. Koslov, there were many assistants and interns who rotated in and out. And there was Barry. Barry continued to photograph my progress, as well as to take what he called “modelling shots”, which I gathered were for slide-shows to show potential investors. I was supposed to do various things that a “normal kid” would do. Play with a ball. Watch TV. But Barry wasn’t happy with the situation.\n\n“Are you okay, Mr.Winslow?” I asked, because I could tell he was in a bad mood. “Did I do something wrong?”\n\n“No, kiddo, it’s not you,” he grumbled. “It’s me. I had a bad date last night, I can’t get the lighting in here right, and these photos are just…I dunno…they look unnatural.”\n\n“If you have food poisoning, you should probably talk to Dr. Bailey,” I suggested helpfully.\n\n“Food poisoning?” he asked, quizzically, staring down at the settings read-out on the back of his camera.\n\n“You said you ate a bad date?”\n\nHe blinked and looked up, smiling at me for the first time. “No, no, kiddo…not like that. Like a date where you go out with someone you like and do something fun.”\n\nI considered this. So many words had double-meanings, I’d discovered, especially when talking with Barry. “So you did not eat bad food, but you went out with someone you like, and it did not go well?”\n\n“Well, I didn’t know if I liked him,” Barry said. “He was someone I knew casually, and I thought we had decent chemistry…errr…that we got along pretty good, I mean…but it turns out he’s just an egotistical jerkwad.”\n\n“Jerkwad?” I said, frowning. “I do not know this term, Barry.” My eyes lit up, and I grinned. “Is it one of your bad words?” Barry had inadvertently taught me a lot of terminology I suspected the doctors didn’t know I knew.\n\n“Um…yeah. So keep it under under your hat, kiddo?”\n\nI grinned. I knew that idiom from previous conversations. I mimed removing a hat and sweeping something under it, and Barry grinned back at me. Then he turned around and addressed Dr. Koslov.\n\n“These shots aren’t working, Doc. You want him to look like a normal kid, but he doesn’t,” he said. \n\n“What do you mean?” Koslov said, looking at the wolf, then looking at me. “To the eye, he is an incredibly normal bearcub.”\n\n“No, he’s not,” Barry said, grumpily. “He’s in a lab, wearing a freakin’ Logan’s Run outfit. Normal kids play outside and wear normal clothes.”\n\nDr. Koslov frowned. “I am not certain I like where this is going.”\n\n“Actually, Dr. Koslov,” Professor Khatrim said with a clearing of the throat, “I have been discussing with Dr. Bailey, and I think this is an excellent idea.” When Dr. Koslov turned to look at him, he continued. “Lil Bear would really benefit from exposure to more people and some days off from testing. If we want him to be a real boy, he needs to be in the real world. I would propose we set aside a day and have him go out to do some normal things…clothes shopping, lunch in a restaurant, playing in the park, and so on.”\n\nDr. Koslov seemed to consider this. “And what team do you propose go with him?”\n\n“No team,” Gupta said, shaking his head. “Just Mr. Winslow.”\n\n“M-me?” Barry said, eyes widening. “Uhhhh…listen, I really like the kid, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking responsibility for a multi-million dollar project like that.”\n\n“We’ll be nearby in a mobile unit, monitoring via Lil Bear’s telemetry units,” Professor Khatrim said. “At the first sign of trouble, we can step in. But I think Lil Bear could really benefit from this, and, well…” He turned and looked at me. “Lil Bear, would you like to go out with Mr. Winslow to have some fun?”\n\nI smiled, brightly. “Like, on a date?”\n\nBarry almost choked, Dr. Bailey laughed really loud and long, Dr. Clinton rolled his eyes, and Dr. Koslov gave a soft chuckle. “No, no, Lil Bear…just a chance for you to gain some real world exposure. Would you enjoy going out with Barry?”\n\n“Yes, I certainly would!” I said, enthusiastically. “I like Mr. Winslow very much!”\n\nDr. Koslov looked at Barry over his glasses. “It would, of course, mean a substantial bonus for you. And, as I said, we’ll be nearby.”\n\nBarry thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “Ah, what the heck. It’ll be nice to take some shots outside the lab.” He grinned at me, and I grinned back. I was excited to go out with my friend.\n\nA few days later, Dr. Koslov told me that the next day would be the one where I’d go out. I was so excited, I could barely sleep, and Dr. Bailey noticed this when she came by to read my telemetry. “Lil Bear,” she chided, gently, “you’re supposed to be asleep. You have a big day tomorrow.”\n\n“I cannot sleep, Dr. Bailey!” I exclaimed. “I have been attempting to, but I am very excited. And a little scared, too. I have learned all about the city from my education, but experiencing it will be something totally new to me. I know it will be fun, but I am afraid to embarrass Mr. Winslow. I hope I do not disappoint everyone.”\n\n“Lil Bear, you’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Just be yourself, and I’m sure Mr. Winslow won’t be embarrassed or unhappy.”\n\n“That is part of the problem,” I said, pushing up on my elbows and gnawing on my lower lip. “I have been considering it, and I do not know how to be myself. I do not want to behave like a robot in public and make Mr. Winslow unhappy he is with me. I want him to like me.”\n\nShe chuckled and coaxed me to lie back down. She tugged the blanket up under my chin. “Mr. Winslow already likes you, Lil Bear,” she said, gently. “You don’t have to do anything to impress him. He knows how you act, and he wants you to go with him. You’re gonna have so much fun!”\n\nI smiled up at her. “Thank you, Dr Bailey. I do hope so.” After that, somehow, I was able to relax and drift off.\n\nThe next morning, I was up early. I washed up, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and made sure I looked presentable. I considered all of my jumpsuit options, and I finally chose a teal one with ivory accents that I liked. I ate my breakfast and went through all of my tests, but I was so excited that I had very little concentration for them. Dr. Koslov just seemed amused, rather than unhappy. Finally, the time came, and I thought I would explode, I was vibrating with so much nervous energy! When Barry walked in, I jumped up so fast that I knocked my chair over. I grinned sheepishly at him and righted it. “Hello, Mr. Winslow. I am very excited for our field trip.”\n\nHe chuckled at me. “Okay, if you’re going to come out with me and do normal kid stuff, we have to make some changes.” My heart sank. Was he unhappy with me? But he just crouched down to be closer to my height and offered me a package, wrapped in colorful paper.\n\n“What is this?” I asked, curiously.\n\n“It’s a present,” he said with a grin and shrug. “Open it up and see.”\n\nI opened it, fingers shaking a little from anticipation. I had never been given a present before! Inside, I found a maroon baseball cap and a blue denim jacket. I blinked at them. “I do not understand?” I said. “Is not one of our errands a visit to a clothing store?” I turned the items over. They were a bit scuffed and frayed.\n\n“Sure is!” he assured me. “But I thought you might wanna wear these. They belonged to my nephew, but he’s growing out of them, so my sister gave ‘em to me.” He took the hat, tugging it down on my head. It rested on my ears, and it felt strange. “The outfits you wear are cool and all, but they’re a little Captain EO for normal consumption. I figured you might not enjoy everyone staring at you.” He helped me into the jacket, and I looked down at myself as he buttoned it. \n\nI looked up at his smiling face. “How do I look?” I asked him.\n\n“See for yourself,” he said with a grin, straightening up, putting his hand on my back, and walking with me to the mirror, letting me examine myself.\n\nI stared at the bearcub in the mirror. He looked like me, but what a difference a couple of clothing items made! I had seen plenty of images of children on the computer and in my books. Although I knew I was supposed to be one of them, I had always felt that I had looked profoundly different. Wearing these perfectly normal hand-me-down clothes, I looked…well, I suspected I still wouldn’t blend 100%, but it was a big jump in the right direction.\n\n“Oh, and one other thing,” he said. “Why don’t you just call me Barry? Mr. Winslow is so formal.” He patted my shoulder.\n\n“I would like that, Barry,” I said, happily. I looked at Dr. Koslov. “Do I look alright? Are we going on our field trip, now?”\n\n“You look fantastic, Lil Bear,” the big doctor said, with a warm smile. “So much like my…” He paused, looking almost sad, then cleared his throat. “You look just fine,” he said softly.\n\nAt that moment, I experienced one of my cognitive shifts. I knew from his biography that Dr. Koslov had had a younger brother, Feodor, and I suddenly wondered how much like him I looked. I was hit by a wave of empathy for my creator, and I rushed forward to hug him and smile at him.\n\n“Thank you so much for letting me go out, Dr. Koslov,” I said, before stepping back.\n\n“You’re welcome, Lil Bear,” he said with a warm smile, eyes bright with emotion, but Barry cleared his throat.\n\n“There is one other thing,” the wolf said, softly.\n\n“The stipend, of course,” Professor Khatrim said, stepping forward and producing a thick envelope. “This should be more than sufficient for lunch, clothes, and any activities you choose to participate in. Please return any leftover and keep any receipts…”\n\n“No, no,” Barry said, rolling his eyes. “I can’t just take the kid out in public and call him Lil Bear. You’re still trying to keep the project under wraps, and it’d seem weird if I keep calling him that.” He winked at me and tapped my nose with his fingertip. “You need a name, kiddo.”\n\n“Are we prepared to name Lil Bear?” Dr. Clinton said with concern. “He’s still a project in progress, after all. I can’t be sure what effect it will have on all his speed-taught education, which always identified him as Lil Bear 001.” He looked to Professor Khatrim. “Do you think this is okay? Will it affect his development?”\n\nProfessor Khatrim rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “I think it should be fine,” he said, giving me a small smile. “But what do we call him?”\n\n“Shouldn’t Lil Bear have some say in this?” Dr. Bailey said with a slight smirk. “Once again, he’s standing right here, folks.”\n\n“I get a name?” I asked, almost bouncing on my toes. “Oh, gosh. I don’t know what to pick!” I looked at Dr. Koslov, and I almost suggested Feodor, but then I thought that might make him uncomfortable. I looked at Barry. I wanted a name like his, maybe with a different letter. Maybe Garry? Larry? But then it struck me that Barry might be embarrassed by it. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Another name crossed my mind. “What about Carey?” I suggested.\n\n“Carey?” Dr. Bailey said, warmly. “I think that’s a lovely name.”\n\n“Carey,” I said again, happier and happier with the idea. “I would like Carey to be my name.”\n\n“That’s really flattering, squirt,” Barry said, looking down at me, affectionately. He looked over at Dr. Koslov. “That work for you, Doc?”\n\n“Carey is a very good name. A good name for a caring boy,” he said, smiling, ruffling my head, setting my cap askew. I giggled as I straightened it. He smiled, rubbing under my chin. “Carey, I want you to be on your absolute best behavior with Mr. Winslow, yes? Do whatever he says, and don’t leave his side. Remember that we’ll be nearby, and we can always find you from your telemetry. You’re perfectly safe.” He looked at Barry. “We can take you in the company van, then drop you off wherever you want to go.”\n\n“City center,” Barry said with a nod. “Gonna go right to the heart of things.”\n\nI followed the group down to the parking garage, which I’d never been in before. The white company van had the Generizons logo of a sunrise over a double-helix. Lance, an older goat who I sometimes saw doing janitorial work around the building, was sitting in the driver’s seat, and we waved with a smile as we approached. The back was a mess of communications equipment, computers, and monitors. I could see all my vitals scrolling across one screen, while another screen displayed a GPS with a blue marker on it indicating my position, and a white marker showing the van’s position. Most of the team piled in the back, but Barry had me get in the front and slide over to sit next to Lance.\n\n“Hey there, kiddo. Wow, lookit you! All ready for your trip?”\n\n“My name’s Carey now, Lance!” I told him happily.\n\n“Is it now? Well, good for you. Let’s get your seatbelt on.” As he helped me get secured, Barry climbed up so that I was between the two of them. Once we were all buckled in, Lance grinned. “All aboard!” He started the van, and we rolled forward, approaching a metal security gate. A rabbit security guard stopped us, but Dr. Koslov’s security badge got the gate opening quick enough. I gawked as sunlight began to fill the garage. I’d seen it in movies, but this was my first time going out in it. It was so much brighter and warmer than the fluorescent lights I spent most of my life under. Without thinking of it, I slipped my hand into Barry’s for reassurance. That light was almost overwhelming!\n\n“Are you okay, buddy?” Barry asked.\n\n“It’s really bright,” I said, nervously.\n\n“It’s good for you!” Dr. Bailey called from the back. “Sunlight will build your Vitamin D. And it feels great on your fur and skin!”\n\n“Do you want to go back?” Barry asked me, very quietly. But I shook my head vehemently. There was no way I was going to let light stop me from this trip with him. That was dumb!\n\nThe van pulled out into the sunlight, and I saw that the building where I’d spent all of my life so far was a large warehouse space with the Generizons logo on its sign. The building was surrounded by trees that had changing leaves. It was late autumn, at a perfect peak time for foliage. We pulled out through a large metal fence and onto a quiet road in an industrial park area. A few turns later, and we were getting onto the highway to head downtown. I gawked at what seemed like dozens, if not hundreds of other cars, each one filled with living passengers. I was briefly awestruck by the varieties of species and ages I saw. So many lives, all heading in the same direction. I wondered at their stories; I was pretty sure none of them were quite like mine.\n\nAs we drove, I watched some cars slide into the traffic while others exited. It made me think of salmon in a river, all heading the same way to spawn. Off in the distance, I could see the dense cluster of tall buildings that made up downtown, and the traffic thickened, growing slower and more dense. Finally, however, we pulled off of the highway ourselves. We were next to a green space, and my head was flooding with words faster than I could keep up, almost. Oak tree. Grass. Flowers. Pine tree. Bench. Fountain. Skateboarder. Balloon. Statue. My excitement was rising almost more than I could contain, and I began to tremble.\n\n“You okay, Carey?” Barry asked, squeezing my hand again. I suddenly realized that I’d never let go of it.\n\n“Yes, Barry,” I said in a small voice. “There is just a lot to process.”\n\nHe looked at me with concern. “Are you up for this? We can come back another time, if you want?”\n\nI won’t lie; I considered it. It was a lot to handle all at once. But I would be with Barry. I would be fine. “No, I want to do this today,” I said. “Things are relaxing. There were just too many new things at once.”\n\nBarry unbuckled his seat belt, then mine. He slid out of the van, then helped me down, with his hands under my armpits. “I’ll keep him safe,” he assured Dr. Roslov.\n\n“I’m not the one who’s worried,” the big bear said with a wink. “Have fun, Carey!”\n\nI smiled and waved to everyone as the van door closed, and we watched it drive down the street. When it was out of sight, Barry turned to me. “I thought we’d just start with a walk in the park. We’ll go slow, so you can process everything.” He offered me his hand to hold, and I smiled, taking it in my much smaller one. We walked down a paved path between two lawns of green. Words were coming slower now after the initial onslaught, and I was soon able to keep up a normal conversation.\n\n“Are you hungry?” the wolf asked. “We could go get food now or later.”\n\n“I am not hungry,” I said, looking around. “I ate breakfast, and, in any case, my stomach is behaving oddly.”\n\n“Butterflies?” Barry asked, but, before I could comment, he quickly added, “That means you have a funny, fluttery feeling in your tummy.”\n\nI nodded. “What does it mean? Am I sick?”\n\nHe chuckled softly. “Naw, lil guy…you’re just nervous. It’s just a reaction people have. It happens sometimes when you’re nervous or excited, or around someone you like.”\n\n“Oh!” I said. “An involuntary reaction in the presence of someone you are attracted to, like an erection?”\n\nA mother squirrel looked up sharply and looked at us shocked. She quickly ushered her children away. “Uhhhhh, sort of?” Barry said, squirming a bit. “Listen, buddy…I’d be happy to talk about that kind of thing in private, but, when we’re in public, maybe keep it down?”\n\nI blushed and put my hands over my mouth. My learning did indicate that many people were openly uncomfortable discussing many natural things, such as the reproductive and excretory systems. “I am very sorry, Barry,” I said, quietly. “I will be much more careful.” I decided that this would be the absolute wrong time to admit to him that I had seen him with an erection around the lab many times. I began to wonder who on the staff he was attracted to.\n\nWe walked through the park. I saw some young people skateboarding, some very little kids in a sandbox, and families together. The weather was crisp and cool, and, although I knew I didn’t need it to avoid physical harm, I appreciated the jacket more. I loved the different colored leaves on the trees and the smells on the air. Barry bought me a warm cider, and I drank it down, chewing on the cinnamon stick afterwards. I loved the way it tasted and how it warmed me to my core. I really fell in love with autumn that day, and it’ll always be my first love in many ways.\n\nWhen we came to a nice open field, Barry took a ball out of his backpack and offered it to me. It was one of those red kickballs that’re nice and squishy. He pulled out his camera and nodded. “Okay, kiddo. Run around…play with the ball.”\n\n“Um…play with it how?” I asked, uncertainly. I wanted to do what Barry wanted, but I wasn’t sure how.\n\nBarry chuckled. “Toss it up and catch it…or kick it around and then run after it. I just want to get some pictures of you doing natural kid stuff.”\n\nI obliged, kicking the ball and running after it. I wasn’t normally allowed to run in the lab, unless I was on a treadmill, testing my endurance or oxygen levels. To be able to run and feel damp, cool grass under my feet, to turn in any direction. To laugh loudly with a friend…it was all so intoxicating! After a while, however, I noticed that most of the kids were playing, either with other kids, or with adults that they resembled. “Barry, do you want to throw the ball to me?” I suggested.\n\nHe smiled. “Sure, bud…one sec.” He set up his tripod and set the camera to automatically track and take photos. Then he picked up the ball where I had kicked it near him and threw it. I watched the ball come and jumped up to catch it. It bounced out of my arms, and I laughed as I fell on my rump. I was up again, and kicking it back to him. We must’ve played ball for an hour or more before Barry was tired and wanting to wrap up. “I think we got some great shots, kiddo. Fantastic job!”\n\nOn the far side of the park, Barry stopped me. There was traffic, and we stood there. Barry was looking very intently. I blinked. I had a whole file in my head about traffic and street crossing. “Barry…are we not supposed to walk to the crosswalk and wait for the Walk signal?”\n\nHe grinned at me. “Supposed to? Oh, probably, but what fun is that?” He waited until traffic had died down, and then grinned. “Okay, we’re gonna run for it!”\n\nMy eyes widened. There were still cars slowly rolling. My brain did a quick calculation that it would be unlikely they would reach us if we ran, but still. “But…”\n\n“C’mon!” He said, and tugged on my hand. I found myself running alongside him, panting as we rushed across the street. One car honked, and I almost froze, but Barry hauled me along, and laughed, swinging me up in his arms as he jumped onto the sidewalk. “There ya go, buddy! Great job.” He set me down on my feet, then gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t know the gesture, but I got the context.\n\n“I don’t understand,” I said, confused. “Why would we not simply move to the designated spot and wait for the light?”\n\n“Life’s too short, sometimes, to play by the rules,” he said to me, winking. “And, by the way, I think…you just used your first contraction.”\n\nI blinked, then pondered that. “I believe you may be right. I have always had the awareness of contractions, but it always seemed better to be more formal…to be clearer in speech.”\n\n“Bah,” Barry said, grinning at me. “People’ll get what you mean. You should try to use them less. They’ll definitely make you seem more real to people. Talking all longhand like that seems robotic.”\n\nI frowned. I have never liked being compared to a robot. I’ve known several, and some of them are very nice people, but I’m not one of them. I’m a real live flesh and blood bearcub. Just because I had scientists and research instead of a Mamma and Papa didn’t make me any less organic. “Well, I will…I’m going to try to use them more.”\n\nBarry tugged the brim of my hat down so that it covered my eyes some. “Attaboy!”\n\nWe went shopping at a clothing store that specialized in kids clothes. I got lots of underwear, shirts, pants, hats, a couple of jackets, some belts, and a pair of overalls. Barry tried to get me into shoes, but I’d seen plenty of kids barefoot, and, although I tried some, they just didn’t feel right. I decided I’d stay barefoot unless it were absolutely necessary. Barry had them box everything up, and we carried the bags out, feeling very laden down. I was very relieved when the Generizons van came along.\n\nDr. Clinton and Dr. Bailey helped me get all my parcels inside. “How’re you enjoying the day so far, Carey?” Dr. Bailey asked with a smile.\n\n“I’m having a great time!” I said, and I saw Dr. Clinton perk his ears up at that. He had tested me for all the contractions, of course, but he hadn’t heard me use them in a normal sentence. I grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up. He blinked, smiled a bit, and returned it.\n\nAfterwards, Barry and I went to a little local restaurant called Josie’s. I knew nothing here was on the diet that Dr. Bailey had proscribed for me, but she’d told me to try eating whatever I wanted. I ended up having tomato soup, grilled cheese, and a chocolate-honey milk shake. I was so fullwhen I was done, but I was so happy, too. I kept looking over at Barry, who kept chatting with the servers, making them laugh. He made me laugh, too, telling stupid jokes, or making funny faces. But then, one time, when a server was asking me how my meal was, I caught him just kind of looking at me. He hadn’t really looked at me like that before, and it made me feel…well…I got butterflies in my stomach.\n\n“You’re gonna make me regret moving to Japan,” he said, after a bit.\n\n“Japan?” I asked. I mean, I knew where it was, of course, but this seemed out of context. “Why are you moving to Japan?” I felt sad, suddenly. We were having fun, but here was this news. “Did I do something wrong?”\n\nHe laughed. “No, no, buddy. I applied for a job there before I ever got hired for your project, and I’ve been accepted. I’m going to be working with a group of affiliated museums, photographing their exhibits and helping to catalog them.”\n\n“Oh, I see,” I said, thoughtfully. “Are you leaving soon?” I didn’t like that idea one bit.\n\n“No, buddy,” he said, reaching out to give me a reassuring pat on the arm. “Not for a few months. I’m still in the process of selling my home here and setting up my new digs there. Plus, the last guy’s contract doesn’t run out for months yet. So we’ve got lots of time to hang out together.”\n\n“Cool, I’m glad,” I said, shyly, smiling at him. He looked at me a little funny, and I wondered if he knew that I had been falling for him a little bit.\n\nBefore we headed for home, he took me into the restaurant’s restroom, and we both stood at the urinal trough. He unzipped and hauled out his shaft, and I was able to glance sidelong at it. It was nice…more feral than mine one, and, of course, way bigger. I finished peeing but kept standing there, kind of looking at it, sideways. He noticed, and chuckled, looking around. “Bud, you shouldn’t stare like that.”\n\n“I’m sorry,” I said, but I didn’t stop. It was, after all, the first one I’d seen besides my own. The tip, which was tapered, stuck a bit out of his sheath, and I found myself wondering if he had a knot. I knew many canids did.\n\nHe swallowed, watching me, and I realized he was getting an erection. I turned to face him, my own little penis in my hand. I gawked as more cock slipped out, and, sure enough, there was his knot. “Wow,” I breathed. And I had another sort of revelation…when I’d seen his erections in the lab, had they been…for me? I looked up at him. “You like me, Barry?”\n\n“Of course I do, buddy,” he said, with a nervous smile. “You’re a great kid.”\n\nI shook my head. “I mean…you like…” I nodded at the hard spike sticking out from his lap. “You like like me.”\nHe whimpered. “I…we shouldn’t talk about this here. Someone could walk in.” He bit his lip, but I noticed he wasn’t putting his cock away.\n\n“Could I touch it? Just for a sec?” I asked, hopefully. I hadn’t realized I wanted to, before, but I just liked Barry so much, and I was so curious.\n\nHe bit his lip, looked around, and nervously said, “Just for a sec, okay?”\n\nI smiled brightly, and I reached out. I knew I had to be gentle. I kind of petted it a moment, like a puppy, making him moan and pant a bit. I slid my hand down and gave it a gentle squeeze. His arms shot out. One grabbed my shoulder, the other one the urinal. “Oh, fuck,” he said, in a strangled voice. “Carey…nghhh…stop!”\n\nI stopped, lowering my ears. “Did I do it wrong? Did I hurt you?”\n\nHe got himself under control, panting, then smiled. “No! No, you were great. I just…”\n\nAt that moment, we heard footsteps. We both quickly turned back to the urinal. I tucked in my little package and walked over to wash my hands. Barry took a moment to compose himself, then did the same. A tiger walked in and headed to a stall. As soon as he locked the door, the two of us slipped out. We shared a nervous grin outside, then headed to our rendez-vous point with the van. Neither of us said anything, but I realized something right away...\n\nThis HAD been a date. My first date.\n\nFrom then on, Barry and I found lots of little secret moments to just touch each other lightly in the lap. We spent months in a kind of secret boyfriend status. A hand on a hand, or a nudge of a hip was all we could sneak in, but it felt very secret and special. Professor Khatrim seemed to approve of my emotional state; he felt that the outing had been very beneficial to me. I was speaking and acting more naturally, and laughing was becoming a regular thing with me. He seemed to feel that smiling and laughing naturally were very important to convincing others that I was a natural boy. Being around Barry made me want to smile and laugh a lot, so Professor Khatrim encouraged our friendship.\n\nFrom Barry’s suggestions, I started to have new elements added to my life. Occasionally I got a toy or a game, or some comics. Once in a blue moon, Dr. Bailey would approve me to have something sweet, so I would get an ice cream sundae, or a piece of cake, or a candy bar. After I’d gone over all my lessons and testing, I was allowed to have a certain set amount of time to use the computer for games or to watch television. In other words, I was slowly allowed to be a normal kid.\n\nThere were other outings, too. Barry took me to the movies one week and to an art museum another week. Sometimes other members of the team would join us for activities. I distinctly remember Dr. Bailey having Japanese food with us and showing us both how to properly hold chopsticks. Once, our whole team went out to an amusement park. Oh man, that day started out as the best! Getting our crowd onto a roller coaster was hilarious. Dr. Clinton turned out to be quite the daredevil of our group, going on every thrill ride with me even when others wouldn’t. I wanted to ride them all, especially a coaster called “Grizzly” for obvious reasons, but I wasn’t tall enough for that one.\n\n“Almost there,” said the kindly old hippo who turned me away. “Maybe next year.”\n\n“Yeah!” I said happily. “You think I can ride next year, Dr. Koslov?” I asked as the hippo walked away.\n\nDr. Koslov’s face fell a little. “We…let’s talk about it back at the lab, alright, Carey?”\n\nI could tell something was wrong, and Barry could, too. I bit my lip, although I wanted to ask questions, but Barry didn’t seem to feel the compunction to wait. “What’s wrong?” he asked. \n\n“Later…in the lab,” Dr. Koslov said, seeming a bit upset.\n\n“Let’s not spoil a lovely day, right?” Dr. Bailey said, giving me a sad smile. I could tell that, whatever they were going to tell me, I wasn’t likely to like it.\n\nI tried to enjoy the rest of the day, but there was a shadow on it now, and we ended up coming back a little earlier than we’d intended. Once back in the lab, we got together in one of the conference rooms. Dr. Koslov took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We should’ve told you this from the beginning, Carey, and I’m truly sorry we didn’t.” He put them back on and sighed. “You know that you’re a prototype…the company wanted to make sure that its investment paid off over a long period of time. They didn’t want to have to develop a new cub every few years. You were, after all, very expensive to make.”\n\nBarry was frowning, standing with his arms folded. “Okay, well, that makes sense. But what does that have to do with anything? Why did you guys get all weird at the fun park?”\n\nDr. Bailey spoke next. “As you know, we used the vat technique to grow Carey from stem cells to a 12-year old cub in a matter of months. You may also recall we added a certain amount of cellular regeneration to Carey’s physical make-up.”\n\n“Right, he heals super fast,” Barry said, eyeing her suspiciously. “So he’s an X-Man. So?”\n\n“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, trying to be gentle. “Carey undergoes regular complete cellular regeneration. And…he always will.”\n\nBarry stared at her, but I was putting the pieces together. “I’m not aging?” I asked, feeling my stomach sinking. I glanced over to Barry, who was looking back at me with an expression that was hard to read. “I…won’t get any bigger…”\n\nDr. Koslov nodded, slowly. “I’m sorry, Carey.”\n\n“This is bullshit,” Barry growled, glaring at Koslov, then over to Bailey. “You made him. You made it so he’s not aging. Can’t you just…turn it back on?” \n\n“It’s not a simple process,” Dr. Bailey said, slowly, as if explaining it to a young child. “All of Carey’s bodily processes, including the cellular regeneration, is tied together. If we turn off the regeneration to restart the aging process, well…” She shook her head. “It might very well kill him.”\n\nBarry slowly sank down the wall, putting his head in his hands. “Such bullshit,” he groaned.\n\n“Mr. Winslow,” Dr. Koslov said, gently, “I appreciate your involvement, but it’s hardly a photographer’s place to…”\n\n“I love the kid, you asshole!” Barry growled, and everyone got really quiet. “Like, I know for all of you, he’s a project, an experiment. But to me, he’s a kid. A great kid, and…” He bit his lip, then softly said, “I love him. I want him to be happy.”\n\n“I love you, too, Barry,” I blurted out. I was trying hard to hold back tears. “It’s okay…I don’t care if I can’t ride the Grizzly, but…I wanted to be with you.” And with that, I lost it and just started bawling, like I had never cried before. Like a real cub.\n\nThe room was shocked, and Dr. Koslov cleared his throat, softly. “Let’s give Carey a moment.” He started to leave, then he very tenderly asked “Carey, do you want Barry to stay with you?”\n\nI nodded, and the big bear smiled and nodded to Barry. As soon as the room was cleared, Barry came and put his arms around me. “It’s okay, buddy. I don’t care if mmmph!” As soon as I could reach, I grabbed the lapels of his shirt, tugged him down, and kissed him, right on the lips. Barry hesitated, then tightened his grip and kissed back, softly. When the kiss was done, I cried into his shirt. He shhhhhed, softly, and held me and stroked my hair and back, lightly. “I love you, Carey,” he told me, kissing my ears, one at a time. Then he chuckled, ruefully. “Oh, God…I’m in love with a cub.”\n\n“Are you upset with me, Barry?” I asked. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know…”\n\n“Oh, God, no, kiddo,” he said, squeezing again. “I’m not angry with you at all. I’m upset at the pricks who did this to you.” He chuckles, softly. “Though I guess there are worse things than being a cub. You won’t have to deal with taxes, old age with all those aches and pains, college costs…”\n\n“Marriage,” I sighed. “Having adult friends. Being taken seriously. Love.”\n\n“Hey now,” he said, gently, stroking my cheek. “I still love you.” He leaned in, and we had another kiss. It was gentle and sweet, rather than the desperate thing the first kiss had been. And a second followed, and a third. Barry pressed those kisses to my lips, tenderly, and I held close to him, shivering. “Is it…gonna be weird for you to love someone so much older than you?” he asked.\n\n“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know how I’ll feel about anything, but I don’t think so. Will it be weird for you to love someone who always looks like a cub?”\n\n“Heh…nah. I fell in love with you as a cub, after all,” he said with a crooked smile. We kissed a few more times, then held hands as we walked out to the rest of the team. All of them looked at us with various states of curiosity and thought, but none of them seemed upset by this.\n\n“Well, this is…unexpected,” Dr. Koslov said, thoughtfully.\n\n“Not entirely,” Professor Khatrim said with a lopsided smile. “Carey is held right at an important cusp of puberty. Although he is physically immature, he is still in an important place, emotionally. It is not surprising that, having provided him with a source of affection and approval, he should reciprocate in kind.”\n\n“Gee, Prof, you make it seem so romantic,” Barry said with a sarcastic tone that made me giggle nervously. “So…what now?”\n\n“Are we comfortable condoning a mature relationship between an adult male and an underaged boy?” Dr. Clinton asked. I was almost angry with him, but he was smiling, slightly. I was confused, but he seemed to be encouraging.\n\n“With all due respect to the mores of society,” Dr. Koslov said, removing his glasses to clean them on his white coat, “I will remind you that our company also produces Little Lovers. If these two want to pursue a relationship of any kind, I have difficulty placing a framework of conventional morality on it.” He chuckled. “Though Carey is so advanced, if he were just for…well…sex…it would be akin to using a flamethrower to kill a mosquito.” He winked at me, making me blush and smile.\n\n“So…you folks are okay with this?” Barry asked, uncertainly.\n\n“Don’t get me wrong,” Professor Khatrim said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “I don’t wish to watch your physical activity, but I would rather have Carey engaged in a loving relationship than be a lonely little cub.”\n\n“He’s like a son to us,” Dr. Koslov finally said, his tone soft. “Doesn’t everyone want their son to be happy and with someone who loves him?” He smiled, lightly. “I think we could consider an…overnight visit, if you’d like?”\n\nBarry shivered. “Oh, man…I’d love it, if Carey’s game?”\n\nI swallowed and nodded. “Please? Like…not tonight, but soon?”\n\n“Soon,” Dr. Koslov promised.\n\n“It has to be soon,” I said, insistently. “He leaves for Japan in a few weeks.”\n\nIt wasn’t quite as soon as I’d hoped. That was about the time that the investors began to take a personal interest in me. They’d spent a lot of money, and almost six months had gone by; they wanted to see what their money had been spent on. A couple of weeks went by, and Barry came less frequently. Apparently they’d become suspicious of the photographer who was still on the payroll and had cut back on his sessions. When he did come, we’d always have a few minutes of private time to kiss and hug, but there was never time for the other things we’d wanted to do. I did spend a lot of time reading about various sexual activities, trying to pick up hints and techniques. When the time came, I wanted to be as good for Barry as I could.\n\nI was glad Barry wasn’t there the day that Mr. Wilkinson came to visit. He was a polar bear in his 30s or so, representing his father’s chemicals plant, Polar Chemicals. I had to put away all the extraneous things I had now and dress in a jumpsuit again. I felt like I was being reset to where I had been.\n\nWhen Mr. Wilkinson came in, he looked down at me. “So…this is Lil Bear 001, hmm?” I had the feeling he somehow didn’t approve of me, yet simultaneously wanted to do things with me. In later years, I would come to think of this as “contempt”, but it was too subtle for me to understand then. “This is what a good chunk of my inheritance was spent on?”\n\nDr. Koslov cleared his throat. “Mr. Wilkinson, your late father was keenly interested in this project. I put together a file of all the test results and other pertinent data on…”\n\n“Yes, yes,” Wilkinson said, waving a hand dismissively. “My father hoped that you would find a way to use this ridiculous project’s results to send his illness into remission, which would have been worth it to him. Sadly for him and for me, that never manifested, so now I have to figure out how to recoup my company’s losses from this debacle.” He looked me over, then shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like a lot of result, frankly.”\n\nDuring all this, I held my arms at my side, allowing Wilkinson to examine me. His hand moved, occasionally tugging an ear, moving my face, parting my lips to examine my teeth, and so on. I was growing in indignation, but I knew this was important, so I stayed quiet.\n\nDr. Koslov was frowning. “I can assure you, Mr. Wilkinson, that Carey…”\n\n“Who?” the bear asked, raising an eyebrow.\n\n“Oh…Carey…that’s a nickname we’ve given Lil Bear 001,” Koslov said with a chuckle. “Sorry.”\n\n“Do be careful, Dr. Koslov,” said Wilkinson, looking over at Koslov sharply. “Name a thing like this, and you’ll get attached.”\n\n“I’m not a thing,” I finally said, hotly. “I’m a cub.”\n\nWilkinson stared at me, as if stunned I could speak…or maybe that I’d had the audacity to. “You,” he finally said, “are an asset of the Generizons company…a company that is now in significant debt to Polar Chemicals. It may be decided that the best way to recoup our debt is to sell you as a Little Lover, or harvest your tissues for further medical research, so watch yourself, Lil Bear 001.”\n\n“Carey,” I growled, staring at him defiantly. “My name is Carey.”\n\nThis time, Wilkinson almost seemed amused. “Your designation is Lil Bear 001,” he said with a sneer. “You are not a person; you are a commodity. Plus, your designer made you too damned expensive to mass produce, so there will never be a Lil Bear 002, or a Lil Bear 003…or any more of your line.” I shot a look to Koslov, who sighed, hanging his head. I think I had known the project was in trouble, but I had not realized it was that bad.\n\nI turned back to Wilkinson. “So what happens to me?” I asked, my bravado ebbing somewhat under these revelations.\n\n“I haven’t determined that yet,” Wilkinson said, clearly pleased that I was being less feisty. “We’ll have to see. Perhaps I’ll just claim you for myself. I’m sure I could have some fun taking the value of your company’s debt out of your body, and our R&D department might enjoy experimenting with whatever’s left.”\n\nHe turned to Koslov. “Have all of your financial records delivered to my office by Thursday the latest. In fact, bring them yourself. We’ll go over them together. If you wasted time naming this thing, who knows what other waste we’ll find on the books.” He walked out, and Koslov sat down heavily in a chair.\n\n“Awful man,” Koslov said, shaking his head. “We have other investors…perhaps I can work with them for some loans.”\n\n“For what?” I said, a little bitterly. “Dr. Koslov, if it’s too expensive to make more of me, then this whole project is a failure!”\n\n“No!” he said, striking his desk with a fist. “This was not a failure. You are not a failure!” He cupped my face with his hands. “You, Carey…you are a miracle. You are a real boy, with emotions…what does it matter that you were made and not born? You are more real than many children I’ve known. We are not giving up on this. We will fight it!”\n\n“Can he really take me?” I asked, feeling stricken. “Could he take me away and harvest me? Or use me? I don’t want to leave you, and then team, or B-barry.”\n\n“We won’t let that happen,” he said firmly. “I promise. I will do anything necessary to prevent it.”\n\nAs it was, it was decided that, since Dr. Koslov had to bring the financial records to Polar Chemicals on Thursday, Barry’s overnight visit would be on Wednesday. I spent part of the week feeling sick to my stomach, all the certainty in my world suddenly ripped out from under me. I had nightmares where Wilkinson would tear me away from everyone, and I would never see Barry again. I was a nervous wreck by the time Wednesday came. The day was as normal as it could be, with everyone worried about the situation with the project. The whole team was working overtime to try and reach out to various contacts to see if more funding could be found, but things were looking bleak.\n\nBy the time Barry arrived, Dr. Koslov was getting ready to go home for the night. He had put together all of the financial records, and he seemed in a black mood. “What’s wrong, Dr. Koslov?” I asked, feeling concerned for the old man. I cared for him a great deal, and I worried what kind of toll this situation was having on him.\n\n“Nothing for you to worry about, Carey,” he told me, gently. “I’m just wondering how to explain some of our project expenses, like clothing, dinners out, and so on,” he chuckled. “To say nothing of all these photography sessions.”\n\n“I really do appreciate everything you’ve all done for me,” I told him honestly. “I’ve been really, really happy to be a part of all this.”\n\nHe put a hand on my head, stroking my hair, and I closed my eyes. I wondered, briefly, what it would’ve been like to grow up in his home, instead of this lab…to have been a son instead of a project. But he took his paw away, and the moment was broken. “Thank you, Carey. You give an old man strength to do what needs doing.”\n\n“See you tomorrow?” I said, smiling.\n\n“I’m certain of it,” he said softly, and he left as Dr. Bailey was coming in.\n\n“I’ve made sure the rest of the team knows that you’re not to be disturbed tonight,” she told me with a twinkle in her eye. “And I’ve turned off your telemetry, so that no one wonders what any abnormal spikes in your systems might mean.” I must’ve blushed deeply, because she gave my arm a squeeze. “He’ll be here soon. I hope you two have fun.”\n\nThe lab was incredibly quiet when she left. There was just a soft hum from some of the machines, and the occasional ping as some machine recorded something or another. I made sure everything was tidy, especially my bed. I looked at my outfit in the mirror – just a t-shirt and some briefs. I hoped that was slightly daring without being raunchy. I wanted it all to be perfect.\n\nAnd then he came in. He was dressed simply in jeans, a denim jacket, and a t-shirt. I ran over to him, and he pulled me in close. We kissed, without having said anything, and he held me a long time. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, very seriously. “Dr. Clinton caught me up on everything, and I will kill the guy before that happens.”\n\n“Shhh,” I told him, softly. “We’re not talking about that right now. Right now is just us.” I pushed my hands up under his shirt, wanting to feel him, and he tugged his jacket and shirt off, giving me more access. \n\n“Carey,” he said, almost nervously, “before we do this…you know…I’m still moving to Japan.”\n\n“I know,” I told him. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”\n\nHe touched my cheek so gently. “I wish I’d never taken that job, but all the wheels are in motion. If I could take you with me…”\n\nI shhhhed again, softly, and kissed him to quiet his concerns. I knew he was going, but I wanted to love him now. As I felt his body all over, he scooped me up, carrying me to the bed. We’d waited so long, I guess he wasn’t wanting to wait any more, and I was totally okay with that. Soon, he was peeling my shirt off, too, and he was kissing all over my torso. He pushed me back, gently, and I felt his lips on my belly, my chest, tugging lightly at my nipples. Each kiss made me shiver or gasp, and soon twined my fingers into the sheets, trembling a little. When he lowered his head and licked around my navel, I arched up, panting, toes curling tightly.\n\nHe leaned back, and I quickly pushed up and straddled his lap. I curled myself close to him, kissing along his jawline and down over his throat. I kissed down his chest, found one of his nipples in his dense fur and wrapped my lips around it, sucking gently. He groaned, his arms encircling me, tightly, holding me close. Soon, I wriggled down, fighting with his jeans, and his shaft sprang out, fully erect, making me blush. I squeezed his knot, as I had the first time I’d seen it, and he groaned, his fingers digging into me a bit. “Oh, fuck…Carey, I…mmmph…I need you, sweet cub.”\n\n“I need you, too,” I whispered, stroking him slowly, watching his cock slide slickly through my fingers. I bent down, managing to get the first few inches into my mouth, and I gave him what was probably the worst blowjob of his life. To his credit, he began to teach me how to cover my teeth, where to lick, and how to make his fur bristle when I gave him attention where he liked it.\n\n“Mmmph! Keep that up, and I’ll pop way too quickly.” He chuckled, then eased me up, a line of drool connecting my lip to his tip. He helped me down with my undies, which ended up around my thighs. “Such a cute little thing,” he murmured, lowering his head, and then I felt him softly take me in. He sure knew what he was doing, because, in no time, his lips were sliding up and down my little length, and I was crying out, over and over, biting down on a pillow I hugged to my chest to avoid making too much noise. I felt like I was teetering on the edge, and I paused, head tilting back, almost ready to slide into a quick climax. I had stroked myself to completion, so I knew what was happening. Hey, I was twelve, after all!\n\nBut no, he wouldn’t let me go over. He eased off, lifting me up, turning me onto my hands and knees, and then lowering down behind me. I felt his warm hands parting my cheeks and the incredible wet heat of his tongue as he leaned down and slurped them over my balls from behind. I gasped out my passion, my forehead falling to the bed, and I wrapped my hand around my hard little cocklet, stroking it furiously. One of his bigger hands came to mine, gently taking it away. “Not yet,” he whispered. “We’ll get there.” I groaned…this was torture, but the most delicious torture imaginable.\n\nBarry lifted his head back up and began to caress from my sac to my hole with long, slow, deliberate strokes. To this day, nothing puts me into a submissive mood like attention to my taint, and my head was soon swimming, long before he started to explore my little hole. My toes curled again, and I pushed back against him. His caresses remained painfully gentle, even when I was ready to beg him to go harder and explore me more thoroughly.\n\nEventually, his tongue did press harder, and I soon found myself groaning out as his patient ministrations yielded fruit. I was so relaxed that he began to wriggle his tongue into me, parting flesh with flesh, coaxing me to relax and give in, his saliva lubricating the way. In the end, however, he decided the job required more than spit. Luckily, he had come well prepared, and he pulled a little bottle of lube out of his pocket, squirting it into his fingers, then making his shaft glisten with it. I looked back, panting, eager but also afraid. I needn’t have been. As he slipped into place, he nuzzled my neck. “I’m going to go really, really slow. If it hurts, just tell me, and I’ll stop.” I nodded, but, despite my fear, I had no intention of telling him to stop.\n\nBarry’s arms snuggled me close and held me tight, and I felt him position himself, nudging his hips forward until the tip of his thing lightly kissed my waiting tunnel. I bit down on my pillow again, hugging it tightly, and then he leaned forward more, and I felt him beginning to press me open. He had done a wonderful job rimming me to the point of utter relaxation, but he was still much, much larger than I was. I sucked in a lungful of breath and held it, willing my backside to relax, trying to let him in. At first, I thought that I was doing a great job, but then I realized it had just been the easy tapered part. When the full blunt width begin to press, I shook, closing my eyes to a squint, and my breath came out in a ragged whimper.\n\n“Are you okay?” he asked, pausing. It was so thick, I couldn’t imagine taking it all, but he’d barely begun.\n\n“Y-yeah,” I assured him, reaching back to pat his side. “Don’t stop…get it in…I really want it.” And I really did. I loved him, and I wanted to be one with him. This seemed like the best way to do it.\n\nHe took me at my word, and, to my credit, when the searing pain of the full penetration hit, I managed to keep my scream down to a muffled whimper. He held me so gently then, nuzzling me over and over again. As he did, I realized I was relaxing with surprising ease. I knew my cellular regeneration would heal injuries, but it almost seemed to be preemptively negating the pain of my slow opening. I found myself starting to ease back as he slid forward. “Oh, fuck,” he whimpered, as I eased back, and I felt the huge expanse of his not yet inflated knot. It seemed like an impossible barrier, but so had his cock at first. I began to push back more.\n\n“Carey, no,” he whispered. “Not the first time.”\n\n“Yes, the first time,” I groaned. “Who knows when the next time is? Or if there is a next time?”\n\n“I’ll hurt you,” he whimpered. “I don’t want to hurt you; I love you.”\n\n“It’s because you love me that I’m okay with the hurt,” I groaned. “Come on…not much time before it’s too big for sure.”\n\nHe was trembling as he got a tighter hold on my body, his arms wrapping around and under my body, hands gripping my shoulders. And then he began to push. I felt that mass trying to make inroads, and I knew it would be almost impossible. The cock had been hard enough. I forced myself to relax, and it still wasn’t enough. I flailed an arm back, finding his hip, grabbed hold, and slowly pulled myself back. The knot pushed at my poor anus, forcing it to stretch. God, how it burned…I felt like I was going to be ripped…but I knew it would heal. “Do it!” I practically screamed at him, and he whimpered, tightened his grip, and shoved with all his might.\n\nThe feeling of pain when he managed to actually pop the knot past my protesting muscles is almost indescribable. I felt a wrenching and almost a tearing, and then a slight easing for a moment…and then his knot swelled to full size, stretching my hole to nearly impossible width, locking me in place. He growled, biting down softly on the nape of my neck, holding me in place. His hips managed a handful of spasming thrusts, and then he threw back his head in a throttled howl. My body shook as his lust spent itself into me, a rush of liquid heat as numerous jets of watery canine cum leaked out into my poor, abused backside. I collapsed under him, and he cuddled me like a ragdoll. And when he whispered, “I love you, Carey,” hoarsely, I could only pat his side in return. I didn’t trust my voice.\n\nWe did it twice more before we passed out. Once I sat in his lap and bounced for him, and the other time, I was on my back, smiling up at him the whole time. It was never easy to take that knot, but it got easier. By the time we were done, I was sore and sticky and so, so in love with him.\n\nHis phone alarm went off about 6 AM, and we managed to disentangle ourselves from one another, grinning like idiots. We showered together, and then got back into bed and just held each other. When we heard the lab doors opening, we quickly got dressed before anyone could come into my private areas. We came out, holding hands, expecting to see Dr. Koslov, but it was Dr. Clinton. That was unusual, until I remembered that Dr. Koslov was seeing Mr. Wilkinson with the financial records.\n\n“You two look like a pair of cats who just shared a canary,” Dr. Clinton said with a slight grin. “I won’t ask how your evening went. Just promise me you’ll clean up your own sheets, Carey?”\n\nI blushed and grinned back. “I will, Dr. Clinton, thanks.”\n\nBarry kissed me as Dr. Clinton went into the main lab. “I need to do that hand model shoot for Tarly Jewelers, but I’ll come back tonight, okay?”\n\nI smiled and nodded. As he left, I relaxed, feeling more than a little sore, and made myself a bowl of cereal.\n\nThe day went by like many had for the first half. I went through tests, all of which I passed, and Professor Khatrim, in particular, seemed very pleased with my behavior. I fixed myself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and was just pondering on the merits of tomato soup, when Dr. Bailey came in, her face telling me that something was horribly wrong, her tail and whiskers drooped.\n\n“What is it?” I asked. My gut sank. Something awful had happened to Barry. It was the only answer.\n\n“It’s…Dr. Koslov,” she said, sounding stunned. “He was at the Polar Chemicals plant. There…there was a fire…Mr. Wilkinson is…dead…and Dr. Koslov…” She shook her head in disbelief. “They need someone to come and identify the body.”\n\nI sat down, stunned, and I really don’t remember much of the rest of the day. The story came out over time. No one was sure if the fire was arson to cash in on insurance, or if something flammable had just caught fire. Looking back on what Dr. Koslov said the night before, I had my own theory – that a sad, lonely man had made a desperate decision to protect the only family he had. Dr. Anatoly Koslov, my father, was dead.\n\nBlame mostly fell on Wilkinson, and public sentiment swerved in favor of the small group of maverick scientists that, it turned out, were in danger of being shut down by Polar Chemicals. Settlements happened, and Generizons got a small amount of money due to the wrongful death of Dr. Koslov. Several government grants followed, which allowed a new line of work to happen. Dr. Marion Bailey became the new head of my department, and she initiated some ground-breaking lawsuits in the field of “artificial person rights”. You probably heard all about that, and yeah, maybe that’s why I look familiar to you. I was in the news quite a lot back then. The practical upshot was that, even though the Lil Bear project ended, I still ended up helping out quite a bit as a prototype for other kinds of cheaper artificial life forms. I don’t really mind being unique, though it does get a little lonely from time to time.\n\nAs part of my settlements, Generizons provided me with a small regular stipend for living expenses, although I make plenty of money doing children’s clothing modeling and the like. They also awarded me my rooms in the Generizons warehouse more or less in perpetuity. I’ve decorated them quite a bit since then, and I don’t think anyone would call them “sterile” now.\n\nIn the middle of all this, of course, Barry Winslow moved to Japan. We had several chances to be together in public after Koslov’s death, but no more chances to be alone in the lab; there was just too much scrutiny. The day of his flight, we went out to lunch together. This time, it was my treat, and we shared the “Belly Buster Sundae”. “I hope they have good ice cream in Japan,” he groaned. “You can’t beat American ice cream for old-fashioned gut busting goodness.”\n\n“I did some Googling for you,” I told him. “I found an ice cream museum near where you’ll be that does some crazy flavors, like Dracula the Cool.”\n\nHe looked at me dubiously. “What’s that entail?\n\n“Um…if I recall correctly, garlic and mint.”\n\nHe groaned, clutching his stomach. “Please! I don’t wanna barf all this up.” He make fake vomiting noise, leaning over to me, and I laughed, trying to fend him off. He stopped after a moment, looking at me sadly. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, softly.\n\n“And I don’t want you to leave,” I admitted, “but, if you stayed, it might get weird. I’m going to stay this age, for always. When you turn 30, or 40, or 50…I’ll still be 12 year old Carey.” I grinned. “That is gonna get harder and harder to explain.”\n\n“Oh, I see,” he said, smirking. “Think I’m gonna get too old for you, huh?”\n\nI punched him in the arm. “You know that’s not the case.”\n\nHe smiled at me. “I know. I’m just teasing.” He got really serious again. “I love you, Carey.”\n\n“I love you, too, Barry,” I sighed. “I owe you so much. You taught me how to be a real boy.”\n\nHe knocked on my forehead. “Little wooden-head.”\n\n“Knock, knock,” I said with a smile.\n\nI walked with him to the shuttle to the airport. All of his luggage had already been shipped, so he just had a single carry-on bag. Before he boarded, he said, “If I visit, I hope I can see you.”\n\n“Always,” I promised. We shared a long embrace and then a kiss. “And if I get to Japan, I’ll come find you.”\n\n“I’ll email all the time,” he promised.\n\nI looked up at him, and I knew he would try. But I also knew life would catch up to him and take him away from me. I didn’t hate him for it. I guess not being exactly real gives you perspective on things. I was just glad that, for a while, he’d come into my life, and he’d been mine.\n\n“Take care of yourself, Barry. Please,” I murmured to him. He got into his bus and walked to his seat. He smiled and waved to me, and I stepped away from the station as the bus took him away from me, and I walked home and I cried. For a long time.\n\nI owe Barry a lot. He taught me how to love, and how to laugh, and how to be me. He made me feel very special, and not because I am what I am. He made me feel special, because he loved me for what he saw in my heart. I will never forget him. And he does email, fairly regularly. He fought off living his life for a while, talked about coming back, but life is a river that has a way of sweeping us along to where we’re meant to go. Eventually, amazingly, he actually fell for a girl, and they have a kid of their own now. Thank God, they didn’t name him Carey. That would be super weird. Even weirder, though, is that someday that kid will be older than I am.\n\nAnd now you know my story. That’s why it’s so hard for me to explain how old I am. In some ways, the answer will always be twelve, but years and years have gone by since then, and my brain’s growing up, even if my body isn’t. So how old am I? I don’t know how to answer that easily.\n\nI’m not sad about Barry, not any more. I’ve loved a lot of guys since then, and a lot of guys have loved me. I never settle down, though, because I don’t always want to explain what’s happening to me. Maybe eventually, I’ll find another person like me who doesn’t get older, and then we can keep each other company for as long as we exist. But for now, I’m just me. And I’m pretty cool with that.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Hi there! It’s Carey again, with another story. This one isn’t Halloweeny, but I guess it’s kinda science-fictiony? Which is weird, because it’s the story of…well…me. It’s also the story of the first guy I really, really liked.

No, let me be really honest here. It’s the story of the first guy I loved. And it’s a sad story, in a way. But telling it makes me happy, too. Like, it’s good to look back and be sad, when you remember something that brought you a lot of joy, even if that something’s not in your life any more.

Now, this story has some kinda weird stuff in it. Like I said, it might sound like sci-fi, but it’s true. I’m gonna change some names to protect myself and some other folks I owe a lot to, but this is what happened when…well…you’ll see.

The first thing I really remember is still kind of like a dream to me. I remembered opening my eyes, and everything was blurry. There was something over my mouth and nose, and I was floating, suspended in some kind of liquid. A few years after these events, I saw all the Star Wars movies, and, like, that scene of Luke when he’s floating in the bacta tank? That triggered my memories of this moment. It was like that, except I don’t think I had anything on. The stuff around me was kind of syrupy, but I could move my limbs slowly. I was dimly aware of a band around my head and plugs in my ears, and I was learning things, incredibly fast. It was overwhelming, but it was like someone had a pitcher of knowledge, and they were pouring it into my brain.

A face loomed beyond the liquid…a big bear with brown eyes behind round glasses…that word flooded my brain, associating itself with the person. I startled, but then I relaxed and more words flooded and attached themselves to the face. Dr. Anatoly Koslov. Somehow I felt reassured. He wasn’t a threat. I relaxed and closed my eyes, and then I don’t remember anything for a while.

When I came to again, I was no longer in liquid. I was laying, naked, on some kind of padded surface. I could feel something around my neck, and something around my biceps. I blinked, laying there, hearing a whirr and click sound, over and over.

“The whole thing is so crazy,” said a male voice. “So he’s not anyone’s child? Not a clone?”

“He is not,” said another, deeper male voice. “I used my own genetic map as a starting point, but then I made customized choices from the computer. Gold eyes, a lighter fur tone than mine. A slender build. And, of course, we have a standard set of improvements. His memory is currently eidetic, though that will likely fade with time. He’s much sturdier and resistant to illness and physical damage than a normal boy, and he will heal and recover much quicker from sickness or injury.”

“Ideal kid, then. No skinned knees.” That whirring and clicking seemed to move around me, as did the younger voice. “Can he hear us?”

“Let me check,” the deeper voice said. One of my eyelids was gently opened, and a light shone in it. “Judging by the dilation of his pupil, I would say yes. He’s aware, but he’s likely experiencing disorientation. It is his first day of full consciousness, after all.” I felt a big hand gently rub my belly. “Hey there, Lil Bear. Can you open your eyes for me?”

I wanted to comply, but it took a little doing. When I did, I could see a surface above me. Ceiling came into my head, as if someone had murmured it in my ear. I also saw several glowing fixtures giving soft radiance, and the word lights came into my mind. There was an indistinct shape next to me, so I turned my head to look. It was Dr. Koslov again. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. “Do you know who I am?” he asked in a gentle tone.

“Yes, sir,” I said, hearing my own voice for the first time. It was a soft voice, but a little raspy. “You are Dr. Anatoly Koslov, M.D., Ph.D. You graduated summa cum laude from the University of Vienna with degrees in biology and advanced genetics. Your senior paper…”

“That’s fine, Lil Bear,” he said, giving me another pat. “Very good.” He looked at someone I couldn’t yet see. “As you see, the neural transference has been completely successful. He has been given the education of a twelve-year old boy, and his body has been vat-grown to that age. For all practical purposes, he’s a normal twelve-year old brown bear cub.”

I turned my head to see who Dr. Koslov was speaking to. There was a gray wolf there, much younger than the doctor, who was holding an object. Camera, the word came into my head. He was taking photographs of me. I looked at the wolf, examining him. He had dusky gray fur, with a white underbelly coat and brown marking on his face that almost made him look like he was wearing a mask. Wolf, the word came, followed by canis lupus sapiens. But no name followed. I furrowed my brow.

“Ah, yes…you don’t know this gentleman, Lil Bear,” Dr. Koslov said with a gentle smile. “This is Barry Winslow. He’s documenting your creation and, well, birth. He’ll be part of this project for a few months anyhow. Would you like to introduce yourself to him?”

I smiled. “Hello, Mr. Winslow. I am Lil Bear 001. I am a product of Generizons Enterprises, a prototype for a new line of genetically created cubs.” The words just flooded out of me, as if they’d been there, waiting for a chance to be unleashed.

“Wow!” Barry said, chuckling, coming over. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lil Bear 001.”

“It is nice to meet you to, Mr. Winslow,” I said, politely.

Barry smiled at me, then looked at the big bear. “So the 001 means…?”

“Well, eventually,” Dr. Koslov said, “we hope to have many more Lil Bears…002 to 999 and beyond. Just as we hope to have other lines – Lil Wolf, Lil Lion, Lil Deer, and so on.”

“That’s amazing!” Barry said, looking at Dr. Koslov. He looked back at me. I was looking at my arm, curiously. “Look at him…like, thirty minutes ago, he was floating in a tube, unconscious, and now it’s like he’s a full person!”

“Well, almost,” Dr. Koslov said. As he spoke, he was looking at a screen that seemed to be suspended above my feet. “Vitals all good,” he murmured, then he looked to Barry again. “He has all the knowledge, but he lacks experience…interaction with people. As he is around people, however, he will absorb how they behave.” He winked at me. “You’ll be a real boy, Pinnochio.”

I blinked at him. “I’m not made of wood, Dr. Koslov.”

The big bear laughed. “So you say, little wooden-head.” He knocked gently on my forehead and made a clacking sound with his tongue. “Would you like to sit up?”

“I think so?” I tried to, but I slipped back down. “Ow!” I said with a giggle.

“Now, now…it’s okay.” The doctor put a big hand behind me and helped me sit up. “There we go.” I looked around, and words flooded my head. Laboratory. Computer readout. Mirror, likely one-way. Counter. Door. “The first few days will be disorienting for you, I suspect. You have a great deal of knowledge that we’ve put into you, but there’s a brief latency in feeding it from your sub-conscious to your conscious mind. Over time, however, it will all become second-nature.”

“And the collar and armbands?” Barry asked, curiously.

“They contain telemetry to help monitor his location and his general state of being,” Dr. Koslov said, nodding up at the computer screen. “Let’s us keep track of him. We want him to be able to freely roam and experience the world, but his creation caused a considerable expenditure of resources. Our investors want to be able to know that the asset they helped create isn’t going to vanish.”

“Sure, sure, I get that,” Barry said. “But…um…the kid looks twelve. “Don’t you think the telemetry should be something a little less…racy? I mean…black leather with silver studs?”

Dr. Koslov cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. “Science sometimes makes for strange bedfellows,” he said, awkwardly. “One of our branches here is responsible for the Little Lovers line of living dolls. While Lil Bear is leaps and bounds beyond those tacky, disposable things, they are interested in possible applications of this technology in their own products. The money for the telemetry came out of their pockets, and the design came from their offices. I suppose they wanted to make him more appealing to their own markets.”

I listened to them, and finally, I asked, “May I see myself, Dr. Koslov? I do not have a good idea what I look like.”

He seemed surprised, then chuckled. “Of course, Lil Bear. Do you want to try to walk to the mirror?”

“Yes, please,” I said. He assisted me in slowly swiveling my legs over the edge of the table, then sliding down until I was on my feet. Words kept coming. Floor, they told me, then added, cold. Dr. Koslov’s strong, gentle hands helped me make the first steps, until I began to get the hang of it. Then I began to walk with more confidence.

“Nice job, buddy!” Barry said encouragingly. I grinned at him, then continued to walk to the mirror, where I finally got to look at myself. I was a bear, too, which was not surprising, given my name. My fur was more of a golden-brown, where Dr. Koslov’s was like dark chocolate, and my eyes were golden. I was much smaller and skinnier than him. I had a small set of genitals, but it seemed proportionate to my slight form. I was wearing a collar around my neck of black leather with small silver studs. The bands around my biceps matched the collar. Neither seemed designed to be easily removed, but they were comfortable. I tugged on one, curiously, and Dr. Koslov shook his head.

“No, Lil Bear. As long as you have those on, we can find you, so you’re safe. Keep them on and stay safe.”

“Yes, Dr. Koslov,” I said, leaving it alone. “They stay on, and I stay safe.” I looked in the mirror again, and I could see moving shadows. A new phrase popped into my head – one-way mirror. “Who are the people on the other side of the mirror?” I asked curiously. As I asked the question, I saw more movement behind the mirror.

Dr. Koslov seemed surprised again, but he chuckled. “Some of them are scientists. Some are investors. Some are reporters. You are very important, Lil Bear.” He came over and squatted down to be more on my level. “You are the very first of your kind, but hopefully not the last. Most little bears are born, but you were created. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Dr. Koslov,” I said with a nod. “I understand the project. I was made for couples who cannot have cubs of their own, or who have lost cubs. I am a prototype of a new line of products from Generizons.”

“Very good, Lil Bear!” he exclaimed. “Very good indeed.” He turned to Barry. “Have you been getting good photos?”

“Absolutely. Took some video of him walking, too. It’s amazing. You can literally watch him learning to balance.” Barry looked down at me, his tail giving a flicker of a wag behind him. “It’s like watching you go from 0 to 60, little dude.”

I blinked at this. “I am Lil Bear, Mr. Winslow, not ‘little dude’” I said. “And 0 to 60 what?”

Barry looked confused, and Dr. Koslov stood up, chuckling good-naturedly. “I’m afraid that our education program doesn’t allow for a lot of idioms, Mr. Winslow. You’ll have to explain some things to him.”

“Oh,” Barry chuckled. “It’s just an expression, Lil Bear. Some cars…do you know what a car is? Well, some can go from 0 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour very quickly. We call that going from 0 to 60.”

I puzzled over this until I understood. “Oh, I think I see! You do not literally mean I am accelerating my ground speed to those rates. You mean I am learning to do things very quickly?”

Barry ruffled the hair on my head. “That’s exactly what I mean, little dude.”

“I am Lil Bear,” I reminded him again.

“I…” Barry shook his head, then chuckled. “It’s just a nickname. Like if I call you Kiddo, or Buddy. It’s because I like you, and I’m just calling you something affectionate.”

Concepts whirled in my brain, and I smiled up at the wolf. “You like me?” I asked, curiously.

He seemed a bit taken aback. “Well, sure I do, bud. You seem like a great kid.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winslow!” I exclaimed happily. “I like you, too.” A new word added itself to my repertoire as I looked at him. Friend.

The first few weeks of my existence were pretty routine. I was moved out of the tank room into a room that I would equate now to a hospital room. It was painting in soothing greens and blues. It had a bed, a desk and chair set, a computer, a drawer for my clothes, which were largely a series of pastel-colored jumpsuits, and some books. I was regularly examined and tested by Dr. Koslov, as well as several other members of his team. I got to know them all and to consider most of them friends, and something of a family. I still remember them all very vividly.

Carl Clinton, a chestnut horse, was a cognitive learning expert. He regularly tested me to make sure I had learned everything I was supposed to. Through conversations with him, I gained a better idea of how my learning process had worked. During my “incubation period”…the floaty tank times…I had a series of neural interfaces hooked up that fed my brain directly from a computer in a series of electrical pulses. They had fed me everything they felt a 12-year old boy should know, though I would later realize the gaps between knowledge and experience could be. He took his job very seriously, and it was hard to connect with him very personally, as he really felt that I was just a project he was working on.

Dr. Marion Bailey was a tabby cat who specialized in hard genetics. She was amazing. She had mapped Dr. Koslov’s DNA, then, based on their discussions, had altered it enough to the point where I was a wholly separate person from him, with my own physique, eye color, facial features, and more. She was also wickedly funny, and we would sometimes relax after our tests and talk. She made me laugh a lot, often because she could be so inappropriate. Amazingly, although she had literally built me from the ground up, she really thought of me as a person. I never had a mother, but she was pretty close.

Professor Gupta Khatrim, a mongoose, was a behavioral psychologist. It was pretty much his job to make sure I was a well-rounded kid. He got into a lot of arguments with Dr. Clinton over what I should’ve been sped-taught in order to make me less of a…well, a robot. I hated those arguments, because they always made me feel like an object, especially when Dr. Clinton looked at me. I know Professor Khatrim meant well, but he just fed it by pointing out imperfections in my education. “He knows Beethoven’s Ninth,” Professor Khatrim at Dr. Clinton growled one day. “Did you ever think to teach him Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”

“That song is hardly popular among 12-year olds,” Dr. Clinton scoffed.

“Right, but, to be a fully cognitive 12-year old, he needs the basis a 12-year old boy would have,” Gupta said, gesticulating angrily. “You need building blocks in order to build him up, or else his brain is like a Jenga tower. It’s ready to topple over when things veer into unfamiliar territory.”

Dr. Clinton rolled his eyes at the mongoose. “He’s made to interact with adults, to show them what we can do. He’s not going to be playing with other kids.”

I took all this in. I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but it was hard to ignore them. They were in the same room where Dr. Bailey was giving me another check-up. She must’ve seen the distress on my face.

“Can you idiots take this outside?” she finally called. “He’s right here, you know. He’s artificial, not deaf.”

“Sorry, Lil Bear,” Professor Khatrim said. Dr. Clinton said nothing and just exited, with Gupta right behind him.

Dr. Bailey continued to examine me, but she finally put her medical instruments down. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I am missing things,” I said, sadly. “Professor Khatrim is right. Barry says things, sometimes, and I do not understand. And it is not because I am ignorant of the words he is using. I am ignorant of the context.”

She considered this. “Well, Professor Khatrim wants you to be more well-rounded. Part of the complexity of this project is in figuring out what we need to do to make you as real a person as possible. That will be the appeal to parents. Of course, many will be ordering models that’re infants, so they’ll learn normally, but there are many applications an older cub could have.”

I was quiet for a bit, then I cleared my throat. “I know I am a prototype,” I said, softly, “but I do not enjoy feeling incomplete.”

Dr. Bailey looked in my face, then raised a hand to touch my cheek. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll talk with Professor Khatrim and Dr. Koslov. We want you to be happy, and part of being happy is liking who you are.” She smiled. “We’ll figure it out.”

Besides the three of them and Dr. Koslov, there were many assistants and interns who rotated in and out. And there was Barry. Barry continued to photograph my progress, as well as to take what he called “modelling shots”, which I gathered were for slide-shows to show potential investors. I was supposed to do various things that a “normal kid” would do. Play with a ball. Watch TV. But Barry wasn’t happy with the situation.

“Are you okay, Mr.Winslow?” I asked, because I could tell he was in a bad mood. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, kiddo, it’s not you,” he grumbled. “It’s me. I had a bad date last night, I can’t get the lighting in here right, and these photos are just…I dunno…they look unnatural.”

“If you have food poisoning, you should probably talk to Dr. Bailey,” I suggested helpfully.

“Food poisoning?” he asked, quizzically, staring down at the settings read-out on the back of his camera.

“You said you ate a bad date?”

He blinked and looked up, smiling at me for the first time. “No, no, kiddo…not like that. Like a date where you go out with someone you like and do something fun.”

I considered this. So many words had double-meanings, I’d discovered, especially when talking with Barry. “So you did not eat bad food, but you went out with someone you like, and it did not go well?”

“Well, I didn’t know if I liked him,” Barry said. “He was someone I knew casually, and I thought we had decent chemistry…errr…that we got along pretty good, I mean…but it turns out he’s just an egotistical jerkwad.”

“Jerkwad?” I said, frowning. “I do not know this term, Barry.” My eyes lit up, and I grinned. “Is it one of your bad words?” Barry had inadvertently taught me a lot of terminology I suspected the doctors didn’t know I knew.

“Um…yeah. So keep it under under your hat, kiddo?”

I grinned. I knew that idiom from previous conversations. I mimed removing a hat and sweeping something under it, and Barry grinned back at me. Then he turned around and addressed Dr. Koslov.

“These shots aren’t working, Doc. You want him to look like a normal kid, but he doesn’t,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Koslov said, looking at the wolf, then looking at me. “To the eye, he is an incredibly normal bearcub.”

“No, he’s not,” Barry said, grumpily. “He’s in a lab, wearing a freakin’ Logan’s Run outfit. Normal kids play outside and wear normal clothes.”

Dr. Koslov frowned. “I am not certain I like where this is going.”

“Actually, Dr. Koslov,” Professor Khatrim said with a clearing of the throat, “I have been discussing with Dr. Bailey, and I think this is an excellent idea.” When Dr. Koslov turned to look at him, he continued. “Lil Bear would really benefit from exposure to more people and some days off from testing. If we want him to be a real boy, he needs to be in the real world. I would propose we set aside a day and have him go out to do some normal things…clothes shopping, lunch in a restaurant, playing in the park, and so on.”

Dr. Koslov seemed to consider this. “And what team do you propose go with him?”

“No team,” Gupta said, shaking his head. “Just Mr. Winslow.”

“M-me?” Barry said, eyes widening. “Uhhhh…listen, I really like the kid, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking responsibility for a multi-million dollar project like that.”

“We’ll be nearby in a mobile unit, monitoring via Lil Bear’s telemetry units,” Professor Khatrim said. “At the first sign of trouble, we can step in. But I think Lil Bear could really benefit from this, and, well…” He turned and looked at me. “Lil Bear, would you like to go out with Mr. Winslow to have some fun?”

I smiled, brightly. “Like, on a date?”

Barry almost choked, Dr. Bailey laughed really loud and long, Dr. Clinton rolled his eyes, and Dr. Koslov gave a soft chuckle. “No, no, Lil Bear…just a chance for you to gain some real world exposure. Would you enjoy going out with Barry?”

“Yes, I certainly would!” I said, enthusiastically. “I like Mr. Winslow very much!”

Dr. Koslov looked at Barry over his glasses. “It would, of course, mean a substantial bonus for you. And, as I said, we’ll be nearby.”

Barry thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “Ah, what the heck. It’ll be nice to take some shots outside the lab.” He grinned at me, and I grinned back. I was excited to go out with my friend.

A few days later, Dr. Koslov told me that the next day would be the one where I’d go out. I was so excited, I could barely sleep, and Dr. Bailey noticed this when she came by to read my telemetry. “Lil Bear,” she chided, gently, “you’re supposed to be asleep. You have a big day tomorrow.”

“I cannot sleep, Dr. Bailey!” I exclaimed. “I have been attempting to, but I am very excited. And a little scared, too. I have learned all about the city from my education, but experiencing it will be something totally new to me. I know it will be fun, but I am afraid to embarrass Mr. Winslow. I hope I do not disappoint everyone.”

“Lil Bear, you’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Just be yourself, and I’m sure Mr. Winslow won’t be embarrassed or unhappy.”

“That is part of the problem,” I said, pushing up on my elbows and gnawing on my lower lip. “I have been considering it, and I do not know how to be myself. I do not want to behave like a robot in public and make Mr. Winslow unhappy he is with me. I want him to like me.”

She chuckled and coaxed me to lie back down. She tugged the blanket up under my chin. “Mr. Winslow already likes you, Lil Bear,” she said, gently. “You don’t have to do anything to impress him. He knows how you act, and he wants you to go with him. You’re gonna have so much fun!”

I smiled up at her. “Thank you, Dr Bailey. I do hope so.” After that, somehow, I was able to relax and drift off.

The next morning, I was up early. I washed up, brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and made sure I looked presentable. I considered all of my jumpsuit options, and I finally chose a teal one with ivory accents that I liked. I ate my breakfast and went through all of my tests, but I was so excited that I had very little concentration for them. Dr. Koslov just seemed amused, rather than unhappy. Finally, the time came, and I thought I would explode, I was vibrating with so much nervous energy! When Barry walked in, I jumped up so fast that I knocked my chair over. I grinned sheepishly at him and righted it. “Hello, Mr. Winslow. I am very excited for our field trip.”

He chuckled at me. “Okay, if you’re going to come out with me and do normal kid stuff, we have to make some changes.” My heart sank. Was he unhappy with me? But he just crouched down to be closer to my height and offered me a package, wrapped in colorful paper.

“What is this?” I asked, curiously.

“It’s a present,” he said with a grin and shrug. “Open it up and see.”

I opened it, fingers shaking a little from anticipation. I had never been given a present before! Inside, I found a maroon baseball cap and a blue denim jacket. I blinked at them. “I do not understand?” I said. “Is not one of our errands a visit to a clothing store?” I turned the items over. They were a bit scuffed and frayed.

“Sure is!” he assured me. “But I thought you might wanna wear these. They belonged to my nephew, but he’s growing out of them, so my sister gave ‘em to me.” He took the hat, tugging it down on my head. It rested on my ears, and it felt strange. “The outfits you wear are cool and all, but they’re a little Captain EO for normal consumption. I figured you might not enjoy everyone staring at you.” He helped me into the jacket, and I looked down at myself as he buttoned it.

I looked up at his smiling face. “How do I look?” I asked him.

“See for yourself,” he said with a grin, straightening up, putting his hand on my back, and walking with me to the mirror, letting me examine myself.

I stared at the bearcub in the mirror. He looked like me, but what a difference a couple of clothing items made! I had seen plenty of images of children on the computer and in my books. Although I knew I was supposed to be one of them, I had always felt that I had looked profoundly different. Wearing these perfectly normal hand-me-down clothes, I looked…well, I suspected I still wouldn’t blend 100%, but it was a big jump in the right direction.

“Oh, and one other thing,” he said. “Why don’t you just call me Barry? Mr. Winslow is so formal.” He patted my shoulder.

“I would like that, Barry,” I said, happily. I looked at Dr. Koslov. “Do I look alright? Are we going on our field trip, now?”

“You look fantastic, Lil Bear,” the big doctor said, with a warm smile. “So much like my…” He paused, looking almost sad, then cleared his throat. “You look just fine,” he said softly.

At that moment, I experienced one of my cognitive shifts. I knew from his biography that Dr. Koslov had had a younger brother, Feodor, and I suddenly wondered how much like him I looked. I was hit by a wave of empathy for my creator, and I rushed forward to hug him and smile at him.

“Thank you so much for letting me go out, Dr. Koslov,” I said, before stepping back.

“You’re welcome, Lil Bear,” he said with a warm smile, eyes bright with emotion, but Barry cleared his throat.

“There is one other thing,” the wolf said, softly.

“The stipend, of course,” Professor Khatrim said, stepping forward and producing a thick envelope. “This should be more than sufficient for lunch, clothes, and any activities you choose to participate in. Please return any leftover and keep any receipts…”

“No, no,” Barry said, rolling his eyes. “I can’t just take the kid out in public and call him Lil Bear. You’re still trying to keep the project under wraps, and it’d seem weird if I keep calling him that.” He winked at me and tapped my nose with his fingertip. “You need a name, kiddo.”

“Are we prepared to name Lil Bear?” Dr. Clinton said with concern. “He’s still a project in progress, after all. I can’t be sure what effect it will have on all his speed-taught education, which always identified him as Lil Bear 001.” He looked to Professor Khatrim. “Do you think this is okay? Will it affect his development?”

Professor Khatrim rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “I think it should be fine,” he said, giving me a small smile. “But what do we call him?”

“Shouldn’t Lil Bear have some say in this?” Dr. Bailey said with a slight smirk. “Once again, he’s standing right here, folks.”

“I get a name?” I asked, almost bouncing on my toes. “Oh, gosh. I don’t know what to pick!” I looked at Dr. Koslov, and I almost suggested Feodor, but then I thought that might make him uncomfortable. I looked at Barry. I wanted a name like his, maybe with a different letter. Maybe Garry? Larry? But then it struck me that Barry might be embarrassed by it. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Another name crossed my mind. “What about Carey?” I suggested.

“Carey?” Dr. Bailey said, warmly. “I think that’s a lovely name.”

“Carey,” I said again, happier and happier with the idea. “I would like Carey to be my name.”

“That’s really flattering, squirt,” Barry said, looking down at me, affectionately. He looked over at Dr. Koslov. “That work for you, Doc?”

“Carey is a very good name. A good name for a caring boy,” he said, smiling, ruffling my head, setting my cap askew. I giggled as I straightened it. He smiled, rubbing under my chin. “Carey, I want you to be on your absolute best behavior with Mr. Winslow, yes? Do whatever he says, and don’t leave his side. Remember that we’ll be nearby, and we can always find you from your telemetry. You’re perfectly safe.” He looked at Barry. “We can take you in the company van, then drop you off wherever you want to go.”

“City center,” Barry said with a nod. “Gonna go right to the heart of things.”

I followed the group down to the parking garage, which I’d never been in before. The white company van had the Generizons logo of a sunrise over a double-helix. Lance, an older goat who I sometimes saw doing janitorial work around the building, was sitting in the driver’s seat, and we waved with a smile as we approached. The back was a mess of communications equipment, computers, and monitors. I could see all my vitals scrolling across one screen, while another screen displayed a GPS with a blue marker on it indicating my position, and a white marker showing the van’s position. Most of the team piled in the back, but Barry had me get in the front and slide over to sit next to Lance.

“Hey there, kiddo. Wow, lookit you! All ready for your trip?”

“My name’s Carey now, Lance!” I told him happily.

“Is it now? Well, good for you. Let’s get your seatbelt on.” As he helped me get secured, Barry climbed up so that I was between the two of them. Once we were all buckled in, Lance grinned. “All aboard!” He started the van, and we rolled forward, approaching a metal security gate. A rabbit security guard stopped us, but Dr. Koslov’s security badge got the gate opening quick enough. I gawked as sunlight began to fill the garage. I’d seen it in movies, but this was my first time going out in it. It was so much brighter and warmer than the fluorescent lights I spent most of my life under. Without thinking of it, I slipped my hand into Barry’s for reassurance. That light was almost overwhelming!

“Are you okay, buddy?” Barry asked.

“It’s really bright,” I said, nervously.

“It’s good for you!” Dr. Bailey called from the back. “Sunlight will build your Vitamin D. And it feels great on your fur and skin!”

“Do you want to go back?” Barry asked me, very quietly. But I shook my head vehemently. There was no way I was going to let light stop me from this trip with him. That was dumb!

The van pulled out into the sunlight, and I saw that the building where I’d spent all of my life so far was a large warehouse space with the Generizons logo on its sign. The building was surrounded by trees that had changing leaves. It was late autumn, at a perfect peak time for foliage. We pulled out through a large metal fence and onto a quiet road in an industrial park area. A few turns later, and we were getting onto the highway to head downtown. I gawked at what seemed like dozens, if not hundreds of other cars, each one filled with living passengers. I was briefly awestruck by the varieties of species and ages I saw. So many lives, all heading in the same direction. I wondered at their stories; I was pretty sure none of them were quite like mine.

As we drove, I watched some cars slide into the traffic while others exited. It made me think of salmon in a river, all heading the same way to spawn. Off in the distance, I could see the dense cluster of tall buildings that made up downtown, and the traffic thickened, growing slower and more dense. Finally, however, we pulled off of the highway ourselves. We were next to a green space, and my head was flooding with words faster than I could keep up, almost. Oak tree. Grass. Flowers. Pine tree. Bench. Fountain. Skateboarder. Balloon. Statue. My excitement was rising almost more than I could contain, and I began to tremble.

“You okay, Carey?” Barry asked, squeezing my hand again. I suddenly realized that I’d never let go of it.

“Yes, Barry,” I said in a small voice. “There is just a lot to process.”

He looked at me with concern. “Are you up for this? We can come back another time, if you want?”

I won’t lie; I considered it. It was a lot to handle all at once. But I would be with Barry. I would be fine. “No, I want to do this today,” I said. “Things are relaxing. There were just too many new things at once.”

Barry unbuckled his seat belt, then mine. He slid out of the van, then helped me down, with his hands under my armpits. “I’ll keep him safe,” he assured Dr. Roslov.

“I’m not the one who’s worried,” the big bear said with a wink. “Have fun, Carey!”

I smiled and waved to everyone as the van door closed, and we watched it drive down the street. When it was out of sight, Barry turned to me. “I thought we’d just start with a walk in the park. We’ll go slow, so you can process everything.” He offered me his hand to hold, and I smiled, taking it in my much smaller one. We walked down a paved path between two lawns of green. Words were coming slower now after the initial onslaught, and I was soon able to keep up a normal conversation.

“Are you hungry?” the wolf asked. “We could go get food now or later.”

“I am not hungry,” I said, looking around. “I ate breakfast, and, in any case, my stomach is behaving oddly.”

“Butterflies?” Barry asked, but, before I could comment, he quickly added, “That means you have a funny, fluttery feeling in your tummy.”

I nodded. “What does it mean? Am I sick?”

He chuckled softly. “Naw, lil guy…you’re just nervous. It’s just a reaction people have. It happens sometimes when you’re nervous or excited, or around someone you like.”

“Oh!” I said. “An involuntary reaction in the presence of someone you are attracted to, like an erection?”

A mother squirrel looked up sharply and looked at us shocked. She quickly ushered her children away. “Uhhhhh, sort of?” Barry said, squirming a bit. “Listen, buddy…I’d be happy to talk about that kind of thing in private, but, when we’re in public, maybe keep it down?”

I blushed and put my hands over my mouth. My learning did indicate that many people were openly uncomfortable discussing many natural things, such as the reproductive and excretory systems. “I am very sorry, Barry,” I said, quietly. “I will be much more careful.” I decided that this would be the absolute wrong time to admit to him that I had seen him with an erection around the lab many times. I began to wonder who on the staff he was attracted to.

We walked through the park. I saw some young people skateboarding, some very little kids in a sandbox, and families together. The weather was crisp and cool, and, although I knew I didn’t need it to avoid physical harm, I appreciated the jacket more. I loved the different colored leaves on the trees and the smells on the air. Barry bought me a warm cider, and I drank it down, chewing on the cinnamon stick afterwards. I loved the way it tasted and how it warmed me to my core. I really fell in love with autumn that day, and it’ll always be my first love in many ways.

When we came to a nice open field, Barry took a ball out of his backpack and offered it to me. It was one of those red kickballs that’re nice and squishy. He pulled out his camera and nodded. “Okay, kiddo. Run around…play with the ball.”

“Um…play with it how?” I asked, uncertainly. I wanted to do what Barry wanted, but I wasn’t sure how.

Barry chuckled. “Toss it up and catch it…or kick it around and then run after it. I just want to get some pictures of you doing natural kid stuff.”

I obliged, kicking the ball and running after it. I wasn’t normally allowed to run in the lab, unless I was on a treadmill, testing my endurance or oxygen levels. To be able to run and feel damp, cool grass under my feet, to turn in any direction. To laugh loudly with a friend…it was all so intoxicating! After a while, however, I noticed that most of the kids were playing, either with other kids, or with adults that they resembled. “Barry, do you want to throw the ball to me?” I suggested.

He smiled. “Sure, bud…one sec.” He set up his tripod and set the camera to automatically track and take photos. Then he picked up the ball where I had kicked it near him and threw it. I watched the ball come and jumped up to catch it. It bounced out of my arms, and I laughed as I fell on my rump. I was up again, and kicking it back to him. We must’ve played ball for an hour or more before Barry was tired and wanting to wrap up. “I think we got some great shots, kiddo. Fantastic job!”

On the far side of the park, Barry stopped me. There was traffic, and we stood there. Barry was looking very intently. I blinked. I had a whole file in my head about traffic and street crossing. “Barry…are we not supposed to walk to the crosswalk and wait for the Walk signal?”

He grinned at me. “Supposed to? Oh, probably, but what fun is that?” He waited until traffic had died down, and then grinned. “Okay, we’re gonna run for it!”

My eyes widened. There were still cars slowly rolling. My brain did a quick calculation that it would be unlikely they would reach us if we ran, but still. “But…”

“C’mon!” He said, and tugged on my hand. I found myself running alongside him, panting as we rushed across the street. One car honked, and I almost froze, but Barry hauled me along, and laughed, swinging me up in his arms as he jumped onto the sidewalk. “There ya go, buddy! Great job.” He set me down on my feet, then gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t know the gesture, but I got the context.

“I don’t understand,” I said, confused. “Why would we not simply move to the designated spot and wait for the light?”

“Life’s too short, sometimes, to play by the rules,” he said to me, winking. “And, by the way, I think…you just used your first contraction.”

I blinked, then pondered that. “I believe you may be right. I have always had the awareness of contractions, but it always seemed better to be more formal…to be clearer in speech.”

“Bah,” Barry said, grinning at me. “People’ll get what you mean. You should try to use them less. They’ll definitely make you seem more real to people. Talking all longhand like that seems robotic.”

I frowned. I have never liked being compared to a robot. I’ve known several, and some of them are very nice people, but I’m not one of them. I’m a real live flesh and blood bearcub. Just because I had scientists and research instead of a Mamma and Papa didn’t make me any less organic. “Well, I will…I’m going to try to use them more.”

Barry tugged the brim of my hat down so that it covered my eyes some. “Attaboy!”

We went shopping at a clothing store that specialized in kids clothes. I got lots of underwear, shirts, pants, hats, a couple of jackets, some belts, and a pair of overalls. Barry tried to get me into shoes, but I’d seen plenty of kids barefoot, and, although I tried some, they just didn’t feel right. I decided I’d stay barefoot unless it were absolutely necessary. Barry had them box everything up, and we carried the bags out, feeling very laden down. I was very relieved when the Generizons van came along.

Dr. Clinton and Dr. Bailey helped me get all my parcels inside. “How’re you enjoying the day so far, Carey?” Dr. Bailey asked with a smile.

“I’m having a great time!” I said, and I saw Dr. Clinton perk his ears up at that. He had tested me for all the contractions, of course, but he hadn’t heard me use them in a normal sentence. I grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up. He blinked, smiled a bit, and returned it.

Afterwards, Barry and I went to a little local restaurant called Josie’s. I knew nothing here was on the diet that Dr. Bailey had proscribed for me, but she’d told me to try eating whatever I wanted. I ended up having tomato soup, grilled cheese, and a chocolate-honey milk shake. I was so fullwhen I was done, but I was so happy, too. I kept looking over at Barry, who kept chatting with the servers, making them laugh. He made me laugh, too, telling stupid jokes, or making funny faces. But then, one time, when a server was asking me how my meal was, I caught him just kind of looking at me. He hadn’t really looked at me like that before, and it made me feel…well…I got butterflies in my stomach.

“You’re gonna make me regret moving to Japan,” he said, after a bit.

“Japan?” I asked. I mean, I knew where it was, of course, but this seemed out of context. “Why are you moving to Japan?” I felt sad, suddenly. We were having fun, but here was this news. “Did I do something wrong?”

He laughed. “No, no, buddy. I applied for a job there before I ever got hired for your project, and I’ve been accepted. I’m going to be working with a group of affiliated museums, photographing their exhibits and helping to catalog them.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, thoughtfully. “Are you leaving soon?” I didn’t like that idea one bit.

“No, buddy,” he said, reaching out to give me a reassuring pat on the arm. “Not for a few months. I’m still in the process of selling my home here and setting up my new digs there. Plus, the last guy’s contract doesn’t run out for months yet. So we’ve got lots of time to hang out together.”

“Cool, I’m glad,” I said, shyly, smiling at him. He looked at me a little funny, and I wondered if he knew that I had been falling for him a little bit.

Before we headed for home, he took me into the restaurant’s restroom, and we both stood at the urinal trough. He unzipped and hauled out his shaft, and I was able to glance sidelong at it. It was nice…more feral than mine one, and, of course, way bigger. I finished peeing but kept standing there, kind of looking at it, sideways. He noticed, and chuckled, looking around. “Bud, you shouldn’t stare like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, but I didn’t stop. It was, after all, the first one I’d seen besides my own. The tip, which was tapered, stuck a bit out of his sheath, and I found myself wondering if he had a knot. I knew many canids did.

He swallowed, watching me, and I realized he was getting an erection. I turned to face him, my own little penis in my hand. I gawked as more cock slipped out, and, sure enough, there was his knot. “Wow,” I breathed. And I had another sort of revelation…when I’d seen his erections in the lab, had they been…for me? I looked up at him. “You like me, Barry?”

“Of course I do, buddy,” he said, with a nervous smile. “You’re a great kid.”

I shook my head. “I mean…you like…” I nodded at the hard spike sticking out from his lap. “You like like me.”
He whimpered. “I…we shouldn’t talk about this here. Someone could walk in.” He bit his lip, but I noticed he wasn’t putting his cock away.

“Could I touch it? Just for a sec?” I asked, hopefully. I hadn’t realized I wanted to, before, but I just liked Barry so much, and I was so curious.

He bit his lip, looked around, and nervously said, “Just for a sec, okay?”

I smiled brightly, and I reached out. I knew I had to be gentle. I kind of petted it a moment, like a puppy, making him moan and pant a bit. I slid my hand down and gave it a gentle squeeze. His arms shot out. One grabbed my shoulder, the other one the urinal. “Oh, fuck,” he said, in a strangled voice. “Carey…nghhh…stop!”

I stopped, lowering my ears. “Did I do it wrong? Did I hurt you?”

He got himself under control, panting, then smiled. “No! No, you were great. I just…”

At that moment, we heard footsteps. We both quickly turned back to the urinal. I tucked in my little package and walked over to wash my hands. Barry took a moment to compose himself, then did the same. A tiger walked in and headed to a stall. As soon as he locked the door, the two of us slipped out. We shared a nervous grin outside, then headed to our rendez-vous point with the van. Neither of us said anything, but I realized something right away...

This HAD been a date. My first date.

From then on, Barry and I found lots of little secret moments to just touch each other lightly in the lap. We spent months in a kind of secret boyfriend status. A hand on a hand, or a nudge of a hip was all we could sneak in, but it felt very secret and special. Professor Khatrim seemed to approve of my emotional state; he felt that the outing had been very beneficial to me. I was speaking and acting more naturally, and laughing was becoming a regular thing with me. He seemed to feel that smiling and laughing naturally were very important to convincing others that I was a natural boy. Being around Barry made me want to smile and laugh a lot, so Professor Khatrim encouraged our friendship.

From Barry’s suggestions, I started to have new elements added to my life. Occasionally I got a toy or a game, or some comics. Once in a blue moon, Dr. Bailey would approve me to have something sweet, so I would get an ice cream sundae, or a piece of cake, or a candy bar. After I’d gone over all my lessons and testing, I was allowed to have a certain set amount of time to use the computer for games or to watch television. In other words, I was slowly allowed to be a normal kid.

There were other outings, too. Barry took me to the movies one week and to an art museum another week. Sometimes other members of the team would join us for activities. I distinctly remember Dr. Bailey having Japanese food with us and showing us both how to properly hold chopsticks.  Once, our whole team went out to an amusement park. Oh man, that day started out as the best! Getting our crowd onto a roller coaster was hilarious. Dr. Clinton turned out to be quite the daredevil of our group, going on every thrill ride with me even when others wouldn’t. I wanted to ride them all, especially a coaster called “Grizzly” for obvious reasons, but I wasn’t tall enough for that one.

“Almost there,” said the kindly old hippo who turned me away. “Maybe next year.”

“Yeah!” I said happily. “You think I can ride next year, Dr. Koslov?” I asked as the hippo walked away.

Dr. Koslov’s face fell a little. “We…let’s talk about it back at the lab, alright, Carey?”

I could tell something was wrong, and Barry could, too. I bit my lip, although I wanted to ask questions, but Barry didn’t seem to feel the compunction to wait. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Later…in the lab,” Dr. Koslov said, seeming a bit upset.

“Let’s not spoil a lovely day, right?” Dr. Bailey said, giving me a sad smile. I could tell that, whatever they were going to tell me, I wasn’t likely to like it.

I tried to enjoy the rest of the day, but there was a shadow on it now, and we ended up coming back a little earlier than we’d intended. Once back in the lab, we got together in one of the conference rooms. Dr. Koslov took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We should’ve told you this from the beginning, Carey, and I’m truly sorry we didn’t.” He put them back on and sighed. “You know that you’re a prototype…the company wanted to make sure that its investment paid off over a long period of time. They didn’t want to have to develop a new cub every few years. You were, after all, very expensive to make.”

Barry was frowning, standing with his arms folded. “Okay, well, that makes sense. But what does that have to do with anything? Why did you guys get all weird at the fun park?”

Dr. Bailey spoke next. “As you know, we used the vat technique to grow Carey from stem cells to a 12-year old cub in a matter of months. You may also recall we added a certain amount of cellular regeneration to Carey’s physical make-up.”

“Right, he heals super fast,” Barry said, eyeing her suspiciously. “So he’s an X-Man. So?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” she said, trying to be gentle. “Carey undergoes regular complete cellular regeneration. And…he always will.”

Barry stared at her, but I was putting the pieces together. “I’m not aging?” I asked, feeling my stomach sinking. I glanced over to Barry, who was looking back at me with an expression that was hard to read. “I…won’t get any bigger…”

Dr. Koslov nodded, slowly. “I’m sorry, Carey.”

“This is bullshit,” Barry growled, glaring at Koslov, then over to Bailey. “You made him. You made it so he’s not aging. Can’t you just…turn it back on?”

“It’s not a simple process,” Dr. Bailey said, slowly, as if explaining it to a young child. “All of Carey’s bodily processes, including the cellular regeneration, is tied together. If we turn off the regeneration to restart the aging process, well…” She shook her head. “It might very well kill him.”

Barry slowly sank down the wall, putting his head in his hands. “Such bullshit,” he groaned.

“Mr. Winslow,” Dr. Koslov said, gently, “I appreciate your involvement, but it’s hardly a photographer’s place to…”

“I love the kid, you asshole!” Barry growled, and everyone got really quiet. “Like, I know for all of you, he’s a project, an experiment. But to me, he’s a kid. A great kid, and…” He bit his lip, then softly said, “I love him. I want him to be happy.”

“I love you, too, Barry,” I blurted out. I was trying hard to hold back tears. “It’s okay…I don’t care if I can’t ride the Grizzly, but…I wanted to be with you.” And with that, I lost it and just started bawling, like I had never cried before. Like a real cub.

The room was shocked, and Dr. Koslov cleared his throat, softly. “Let’s give Carey a moment.” He started to leave, then he very tenderly asked “Carey, do you want Barry to stay with you?”

I nodded, and the big bear smiled and nodded to Barry. As soon as the room was cleared, Barry came and put his arms around me. “It’s okay, buddy. I don’t care if mmmph!” As soon as I could reach, I grabbed the lapels of his shirt, tugged him down, and kissed him, right on the lips. Barry hesitated, then tightened his grip and kissed back, softly. When the kiss was done, I cried into his shirt. He shhhhhed, softly, and held me and stroked my hair and back, lightly. “I love you, Carey,” he told me, kissing my ears, one at a time. Then he chuckled, ruefully. “Oh, God…I’m in love with a cub.”

“Are you upset with me, Barry?” I asked. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know…”

“Oh, God, no, kiddo,” he said, squeezing again. “I’m not angry with you at all. I’m upset at the pricks who did this to you.” He chuckles, softly. “Though I guess there are worse things than being a cub. You won’t have to deal with taxes, old age with all those aches and pains, college costs…”

“Marriage,” I sighed. “Having adult friends. Being taken seriously. Love.”

“Hey now,” he said, gently, stroking my cheek. “I still love you.” He leaned in, and we had another kiss. It was gentle and sweet, rather than the desperate thing the first kiss had been. And a second followed, and a third. Barry pressed those kisses to my lips, tenderly, and I held close to him, shivering. “Is it…gonna be weird for you to love someone so much older than you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know how I’ll feel about anything, but I don’t think so. Will it be weird for you to love someone who always looks like a cub?”

“Heh…nah. I fell in love with you as a cub, after all,” he said with a crooked smile. We kissed a few more times, then held hands as we walked out to the rest of the team. All of them looked at us with various states of curiosity and thought, but none of them seemed upset by this.

“Well, this is…unexpected,” Dr. Koslov said, thoughtfully.

“Not entirely,” Professor Khatrim said with a lopsided smile. “Carey is held right at an important cusp of puberty. Although he is physically immature, he is still in an important place, emotionally. It is not surprising that, having provided him with a source of affection and approval, he should reciprocate in kind.”

“Gee, Prof, you make it seem so romantic,” Barry said with a sarcastic tone that made me giggle nervously. “So…what now?”

“Are we comfortable condoning a mature relationship between an adult male and an underaged boy?” Dr. Clinton asked. I was almost angry with him, but he was smiling, slightly. I was confused, but he seemed to be encouraging.

“With all due respect to the mores of society,” Dr. Koslov said, removing his glasses to clean them on his white coat, “I will remind you that our company also produces Little Lovers. If these two want to pursue a relationship of any kind, I have difficulty placing a framework of conventional morality on it.” He chuckled. “Though Carey is so advanced, if he were just for…well…sex…it would be akin to using a flamethrower to kill a mosquito.” He winked at me, making me blush and smile.

“So…you folks are okay with this?” Barry asked, uncertainly.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Professor Khatrim said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “I don’t wish to watch your physical activity, but I would rather have Carey engaged in a loving relationship than be a lonely little cub.”

“He’s like a son to us,” Dr. Koslov finally said, his tone soft. “Doesn’t everyone want their son to be happy and with someone who loves him?” He smiled, lightly. “I think we could consider an…overnight visit, if you’d like?”

Barry shivered. “Oh, man…I’d love it, if Carey’s game?”

I swallowed and nodded. “Please? Like…not tonight, but soon?”

“Soon,” Dr. Koslov promised.

“It has to be soon,” I said, insistently. “He leaves for Japan in a few weeks.”

It wasn’t quite as soon as I’d hoped. That was about the time that the investors began to take a personal interest in me. They’d spent a lot of money, and almost six months had gone by; they wanted to see what their money had been spent on. A couple of weeks went by, and Barry came less frequently. Apparently they’d become suspicious of the photographer who was still on the payroll and had cut back on his sessions. When he did come, we’d always have a few minutes of private time to kiss and hug, but there was never time for the other things we’d wanted to do. I did spend a lot of time reading about various sexual activities, trying to pick up hints and techniques. When the time came, I wanted to be as good for Barry as I could.

I was glad Barry wasn’t there the day that Mr. Wilkinson came to visit. He was a polar bear in his 30s or so, representing his father’s chemicals plant, Polar Chemicals. I had to put away all the extraneous things I had now and dress in a jumpsuit again. I felt like I was being reset to where I had been.

When Mr. Wilkinson came in, he looked down at me. “So…this is Lil Bear 001, hmm?” I had the feeling he somehow didn’t approve of me, yet simultaneously wanted to do things with me. In later years, I would come to think of this as “contempt”, but it was too subtle for me to understand then. “This is what a good chunk of my inheritance was spent on?”

Dr. Koslov cleared his throat. “Mr. Wilkinson, your late father was keenly interested in this project. I put together a file of all the test results and other pertinent data on…”

“Yes, yes,” Wilkinson said, waving a hand dismissively. “My father hoped that you would find a way to use this ridiculous project’s results to send his illness into remission, which would have been worth it to him. Sadly for him and for me, that never manifested, so now I have to figure out how to recoup my company’s losses from this debacle.” He looked me over, then shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like a lot of result, frankly.”

During all this, I held my arms at my side, allowing Wilkinson to examine me. His hand moved, occasionally tugging an ear, moving my face, parting my lips to examine my teeth, and so on. I was growing in indignation, but I knew this was important, so I stayed quiet.

Dr. Koslov was frowning. “I can assure you, Mr. Wilkinson, that Carey…”

“Who?” the bear asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh…Carey…that’s a nickname we’ve given Lil Bear 001,” Koslov said with a chuckle. “Sorry.”

“Do be careful, Dr. Koslov,” said Wilkinson, looking over at Koslov sharply. “Name a thing like this, and you’ll get attached.”

“I’m not a thing,” I finally said, hotly. “I’m a cub.”

Wilkinson stared at me, as if stunned I could speak…or maybe that I’d had the audacity to. “You,” he finally said, “are an asset of the Generizons company…a company that is now in significant debt to Polar Chemicals. It may be decided that the best way to recoup our debt is to sell you as a Little Lover, or harvest your tissues for further medical research, so watch yourself, Lil Bear 001.”

“Carey,” I growled, staring at him defiantly. “My name is Carey.”

This time, Wilkinson almost seemed amused. “Your designation is Lil Bear 001,” he said with a sneer. “You are not a person; you are a commodity. Plus, your designer made you too damned expensive to mass produce, so there will never be a Lil Bear 002, or a Lil Bear 003…or any more of your line.” I shot a look to Koslov, who sighed, hanging his head. I think I had known the project was in trouble, but I had not realized it was that bad.

I turned back to Wilkinson. “So what happens to me?” I asked, my bravado ebbing somewhat under these revelations.

“I haven’t determined that yet,” Wilkinson said, clearly pleased that I was being less feisty. “We’ll have to see. Perhaps I’ll just claim you for myself. I’m sure I could have some fun taking the value of your company’s debt out of your body, and our R&D department might enjoy experimenting with whatever’s left.”

He turned to Koslov. “Have all of your financial records delivered to my office by Thursday the latest. In fact, bring them yourself. We’ll go over them together. If you wasted time naming this thing, who knows what other waste we’ll find on the books.” He walked out, and Koslov sat down heavily in a chair.

“Awful man,” Koslov said, shaking his head. “We have other investors…perhaps I can work with them for some loans.”

“For what?” I said, a little bitterly. “Dr. Koslov, if it’s too expensive to make more of me, then this whole project is a failure!”

“No!” he said, striking his desk with a fist. “This was not a failure. You are not a failure!” He cupped my face with his hands. “You, Carey…you are a miracle. You are a real boy, with emotions…what does it matter that you were made and not born? You are more real than many children I’ve known. We are not giving up on this. We will fight it!”

“Can he really take me?” I asked, feeling stricken. “Could he take me away and harvest me? Or use me? I don’t want to leave you, and then team, or B-barry.”

“We won’t let that happen,” he said firmly. “I promise. I will do anything necessary to prevent it.”

As it was, it was decided that, since Dr. Koslov had to bring the financial records to Polar Chemicals on Thursday, Barry’s overnight visit would be on Wednesday. I spent part of the week feeling sick to my stomach, all the certainty in my world suddenly ripped out from under me. I had nightmares where Wilkinson would tear me away from everyone, and I would never see Barry again. I was a nervous wreck by the time Wednesday came. The day was as normal as it could be, with everyone worried about the situation with the project. The whole team was working overtime to try and reach out to various contacts to see if more funding could be found, but things were looking bleak.

By the time Barry arrived, Dr. Koslov was getting ready to go home for the night. He had put together all of the financial records, and he seemed in a black mood. “What’s wrong, Dr. Koslov?” I asked, feeling concerned for the old man. I cared for him a great deal, and I worried what kind of toll this situation was having on him.

“Nothing for you to worry about, Carey,” he told me, gently. “I’m just wondering how to explain some of our project expenses, like clothing, dinners out, and so on,” he chuckled. “To say nothing of all these photography sessions.”

“I really do appreciate everything you’ve all done for me,” I told him honestly. “I’ve been really, really happy to be a part of all this.”

He put a hand on my head, stroking my hair, and I closed my eyes. I wondered, briefly, what it would’ve been like to grow up in his home, instead of this lab…to have been a son instead of a project. But he took his paw away, and the moment was broken. “Thank you, Carey. You give an old man strength to do what needs doing.”

“See you tomorrow?” I said, smiling.

“I’m certain of it,” he said softly, and he left as Dr. Bailey was coming in.

“I’ve made sure the rest of the team knows that you’re not to be disturbed tonight,” she told me with a twinkle in her eye. “And I’ve turned off your telemetry, so that no one wonders what any abnormal spikes in your systems might mean.” I must’ve blushed deeply, because she gave my arm a squeeze. “He’ll be here soon. I hope you two have fun.”

The lab was incredibly quiet when she left. There was just a soft hum from some of the machines, and the occasional ping as some machine recorded something or another. I made sure everything was tidy, especially my bed. I looked at my outfit in the mirror – just a t-shirt and some briefs. I hoped that was slightly daring without being raunchy. I wanted it all to be perfect.

And then he came in. He was dressed simply in jeans, a denim jacket, and a t-shirt. I ran over to him, and he pulled me in close. We kissed, without having said anything, and he held me a long time. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, very seriously. “Dr. Clinton caught me up on everything, and I will kill the guy before that happens.”

“Shhh,” I told him, softly. “We’re not talking about that right now. Right now is just us.” I pushed my hands up under his shirt, wanting to feel him, and he tugged his jacket and shirt off, giving me more access.

“Carey,” he said, almost nervously, “before we do this…you know…I’m still moving to Japan.”

“I know,” I told him. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

He touched my cheek so gently. “I wish I’d never taken that job, but all the wheels are in motion. If I could take you with me…”

I shhhhed again, softly, and kissed him to quiet his concerns. I knew he was going, but I wanted to love him now. As I felt his body all over, he scooped me up, carrying me to the bed. We’d waited so long, I guess he wasn’t wanting to wait any more, and I was totally okay with that. Soon, he was peeling my shirt off, too, and he was kissing all over my torso. He pushed me back, gently, and I felt his lips on my belly, my chest, tugging lightly at my nipples. Each kiss made me shiver or gasp, and soon twined my fingers into the sheets, trembling a little. When he lowered his head and licked around my navel, I arched up, panting, toes curling tightly.

He leaned back, and I quickly pushed up and straddled his lap. I curled myself close to him, kissing along his jawline and down over his throat. I kissed down his chest, found one of his nipples in his dense fur and wrapped my lips around it, sucking gently. He groaned, his arms encircling me, tightly, holding me close. Soon, I wriggled down, fighting with his jeans, and his shaft sprang out, fully erect, making me blush. I squeezed his knot, as I had the first time I’d seen it, and he groaned, his fingers digging into me a bit. “Oh, fuck…Carey, I…mmmph…I need you, sweet cub.”

“I need you, too,” I whispered, stroking him slowly, watching his cock slide slickly through my fingers. I bent down, managing to get the first few inches into my mouth, and I gave him what was probably the worst blowjob of his life. To his credit, he began to teach me how to cover my teeth, where to lick, and how to make his fur bristle when I gave him attention where he liked it.

“Mmmph! Keep that up, and I’ll pop way too quickly.” He chuckled, then eased me up, a line of drool connecting my lip to his tip. He helped me down with my undies, which ended up around my thighs. “Such a cute little thing,” he murmured, lowering his head, and then I felt him softly take me in. He sure knew what he was doing, because, in no time, his lips were sliding up and down my little length, and I was crying out, over and over, biting down on a pillow I hugged to my chest to avoid making too much noise. I felt like I was teetering on the edge, and I paused, head tilting back, almost ready to slide into a quick climax. I had stroked myself to completion, so I knew what was happening. Hey, I was twelve, after all!

But no, he wouldn’t let me go over. He eased off, lifting me up, turning me onto my hands and knees, and then lowering down behind me. I felt his warm hands parting my cheeks and the incredible wet heat of his tongue as he leaned down and slurped them over my balls from behind. I gasped out my passion, my forehead falling to the bed, and I wrapped my hand around my hard little cocklet, stroking it furiously. One of his bigger hands came to mine, gently taking it away. “Not yet,” he whispered. “We’ll get there.” I groaned…this was torture, but the most delicious torture imaginable.

Barry lifted his head back up and began to caress from my sac to my hole with long, slow, deliberate strokes. To this day, nothing puts me into a submissive mood like attention to my taint, and my head was soon swimming, long before he started to explore my little hole. My toes curled again, and I pushed back against him. His caresses remained painfully gentle, even when I was ready to beg him to go harder and explore me more thoroughly.

Eventually, his tongue did press harder, and I soon found myself groaning out as his patient ministrations yielded fruit. I was so relaxed that he began to wriggle his tongue into me, parting flesh with flesh, coaxing me to relax and give in, his saliva lubricating the way. In the end, however, he decided the job required more than spit. Luckily, he had come well prepared, and he pulled a little bottle of lube out of his pocket, squirting it into his fingers, then making his shaft glisten with it. I looked back, panting, eager but also afraid. I needn’t have been. As he slipped into place, he nuzzled my neck. “I’m going to go really, really slow. If it hurts, just tell me, and I’ll stop.” I nodded, but, despite my fear, I had no intention of telling him to stop.

Barry’s arms snuggled me close and held me tight, and I felt him position himself, nudging his hips forward until the tip of his thing lightly kissed my waiting tunnel. I bit down on my pillow again, hugging it tightly, and then he leaned forward more, and I felt him beginning to press me open. He had done a wonderful job rimming me to the point of utter relaxation, but he was still much, much larger than I was. I sucked in a lungful of breath and held it, willing my backside to relax, trying to let him in. At first, I thought that I was doing a great job, but then I realized it had just been the easy tapered part. When the full blunt width begin to press, I shook, closing my eyes to a squint, and my breath came out in a ragged whimper.

“Are you okay?” he asked, pausing. It was so thick, I couldn’t imagine taking it all, but he’d barely begun.

“Y-yeah,” I assured him, reaching back to pat his side. “Don’t stop…get it in…I really want it.” And I really did. I loved him, and I wanted to be one with him. This seemed like the best way to do it.

He took me at my word, and, to my credit, when the searing pain of the full penetration hit, I managed to keep my scream down to a muffled whimper. He held me so gently then, nuzzling me over and over again. As he did, I realized I was relaxing with surprising ease. I knew my cellular regeneration would heal injuries, but it almost seemed to be preemptively negating the pain of my slow opening. I found myself starting to ease back as he slid forward. “Oh, fuck,” he whimpered, as I eased back, and I felt the huge expanse of his not yet inflated knot. It seemed like an impossible barrier, but so had his cock at first. I began to push back more.

“Carey, no,” he whispered. “Not the first time.”

“Yes, the first time,” I groaned. “Who knows when the next time is? Or if there is a next time?”

“I’ll hurt you,” he whimpered. “I don’t want to hurt you; I love you.”

“It’s because you love me that I’m okay with the hurt,” I groaned. “Come on…not much time before it’s too big for sure.”

He was trembling as he got a tighter hold on my body, his arms wrapping around and under my body, hands gripping my shoulders. And then he began to push. I felt that mass trying to make inroads, and I knew it would be almost impossible. The cock had been hard enough. I forced myself to relax, and it still wasn’t enough. I flailed an arm back, finding his hip, grabbed hold, and slowly pulled myself back. The knot pushed at my poor anus, forcing it to stretch. God, how it burned…I felt like I was going to be ripped…but I knew it would heal. “Do it!” I practically screamed at him, and he whimpered, tightened his grip, and shoved with all his might.

The feeling of pain when he managed to actually pop the knot past my protesting muscles is almost indescribable. I felt a wrenching and almost a tearing, and then a slight easing for a moment…and then his knot swelled to full size, stretching my hole to nearly impossible width, locking me in place. He growled, biting down softly on the nape of my neck, holding me in place. His hips managed a handful of spasming thrusts, and then he threw back his head in a throttled howl. My body shook as his lust spent itself into me, a rush of liquid heat as numerous jets of watery canine cum leaked out into my poor, abused backside. I collapsed under him, and he cuddled me like a ragdoll. And when he whispered, “I love you, Carey,” hoarsely, I could only pat his side in return. I didn’t trust my voice.

We did it twice more before we passed out. Once I sat in his lap and bounced for him, and the other time, I was on my back, smiling up at him the whole time. It was never easy to take that knot, but it got easier. By the time we were done, I was sore and sticky and so, so in love with him.

His phone alarm went off about 6 AM, and we managed to disentangle ourselves from one another, grinning like idiots. We showered together, and then got back into bed and just held each other. When we heard the lab doors opening, we quickly got dressed before anyone could come into my private areas. We came out, holding hands, expecting to see Dr. Koslov, but it was Dr. Clinton. That was unusual, until I remembered that Dr. Koslov was seeing Mr. Wilkinson with the financial records.

“You two look like a pair of cats who just shared a canary,” Dr. Clinton said with a slight grin. “I won’t ask how your evening went. Just promise me you’ll clean up your own sheets, Carey?”

I blushed and grinned back. “I will, Dr. Clinton, thanks.”

Barry kissed me as Dr. Clinton went into the main lab. “I need to do that hand model shoot for Tarly Jewelers, but I’ll come back tonight, okay?”

I smiled and nodded. As he left, I relaxed, feeling more than a little sore, and made myself a bowl of cereal.

The day went by like many had for the first half. I went through tests, all of which I passed, and Professor Khatrim, in particular, seemed very pleased with my behavior. I fixed myself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and was just pondering on the merits of tomato soup, when Dr. Bailey came in, her face telling me that something was horribly wrong, her tail and whiskers drooped.

“What is it?” I asked. My gut sank. Something awful had happened to Barry. It was the only answer.

“It’s…Dr. Koslov,” she said, sounding stunned. “He was at the Polar Chemicals plant. There…there was a fire…Mr. Wilkinson is…dead…and Dr. Koslov…” She shook her head in disbelief. “They need someone to come and identify the body.”

I sat down, stunned, and I really don’t remember much of the rest of the day. The story came out over time. No one was sure if the fire was arson to cash in on insurance, or if something flammable had just caught fire. Looking back on what Dr. Koslov said the night before, I had my own theory – that a sad, lonely man had made a desperate decision to protect the only family he had. Dr. Anatoly Koslov, my father, was dead.

Blame mostly fell on Wilkinson, and public sentiment swerved in favor of the small group of maverick scientists that, it turned out, were in danger of being shut down by Polar Chemicals. Settlements happened, and Generizons got a small amount of money due to the wrongful death of Dr. Koslov. Several government grants followed, which allowed a new line of work to happen. Dr. Marion Bailey became the new head of my department, and she initiated some ground-breaking lawsuits in the field of “artificial person rights”. You probably heard all about that, and yeah, maybe that’s why I look familiar to you. I was in the news quite a lot back then. The practical upshot was that, even though the Lil Bear project ended, I still ended up helping out quite a bit as a prototype for other kinds of cheaper artificial life forms. I don’t really mind being unique, though it does get a little lonely from time to time.

As part of my settlements, Generizons provided me with a small regular stipend for living expenses, although I make plenty of money doing children’s clothing modeling and the like. They also awarded me my rooms in the Generizons warehouse more or less in perpetuity. I’ve decorated them quite a bit since then, and I don’t think anyone would call them “sterile” now.

In the middle of all this, of course, Barry Winslow moved to Japan. We had several chances to be together in public after Koslov’s death, but no more chances to be alone in the lab; there was just too much scrutiny. The day of his flight, we went out to lunch together. This time, it was my treat, and we shared the “Belly Buster Sundae”. “I hope they have good ice cream in Japan,” he groaned. “You can’t beat American ice cream for old-fashioned gut busting goodness.”

“I did some Googling for you,” I told him. “I found an ice cream museum near where you’ll be that does some crazy flavors, like Dracula the Cool.”

He looked at me dubiously. “What’s that entail?

“Um…if I recall correctly, garlic and mint.”

He groaned, clutching his stomach. “Please! I don’t wanna barf all this up.” He make fake vomiting noise, leaning over to me, and I laughed, trying to fend him off. He stopped after a moment, looking at me sadly. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said, softly.

“And I don’t want you to leave,” I admitted, “but, if you stayed, it might get weird. I’m going to stay this age, for always. When you turn 30, or 40, or 50…I’ll still be 12 year old Carey.” I grinned. “That is gonna get harder and harder to explain.”

“Oh, I see,” he said, smirking. “Think I’m gonna get too old for you, huh?”

I punched him in the arm. “You know that’s not the case.”

He smiled at me. “I know. I’m just teasing.” He got really serious again. “I love you, Carey.”

“I love you, too, Barry,” I sighed. “I owe you so much. You taught me how to be a real boy.”

He knocked on my forehead. “Little wooden-head.”

“Knock, knock,” I said with a smile.

I walked with him to the shuttle to the airport. All of his luggage had already been shipped, so he just had a single carry-on bag. Before he boarded, he said, “If I visit, I hope I can see you.”

“Always,” I promised. We shared a long embrace and then a kiss. “And if I get to Japan, I’ll come find you.”

“I’ll email all the time,” he promised.

I looked up at him, and I knew he would try. But I also knew life would catch up to him and take him away from me. I didn’t hate him for it. I guess not being exactly real gives you perspective on things. I was just glad that, for a while, he’d come into my life, and he’d been mine.

“Take care of yourself, Barry. Please,” I murmured to him. He got into his bus and walked to his seat. He smiled and waved to me, and I stepped away from the station as the bus took him away from me, and I walked home and I cried. For a long time.

I owe Barry a lot. He taught me how to love, and how to laugh, and how to be me. He made me feel very special, and not because I am what I am. He made me feel special, because he loved me for what he saw in my heart. I will never forget him. And he does email, fairly regularly. He fought off living his life for a while, talked about coming back, but life is a river that has a way of sweeping us along to where we’re meant to go. Eventually, amazingly, he actually fell for a girl, and they have a kid of their own now. Thank God, they didn’t name him Carey. That would be super weird. Even weirder, though, is that someday that kid will be older than I am.

And now you know my story. That’s why it’s so hard for me to explain how old I am. In some ways, the answer will always be twelve, but years and years have gone by since then, and my brain’s growing up, even if my body isn’t. So how old am I? I don’t know how to answer that easily.

I’m not sad about Barry, not any more. I’ve loved a lot of guys since then, and a lot of guys have loved me. I never settle down, though, because I don’t always want to explain what’s happening to me. Maybe eventually, I’ll find another person like me who doesn’t get older, and then we can keep each other company for as long as we exist. But for now, I’m just me. And I’m pretty cool with that.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Carey", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "text/rtf", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "21", "views": "3327" }