    Summer was always a frustrating time for Anne.  Around the beginning of May they’d start pouring in: ditzy girls trying to fit in a 5-size-too-small bikini, stupid frat guys trying to put on as much mass as they could before summer break, skinny nerds trying to “reinvent” themselves for summer break, and fragile “plus-sized” girls that would break out in tears a the mere mention of a Body-Mass-Index.  It’s not that she had a problem with overweight people, or with scrawny people, but in her line of work you can’t really help people get in shape without pointing out the problem areas.   

The brown bear’s thick fur shimmered as the morning sun rose over the rooftops of the building outside her window, broad rays of orange light bringing out the red tones in her fur, casting her in a copper-colored glow.  She had tossed and turned all night.  All of her covers were bunched up on the floor except for the corner of one sheet still clinging over one foot, leaving her entire toned and muscled body exposed except for her tight, black compression shorts.  She slept face down, her arms hanging off either side of her full sized bed, with one leg hanging off the side and the other dangling off the end.  Her small poof of a tail wiggled as the sun hit it, and she slowly came to life.  She took a deep breath and held it for a moment, straightening out her arms and legs stretching them and flexing them, making them ripple from the middle of her back to the tips of her fingers and toes.  She loosened suddenly and flopped back down against the bed, letting out the breath in a quick, frustrated sigh.  She smacked her wet black lips and groaned, realizing she was laying in a small soggy spot on her pillow.  She pushed herself up onto all fours and rubbed her face, roughing up the drool-matted left side of her face with her paws before sitting back on her paw to lean back and let her back crack loudly as she let out a long, roaring yawn.  She licked her lips again shifted her weight, putting one leg onto the floor and getting on her feet.  

She was a little wobbly for a second, but once she gained her balance she started her morning stretches.  She bent down at the waist with her knees locked and her feet at shoulder-width.  First she touched the floor between her feet, at first with her fingertips, and slowly lowering down until her palms were pressed flat against the floor. She stretched her head back, trying to look at the wall in front of her, keeping her posture right to prevent damage to her spine.  She straightened up and leaned back, relaxing her muscles for a second before leaning forward again, touching her right hand to her left foot, stretching her sides.  She stretched both sides that way and stood up, leaning back to stretch her back again.  She started stretching her arms after that.  She put one palm on the back of her neck and sliding it down her spine, pulling on her elbow with her other hand to stretch out her shoulder.  After stretching out her other arm that way she locked her fingers together behind her and lifted her arms, almost getting them to shoulder height.  Her shoulders popped loudly and she gritted her teeth as she held her arms high, letting the stretch hurt for a little bit.  She let her arms fall to her sides and threw her head back, stretching her neck out.  

“Goddamnit.”  She grunted out as she started to walk towards her bathroom, the one door in the back of the small studio apartment.  She reached out to her left and pulled the curtain open, letting the room completely fill with the bright morning sun.  She could smell the last cupful of three-day-old coffee from the pot in the kitchen and the strong scent of last night’s dinner, chili and shrimp ramen.  Her stomach turned a little.  I’ll pour it out after I shower...  She thought as her nose curled up.  She doubted that she could stand getting close enough to pour it out right now anyway.  She pushed the bathroom door open and left it.  Alone in the apartment there was no reason not to.   

She slid open the glass door to the shower, its squeak making her grimace.  She gripped the one large plastic handle and pulled it straight out, opening the valve and turned it all the way to the left, letting the water get hot.  She went to the sink, looking at herself in the mirror.  Her eyes were red,  bloodshot from stress and lack of sleep.  She looked at the brand on her shoulder, the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor she had gotten branded in the service.  She ran her fingers over it, where the flesh met fur, pulling the fur aside to check it.  New fur is starting to grow.  I’m going to have to get re-branded... She stroked over it, the bare flesh still feeling tender, even after almost ten years.   Steam began to float across the ceiling of the bathroom and the very top of the mirror started to fog, reminding her that she was planning on taking a shower.  She turned to the stall and bent over to pull her compression shorts off, uncovering her tight, muscular ass and her fur-hidden pussy.  She walked to the shower and stepped in, sliding the door shut to trap the steam inside with her.  

She leaned forward against the wall, pressing her forehead against it as the water rolled down her head and back, over her shoulders and down to her breasts.  She took a deep breath and reached to her side, to the shelf built into the shower.  Her hand fumbled around the shelf, feeling around for her shampoo.  It shouldn’t have been hard for her to find; she only had two shampoos.  One was scented that she wore when she had business or dates, and the other was unscented for days she worked.  What made it harder was the two dildoes she had sitting on the shelf also, almost the size and shape of her shampoo bottles.  One was silver and smooth, not too long or thick.  The other was about the same size, but of soft rubber, with spines and aggressive ridges on it.  She knocked around searching for her scented shampoo, almost knocking something off but she managed to catch it.  She squeezed the soft toy and murred quietly.  Not yet... maybe later.  

Finally she recognized the wavy, hourglass shape of her scented shampoo and grabbed it up, flicking it open with her claw and squirting it in her other hand.  She took a deep breath and stood up straight, getting off the wall and started lathering her head, face, neck, and down, combing her long claws through her thick soft fur.  As she lathered and washed herself she thought about how long it had been since she’d actually gotten off with somebody.  It had been almost 8 months, and the machinery wasn’t cutting it anymore.  But until she had anything better, she reached over and grabbed her spiky toy.

BREAK

    Dennis Harper stood in front of Gunnar’s Gym, half-asleep against the red brick storefront.  It was still mostly dark, the sun was low in the sky and the pallid bat was in the shadow of the building.  He was wrapped up in his thin, heavily veined wings, the texture giving it an odd look, like a dragonfly’s wings, or like spiderweb on the furless dark red skin.  The insides of his tall ears were dark and bare just like his wings, and they were ridged very heavily up the insides.  His nose was buried down in his wings, his mid-length golden-blond hair covering his face as he snored lightly.  At his feet was a black and gold Adidas duffle bag and a cheap red backpack that probably came from Sam’s Club.  

    “You gonna sleep all morning man?!”  Dennis barely opened his eyes before he felt the heavy palm come down on the crown of his head, smacking loud and dull and hollow, like the sound it makes when you flick a melon.  

    “Gah!! What the fuck!?”  He yelled before tackling forward, still in a sleepy stupor.  As his head started to clear he felt his head wrapped up in feathers, and a hand gripping the belt of his pants.  “Freddie let go!”  He wrapped his arms around the parrot’s waist and clenched, wrestling awkward and tiredly.  

    “STOP FIGHTING you crazy ass or I’ll DDT you!”  Freddie ruffled his bright green feathers and pulled his friend backwards a little, threatening to drop him face first on the concrete.  

    “You’re a fucking dick...”  Dennis let go of Freddie’s waist and just stood there in a facelock, waiting to be let go.  “Come on, let me up.”  He said with a frustrated tone.  

    “Say uncle.”  Freddie pulled up on Dennis’ belt, lifting his feet up. “I bet I could put you in some kind of suplex from this!”  

    “Don’t you fucking dare!  Freddie!”  Dennis started flapping his wings, freeing his legs to lift up and grab Freddie’s knees and push his head free.  “Aha!  Hahaha!”  He pushed himself into the air with his wings, floating backwards until he smacked the wall behind him with a loud thud.  “AH!”  He lost his balance and fell straight down the wall, thwacking the ground hard as he landed flat on his ass.  “FU~fffffffffffffffffffff~...”  He rolled onto his side, taking weight off his ass in classic Johnny Knoxville style as he doubled over on the ground.  

    “AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!”  Freddie bent at the waist, holding his stomach as he laughed, pointing at the bat.  “Been flying long, jackass?! Hahahaha!?”  

    SMACK

    “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”  Doug said from behind Freddie after smacking his head hard.  The Carolina Dog stood head and shoulders over the other two, around six and a half feet tall.  His friendly face kept him from being too intimidating, his tail whapping at his thighs made it clear he was having a good morning already.   He was filling out finally, too.  When he had first started at the gym he couldn’t have been more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and now he was probably around one-sixty.  “Ya alright, Dennis?”  He walked over to the bat, grabbing his hand and pulling him up to his feet.  

    The bat wobbled on his feet and leaned back, cracking his back.  “I’m alright.  Just a little sore now.  How about you, bud?”  He patted the dog’s back and went over to his bags.  “So how long until Anne shows up?”  

    “Eeeh...”  Doug walked to the front door of the gym, unlocking the heavy brass lock and pushing the heavy wooden door open.  “Maybe she’ll come in durin’ business today?  I don’t really know.”  He walked in, leaving the door open for Freddie and Dennis to go in behind him as he went to the back and started flipping on the lights.  They clicked on and hummed to life from front to back, each row of warehouse lights coming on individually, before finally the office lights came on, then the lockers, and finally the showers.  

    “Wait, you mean we have to do all the classes by ourselves today?!  What the fuck!”  Freddie groaned as he walked towards the lockers in the back, finding his way by memory in the pitch black.  

    “Yeah.  What’s Anne doing today?”  Dennis said as he followed Freddie into the lockers, throwing his backpack and duffel bag into his banged-up, caved-in locker.  He cringed a little and squinted as his eyes readjusted to the lights coming on.   

    “She’s in a meetin’ with some businesspeople or somethin’!  Try’n’a get y’all some more money for your work.  Maybe a little extra summer job?  I don’ know.”  He walked into the locker room and went straight to his locker, the one closest to the door.  It didn’t have a lock on it, just his name in black and white labelmaker tape at the top of the door, signifying his ownership of that particular box. 

    “Hey, maybe she’s getting us on next season of Fight Master!”  Freddie said as he stripped his t-shirt off and replaced it with a sleeveless white muscle shirt with the Puerto Rican flag on the chest.  

    “Yeah, in your dreams, man!”  Dennis slipped his shirt over his head, just a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and the sides split down to the bottom to make room for his wings.  “Why would you want to be on anyway?  You’re not a mixed martial artist, you’re an olympic wrestler.”  He slipped on a muscle shirt, pretty much the same cut as Freddie’s but black with a gold Adidas on the chest.  

  “Hey, greco-roman has a place!  Don’t think we can’t stand up to you guys with all your fancy Tae-Kwon-Do shit.”  Freddie sat down on the bench and started capping his talons, the black rubber covers making it safe for him to wrestle and walk around on the rubber-tiled floors.  

    “Haha sure!  You just wanna be in the WWE like CarrrrrrrrrrrrrrLI-TOOOOOOOOOOO!!”  Dennis opened his arms and yelled to the sky, rolling his R’s expertly doing his best Lillian Carcia impersonation.  Doug smacked a few-day-old sweaty t-shirt across his face and laughed, going back to his changing.   “Hey!”  Dennis pulled the shirt off of his face and was immediately whipped in the stomach with moist towel.  “Gah!  Stoppit!”  

    “HELL NO I don’t wanna be fucking Carlito!  The damn clown!  Now... Carlos Colón?  Sr.?  There’s a fucking wrestler!”  He started to stretch out his wings, bending them back behind him and swinging them in circles.  “His fights with Ric Flair and Abdullah the Butcher were legend in our house!”  

    “THREE WORDS BOYS!”  Doug yelled out, jumping on the bench in his boxers.  “HULK!  A!  MANIAAAAAAA!”  He struck his best Hulk pose.  “IT’S RUNNIN’ WILD, BROTHER!”  He grunted and growled as he made pose after pose, the other guys just shaking their heads.  

    “You mean the creepy old guy that’s obsessed with his daughter’s legs?”  Dennis said as Doug jumped down and dropped his boxers, pulling up his jockstrap and adjusting himself.  

    “Hey, if your daughter’s legs looked like Brooke Hogan’s, wouldn’t you be obsessed with ‘em?  That’s a sexy mare!”  Freddie chimed in.  Doug pulled a heavy, yellowed old white gi out of his locker and started carefully unfolding it and laying out the top and pants, and setting the black belt aside for the moment.  

    “Yeah, that doesn’t mean the ‘hulkmeister’ isn’t a creepy old bastard.”  Dennis sat down and started putting caps on his claws also, having particularly sharp ones on his hands as well as his feet.   
    
“Hey guys, I didn’t say he was a great guy, jus’ an awesome wrestler.”  Doug pulled up the white pants over his jock strap, threading his tail through the hole in the back of  his gi and tieing the front laces up tightly.  The legs only went halfway down his shins in traditional Okinawan fashion, and the sleeves were short also, only going an inch or two below his elbow.  

    “He wasn’t a good wrestler, though!”  Freddie pulled a padded helmet out of his locker and started walking out into the gym, Dennis and Doug following behind.  “He was a jobber that got really famous, and Vince just kept building him up and up and up.  Flair or the Iron Sheik were ten times the wrestler that he was!”  

    “At least he wasn’t popping boners every ten seconds...”  Dennis looked at Doug as he rolled his eyes. 

    “Like the Iron Sheik.”  Doug started walking towards the back corner, where the heavy bags, speed bags, and the large square ring was.  

    “Hey, the Sheik MAY HAVE gotten constant boners, and he MAY HAVE never worn underwear under his unitard, and he MAY HAVE been completely gay, but you know what he did that makes him WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than Hogan?”  Freddie jumped up into the ring and started stretching his legs on the rope.  

    “What’s that?”  Dennis jumped up into the ring flatfooted, perching on the ring post doing his best menacing entrance, waving at Freddie from behind him.  

    “He rubbed that big gay arab boner all over Hulk’s back during their title fight!  So that means Hulk loses!  In perpetuity!”   As soon as Freddie turned to look at his bat friend, Dennis jumped off of the top rope to perform a diving crossbody.  “WOAH FUCK!”  

    “BAT BOMB!!!!” Dennis yelled in midair and grunted loudly as Freddie caught him.  

    “Ready for a reversal, skinny bitch!?”  Freddie yelled as he fell backwards, flipping Freddie up into the air so he landed flat on his back and rolled into the ropes.  A perfectly executed Fallaway Slam.  

    Doug went to the heaviest bag, in the corner of the gym.  Five hundred pounds and covered in red leather, it was the only bag in the gym that was chained to the floor, and the only one that had the gym’s name on it.  “We only have an hour till open guys.  You sure you don’t wanna do an actual warm up instead of playin’ at bein’ professional wrestlers?”  He dropped down into his fighting stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet.  

    “Play sparring is a good way to warm up!”  Dennis got up, shakily standing, holding onto the rope for support.  

    “That’s right!  And it will teach him how to fight a real wrestler!”  Dennis went into the neutral position, waiting for Freddie to come at him again as Doug started hitting and kicking the bag, making it rock in spite of its weight.  Dennis and Freddie wrestled the next hour away, while Doug spent half the hour running bagwork to increase his endurance, and spent the other half of the hour running kata, bringing his heart rate down and relaxing to run the gym and teach the day’s classes.  

BREAK

    Almost ten hours later the last class of the day was about to be over.  Dennis and Freddie taught a beginners’ kickboxing class, something along the lines of P90X or some other bulshit that was basically as useful as Jazzercize.  Doug wouldn’t have anything to do with it, so he took responsibility over watching the weight room, keeping the few muscleheads there from killing themselves or improperly using the equipment.  

    The boys on the other hand were quite contented with dealing with a few dozen sweaty college girls in skin-tight lycra, helping them through their stretches and the bouncier exercises.  There were a few girls who were still fairly new, working out in sweats and t-shirts because they hadn’t had time to pick up a sports bra or compression shorts.  Dennis wasn’t very ashamed of creeping out on bouncier girls from the back of the class, quite thankful for the lack of wall-to-wall mirrors.  Freddie led the class from the front, not being have the perv that Dennis was.  He didn’t have to fight nearly as hard as his friend to keep from leering constantly at the myriad of different species and body types of amazing young girls.  

    SLAM

    The front door slammed open hard enough the bell didn’t have time to ring as Anne stomped into the door in a thin, sleeveless, button-up blouse and dressy kahkis that you would never guess were men’s.  They fit her ass and legs well, showing the tone in her thighs.  “All classes over for the day, the gym is closing early, put all my weights like you found them, shower, and get out, we lock up in ten minutes!”  She yelled as she went back to her office, slamming that door behind her as well.  

    Everything stopped for a moment as the tall, imposing bear stormed through the gym to the back room.  They looked around at each other confused for a moment, before Freddie clapped his hands loudly.  “Alright!  You heard the lady!  Class is over!  Pack up, shower if you have to, but be out in ten!”  He dismissed the class and Freddie ran to the back, hoping to get his shower out of the way too.  Dennis walked back and stopped at the counter of the weightroom and patted it as Doug sat there looking around as the muscleheads left their weights as they were going back for their shower.  “You need a hand putting all this shit back up, man?”  

    Doug shook his head and waved him off, getting up and walking to the benches.  “Nah, I got it, Denny.  Go on and get your shower took, I got awhile before work.”  Dennis nodded and started on back as Doug started the process of going to each bench and taking the weights off, then putting them away on the rack.  

BREAK

    After all the customers had filed out and the doors were locked, and all the weights were put away, Doug, Dennis, and Freddie all congregated in the hallway in front of Anne’s office.  Doug managed to get his shower in once everyone had already left, and had changed into his more comfortable, holey old carpenter jeans and a ragged white t-shirt, with oil-stains on the back and paint all over it that matched the paint on the walls of the gym.  “So she come outta ‘er office yet?”  He roughed his hands through his short, still damp hair boredly.  

    “Nah, not yet.” Dennis sat with his back to the door, digging in his ear with a long claw.  

    “You’re gonna dig your brain out if you don’t stop, Den.”  Freddie kicked his friend in the side making him jerk.  

    “HE-Fuck!”  Dennis clutched his ear.  And glared up at Freddie.  “You almost made me bust my eardrum!”  

    “Well quit diggin in your ears and that shit won’t happen.”  Freddie leaned back against the wall, yawning widely.  

    Anne opened the office door and Dennis fell back into her. She was in her compression shorts and sports bra, a rare smile on her face.  “Get in here!  I got good news!”  She turned and walked back into her office, the outline of her ass shown perfectly by the skin-tight black shorts.  

    They followed, Dennis eyeing Anne’s ass the entire time, until she turned and sat in her large office chair, when his eyes lifted to a respectable height.  She leaned back and threw her feet up on the desk, reclining in her chair.  “Alright so... How do you guys feel about a trip to Hawaii?”  The boys’ smiled widely, Doug’s tail wagging quickly.  

    “I feel fucking ecstatic about it!”  Dennis blurted out, his own stubby, webbed tail wiggling behind him. 

    “Are you serious?”  Dennis asked, his tailfeathers fanning behind him. 

    “Serious as a fucking heart attack.  Ten thousand dollars for me to appear for 12 days, running three two-hour seminars a day on The Enchantment of the Seas, with two assistants making three hundred dollars a day each.  Now... Doug, I can’t trust either of these two to run the gym while I’m gone so...  You’re gonna have to stay and hold down the fort by yourself.”  

    Doug nodded and his tail kept wagging, a smile spreading wide on his muzzle.  “That’s awesome!!!!  Haha I’m so happy you trust me with that!”  

    “Right.  So that means you two fucknuts are going on a trip.  Pack your shit we leave in two days.”  She smiled and put her arms behind her head, stretching herself out in her chair.  “Now get the fuck out of my office.”  The three young men nodded and turned out, walking out together and grabbing their bags.  

    “Alright then!  See you all tomorrow guys!”  Doug waved to them as he started walking out heading towards his apartment.  

    “Yeah!  See ya man!”  Freddie started walking to downtown as Dennis just stood at the door.  

    “Where you goin, Freddie?”  He said, turning to follow the parrot.  

    “Work, man.  Gotta get to the restaurant in a half hour.  Gotta get twelve days off apparently.”  He wiped his face with his hand and ruffled his head feathers.  “It’s gonna be a long night.”  

    “Aw, come on man, blow it off!  Call in sick, you can use my cell phone.  We can go to the Valerium or something!  It’s only friggin five pm!”  He begged like a little kid trying to talk his friend into staying to play, even after his mother had called him inside for supper.  “Get a little drunk, dance, maybe get laid?  Come on man, you need to get over your shit and get a girl!”  

    “Some people have responsibilities, Freddie.  Besides there’s more important things to do than party and fuck.  You may not have anything better to do but I fucking do.”  There was a little venom in Freddie’s voice as he spoke, and he spread his wings wide.  “I’m gonna fly across the river, don’t want to walk to the bridge.  Talk to you later man.”  He took a run at the bank of the Tennessee River, jumping up on the safety rail and launching himself in the air, flapping his large, powerful wings with his duffle bag on his back.

    “Sure... bye man...”  Dennis turned around dejected and headed towards downtown to his apartment, to get dressed and ready for an epic night of celebration.  

To Be CONTINUED!