Lock, Croc and Two Smoking Barrels
By D.

Chapter 1:
Don't Croc the Boat

	If Michael had known his future would have involved rowing a boat... he would have definitely worked more on his upper-body strength. Those crew jocks he remembered from high school all seemed to be practicing for something that would never be useful, like learning how to apply a mustard plaster or stealing cable.
	But here he was, in the middle of a swamp in very southern Florida, propelling an eight-foot rusting aluminum row boat through the muck of the Florida swamp. His provisions were dwindling: his backpack, which was the only reason he was out here, a few granola bars in his pockets, his canteen half-full of fresh water, and his Swiss Army knife. He also had his phone, which he had somehow retrieved from the swamp after dropping it in while foolishly trying to get a signal. He hoped it would work again, if it would ever dry in this humid air.
	Without his phone, which served triple-duty as a GPS and music player, he had to use the compass on the obverse of the Swiss Army knife to keep himself going south. Surely, he'd find what he was looking for eventually. Over the last few hours, he had learned the finesse of propelling this boat between the many skinny trees, overgrown grass, weblike kelp and whatever else was under the water's surface.
	The sun was starting to set, the swamp sky growing golden and the trees cutting shadows through the mists like long fingers. Michael couldn't keep this up much longer. He had to find some form of land to tie the boat to so he could maybe get some shuteye, if the boat wouldn't capsize the first time he rolled over in his sleep.
	The trees seemed to give way to a small clearing. At first, Michael thought he was seeing a mirage that had been mistakenly delivered to him in the swamp instead of someone trapped in the desert. There was a square hut with a thatched roof out of the water, set on a tiny dock made of branches. It looked like something out of Disney World, but if he was so far off-course that he'd landed in Orlando, he would definitely have to get a new compass.
	Standing on the dock was a woman, almost entirely backlit by the sunset. She looked tall and leggy, wearing what looked like overalls with nothing under them, the bib pressed outwards by her breasts. She had a straw hat covering her head, but nothing else could be seen except her pleasing silhouette.
	Michael called out to the figure, waving his arm over his head. The woman seemed to move, but something moved behind her, a weird third leg sweeping behind her, between the first two. Michael had thought of her as 'leggy' not a moment ago. Was she so leggy, she had three legs the way a Jeep would carry a spare tire?
	The woman's hands came to her chest, unfastening the buckle on both sides of the bib. Once the bib was free to slide down her breasts, it quickly dropped off the rest of her body into a pile on the deck. The woman's figure was as pleasing as he suspected might it be under the unflattering overalls.
	She took off her large sun hat, setting it on a pier hook  near her door. She didn't appear to have any hair, unless it was all tied back in a ponytail. He still couldn't make out any of her features. By the time he held one hand up to the sun to see her more clearly, the woman had jumped into the water. Michael leaned over the edge, looking for her, but nothing was visible in the muddy water, rendered even more opaque as she swam underneath and disrupted the sediment. 
	Michael waited for a few seconds, craning his head around, waiting for her to resurface. It would be a silly thing for her to do to simply hop into water and drown. He shrugged, took hold of the oars again and started to sweep them through the water, hoping to approach the dock.
	The right oar snagged on something under the water. He jerked the oar around, trying to get it free, but it was quickly wrenched out of his hand, disappearing into the water like a coin in a well.
	He leaned over the right edge of the boat, waiting for the oar to float back to the surface. The left oar was now being pulled by something. Michael brought both hands on it, trying to keep it from being pulled under. He jerked it free from the water, snapping the rowlock holding it in place.
	Michael looked at the blade end of the oar and found an seven-inch circular piece ripped out of it. It looked like a shark had taken a bite out of it. Michael tried to propel the boat with the damaged oar, inching closer to the dock. The fore of the rowboat was almost at the dock when the boat came to a sudden halt. A scaly hand, dark gray and olive green, thin webbing between each finger, had grabbed the back of the boat.
	The boat wobbled as Michael jumped to his feet, grabbed his backpack and barely climbed out of the boat before the hand jerked the boat to the side. Water started to pour over the edge of the boat and it was quickly dragged under the water to parts unknown, his waterlogged phone dragged down with it.
	A few bubbles came up from the boat's resting place. Michael just stared at them, like watching the last subway of the night disappear down the tunnel. He sat down on the deck, dumbfounded. If he thought he was hopelessly lost before... now he didn't even have a boat.
	Michael looked at the overalls the woman had shed before jumping into the water. He held them up by the shoulder straps, noticing a big hole just above the rear. It was too high to serve the obvious function, so why was it there?
	He was very soon to learn why. Something burst out of the water like a dolphin, jumping and landing on top of Michael, knocking over onto his back.
	Did he use the simile 'like a dolphin?' No, that wasn't the right word. All this woman's skin was gray-green and covered in scales of varying sizes. Her fingers and toes were tipped with black claws, and the heavy scales on her back tapered down to her tail as long as her legs.
	The woman grabbed Michael's hands and held them still as she brought her head to his. She had no hair at all, no nose but for a small protrusion above two nostrils, and mottled green eyes with vertical slits. She had lips, but they were pulled back to reveal her many sharp teeth.
	Michael screamed as this cold mutant pinned him down, dripping nasty swamp water all over him, hopefully concealing that he's probably pissed himself. Apparently, there was something more scared than “so scared you pee your pants,” and that was not being sure. He was too scared to fight back, afraid if he made one wrong move, this thing would take a bite out of his throat and the last thing he would see was the lenticular membrane quickly moving into place over her eyeballs as she blinked.
	“Why are you here?” She snarled, a gentle hiss always present behind her voice.
	“I got lost.” Michael confessed. “I didn't know this was your swamp. I'm so sorry. I swear, I didn't litter or anything. I have my candy wrappers in my pocket, I swear.”
	“Quiet!” She shouted. Michael turned his head sideways, pinched his eyes shut, and started whimpering. He couldn't quite follow her command. He was hyperventilating as the mutant pressed her 'nose' against his neck, sniffing his flesh and feeling the warmth of his body.
	“Let's hope you taste better than the last one.” She opened her mouth, bringing it towards his neck.
	Michael panicked. “Oh God, I don't want to die a virgin!!” He screamed so loud, it would have echoed if there was anything nearby for the sound to bounce off.
	She stopped. He could feel her teeth resting on his throat, cold drool trickling down them onto his skin. She pulled her head back and looked him in the eye, her slits narrowing. “What did you say?”
	Michael was frozen. With her lips closed, she had the face of a regular woman... mostly. “Oh God, I don't want to die?”
	“After that.”
	A gentle blush started to appear on his face. “A virgin?”
	She looked at him a little longer. She released his arms and stepped back, stopping in a squatting position, still standing over his legs. “No... I suppose not.”
	Michael found himself staring at this woman's nude body. Her belly, probably the corresponding component to the underbelly, was more yellow than green, and gently scaled. The skin was softer anywhere she would be dragging on the ground, which made her large breasts an unusual feature. The greener scales terminated around her shoulders and reappeared halfway down her bare legs. Her nipples were small and dark green. In her squatting position, he couldn't quite see anything below her waist, and how it might differ from the human girls he was familiar with. Well, as he had just confessed... not that familiar with.
	Suddenly aware what he was doing, Michael looked away... for a moment. His eyes returned to those breasts. She was making no effort to cover herself. He looked away again. And back. It looked like she was thinking of something, paying no attention to his ogling.
	She stood, taking her hat off the pier hook. “All right.” She put her hat on her hairless head.
	Michael took a peek of her lower half before standing. It all appeared to be in the same place as a human woman's. “I can go?” He asked hopefully.
	She looked at him, apparently as oblivious to her nudity as any other animal in the swamp. “You can stay.”



	Michael had spent the hour of twilight in this mutant's one-room hut. There was one window on the east side, probably the closest thing she had to a clock.  The only furniture was a single cot made of sticks and covered with hay. Where she got hay in the swamp, he couldn't figure. The rest of the cot was decorated with bitten and broken oars, of which he was sure his ruined oars would soon be joining.
	He looked under the bed, knowing if there was already a monster sleeping in the bed, there certainly weren't any to find under there. Michael found a few nicknacks from the human world: a hubcap, a plastic bottle, a child's beach pail for making sand castles, one of those plastic six-pack rings that marine life choke on... and something that surprised Michael enough to reach for it.
	From under the bed, Michael retrieved a hair brush made of faded pink plastic. Most of the bristles were intact, but there was no hairs tangled within them. What possible use does she have for this, he wondered.
	Michael heard some splashing and footsteps outside, so he quickly threw the brush back under the bed. The door opened, and the reptilian woman entered her home, water sliding off her scales. She was carrying her overalls over one crooked elbow and hanging her torn straw hat with the other. She hung the overalls on one of the oars held horizontally near the window.
	Michael watched as her tail swung back and forth hypnotically, just an inch above the floor. He pictured it being dragged along inertly like a heavy parcel, but she must have significant musculature to hold that aloft at all times. He remembered in school reading about dinosaurs likely using their tails for balance. Hers was probably more useful for swimming.
	There was something undeniably beautiful about this strange woman. If she was entirely human, she would be a woman of considerable pulchritude, even without a nose. She moved with the grace of a ballerina on land. In the water, she would surely drift effortlessly like a plastic bag in a wind current, or fast as an arrow, whichever the situation needed.
	Looking at the large tattered sun hat she'd just hung up, he saw a single dark red band around the crown... lined with what looked like numerous human teeth, one with a fleck of gold from a filling.
	Michael felt a chill creep up his spine as the reptilian woman took a seat next to him, tucking her tail to her right and bringing it to her lap, holding the tip the way a nervous date plays with their hair. “Thems are some fancy clothes you got on.” She said.
	Now that neither of them were screaming, he could finally place her accent. It was a combination of a slight southern drawl and French Creole. Despite the compliment, Michael's worn-out T-shirt and black slacks didn't seem that fancy to him. “Thank you.” He said, not wanting to chance drawing any comparison might make her get dressed. His hand reached into his pocket and retrieved a granola bar. She looked at the shiny wrapper suspiciously.
	“Do you want some?” He pulled the wrapper halfway off, revealing the oats-and-chocolatey goodness sequestered within. “Actually... are you a carnivore?”
	“What's a carnivore?” She asked.
	“It means you only eat meat.”
	“You can eat things that aren't meat?”
	“Never mind.” He took a large bite and put the rest back in his pocket. “When do we go to sleep in the swamp?”
	“The sun's down, so... now's a fine time to sleep.” She pulled her legs up onto the bed. Michael stood up. “Where you going?” She asked.
	Michael turned around, the dim light of night softening her features, her tail waving expectantly in the air. He was about to leave a bed occupied by a strangely beautiful nude woman.
	He sat back down and reclined on his side. The woman wrapped her arms around his torso. “You're warm...” She hissed playfully, breathing the chilly words on the back of his ear. “What's your name?”
	“Michael.” He said. “What's yours?”
	She paused a moment before responding,“Odile.”
	Odile held Michael close to her, feeling his heartbeat though his shirt. She felt the cold of the night sap her energy, and she swiftly fell asleep.
	For Michael, sleep didn't come so easy. The still-pervasive humidity, the orchestra of insects that were making noise outside this tiny hut, and last but not least, the mutant reptile cuddling him, pressing her breasts against his back, puffing cold air across his ear.
	He did not know from whence she had come, but he had even less explanation for his full, painful, throbbing, uncomfortable, fly-straining boner.

Chapter 2: Croc and a Hard Place
 
    The beaming sun from the roughly square-shaped hole in the wall that could charitably be called a window slowly brought Michael out of his sleep. He looked around the room. It was still the wood-and-sticks one-room building he remembered falling asleep in. Apparently, this was not a nightmare.
    Michael looked down and saw the two green, scaly hands clasped intimately on his chest. He pinched her palm and moved one hand over to her side, allowing him to roll out of bed.
    The slight creaking of the bed immediately brought Odile out of her slumber, craning her neck up at Michael. She gave him a squinting look, as if he'd done it on purpose, her expressing saying, 'what did you wake me up for?'
    “Sorry.” He said. “Didn't mean to wake you.” Odile put her head down in the fold of her elbow and immediately went back to sleep.
    Michael looked over this strange creature again, now in the full daylight. The core of her body, her torso, breasts, hips, appeared more overtly human than her limbs, as if the scales were the edges of a treasure map, burned away with this animal skin. Her tail gently tapped up and down on the edge of the bed, as if she was drumming her nails in her sleep. Her face...
    She had no nose or hair. Apparently, those weren't the deal-breakers he thought they were. This face had inspired terror and revulsion last night, but spread out, posed like a bikini model, her unencumbered breasts shifting with the gentlest bounce as she breathed, and even a cute whistle audible over the bugs and activity in the swamp...
    Michael had to turn away from her. He was confused by his own thoughts. He walked out to the small dock and looked around the swamp. There were a number moss-covered trees growing crookedly out of the swamp, several think birch trees grown up around  them, and lots of exotic looking grasses struggling to grow as tall, like children reaching up in search of the baseball player's autograph.
    Standing and walking around had woken something else up, as he felt his bladder contract. He still saw nobody around. This was about as close to the middle of nowhere as he ever wanted to get. Comfortable in his solitude, he undid his fly and let his wang hang out, pointing it at the water. He relaxed his muscles until he had a thought: those fish that swim up your pee, do those exist in Florida?
    He held it again, looking for something solid standing out of the water to pee against. If he still had his phone, he could look up if those fish were in America... but then again, if he had his phone, he could be rescued.
    Michael remembered something stored under Odile's bed. He snuck back in and very carefully removed the sand castle bucket from under her cot. Now, he was busting for a piss so bad, he didn't bother walking back out. He withdrew his unit again and pointed it into the bucket, pissing against the side so it wouldn't make the distinct noise of urinating into water.
    Even the gentle, almost undetectable sound of urine hitting plastic was enough to stir Odile, and  she opened her eyes to see Michael, his dick out of his pants, peeing into her property. Some might get mad if this was the first thing seen after waking up, but she said softly, “What are you doing?”
    Realizing suddenly that he hadn't even turned his back on her, Michael turned in place and showed his back to her, all while still peeing into the bucket. His face lit up red, mortified.
    “Is that what that's for?” She said quizzically, still not standing from the bed.
    “Mostly.” He said curtly. His stream of urine finally finished, he tucked himself back in his pants and tossed the urine out into the water. He gave the bucket back to Odile, who just set it down on the floor. “Wait... have you seen one of those before?”
    “Oh, sure.”
    Michael had to know. “Um... how do I... measure up to the other ones?”
    The question seemed to confuse her. “Don't know. All the other ones, I bit the whole thing off in one bite. So... they're all about the same.”
    Michael tensed. “So you really have eaten people before?”
    “If they were in my swamp, yeah.” Odile shrugged.  “But that hardly ever happens, and if it does, then I eat everything I can. Arms, legs, head... brains are actually quite tasty.”
    The fear started to return to Michael's heart... but somehow, not the revulsion.
    “What do you call that, anyway?” She pointed to his groin. “They were all very protective of it, if I went after it when they were alive. It must be important.”
    “It's the second brain.” Michael said.
    “Really? Is that why the lower part's wrinkled like brains?”
    “You got it.” Michael desperately wanted to change the subject. “Didn't you ever wonder why humans built cars and skyscrapers and you haven't?”
    “What's a car?”
    “Never mind.”
    Odile's head drooped back into the sleeping position. Michael approached cautiously. “Odile, are you lethargic because you didn't get to eat me?”
    “Yeah...” She moaned. “I was sort of counting on having that energy.”
    “Go out and get some food, then.” He gestured to the door. She elected to moan again instead of responding. “Are you going to sleep all day?”
    “I do that sometimes.” She mumbled.
    Michael walked up to her, gently picking her up from the bed. She moaned in protest, but did nothing else. She was heavier than she looked, but that might be the weight of her tail. Michael was glad he didn't have to carry her far, with his sore shoulders. He stepped out the door, to the edge of the dock. Odile rose her hand to shield the sun from her eyes, but wasn't expecting when Michael dropped her into the swamp with a splash.
    The water had barely settled when her head emerged from the water, an angry scowl on her face, her daggerlike teeth bared. She caught her breath, looking up at Michael, who just shrugged with a smile. She shook her head gently and swam off, the scales and scutes on her back visible as she swam off. To anyone else, if all they saw was her back, they would think there's nothing unusual about it.
    They might run. Michael would have run, if he had anywhere to run to. But somehow, he was here, stranded in the Everglades, and he was still alive.
 
    Time passed. Michael had no watch to tell exactly when it was, as that was also part of his phone. Thus was the perils of conglomerating all your technology into one piece of easily broken glass. The sun appeared to be directly above him, so it was probably close to lunch time.
    Michael looked in his backpack. The contents were there, and they hadn't been damaged in transit. The longer he was missing, the more likely they would send someone to find him. Maybe someone else would find him... if they also got lost in the exact same way he did.
    A wet slap came from the dock. Michael stood from the bed and looked out the door. A tricolored heron had been thrown onto the deck, its neck twisted and bloody. Odile looked up at him from the water.
    “Here you go.” She said. “This is what you wanted, right? Me to get you some food?”
    “Oh!” Michael gasped, looking at the dead animal at his feet. This was several steps away from a chicken sandwich with mayonnaise and lettuce. He knelt to offer his hand to Odile, which she accepted. He helped hoist her up out of the water, water scattering down her nude form, leaving lots of little rivulets on her lightly-colored underbody. Matthew again tried not to stare. “This is very generous of you, Odile, but I can't eat this. I might get sick from a parasite or something. We humans aren't as robust as you.”
    Michael was afraid this Creole would take offense to not accepting her cooking, if this counted. Thankfully, she wasn't bothered at all. “If you don't want it, I'll eat it.” She reached down and grabbed the poor bird by the barely-attached neck and dragged it inside the hut. She sat in the corner, legs spread, the bird in her lap. She tore the head from the body with her claws and started biting off chunks of the bird's neck like it was a corn dog.
    With her sharp teeth, unsuitable for the grinding work assigned to molars, Odile didn't chew the chunks of meat so much as bite them and shred them. A piece too large to swallow might force her to hold the piece in her claws as she tore it with her teeth.
    Michael watched this with deep fascination, and only a little disgust. Blood never bothered him... unless it happened to an animal. But this was the law of nature, the circle of life, whatever it was called. Odile had to eat, and she caught that heron fair and square. Odile scraped the bones of its wings of meat, apparently having no aversion to eating the feathers or smaller bones.
    She cut the body of the heron open with her claw, cracking the rips open and exposing the guts. She pulled out a few organs she knew she didn't like, and ate the rest like a kid at a pie eating contest. She threw the remains of the bird out the door and into the water.
    Odile had a river of blood running from her mouth, down her neck, over her breasts and down to her crotch. She licked blood from her fingers with her tongue, her tongue apparently not long enough to go very far out of her mouth. She rubbed them on her lips and sucked the blood in past her teeth. She sighed and patted her blood-splattered belly. “That was good.” She hummed with satisfaction, sucking her claw. “That's why I caught it, because I like it, so I hoped you would've liked it.”
    Odile stood, a single trickle of blood running down her leg. She looked at Michael, who had been watching her eat. “What happened to your second brain?”
    Michael looked down. Again, he was hard as a rock, straining to snap the flimsy metal fly like the buttons on a fat guy's suit. He pulled his T-shirt down over it, chagrined. “Oh, it's nothing. I guess... you're teaching me a lot, so it grows sometimes to... make room.”
    Did he really just say that? Is this how he is around beautiful women, even inexplicable half-reptilian ones? No wonder he was a virgin.
    Despite his doubts, Odile seemed to accept that explanation. She turned around towards the door. “I'm going to swim a bit to wash off.”
    “Aren't you afraid you're going to attract sharks?” Michael asked.
    Odile turned back with a lopsided smile. “They know not to mess with me.” And with that, she turned back and dove into the water.
    Michael was a little sad that tail always seemed to cover up any chance to check out that ass... but the tail itself was a beautiful appendage itself. It swayed beautifully, like there was music only she could hear and that was how she kept the beat.
    Snapping back to reality, Michael just realized what he was thinking. This scaly tail... was attractive to him? The reptile creature that nevertheless looked like a Baywatch model... that was understandable. That was close to what he was used to. But he'd never met a woman and thought, “Wow, check out that tail! If she's wagging it, she gaggin' for it!”
    What the hell was wrong with him, he thought? I need to get out of this swamp.

Chapter 3: Croc Like An Egyptian

	Mid-afternoon broke, and Odile was back in her overalls. Michael was honestly relieved; he wouldn't have to keep pretending he wasn't staring. Odile was spread out on the small deck before the door, arms under her chin, her mouth wide open as she took deep breaths and let them out. Michael had seen this on Discovery Channel. Not exactly this, of course, but she was trying to regulate her body temperature as a cold-blooded creature by expelling warm air. Of course, whenever Odile did it, her breasts heaved a bit and her cleavage deepened. He felt like he was back in high school, pointing out every time the bustier classmates dropped their pencil. Michael was not out of the woods, or the swamp, yet.
	“Are you hot?” He asked. “Why don't you come inside? It's cooler in the shade. Or take a swim.”
	“I'm still full. I don't want to move.” She panted as she continued her heavy breathing exercise. He almost expected her to try to catch a dragonfly with her tongue. Of course, that was ridiculous. She wasn't a frog.
	“Oh yeah, you don't want to swim so soon after eating.” Michael pointed at her. “You'll get a cramp.”
	“A what?”
	“Never mind.” He sighed. “Do you get many other people out here... that you didn't eat?”
	Odile thought a moment. “Just... the occasional person in a boat. Once or twice, they have run when I told them to.”
	“I wanted to run, and you were still going to eat me.”
	“Most of my recent encounters have gone badly. Some of the city folk I encounter were the striped men with the thunder sticks.”
	“Are you talking about hunters? People with rifles?”
	“There were men in striped clothes. Striped upwards and sideways.” Michael assumed she was trying to describe a plaid shirt. “They had these wood sticks that made noise.”
	“Those are guns. They're weapons made by humans to hunt animals. They fire metal things at very high speed.”
	“I wonder if that's what happened to my foot...” Odile said, slowing her panting. Michael moved in closer. The underside of Odile's right foot had a circular scar on it. “My skin is very strong. They hit me with something on my back, but it didn't hurt. This time, they got me where I'm soft, and the thing stopped inside me. I had to dig it out with my claw.”
	“I guess the bullet stopped when it hit the underside of your scales, then.”
	“The man who hurt my foot...” Odine began. “He didn't have a thunder stick. He had a small black thing. It looked like a—whatjacallit—cel-e-phone.”
	“Are you talking about a handgun?” Michael asked. “What kind of hunter comes out into the swamp with a handgun?”
	Odile shrugged. “The only one  who actually hurt me before I ate him. It doesn't hurt anymore. I healed.”
	“Do you... want me to kiss it better?” Michael asked, hesitant.
	She turned to him. “Kiss?”
	Michael assumed she wouldn't know what kissing was, unless there was some Eskimo kiss situation of bumping toothy snouts together. Michael demonstrated it by kissing the back of his hand. Odile didn't seem to understand, so he went for it. Taking her scaly foot in both hands, he kissed the underside gently, right where her scar was.
	He stepped back to his seat, closer to her face. “Does it feel better?”
	Odile looked off, gently biting her lower lip, then back to him, her slit pupils widening as she said, “Yes, it does.” She smiled.
	Michael looked off to the swamp. He saw a dragonfly zipping around some small flowers, a distant swan swimming across the water like the target of a carnival game, the rustle of gentle breezes shaking the branches of the trees.
	“Is this what you do all day?” He asked.
	“Sometimes.” Odile responded, dropping her hand into the water and brushing it with her fingertips, making little waves. “Why, what else should we be doing?”
	Michael's mind filled with inappropriate thoughts. He briefly fantasized about clamping his lips on those round breasts, suckling out whatever they contained. It probably wasn't milk, but that was fine with him. He didn't like milk anyway. Maybe they contained roe, like a fish. OK, this got less sexy the more he earnestly thought about it. Besides, caviar was for fancy-pantses.
	“I don't know. Is there... anything you feel like doing? Something you can't do alone?” Michael could do it alone, but he was afraid the second he pulled it out, she'd have it for lunch without even understanding its importance.
	“Nah.” She shrugged. That made it clear to him; she wasn't interested in humans like that. Only as meals, and maybe friendship. Another woman who would rather be friends. It was a relief... or was it?
	Michael had to start talking about something else. “Are you waiting for prey to swim by?”
	“I'm not even hungry.”
	“Then why not hang out inside, where it's slightly cooler?”
	Odile sighed, groaned as she got up to her feet, slowly staggered her way back to her bed, and plopped down into the bed in much the same pose. Michael shuffled over towards her, sitting in a new corner.
	He briefly entertained the notion of finally rubbing one out, but with how shallow her sleep was and how easily she was roused, he decided against it. When he was away from his video games and other electronic distractions, and denied even that most simple pleasure of masturbation... he really had nothing to pass the time.
	If this is all that happened in the swamp... one would think people who lived out here would be happier to see visitors. But those visitors all seemed to harbor ill intentions. Everyone except him.
	Except him... Michael looked back over to his backpack. By now, he had been missing for an entire day. Someone was looking for him. But to be found, they would have to get lost themselves... hopefully.

Chapter 4: Croc Lobster

	Michael withdrew his Swiss Army knife, pulled out the largest knife within it, a two-inch straight blade. He scratched two vertical scores into the wood of one wall the way a prisoner would scratch the days into the concrete of his cell. Maybe modern prisoners would just use a marker, but had no marker and walls of wood, so the knife won out.
	Odile slithered up behind him without him noticing. “What is this?” She asked, not bothered by the graffiti.
	“I'm just trying to keep track of how long I'll be here.”  He said. “They do this in the movies, so... I figured why not.”
	“No, that. The shiny thing.” She pointed her claw at the knife. “Is it sharp?” She took it from his hands, pointing the knife at herself. She tapped the point against the scales on the top of her hand. It bounced right off like a pebble thrown at a sewer lid. She brought the knife to her soft flank, exposed on the side by the overalls. She tapped the point against the less rigid skin. She made a gentle grunt, but her skin was not pierced. It might as well have been an unsharpened pencil.
	“How do you defend yourself without claws?” She asked.
	“Not very well, as you saw a few days ago.” Michael said. Odile handed the knife back to him and extended a single claw-tipped finger. She scratched the thin scores he had just made into deep, wide visible scratches as effortlessly as you'd scrape the frosting off the top of a piece of birthday cake.
	Feeling just a bit inadequate, he folded the two-inch knife and put it away. He reached for his canteen and shook it, feeling nothing within. He cocked his head back and shook the last few drops into his mouth.
	“What's wrong?” Odile asked.
	“I'm out of water.” Matthew answered, shaking the canteen upside-down, the lid clattering against it like a cowbell.
	Odile blinked, her vertical pupils growing narrow, a gentle squint forming on her confused face. “Then go get some.” She said. “I got plenty.”
	“I can't drink that water.”
	Odile made a gentle hissing click. “Oh, sorry, Downtown. Sorry my home's water isn't up to snuff.”
	“No, that's not it. It's salt water.” Odile looked confused, and Michael continued before she could ask about the different kinds of water. “Or maybe it isn't. I honestly don't know if it's salt water, but it's got microorganisms in it that will probably make me really sick.”
	“So... you need the stuff people from the city drink?”
	That was apparently the line Odile drew between herself and humans. Not merely as 'people,' as she evidently thought of herself as at least partially human. She was different in attitude and geography and placement. She was from the swamp, other people were from “the city,” an imaginary single city where the rest of the world lived. When city folk like himself blundered in, there was that hillbilly attitude of “get yer Yank ass off my prop'ty.” But instead of the threat being supported with a double-barreled shotgun, it was incredible strength and a jaw like a bear trap.
	“Anything from the city would be terrific, but I don't know where you'd find any around here.”
	Odine stood up. “I reckon I'll find something.” She walked towards the door.
	“You're going out now? It's nighttime.” Michael said.
	Odine turned around in the doorway, her tail sweeping gently and barely not making contact with the frame. She was a black silhouette against the moonlit swamp. She unbuckled her overalls and dropped them to the ground, revealing her shapely body. “I see perfectly in the dark.”
	She jumped into the water, hands pointed in front of her like a diver, and swam off.
	Even having seen it all before, watching her unbuckle her overalls and strip down before him... he wished he could see perfectly in the dark, too. He adjusted himself in his jeans, trying to get comfortable.
	There was nothing but the gentle buzz of bugs, the occasional frog croak, the hiss of wind passing through leaves. She was gone. He was completely alone. His hand went towards his erection, but stopped. He hadn't done it in two days. At home, with access to all the pornography you could imagine, he seldom bothered waiting that long. The longer he waited, the more intrusive the thoughts became.
	Michael blew out a cleansing sigh. He would hold out for now. There was many reasons not to. There was no lock on Odile's front door. He would deprive himself of precious fluids, and he was already dehydrated. If she were to return while he was doing it... what would she say?
	The thought of Odile walking in on him while playing with himself somehow unleashed a new wave of lust in him, and he grew uncomfortably hard in his jeans. What was happening to his mind? Why was he attracted to this weird mutant?
	He closed his eyes. He tried to think of the parts of her that weren't attractive. She had large breasts, but she also had a large tail. She had shapely legs... partially covered in scales. She had reptilian eyes... but they were green. She had no hair... but she probably would look silly with hair. She had a cute belly-button, which now that he thought of it, why did she have a belly button? He'd assumed she'd been born out of an egg. She had a mouth full of razorlike teeth that would (and had!) shredded men like so much pulled pork... but it was nice to see her smile. And there was something about watching her tail swoop about...
	OK, Michael needed to go to sleep. He wasn't thinking straight. He turned himself over on the cot, facing the wall, closing his eyes and trying to clear his mind so he could rest.

	Morning broke, and Michael stirred in the cot. Sometime in the night, Odile had climbed into bed behind him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he couldn't leave the bed without waking her. She snorted in her sleep, bringing one of her legs around his. He was trapped, but this time... he wasn't scared.
	Odile slid her nostrils along Michael's neck, sniffing his hot, sweaty flesh. She rubbed her lip against it, tasting the salt. Then Odile gently pricked Michael's shoulder with her top row of teeth.
	Michael panicked and pushed Odile out of her bed, throwing her to the floor. Michael sat up, Odile scrambled to all fours and looked up at the threat she imagined had done that. When she saw Michael, she cocked her head to the side. “What happened?”
	“You bit me in your sleep!” He checked his shoulder to see if she'd drawn blood. Somehow, she hadn't.
	Odine rose to her feet. “Sorry.” She sat back down on the bed, putting her arm around Michael's opposite shoulder. He leaned away from the touch, but didn't move from the bed.
	“Are you still going to eat me?” He asked nervously.
	Odile pursed her lips together, rubbing Michael's shoulder. “I won't eat you, because like you said... you don't want to die a virgin.” Michael felt his cheeks flush immediately. “But... I do enjoy the taste. It's so rare, it's like a special occasion when someone shows up for me to eat.”
	“People themselves aren't rare, of course. Florida's got plenty.” Michael said, finally spotting the coconut and bunch of bananas sitting in the corner. “Are those for me?”
	“I hope you can eat those.” Odile said. “I had to climb a tree to get them. I'm not great at climbing.” Odile took the coconut in her hand. “I didn't find water, but... I shook this and it sounded like there was liquid in it.” She pressed her thumb through the shell of the coconut, leaving a half-inch hole. She presented it to Michael, who brought the hairy hole to his lips and knocked back a swig of coconut water.
	Michael coughed and gagged a bit. It was horrid. He didn't even like coconut Girl Scout cookies. People drink this voluntarily, when they're on vacation? Maybe the coconuts in fancy hotels was actually filled with Kool-aid. On the other hand, it wasn't salty, and it probably had vitamins. He drank it until the coconut was empty, setting it down on the bed. He might try to eat the flesh later... if he could stand it.
	“Thank you very much, Odile.” Michael said. “I needed that.”
	“You didn't look like you enjoyed it.”
	“I was very thirsty. I will take what I can get.”
	“If you're hungry, you can eat the yellow hand.” She pointed to the bananas. “I'm going to swim around looking for something for myself. If I find more, I can bring them to you, but...” She gestured to his backpack. “I could bring back more if I had something to hold the food in.”
	Michael grew nervous as she directed her attention at his backpack. “Oh, I've already got stuff in there.”
	“Food?”
	“No, something else.”
	“Does it have to stay in that thing?”
	Michael sighed. This woman didn't even know the word 'banana.' What was he nervous about? Michael hoisted the backpack to the bed and opened it. He pulled out twelve bricks of white powder, each a precisely measured kilogram.
	“What is that?” Odile asked. “Is this that 'snow' thing I've heard about?”
	Go ahead and say it, Michael. Tell her it's cocaine. It won't mean anything to her. She certainly doesn't know what cocaine is, despite living in the general proximity of Miami. She doesn't even have a nose!
	“It's flour.” He lied. He saw her turn her head out the window to look at some wild swamp blossom. “Not that kind of flower. It's used to make bread, but I can't eat it like this. Besides, it's worth a lot of money...” His sentence trailed off, remembering where he was.
	“It's worth something everywhere but here.” Michael mumbled grimly.
	Michael showed Odile how the backpack worked, how to wear it, and how to operate the zipper. He noticed her glancing at his groin, seeing the same strange metal fastening device there. Odile put the backpack on and jumped into the water, swimming off into the swamp, the backpack briefly visible like a shark fin before vanishing into the muddy water.
	Returning into the hut, Michael decided he would eat a banana. He wanted them to last, depending how long he was out here and how much food Odile could find. He snapped one banana free from the stem and was about to peel it when he found himself staring at the fruit-hatted woman on the blue-and-white sticker.
	They didn't put the stickers on the bananas while they were still on the tree... did they?
	Michael peeled the sticker off the rubbery hide of the banana and looked for a place to stick it. He decided to affix the sticker to his wallet, now full of credit cards, bus passes, and some money... all of it as useless and worthless out here as the fast-food receipts he absent-mindedly crammed in there instead of discarding.
	He ate his unpleasantly starchy banana, looking around the hut for a garbage can before feeling like a total fool. He threw the peel out the hole in the wall he kept calling a 'window.' He contemplated the stalwart coconut again, not daring to try to cut it open with his flimsy Swiss Army knife, even if the flesh inside interested him. These things were very useful to Gilligan, but not to him. He could probably cut it in half and give it to Odile as a coconut bra... but he'd need a bigger coconut. Much bigger.
	Michael shook the thought from his head. Then again... for a man trapped on what was essentially a desert island, he at least had some company. The kind of pleasant company any derelict sailor would be happy to visit him in his solitude.
	Maybe she wasn't a mutant. Maybe she was a mermaid. Maybe this was what mermaids actually looked like, much to the disappointment of modern sensibilities. Maybe the brush under her bed was aspirational of a future with flowing red locks. Maybe a bra of two scallop shells would serve her better. He could picture it on her...
	Michael cursed at himself as he'd made himself hard again. He spent a while thinking about if she'd ever know if he'd taken care of it. He decided he should have some discipline. As it were, the only times he got horny was when she was here, in all her unique but unmistakable beauty, and when she wasn't, and his imagination wandered.
	If he really had no way of leaving this hut... this was not going to get easier.

Chapter 5: Croc Open a Cold One

	Michael was starting to get just a touch bored, stranded out here in the swamp. He was deprived of even so much as a ball to bounce against the wall like... whatever that movie was. In every direction, there was nothing to look at but trees, algae, reeds, grasses, and lots of muddy water. No direction looked any different from another. The only thing in the swamp he found interesting... was swimming back towards the hut.
	Odine had returned from a small hunting trip. She'd eaten a few fish while swimming to satisfy her hunger, but she returned with a very waterlogged backpack, bringing it to the deck with a wet plop. Odile's own nude body shimmered with moisture, and Michael looked away... for a moment. It was weird to see any woman emerge from the water and not have to mess with their hair. The water quickly left her impervious waterproof hide, with two stubborn oversized drops hanging from her nipples. 	She went inside the backpack and removed its contents. Inside were a few more coconuts, floating among... unopened aluminum cans of soda.
	“Where did you find these?” Michael asked.
	“Those are everywhere.” Odile shrugged. “I see those shiny things all the time.”
	“Unopened ones?”
	“No, usually they've been emptied.”
	“That's litter.” Michael checked the expiration date on the bottom of the can. It was in date. “On behalf of everyone from the city, I apologize that some people throw their garbage in your swamp.” He pulled the tab on the soda, and the resulting hiss and pop startled Odile, who tensed and pulled her fingers into an aggressive claw stance. “Sorry.” He said. Odile relaxed.
	Michael took a sip of the soda. It was warm as piss, and it was some off-brand soda he'd never heard of, but it was soda, a little taste of civilization. Odile looked puzzled; even  without eyebrows, she had a ridge of muscles in the same area that helped her express this confusion. It seemed strange that something edible was inside a metal can, like finding coconut milk in a bowling ball.
	“Do you want to try some?” He offered the can to her. She mimicked his puckered lips as she rocked the can towards her mouth. The beverage poured into her mouth. She lowered the can and coughed and made a 'bleah' sound.
	“You really drink that?” She looked at him slightly sideways.
	“That's what I think when you go in that stuff.” He pointed at the almost-equally brown muddy water that surrounded them. Michael noticed something as Odile kept grimacing. “Oh, my God, you lost a tooth!”
	Odile rose her upper lip. There was a tooth missing somewhere near where a human's canine might be, but most of her teeth looked like any other. “Yes, I did.”
	“I gave you one sip of soda and you're already losing teeth?”
	“This was from earlier, when I had fish. It's no big deal. It'll grow back.”
	Michael almost hoped it wouldn't. Not only did less teeth mean less things that could kill him if her mood soured unexpectedly... seeing her smile with the gap there was actually kind of cute.
	Michael took another swig. “You know that plastic thing with the six circles on it you have under your bed?”
	Odile looked nervous that he brought it up. “Yes...?” She said suspiciously. Retrieving it from under the bed, he took one of the unopened cans and jimmied the can back into the plastic ring.
	Odile scowled, offended by this pedestrian explanation. “Is THAT what that accursed thing is?” Michael nodded, removing the soda from the ring. She took the ring between her thumbs like a Cat's Cradle, looking down at it. “When I was small... I almost died when I got tangled in one of these. I didn't know what it was, but I'd seen it attack lots of other life in the swamp. I hung this dead one from a branch to scare intruders away from my home, but... I took it down when the city folk never seemed afraid of it. I reckon I know why now.”
	“Do you have a family?” Michael asked after another sip. He'd had to define some words for Odile, but this one took him by surprise. “Parents, siblings, relatives? Someone you grew up with who's... like you?”
	She grew still. “No one is like me.” She looked at her scaly hands. Michael scooted over and put his arm around her shoulder.
	“Do you know what a mermaid is?” She didn't respond. “They're half-human, half-fish. Ancient ships would crash because they were so beautiful, they would get distracted and crash into the rocks. Maybe that's what you are.”
	Odile scoffed. “Half-fish? I am no fish.” She said pointedly. “Fish are brainless slivers of meat that are designed to be eaten. They are prey. I am no prey.”
	“Ok, maybe you're not a mermaid, then.” Michael said. “But...” He looked down at her, her green eyes wide in the darkness. “I think that... I think you're beautiful.”
	A smile appeared on Odile's face, the gap in her teeth looking even cuter. “I think you're beautiful, too.”
	Whoa. Michael wasn't expecting that. Yes, his growing attraction to her was unusual, but then again, he was a lonely man who wasn't good with women even before he was stranded. But why wouldn't Odile prefer a man who looked more like her? Someone stronger than him, less pink and soft, and a better swimmer.
	They gazed into each other's eyes, and Odile reached up and rubbed Michael's pathetic three-day stubble. “I like this grassy stuff...”
	“It'll keep growing.” He smiled as the cold, slightly rough grip caressed his cheek and chin.
	“Oh, you must've learned something.” Odile smiled, looking at his crotch. Something else was growing, too.
	“Yeah, it's been a big day for both of us.” He discreetly adjusted himself. Odile wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Michael put his fingers on her cranium, stroking the scales.
	“Can you feel that?” He asked.
	“No.”
	He pulled his lips together and pressed them against the top of her head.
	“Can you feel that?”
	She left him in suspense for a few seconds before responding, “No.”
	Despite the less-than-romantic response, Michael slowly did something he'd never managed in the city: he coaxed a woman into her own bed, helping Odile to her feet and walking shoulder-to-shoulder to the straw thatch of her bed. She wrapped her arms around his torso, and pulled her feet around his shins.
	If Michael had paid attention in science class, the term 'amplexus' might have entered his mind. But if he'd done that, he might not be in the swamp, with the reptilian enchantress that swam in his thoughts, whether she was spooning him or not.

Chapter 6: Croc on the Wild Side

	Michael withdrew his knife and carved a new notch next to the previous ones, knowing Odile would widen it later with her mighty clawed finger. It was now day four of being trapped out in the swamp. Four days in this little hut not much bigger than a prison cell... but with more pleasant company.
	He bravely pointed his nose towards his underarm. He didn't have to get too close before he could smell himself. OK, there had to be something he could do about this, even out here.
	Michael pawed under the bed for the sand castle bucket underneath the bed and went out to the deck. He scooped a little water from the swamp into the bucket. As nearly opaque and muddy as the swamp water looked, inside the bucket, it was merely slightly gritty, with little particles of dirt and shredded leaves in it. He would certainly not drink it, but...
	As uncivilized as this little hut was, this was not the time of pirates. He would actually have to clean himself more than once a six-month voyage. He removed his boots and socks, his shirt, unfastened his belt and dropped his jeans. He thought about leaving his boxers on, but that region needed the most care of all. He stepped out of them, piling his clothes in a heap. Maybe Odile had the right idea with the overalls.
	Michael crouched down and scooped up a pailful of water, throwing it against his chest. He rubbed it around with his hands, quickly deciding to sacrifice the shirt to scrub the rest of him. He rubbed the T-shirt around his bare chest, up and down his arms, feeling the grime and dead skin lift from his body.
	Another pailful was poured over his head, his eyes and lips closed and his nose pinched shut to avoid letting any of it enter his mucus membranes. He wiped his face clean with the shirt before raking his fingers across his scalp to sling the sweat and salt out of his hair.
	Michael sighed. The wet, clammy feeling still hung on him in the humid air... but it wasn't the old, wet, clammy and rather dirty feeling he had before. This was the right move. And who knows, maybe Odile would be impressed.
	As if on cue, Odile's head popped out of the water like a gopher. Michael yelped and grabbed the sand castle bucket and placed it over his crotch. She hoisted herself out of the water by her forearms, his hands occupied at keeping his dignity. Odile looked him over, moving in closer. Michael valiantly tried not to stare at her nudity while in such a predicament.
	Odile grabbed the bucket and effortlessly pulled it from his fingers. His hands went over his groin, and his face went red. “Mine.” She said playfully. She entered her house, still wearing the backpack, water dribbling out all the corners and seams.
	Michael took his pile of dirty clothes into the house. Odile opened the backpack and pulled something out, a small piece of black fabric. “I found this. Maybe you could wear it.” She tossed it to him. He unfurled it to discover it was a black men's Speedo.
	This was not the swimwear of choice for Michael, but between this and putting those four-day-old boxers back on... he would chance it, even thinking this mysterious pair had been on some unknown man. He stepped into the leg holes and pulled them up. They were a bit snug, probably by design.
	Odile watched him dress from a short distance. “You have more of that grass...” She strode over and hooked her claw into the waistband of his Speedo, pulling it gently out and exposing a small patch of his crinkled pubic hair.
	“If I were more manly, I'd actually have some on my chest.” He rued as she pinched a sample of the hair between her fingers. It wasn't as soft as the hair on his head, or as satisfyingly brushlike as his facial hair. She released it, turning back to the contents of her backpack, unloading a few more coconuts. “Do you ever wish you could have your own hair?”
	“Hair?”
	For once, he wasn't going to drop it once she encountered a word she didn't know. “That's what the grass is called. It's hair. We mammals have it to stay warm.”
	She contemplated that for a moment, considering the fussy coir on the husk of one of her coconuts. “The sun and water keep me warm.” She answered. “And now, so do you.”
	“What about the brush under the bed?”
	“The what?”
	Michael got down and grabbed the old hairbrush from under the bed. “This.”
	“That's for hair?” She said. “I was using that to scratch myself. My claws are too sharp for that. Also... it's pink. I like that color. There's so little on my water that's pink.” Michael wondered if she was warming up to him as his skin grew more pink from the inevitable sunburn he would get.
	Seeing something else pink in her hands, he pointed. “What's that?”
	“It's the other swimclothes I found.” Odile said. “They weren't using them. They were on the shoreline naked, and she must have been teaching him a lot, because his second brain had grown a lot.” Michael felt the fire of inadequacy roar in his heart. Even with a good-sized member, no male mind could withstand the notion of an unseen one a woman had just described with admiration.
	“Are you going to wear it?” Michael asked.
	Odile considered the swimsuit, looked at him bashfully, and crumpled it into a ball and threw it to the bed. “No, I'll just put that on.” She said, referring to her overalls.
	“Why not? You're obviously not shy. You walk around naked all the time.”
	Odile turned her head. “Well... you always look away when I'm naked. But you were looking at me real hard when I had that on. So... I reckon you think I look better when I'm covered up.”
	Was this that 'male gaze' thing he heard about on the Internet and tried talking about to pick up chicks? (It didn't work.) Only under his eyes for a few days and her self-esteem has crumbled. Those pictures of decidedly non-reptilian women on the covers of magazines... actually, with Photoshop, some of them did look pretty darn weird.
	“I've never had a guest long enough to really get to know me, you know, because I ate all my other visitors, but... it's clear you think I'm weird and gross. And I get it. I'm not like you city folk—”
	Odile didn't finish her sentence before Michael wrapped his arms around her, holding her bare chest to his, her scales digging uncomfortably into his soft skin. He caressed the hard tissue, unsure she could even feel it. Her breasts squished against his bare chest, as soft as their mammalian counterpart.
	Michael caught his breath as Odile nervously placed her hands on his back. “I think...” He whispered into her ears, a part of her he hadn't considered yet. They were like human ears, but affixed almost entirely flat against her head, probably to keep her streamlined in the water. “I think you are so beautiful. And I hope you never doubt your beauty again for a single second.”
	Michael pulled his face up to hers, resting his nose against her noselike snout. They stared into each other's eyes, her vertical pupils wide and her brow soft with confused joy. She looked like she might cry, but she did not. If she did, of course, Michael couldn't be sure that she meant it, based on the adage regarding that variety of tear.
	“You know... I reckon you're a pretty good-looking fella yourself.” She said.
	“Me? You don't want someone more... like you?”
	“There is no one like me. Growin' up, I saw lots of men and boys from a distance. That's what I saw, so that's what I grew up liking. So yeah, you're... what do you city folk say? You're my type.” Michael felt his heart pound and his cheeks burn. Odile looked down. “You're learning a lot today.”
	“I sure am.” He said, a quiver appearing in his voice. “May I kiss you?” 
	“No.” She smiled crookedly, that missing tooth from yesterday already back in its proper place. “I'm kissing you first.” She put her claws in his hair and pulled him forward. They kissed, Odine's lips cold and slippery, yet still soft. He took her head in his hands, rubbing her smaller neck scales. Michael stepped in and pressed his groin against hers. Maybe she'd finally get the hint and realize he lied about the second brain thing.
	Michael parted his lips to slide his tongue into her mouth, but thought better of it. Odile looked confused. He asked her to stick her tongue out, but she could barely get it past her teeth, as it was attached to the roof of her mouth.
	French kissing seemed to be out, but that was OK. Michael hoped he wasn't going to find teeth or spires or something else intrusive somewhere else. They smiled as they separated, Odile recovering that swimsuit from the bed.
	Odile pulled the top over her shoulders and sliding her legs into the bottoms, catching her scales a few times before it reached the proper position on her hips. The top consisted of two triangles held together with thin pink fabric, and the bottom was a small thong-style bottom in a deep Y-cut, allowing her tail to move freely.
	“I love pink.” She said, looking down to her body with a bit of confidence. She took a seat on the bed. Michael sat beside her. He handed her a coconut, and she broke a hole in the husk effortlessly with her thumb. Luckily, Michael was not emasculated asking his girl to open a jar for him.
	He took a sip of the water from the fuzzy hole and watched Odile pull a pile of round dumpling-shaped things out of the bottom of the backpack. She popped one in her mouth like a marshmallow, swallowing it without chewing.
	“What are those?” He asked.
	“Oh, how rude of me. Here you go.” She handed him... a wet rock, about the size of a quarter.
	Maybe it wasn't actually a rock. “What is it?” He inquired.
	“It's a rock.”
	It was a rock. “I can't eat rocks, Odile.”
	“Really?” She plucked the rock from his open palm, not quite as fast as David Carradine, and tossed it in her mouth like a piece of popcorn.
	Despite the wilting condition of his second brain, Michael really was learning a lot. He wished he could text his friend and tell her he finally got a girl. She's tall, athletic, green eyes, real chill, she loves to swim, loves sushi, she's got her own place out by the water...
	And best of all, she swallows.

Chapter 7: New Kids on the Croc

	Michael was on his back looking up at the sun, broken up into patterns by the canopy of the trees overhead. He heard the wind blowing the humid air about, the bugs fluttering around, something splashing around in the water that apparently hadn't learned to stay clear of this hut yet. He was shirtless, his head on his left hand, wearing the Speedo under his jeans.
	Odile was on her stomach, in her brand-new stolen bikini and her old straw hat. She would appear to be tanning, but her robust green skin would surely never tan. Michael had gotten tanned as he stayed here, spending enough time inside to avoid burning. If she could somehow find sunscreen, that would be ideal. Evidently, she'd been close enough to some form of beach to get soda and two poor people's bathing suits... unless it had all been washed out to her.
	Michael didn't regret the choices that led him to the swamp. He regretted not learning a musical instrument. He could break out his guitar or harmonica and fill the swamp with music. Maybe the banjo would have been more thematically appropriate.
	This time had really helped Michael appreciate the peace and solitude of the swamp. And the very moment he thought that, Odile jumped up from the floor, poised on all fours, craning her head around.
	“What's wrong?” Michael sat up.
	“Someone's coming.” She hissed. “Go inside.”
	He hesitated. “Maybe you should go inside and let me deal with him.”
	Odile looked at him sideways. “What are you going to do to him?”
	“Nothing! That's the point. Maybe we shouldn't kill everyone who goes through here.”
	“If he means us harm, he can hurt you easier than me.”
	“Who do you think he'll be more confused to see out here?”
	Odile broke her eye contact, sighed, took her hat off and hung it on the pier hook near the door. She jumped into the water like a pencil, vanishing into the water with minimum ripples. He imagined she would watch and listen to what went down from below the hut, her eyes and ears just above the water's edge.
	A minute passed with no obvious boats or other vessels appearing. Michael was about to call down to Odile that she must have imagined it, but then he caught the shimmering white of a fiberglass rowboat cutting through the muddy waters.
	The S.S. Wet Dream approached the hut. Michael was fairly sure you didn't give names to rowboats, but whatever, it's your property. A man in a Yankees jersey rowed while facing away from the front of the boat. (Was that how you were supposed to do it?) As it got closer, he looked over his shoulder and he recognized the man.
	Maybe he should have had Odile do the negotiation after all. This was Peter “Pistol Pete” Hogan, someone he wasn't that thrilled to see. He was a man about six-foot-two, overweight, with a buzz cut and a small gap between his front teeth.
	Pete looked over his shoulder and saw the hut, and Michael. “Mike?” He asked.
	“Hey, Peter.” He waved. “Am I glad to see a familiar face.”
	“What the hell are you doing out here?” Peter asked, trying to maneuver the boat to the dock.
	“My boat sank.” This felt like the start of one of those conversations where everything he said would be a lie, or at least not the whole truth. “I've been stranded for days.”
	“Well, that's not what they said back at the pool hall.” Peter said. “There's a bounty on you for running off with all the product.”
	“I did not run off with it. I've still got it. I just couldn't make the meeting. You can take it all back to them.”
	Peter lived up to his name, pulling his pistol out of his waistband. “I think you're coming with me, too.”
	Michael put his hands up. “I'd be happy to! I just told you I'm stranded! I want to go home! Just put the gun down!”
	“Show me the product's still here and I'll think about it.”
	“Please, just put the gun away.” Michael pleaded. He was not afraid of being shot, but he was afraid what Odile would do if he didn't stop threatening him.
	The fiberglass boat started to rock. Two hands reached out of the water and pulled on the fore of the boat. Peter screamed, jumping back to the rising aft of the boat. “It's Swamp Thing!”
	“Grab my hand!” Michael reached from the dock and offered his arm to Peter, who accepted it. He jumped to the dock, and the hands left the rim of the boat.
	“Where is it?!” Peter shouted, pointing the gun towards the water.
	“Don't shoot!” Michael screamed, louder than he meant to, grabbing the barrel of the gun and pulling it away from the water.
	“What the hell is your problem?!” Peter tried to get the gun back, but Michael shoved it upwards so it struck Peter across the nose. He released the gun and grabbed his nose.
	Odile burst out of the water and climbed up to the dock. She glared at Peter, who didn't even scream this time. Swamp Thing was a girl... and wore pink bikinis.
	Odile put her claws around Peter's neck. Matthew rose the gun to Odile. “Don't kill him!” He pleaded.
	Turning towards the gun with disgust, Odile swiped it out of his hand, scratching the top of his hand accidentally as she did. “How dare you point this at me?!” She hissed, throwing the gun like a boomerang, twirling sideways as it flew a huge distance before smashing into a tree and sinking into the swamp.
	“I'm sorry, I just don't want you to kill--” They were interrupted as Peter got free and pulled out a second pistol and fired it at Odile.
	The sound reverberated all across the swamp. All the nearby birds made a hasty retreat into the sky. As the sound faded, all three were still standing. Odile had barely pulled her arm in front of her face, the bullet stopping against her rigid scales.
	Peter lowered the gun in shock, but not quick enough to avoid Odile ripping it out of his fingers and throwing it into the swamp. Peter didn't get his finger out of the trigger guard in time, and his finger dislocated at the second metacarpal.
	He screamed, folding around the wounded finger. “You broke my hand!”
	“You tried to kill me!” She bellowed. She turned back sharply at Michael, her head moving so quickly, it would have tossed her hair about if she had any. “Are you satisfied? I didn't kill him!”
	“What the hell's going on here, Mike?” Peter called out from inside the hut.
	“I didn't know he had two guns! They don't call him Pistols Pete, plural!”
	“Is this thing your wife, Mikey? Why are you talking to it?”
	“Shut up, Peter, or I'll send her in here to eat you, crotch-first!” Michael yelled. “She'll do it, too! Ain't that right?”
	Odile's attention had been distracted for a moment. There was a suitcase sitting in the boat. She turned around, lifting it with her tail and pulling it off the boat. She dropped it on her bed.
	“What do you have in here?” She didn't understand the locking mechanism, so Michael opened it.
	Inside the old leather suitcase... was more cocaine. Ten kilos of it.
	Michael turned to Pistol-less Pete. “You were out here to make a deal, too?”
	Peter looked back. “Yeah...”

Chapter 8: Detroit Croc City

	It hadn't been the neatest way for Michael to introduce his girlfriend, but a few minutes of calming breaths, awkward introductions, and a flimsy attempt at first aid for Peter's finger followed. Peter's finger was now between two sticks held together with one of his shoelaces. He sat on the bed as the others stood before him.
	“They told me to go down this river, go through the swamp, and I'd reach a clearing where they'd meet me to make the exchange. That way, the cops would never know about it.”
	“That's exactly what they told me.” Michael said. “Did you get lost, too?”
	“No, man, I got GPS on my phone. This is the right way, but I ran into you guys first.”
	Michael was now suspicious, but not of Peter. “Odile, you don't have any of the effects from the people you ate, do you? Anything that could be used to ID someone?”
	“No.” She responded. “If I didn't need it, or couldn't eat it, I threw the rest out into the swamp.”
	“What about the guns?” Michael persisted. “Where would they be?”
	“I just dropped them out back. I don't need them. They're nothing but trouble.”
	“Could they still be there?”
	“Maybe.” Odile jumped into the water.
	“Mikey, what the hell is she?” Peter asked, now that she was out of earshot.
	“She's my friend.” Michael answered. “She usually kills trespassers, but not me. Peter, can you think of which members of the gang have disappeared or run off recently?”
	Peter rolled his eyes back, thinking, unable to tap his shaved skull as he did when he was thinking. “Laces Luciano, Second Matt, Dig Doug, Golden Sal, Donnie...” He thought harder. “Whistles, Casper... there's been a lot lately, not counting those who got pinched.”
	A cold silence fell on the muggy hut. “I'm sorry about your brother, Mikey. He got totally railroaded. It's bull.”
	“He did the crime, now he's doing the time.” Michael said shortly.
	“At least he's alive.” Peter shrugged.
	Odile emerged from the water, holding a gun by the barrel. “This was the only one I could see.” She pulled herself back onto the dock and brought the gun inside. It was a custom made Desert Eagle with ivory inserts on the handle carved in the shape of a naked woman. The rest of the gun... was gold.
	“Golden Sal...” Peter looked horrified. “You killed Golden Sal?!”
	“I killed and ate the person who trespassed on my swamp, and then tried to hurt me with this horrible thing.” Odile said shamelessly. “If that was Golden Sal, whoever that was, then yes, I did.”
	“You stupid monster! He had two kids!” Peter spat.
	The word 'monster' hit Michael like a dagger, hurting him more than Odile. He jumped to the defensive. “Shut up, Peter. Maybe she's a predator, but Sal killed people for money. He was practically on Florida's Ten Most Wanted list.  He was a monster, too.”
	“Too?” Odile looked at him with a confused, betrayed look.
	If ever Michael could take back just a single word, that would be it. He had no response to that, avoiding her hurt, green-eyed gaze.
	“I think...” Michael muttered grimly. “that we were sent here on purpose... to encounter Odile... so she would kill and eat us, so the mob could get rid of us.”
	A long pause. “That's hard to believe.” Peter said.
	Michael pulled out his Swiss Army knife. He punctured one of the parcels of cocaine he was sent into the swamp with. He scooped a tiny portion of the valuable substance onto the wide plane of the knife, tapped it onto his fingertip and tasted it.
	Once the powder touched his lips, Michael started to breathe harder. His chest rose as he huffed, the knife falling from his hand as it rubbed across his scalp from front to back. He held his head as if it would fall off without the support.
	“It's flour.” He wheezed.
	Odile blinked. “Yes.” She nodded.
	“It's flour.” He repeated, grabbing the parcel he had sampled.
	“Yes, that's what you said it was.”
	He charged out the door, a trail of “cocaine” dribbling on the wet wood like the gunpowder leaking from a conveniently low-holed barrel in a cartoon. He threw the parcel at the nearest tree, the packet exploding into a cloud of white.
	“It's fucking flour!!” He hollered to the heavens.
	“Michael, what's the problem?” Odile followed him out.
	“I lied when I said it was flour, OK?” Michael turned 180 degrees on his heel. “I didn't want to tell you it was drugs. My brother used to work for this gang, mafia, whatever they are, but now he's in prison. So they said they'd have someone kill my brother in prison unless I helped them do this deal. But apparently, it was all a trick just to send me here so that you would kill me. And they weren't going to throw away a quarter-mil of cocaine for no reason when flour's fifty cents a pound.”
	Odile looked off, at the white spot on the tree where the flour had stuck to the moist trunk. “I'm glad I didn't kill you then. It's a good thing you said you were a virgin.”
	“You're a virgin?!” Peter laughed from inside the hut.
	“Oh, tell the whole swamp, why don't ya?” Michael cried back.
	“Someone out there... in the city... knew about me?” Odile asked nobody in particular.
	“You didn't know they were sending people out here on purpose?”
	Odile shook her head.
	“They used you, sweetheart.” Peter had stood up and joined them on the dock. “You were their garbage can.”
	A pause. Odile's tail swung slowly as she thought. “What now?” She asked.
	“Peter, you should go back to the city.”
	“How? I'm not rowing upstream the whole way.”
	“Go downstream. There's something down that way.”
	“How do you know?”
	Michael looked at Odile sideways. “Because that's where Odile was getting my food.” She turned her head towards him. “Those bananas you found... yeah, bananas do grow in Florida, but not Chiquita bananas with the sticker on them. You've been taking this from somewhere where there some form of civilization. So, I don't think we're as remote as you led me to believe.”
	“All right, it's true.” Odile admitted. “There's a settlement downswamp quite a ways. But I didn't tell you for two reasons. One, you didn't have a boat.”
	“You sunk my boat!” Michael said. “I just realized, I rented that boat. That's going to cost me a fortune!”
	“Two...” She held out two clawed fingers. “It doesn't matter if you had the boat, because the only way I know how to get there is through a narrow water pipe. It's only a few inches wider than my shoulders, upwater, and you'd never make it through. You might be able to find something when you reach the big water, what do you call it—the ocean—maybe you could get there from the ocean, but...” she held up her claws, palms vertical, like there was something at the buffet she didn't like. “I don't do oceans. It's far too deep.”
	“Why don't you show me the way?” Peter suggested to Odile.
	“I'm not going anywhere with you if Michael's not coming with me.”
	“Then how would I get back? He has the only boat. What, am I going to ride on your back?”
	Peter sighed. “Alright, I'll just keep going downstream until I reach the ocean or see something like a road. I still have my phone, so I'll just wait until I get a signal and I'll know I'm near something.”
	Peter packed up his parcel of fake drugs and sat back down in his boat. “Are you coming, Mikey?”
	Michael looked back to Odile, whose lips were pulled together tightly, arms folded below her breasts. “No.” He said. “I'm going to stay here for now.”
	Peter looked at him, trying to keep eye contact as the gentle waves rose and lowered his sight-line. “Why? Why stay here? You have no provisions and no way home. I can't promise I'm coming back to get you.”
	“I'll be fine.” Michael insisted.
	With an unconvinced grunt, Peter looked over to Odile. “It's been a pleasure making your acquaintance, young lady.”
	“You, too, Peter.”
	“I'm sorry I almost shot you.”
	“You did, in fact, shoot me.”
	“Well, I'm sorry for that, too.” Peter started to row off, down the stream and hopefully, to return to civilization.
	For a little while, the swamp was covered in a cold silence. Odile had returned to her bed, sitting on one end, her tail back in her lap. It was like she was expecting Michael to sit next to her without saying anything.
	Eventually, Michael did so, sitting next to her without actually touching her.
	“Am I a monster?” She asked quietly.
	Michael looked at her, and their eyes met. She wore a gentle frown. Her pupils were wide, her brow low. It pained him to see her look so sad. The word 'monster' was nowhere on his mind, but the word 'angel' fluttered around.
	And yet...
	“Odile... if you are like a monster in any way... it might be in how quickly you can be provoked to kill someone for entering your swamp.”
	“They're trespassing. They're on my water.”
	“Well, they don't know that. But you're not a wild animal. And they are people with lives and human rights. Maybe you should just let them pass through.”
	“Am I supposed to let them hurt me or shoot at me?”
	“Oh, hell no.” Michael shook his head. “Then you go ahead and protect yourself, and if that includes killing them, so be it. And then, if you want to eat them, that's fine, too. At least you're not killing for sport like a hunter. But if someone doesn't mean you any harm, leave them be.”
	“But that's just it, isn't it?” Odile shook her head. “Once city folk see me, it's their natural reaction to try to hurt or kill me. Just like the second you had the gun in your hand, you pointed it right at me.”
	“I'm so sorry about that, Odile. I swear I wasn't going to shoot you. I just panicked. You're so tough, and I'm weak and soft and stupid.”
	“I thought you were different from the others...” Odile pouted.
	“I am, I swear!” Michael had an idea. “You know how you broke Peter's finger on the gun?” He picked up Golden Sal's hideously gaudy gun to demonstrate. “It was because he had his finger on the trigger here. This is what fires the gun, this finger switch down here. When you jerked it out of his hands, his finger got caught in the trigger guard and you broke it.”
	Michael set down the gun and showed Odile his hands. Other than the diagonal scratches on his hands, all his fingers were intact. “I did not have my finger on the trigger. I really wasn't going to shoot you. I just didn't want you to kill him.”
	Odile looked at the scratch on his hands, holding them tenderly. “I didn't... mean to hurt you...” She said softly.
	“I know you didn't. It's OK.” He put his hand around her and pulled her close. “I swear, I never meant to hurt you.”
	They rested there for a few moments, both breathing hard, trying to control their emotions. At some point soon after, maybe it was seconds, maybe a minute, but not long after, they were kissing as passionately as their incompatible teeth and tongues allowed. They held each other's heads, Odile gently running her webbed fingers through his sweaty hair.
	Falling over onto the bed, Michael maneuvered his way on top. He licked the soft tissue of her neck and shoulders before pulling the bikini off her right breast and planting his lips on it. He circled the nipple with his tongue as his other hand clutched at the other breast. Suckling and ticking it, the nipple grew hard and swelled in his mouth as he sucked it.
	Odile pressed her breasts together around his face, and she rubbed his face against the soft, yet slightly leathery flesh. His hand slipped downward, past her belly button and underneath her bikini bottoms.
	One finger found the cold aperture between her legs, and a second finger followed it inside. Odile let out a shocked moan as he pushed his fingers in and out before pressing them in all the way in, up to his knuckle. He pressed upwards, against the uppermost wall of her insides. Odile's breath grew faster and her moans louder as she worked his fingers inside her, her head rocking back and her tail waving about unevenly.
	Odile gasped and held it, her only body movement secondary motion from Michael's hand. Her eyes closed, she looked very close to the edge, so Michael sped up his fingers. She was motionless for a solid minute, her tits shaking gently in time with his motion. He slowed down, looking over to her.
	Her head came back up like a turtle's emerging from its shell. “Don't stop.” She panted, and brought her head back down and kept her breath held. Michael kept going, as hard as he felt she'd be comfortable with. He brought his head back towards her breasts and licked her tits, taking each nipple gently between his teeth and pulling them up away from her ribs until their weight pulled them back to her.
	Odile let out a single loud orgasmic grunt, followed by several cute, dizzy moans. Michael's fingers gently slowed to a stop, easily sliding out of her, a single gossamer thread of crystal fluid hanging between the two fingers, shimmering with moisture.
	Michael moved to get on top of Odile, but she grabbed him and threw him down to the bed first, spreading out on top of him. She looked really happy.
	“You...” She purred. “could have done that this whole time?”
	Wow. Somehow, everything about Odile somehow turned out more confusing than the question of her creation or existence, even sex.
	“I suppose I could have.”
	“Why'd you wait?” She asked. “That was fun.”
	Michael's boner throbbed expectantly in his jeans, the Speedo probably the only reason he didn't have a massive dark dot where the tip of his penis threatened to tear out of them like the Incredible Hulk. “Yes, it was.” Odile kissed his neck and came to rest atop him, her tits pressed against his chest and thumping heart.
	He waited her to make some sort of comment about how much his second brain had grown, and how much they learned that day. But she was fast asleep, her cold-blooded metabolism exhausted by that orgasm.
	Michael shouldn't be upset. This was the furthest he'd ever gotten, and he got her to come with just his fingers. That was pretty good for the first attempt, right?
	Life in the swamp wasn't fair.

Chapter 9: We Will Croc You

	Michael woke up on the straw bed... alone. Odile was nowhere to be found. He rolled off the bed, a few bits of straw sticking to his bare sweat-streaked back. He scratched his hair and walked out to the dock. He didn't notice anything outside that would indicate she was out there.
	Isn't that just like a woman? You think everything's going great, and once you finger her, they leave. Why buy the bull when they can have the steak?
	Michael would not be discouraged. He went inside to the 'fridge,' which was just the corner of the hut that was most often in shadow, where he grabbed a banana and a cola. Letting his feet enter the water, he sat and ate his breakfast of champions, trying to estimate what time it actually was by the height of the sun.
	Something grabbed at his foot from under the water. Michael pulled his foot out of the water and stood, looking down at the water. Out of the murky water, Odile's face appeared, parting her lips into a mischievous smile.
	“So you're not afraid of water after all.” She said, taking Michael's offered arm and climbing up to the dock. “After so long, I started to wonder if you could swim at all.”
	“Everyone from Florida can swim.” Michael defended. “I just don't know where I'd go.” Odile took off the backpack, which hit the dock with a thud. “What'd you get this time?”
	“Since you figured out where I was getting your food, I thought you could use this.” She unzipped the bag to reveal a white scuba tank. “If you... ever wanted to swim with me.”
	The scuba tank had no regulator, mouthpiece, hose or any other essential parts to be used in scuba diving. If it weren't for the shoulder straps, he might think it was full of helium.
	“That's very nice of you... but that's not the whole device. I can't actually use that to stay underwater.”
	Odile considered the device again. Michael figured she'd seen enough of those in her life, but not enough to have noticed that detail. “Oh.” She grunted, disappointed. 
	“It doesn't matter.” Michael said, bringing his hand to her arm. “I was more of a pool-party kind of swimmer. I didn't even like the pool at the high school. Way too much chlorine.”
	“Chlorine?”
	“It's a harsh chemical they put in pools to kill microorganisms and keep it clean.”
	Odile looked down to the water. Her hand went to the back of her neck. “Does chlorine kill things that are... bigger?”
	Michael caught her drift, chuckling. “Are you asking... if you could live in a pool? Like... maybe my pool?”
	“I know you can't stay out here forever.” She said, hands coming together in front of her. She looked up at him, vertical pupils widening. “And we're probably a long way from where you live...”
	Michael moved around Odile and hugged her. “I don't have a pool anymore. I never did. My granddad had it, and he's long gone. I live in an apartment. Besides, it doesn't matter. I still have no way out of here. You sunk my boat.”
	“I sunk it...” She said. “But I didn't destroy it. I just pulled it under the water so it wouldn't float. I could get it back, if you wanted.” Odile huffed a little. “I don't want you to stay here just because you're stuck. I want you to stay because you want to stay.”
	Michael kissed her gently. “I'm sure I can stay a little while longer. If I need to leave, you can get the boat back for me.”
	Their kisses grew less gentle, more aggressive. Odile held his upper arms firmly, keeping her claws off his flesh to avoid scratching him. They pulled in closer, spinning in place, Odile's tail slapping against the hut as the turned. Michael tried to shuffle her closer to the bed, but she extended and arm and took hold of the door frame.
	“I had a different idea.” She pulled playfully on his arm to lead him into the water. “I feel this... need to do this in the water. How long can you hold your air?”
	Michael rightly assumed she meant 'breath.' He guessed he could hold it for a minute, but not while doing something physically strenuous. “Not as long as you.”
	“We can't have one of us in the water and the other not.” Odile kept gently coaxing him towards the end, and just as quickly released him as her claw reached her chin in thought. “Unless...”
	Odile stretched out on her back, her head and neck over the edge of the dock. She rolled her neck down and her head vanished under the water, like she was at a salon and the stylist was rinsing her hair and she went too far.
	Alarmed, Michael pulled her up out of the water by her shoulders. Odile looked at him, a little annoyed.
	“What?” She asked.
	“Is that safe?” Michael retorted with his own question.
	One of Odile's hairless eyebrow ridges rose. “Is it safe for me to go under the water?” She spelled out his question.
	Michael felt quite foolish. “OK, you're right. But maybe we should have a safe word or something.”
	“How would I say it?” Michael felt his face redden. He brought her scaly hand to his arm. “It's OK. I'm happy that you are concerned about me.” She smiled, a few teeth visible. “Just... do that thing you did last night.” She tipped her head back and it sunk under the water, clutching the edge of the dock with her fingers.
	Nervously at first, Michael's fingers rubbed Odile's mound through her bikini bottoms. He didn't notice any change in her body language, so he tucked his fingers in and entered her slit. She tensed a bit, her tail still for a moment before resuming its gentle sway. Michael coaxed his fingers in deeper, in and out, slowly. He parted his fingers like a pair of scissors, and then back together. Odile's tail started to wave along with the movement, like a passenger's hand hanging out a car window, waving up and down with the flow.
	Michael's fingers gradually got faster, his free hand rubbing her abdominal muscles on their way to gently massage her breasts. He gently turned her nipples in his fingers like a radio dial. His fingers got faster still, and Odile's tail slapped against the floor. If Odile was trying to give him a signal, it was probably, “Keep going.” He went faster for a few seconds, then slower, then much faster. Odile's tail whapped against the dock a few times, and she dug eight scratch marks into it with her claws.
	At the moment, Michael felt more like a mechanic than a lover. He wanted to be more deeply involved. He retrieved his fingers, using both hands to pull her bottoms to her knees. He ducked his head under the bottoms holding her knees together like someone swooping under the velvet ropes in line at the bank.
	Odile had made it clear that she loved pink, a color not seen much in the swamp. As it turns out, pulling it apart gently with both thumbs.... there was a little pink in the swamp all this time. And it wasn't her bathing suit. It was inside her all this time.
	Michael held her up by the torso, her legs over his shoulders, her tail waving in the air uncertainly. His mouth went between her legs and made contact with her. His tongue parted the lips and entered the cool fold. Michael moved his arms so he could support her left leg with his elbow, his hand free to massage the small hood at the peak of the slit.
	Odile's torso writhed rhythmically, making waves as her legs pulled tighter against his shoulders, her feet folding together. Michael would teach her the advantages presented by a tongue that was not affixed to the roof of the mouth... and blunt teeth.
	Odile clutched the edge of the dock again, digging eight new deep scratches in its edge. She involuntarily let out some air, letting bubbles hit the surface.
	Startled, Michael pulled her out of the water and brought her to the dock, as gently as a head-first approach allowed. “Are you OK?”
	Odile's eyes were half-open, her pupils wide. Her lips gently came together, verging on pouting as she blew a satisfied sigh. She balled her fists and stretched her arms over her head. She looked Michael dead-on. She seemed to have that 'glow' that the fashion magazines always talked about on the covers.
	Instead of responding, Odile slithered over and kissed Michael on the lips, taking as long as she could to pull her lips away. “That was nice.” She whispered, a bit hoarsely. But there were no horses here.
	“That was.” He said. Michael was aroused, uncomfortably so in the Speedo that was now his underwear. But... even after several days without release, he was fine. Is this that feeling called 'emotional maturity,' where it's OK for your partner to have an orgasm, but not you? They don't talk about that on the magazine covers.
	“Should I rustle you up some breakfast?” She gently traced the claw on her pointer fingers along his thickening beard. “I could get you one of those spine-apples you city folk like.”
	“Pineapple, Odile.” He corrected.
	“Oh.” Odile looked off for a moment. “I thought I had that one right. It's got spines on it.”
	“You're right, of course. I think I'll call it that from here on.” He shrugged. “Just like Apple Jacks, it doesn't even taste like apple.”
	“Like what?”
	OK, Michael couldn't honestly expect her to get an admittedly dated pop culture reference. “Never mind.”
	Odile stood at the edge of the dock and turned back to him. She smiled. “See ya later.” She said, diving into the water and swimming off, little waves parting from her body as they passed the scutes on her back.
	When she was gone, Michael pumped his fist into the air. His girlfriend was going to feed him pineapple. Could she know the implications of pineapple, and its assigned properties to male emissions? Was she preparing him for this? Was she going to return the favor?
	Unbridled enthusiasm gave way for sudden panic. As much as the sight of Odile's smile made his heart swell like a teenager checking out the grad-student substitute's bare legs, that didn't change that her jaw might as well have been filled with X-Acto knives for how hospitable an environment it was. It was a jaw not meant even meant for chewing, but ripping limbs from the body and swallowing whole to be digested.
	Michael relaxed a bit. If Odile meant him harm, she could rip him apart. His soft, meaty and possibly delicious body was always hers to eat if she wanted, as easily as if he sat in a cookie jar or was naked, on a roasting pan with an apple in his mouth. But here she was, spending time getting him food to keep him alive...
	Alive and fatty? Soda makes you fat, surely, but bananas and coconuts? Could she be fattening him up to eat him? With how little he was eating out here, he was probably losing weight, if slowly. If she really meant to make him fatter, she'd have to work much harder. Then again, he kept showing off his 'second brain' getting bigger. Maybe she intended to get it as large as possible before eating it, an idea he liked up until that last part.
	Michael let the contradicting thoughts go. He's got a beautiful friend with benefits who's out shopping for him. Life was good. He took a seat on the bed and sighed. She'd be back soon, and then they'd see where things would go.
	And he sighed and waited for her to return only a few minutes after she'd left.

Chapter 10: Croc Around the Clock

	Michael woke up to find himself alone again. This wasn't too surprising. Maybe she'd come and gone in the night. Nothing had interrupted his sleep this night, not even any troublesome mosquitoes. Out here, mosquitoes were about the size of helicopters, threatening to drain you completely like a vampire with one thrust of their sword-like beak.
	The floor didn't have any wet footprints, either. In the humidity, the water on the deck remained there like drops of water on a car hood. Most telling... there was nothing new nor missing in the hut. His provisions still numbered only three coconuts (useless to him unless he could open them), one last banana and a few cans of soda.
	Michael looked out towards the swamp. He didn't see her in the distance, which wasn't too far, admittedly. The haze made seeing in the far distance difficult.
	So... Michael waited. He sat around for a while, waiting for her return. He decided, what the hell, he's got three empty coconuts of about the same size and nothing but time, why not learn to juggle?
	After a few hours, he'd mastered the art of two-coconut juggling, which mostly consisted of throwing one high enough in the air that he could pass the other in the time the first was airborne. Introducing that third one was too much, especially since the coconuts were too big to have two in his hand at once.
	And Odile still hadn't come back. At this point, he'd have been happy to have her return just to be disappointed in his lack of juggling prowess. But she still hadn't returned.
	Michael was getting hungry, but wanted to save the banana, as it was his last bit of food. Maybe now was the time to get inside those coconuts and eat the flesh inside that kept Tom Hanks alive in Cast Away. He was something of a castaway, after all, except his Helen Hunt was out on the island, not back home.
	Or she was. Not right now. But soon.
	As impotent as Odile's claws made his Swiss Army knife look in comparison, he still hesitated trying to use it to cut open the coconut. He looked for something to bash the hollow coconut open with, but everything in this hut was made of mostly damp wood or softer. The coconut was the hardest thing in this thing... except the air canister she'd brought in.
	In what was definitely not the recommended use of this device, he rolled the canister out of the corner and struck the coconut against it with a glancing blow. He could have lifted the air canister to smash the coconut, but he envisioned that putting a hole right through the floor. Counter to the baseball expression, after three strikes, he was in, a fissure forming large enough for him to get his hand inside and break the coconut apart.
	He scraped coconut flesh from the husk with his knife, eating the meat within. It was super gross, but he was not about to be picky. He ate every bit of the fruit he could get off, and threw the husk shrapnel out into the swamp.
	And Odile still hadn't come back.
	Now full, he just waited. She really couldn't be gone much longer... could she?
	Michael waited for the sun to turn from blue to the barest orange-yellow. She was still not home. Something had gone wrong. Could she have fallen prey to some superior predator? That was preposterous. Nothing in the swamp could stand up to her, not even men. Certainly, he was weak to her charms.
	What could he do? He couldn't even leave this damn hut; he had no boat. Well, he had one, but it was at the bottom of the swamp, only a few feet out.
	Michael took off his jeans, leaving just some other dude's Speedos. Had he ever really reconciled the fact that his junk was touching the stuff that touched some other dude's junk? He'd better not walk away with crabs or whatever. If he was going to catch a venereal disease, it WOULD be in the way that wasn't any fun at all and didn't involve coitus.
	For the first time, Michael lowered himself into the warm swamp water. He treaded water, kicking downward with his feet to see if he could feel the boat under his feet. Nothing.
	Michael gasped in a long breath of hot summer air and went underwater. He kept his eyes closed, pawing down for anything that didn't feel like it belonged in the swamp.
	He knew not how many meters he had descended, but he eventually found something metal; the underside of the boat. He pawed around for the front of the boat, trying to lift it up and get under it. It moved slowly and heavily, the water far weightier than the air that filled it on the surface.
	Unable to hold his breath any longer, Michael returned to the surface and became reacquainted with oxygen. The boat was there, but how could he get it to the surface? He could get under it and swim it up.... but he'd probably die before getting it all the way up. Surely, Odile could do this in a heartbeat, but he'd run out of air.
	Air.
	Michael put the air canister on his back by the shoulder straps. He jumped back into the water and sunk much more readily, wearing the steel canister. He took it off his shoulders, holding it by the straps so he could keep track of it in case he lost control of it. He heaved the end of the boat up and climbed under it. Placing the back end of the tank against the interior of the boat, he opened the air valve full-blast, hoping to thrust the boat out of the water with the force of the pressure release.
	That didn't happen. Air did rush out of the tank with a din of white noise, and all nearby fish and other marine life ran away, not knowing what the hell was happening. But the force imparted on the boat seemed minimal. Nevertheless, the air from the scuba tank was gathering inside the upturned boat. He brought his head into the newly formed bubble within the boat and took a breath, but the bubble quickly lifted away from him, hoisting the boat towards the surface.
	He followed it upwards, letting the bubbles from the air tank fill the boat further, until it spilled upwards like bubbles in beer. The boat breached the surface itself and turned upwards, now afloat on the water's surface.
	Michael looked at it sideways. If he got the chance to tell that story to his friends, he would probably have to lie and say this was his plan the whole time.
	Tying the boat to the dock for the time being, Michael went through Odile's collection of oars, trying to find the least damaged one. Most of the oars had more than half the blade removed in a jagged circle, like a huge cookie cutter had been used to tear it off. Only one had no damage to the blade at all, but the handle had been bitten into a jagged edge. He winced at the thought of poor Odile being smashed in the head with the wooden end of this thing, and also at the fate of the poor bastard who had done it.
	Unmooring the boat from the dock, banana sitting on the floor, he slowly paddled the boat off, away from the dock that had been his home for only a week.
	To him, it might as well have been a million years.

	The swampy river was unfamiliar. Michael occasionally looked to the compass on his Swiss Army knife to see if he was generally going south, but with no map or other navigation aid, it was not particularly useful information. He slowly drifted down the river, pulling the oar across his body to row on the other side like he was in a kayak.
	He looked around for landmarks. Nothing was familiar, but it all still looked the same. There was nothing different about any of these trees--except that one.
	One of the trees had six circles scratched into it near the water line, three rows of two. Michael didn't see anything significant around the tree itself, so he continued down the river.
	A few thousand feet further down... there was another one. Three rows of two circles.
	The plastic six-pack rings. Odile must have left these to remember the way, or to help him find the way if he needed to go it alone. Or maybe she'd carved them to ward off anyone who would venture into her swamp the way the more religious would put crucifixes at the apex of every doorwar.
	   With these symbols as his guide, he carefully monitored his left side as he rowed down river, knowing whenever he saw the claw marks, he was on the right tracks.
	The swamp finally relented, the trees thinning to grass and cattails like a receding hairline, the water growing clearer, until he reached what more and more resembled... a beach. The blue water extended forever, so this was probably now the ocean. He didn't see many coastal houses, roads, anything to indicate civilization except for some cigarette butts and other litter.
	Michael started to row towards a distant gray rock. As he got closer, he realized it was cylindrical. This was no rock. It was the drainage pipe Odile had talked about. He hurriedly paddled to it, the water growing shallow enough that he hopped out and walked the boat up to the opening of the pipe.
	There was no grate or anything else obstructing the outlet pipe, thus how Odile was able to swim through it. Inside the pipe, on the left side... were six very faint circles. They were far more superficial, even her sharp claws not designed to tear metal as easily as wood or flesh, but this was definitely the pipe leading to civilization Odile had found.
	And from here to the hut... he had seen hide nor hair of her. If she had hair, which she didn't. So, where could she be hiding?
	At the mouth of the pipe was a little detritus, some litter from the human world. He looked through it. There were a few ice cream sandwich wrappers, crushed beer and soda cans, a few condoms he wisely decided not to touch... and a crumpled hat with a familiar face on it.
	Embroidered on the face of the hat was a pirate's smiling face under a tricorne. He had a beard, but no mustache, and stubbornly held onto both eyes.
	Everyone in southern Florida knew this face. This was Salty Peter, the mascot of the Salty Peter's Cove of Fun. He wasn't as famous as his Orlando-based mouse counterpart, but if you decided to drive right past that for whatever reason, you'd wind up here.
	There was no way she'd wind up there... would she? She did say she was getting a spine-apple, the kind these kitschy places love to hollow out and fill with grain alcohol. It would explain the soda, the bananas... it's not like she could have easily obtained them from a supermarket.
	Could she have been caught by them? Or injured by some aggressive fisherman? If bullets didn't hurt her, no fish hook could hope to pierce her skin. Could she have tangled in one of those giant nets they use to grab clams from the bottom of the ocean? No, Odile said she avoided the ocean, and she'd surely hear a giant boat coming.
	If Odile had been stealing from this resort, he would have to investigate. He dragged his boat onto the land, taking the oar with him. Anyone wanting to spontaneously steal an unsupervised boat would have to paddle with their hands, and if they wanted it that bad, fine, it's theirs. Have fun.
	With the oar as a makeshift walking stick, Michael walked inland, his feet touching dry sand and earth for the first time in days. He walked away from the white noise of the water, looking for civilization. He hoped he could find a roadway or store where he, a grown-ass man with no children, could ask how to get to Salty Peter's Cove of Fun.

Chapter 11: Croc Star

	On his uncertain way towards Salty Peter's Cove of Fun, the first place he found was a gas station with a payphone. He got change by placing a dollar in the 'take a penny' ashtray and used the phone to call a taxi. He was only a few miles south of Salty Peter's, but after being in the wilderness for so long, and with the day fading, to hell with walking and possibly getting lost again. This time, getting lost would almost certainly not work out as well as it did when the tradewinds took him to his scaly swamp enchantress.
	They stopped at a branch of his bank to get more cash, mostly to help pay for this cab ride, since this cab apparently didn't take credit cards. He also stopped at a different, less crappy gas station to get some provisions Odile couldn't have provided him.
	What a joy it was for him to finally step into an air-conditioned building. He felt the sweat leap off him, drying into an unpleasant film. The clerk stopped him for entering the establishment without a shirt. He did have shoes, though. Michael always thought that meant you need to have either shoes or a shirt on. Rather than leave, Michael grabbed one off a rack of novelty T-shirts and put it on. The clerk backed off.
	Michael bought a pack of moistened towelettes into the lav and gave himself a quick wash. He left with a few bottles of water, a travel toothbrush and a wrinkled piece of pizza that looked like it had sat under that red heat lamp for days. The cabbie told him not to get cheese on the back seat, but there was no danger in that. He inhaled the greasy thing quickly, none of it escaping his mouth to ruin any back seat. He brushed a few crumbs off his fingers on his brand-new T-shirt.
	Look at him, he thought. My girlfriend leaves for one day and here I am, I'm eating pizza and going off and going to the amusement park without her.
	Fifty-two dollars later, he arrived at the entrance to Salty Peter's, giant steel facsimile sitting on a treasure chest just before the entrance, the gateway to the park underneath his knees. It was about four o'clock, and the woman at the ticket counter told him he wouldn't be getting much value out of his trip today, since the park would only be open until 8PM. He insisted he would do fine, and he did not want to wait until tomorrow. She did tell him his bottles of water weren't allowed in the park, so he stepped out of line and drank them both, tossing the bottles in the trash.
	He entered a smaller line, where men, women and children alike placed their hand in a metal post with a hole like a mailbox. At his turn, he put his right hand inside, and a piston gently kissed his hand and printed a blue skull-and-crossbones on it.
	Michael sighed and looked around. Somewhere in here, Odile might be hiding or trapped. She certainly wouldn't be in plain sight. He looked around for the outlet pipe that she'd used to get here in the first place.
	Salty Peter's Cove of Fun was divided unevenly in two segments, shaped like a lopsided infinity symbol: a larger area for kids and their supervising adults which included carnival games, pools, water slides, a nine-hole mini-golf course, which seemed like a ripoff to him to only get nine holes, and a theater where robot pirates sang to you about the joys of sharing. Pirates, of course, were known for having a different philosophy about sharing in their time.  In conversion for use as child's mascot, no fictional warrior had so many of its sharp edges buffed off as the pirate. Salty Peter didn't even carry a gun, not even a sword! If anyone wanted to rob him, Salty Peter was screwed, and no song about the joys of sharing would dissuade the drug addict who just wanted to score.
	Michael explored the parts of the park that were closest to the water, looking for the pipe. It would probably be painted to look like something else here. He walked past the tidal pools, the water slides, but saw nothing unusual. He'd had loved to climb to the top of the water slide to get a look at the whole park, but he was too tall and old to actually go down the slide. The novelty map he'd been given at the entrance was little help at all. One would think the ONE thing a pirate themed park would get right were maps!
	He stopped for a paper cone of cotton candy; he wasn't really hungry, but he hadn't had this since the last time he was here, when he was maybe ten. By the time the blue puffball was mostly eaten, he had come back to the entrance of the park. He had seen nothing that looked like the pipe. Maybe all the infrastructure was hidden more carefully in the kid's section of the park to not break the illusion, the idea that led them to paint broom closets to resemble stone castle doors.
	Maybe the pipe was in the other section. This was the 'adult' area, but not in the sense of anything fun or dirty. It was simply more of a resort, including restaurants, reasonably sized hotel, and even live shows that didn't involve robots that sung about friendship.
	He passed between the umbrella tables, heading towards the pool. The far edge of the pool  had some concrete that lead to a large beach area, a bit too rocky to sit and sunbathe on. Michael remembered Odile had stolen their bathing suits from some poor couple looking for a remote location to have sex. Maybe it was over here.
	When he turned a corner of bushes, he heard some rustling of clothing and hushed talking. Two young people were putting their T-shirts on. The woman clearly didn't have her bikini top under her shirt.
	“I'm sorry. I'm just looking for a friend.” He said.
	The guy looked to his mate briefly. “What do they look like?”
	Michael put his hand up. “About yea high. Green eyes...” His description stalled. Green, scaly skin, long tail, razor sharp teeth... big old titties.
	“What color's her hair?” The man asked.
	“She doesn't have hair.” Michael said. “She... shaves it. She's a swimmer.”
	“I haven't seen any bald chicks around.”
	“All right.” Michael looked past the pair, not seeing the pipe anywhere in the distance. The two didn't look like they were going to move. “Have a good night.” He turned around, and he could immediately hear them sling their T-shirts back off and get back to business.
	Lucky them.
	Michael entered the hotel and explored the lobby, finding it connecting to a smaller building nearby. There was a sign advertising a live animal show, with a new label in the shape of a twelve-point star advertising a brand new show to premiere tonight.
	Michael shilled out a few more bucks to take a seat in the second row. The lights dimmed and a spotlight dropped onto a man in a red lion tamer's outfit. He had  a top hat and megaphone, but no whip. Apparently, he was Salty Pete's brother, Salty Greg, and this was his amazing sea animal show.
	The next half-hour were filled with random animals doing tricks, most of them jumping through some sort of hoop. A dolphin sailed through a hoop hanging from the ceiling. Penguins slid down an icy slide and through a small hoop. After promising a ray would go through the hoop and encouraging the audience to tell him it was impossible, Salty Greg swept a hoop through the water, a motionless stingray passing through it. He followed this up with a “Ta-da!” that would have put Rip Taylor to shame.
	Salty Greg seemed to notice most of the bags of popcorn were empty, which meant it was time for the intermission. But he had one more exhibit to show off. “Tonight, we have something brand-new at Salty Pete's Cove of Fun. She's the missing link between humans and animals. She can breathe air, water, she can bite through a steel rod...”
	Michael felt his stomach sink through his pants. His head felt heavy, like there was nothing under it. Greg's voice faded into a mute squeak. Michael thought this might be what this was all leading up to, but he was not ready for it.
	“Ladies and gentleman... the Amazing Alligator Woman!”
	Several spotlights moved to a high door on the stage. The audience filled with gasps. Odile was up there, still wearing the pink bikini she'd found. Her arms were out in the T-pose. She pulled them close and jumped off, splashing into the water. She swam around the tank, briefly visible in the plexiglass tank before resurfacing on the fake stone platform above Salty Greg.
	The audience was filled with applause. Over the noise, Michael cried out indignantly, “Alligator?!”
	But nobody heard him. Greg gestured wildly to her. Odile was looking at the crowd, bewildered. She'd probably never seen a crowd before, much less been in front of one.
	“You might wonder how she came to be. Well, moms and dads, please cover your little ones ears, but... her father was a lonely man who lived out in the swamp, and one thing led to another, and nine months later...”
	Laughter burst out of the crowd. Michael felt anger swell in him. He grabbed his arm rest to stop his hand from balling into a fist.
	“And not only is she a great swimmer, she's strong. Would you please take a bite out of this steel rod I have here in my pocket for no reason?” Greg had made his way to the higher stage and handed her a silver rod. She held it with both hands, sniffed it, looked at him sideways, and took a bite.
	Michael held his hand out in shock. She was strong, but she could never bite through steel. She was going to break all of her teeth. How could this cruel moron force her to--
	Odile bit through the steel rod effortlessly.
	Applause.
	She chewed the strange morsel once or twice, a foreign act for her to chew anything at all. Greg took the rod back into his pocket, and the applause drifted to laughter as she blew out the 'metal' chunk, which floated like styrofoam on the surface of the nearby water.
	“You'll never need to recycle your cans and bottles again. She makes a goat look like a picky eater!” Greg called out, looking at her. Odile was looking out into the audience.
	Michael stood. She was looking at him. And he was looking at her. She stepped off the edge of the stage and into the water. The edge of the tank was too high for Michael to get to, but he walked up to the clear window in the tank. They found each other through the plexiglass. Michael put his hand up, and Odile put her clawed hand in the same spot.
	I found you, Michael thought. He was breathing hard. All day, he had seen plenty of women walking around in bikini tops, thongs, so much nearly nude female flesh, the kind that haunted his dreams... but nothing happened as he walked around. Seeing Odile again made his heart thump like a timpani, ringing in his ears.
	Odile, seemingly overwhelmed, pressed herself against the glass. Greg improvised some line about the animal empathy she must feel, and then Odile pulled her bikini top apart and pressed her tits against the glass, rubbing them up and down.
	“OK, everybody, we're going to take a short intermission, but we'll be back with Act Two!” Greg rushed as a curtain fell from the ceiling, landing just in front of Michael. He sidestepped to the right to try to get behind the curtain, but was intercepted by Salty Greg. “Hey, mister! What was that?”
	Michael looked at Salty Greg like he wasn't sure he was talking to him. He shrugged. “I don't know. I guess she likes me.”
	“Well, be careful, there, Romeo.” Greg said, out of earshot from the children. “These gator chicks will bite your dong right off.”
	Michael didn't respond. He was aware of that possibility. Thanks for the warning, sailor. Greg walked off through a door marked “Employees Only.”
	The crowd had mostly filtered out, the air filled with pirate-themed muzak. Michael had found her, but what could he do now?
	He scoffed, disgusted. Alligator, he thought.
	Alligator, indeed!

Chapter 12: Jailhouse Croc

	Michael watched the second half of Salty Greg's asinine aquatic animal extravaganza. Odile did not make an appearance in the second act. It felt a bit like blowing your load too early. Start with ordinary animals, introduce this amazing humanoid chimera, and then go back to the stupid animals. It'd be like a petting zoo with a dinosaur exhibit in the middle. Nobody's going to care about the goat after they get their photo with the stegosaurus.
	The crowd dispersed, the show was over, Salty Greg went through the Employees Only door. Michael just sat there, looking around. He waited for the crowd to be almost entirely gone before he started to make his way to the Employees Only door.
	He turned the knob and poked his head in. There was a long hallway in both directions, heading behind the stage. One had a streak of water along the concrete that hadn't yet evaporated. He went towards it, assuming that would lead him towards Odile.
	A door swung open, and he ducked behind it. A few guys walked out, dressed in street clothes. Maybe it wasn't so weird to be walking around in street clothes back here, but his novelty T-shirt screamed “tourist” to anyone looking at him. He looked into the room and saw the men's locker room. A shower was running in the distance, but someone had hung their blue polo uniform shirt on an open locker door. Michael grabbed it without a second thought, tossing his horrible novelty shirt away in the trash.
	Michael had just got the shirt tucked in when someone outside the locker room called out and startled him. “Hey!” The stranger shouted. Michael jumped. “Who are you?”
	Somehow, Michael had not turned around when he was asked this, giving him a chance to look at the name tag on his left breast. He had to know what name he'd have to answer to while undercover-- 
	The nametag was “Michael.” Sure, it was a super common name, but what the fuck? How lucky could be possibly be?
	He turned around slowly. “Michael, sir.”
	The man squinted at Michael. “You new?”
	“Yes, sir.” He answered.
	The man continued to look over Michael uncertainly. He shrugged and let it go. “OK. I just never seen you around. I'm Kris, I run the light board for the live show.”
	“Nice to meet you.” He almost got found out by the guy who runs the lights for their crappy show? If he was going to get caught, it could at least be by the manager or owner or something. Even getting thrown out by Salty Greg would carry some dignity.
	Kris went off, his job apparently not strenuous enough to need a shower afterward. Michael continued to explore the back rooms, looking for a security room of some kind. After one other employee looked at him with the gentle squint of unfamiliarity, Michael pulled a clip board off the wall and hustled around with it, occasionally looking at it. Once he did that, everyone avoided looking at him, hoping they wouldn't slow him down or write down their names on his important-looking notes. (The clipboard has a list of sign-ups for what dessert to bring to a company picnic. Why would you have company picnics when you work at a theme park?)
	Michael eventually found the security room. In there was a guard sat before sixteen security monitors, tipped back in his chair, hat over his eyes, asleep. This was like a cartoon or something. He entered the room and looked at the screens. He saw a black-and-white image of Odile in the corner of some room in the facility. She was still here.
	The sleeping guard had his keys hanging from a carabiner clip, hooked into one of his belt loops. Michael quietly withdrew his Swiss Army knife and cut the belt loop, freeing the keys. The guard didn't stir. This would definitely come up in his next performance review.
	Now able to go anywhere he wanted, he looked for where the animals were kept. It couldn't be that far away from the stage, could it? He explored the backstage, continuing his quick, angry walk that made everyone get out of his way. He found a door that said, “Authorized Personnel Only.” That seemed redundant, since he was already in the zone designated only for employees.
	The door wasn't locked, which saved him from having to fumble with keys and look like a jackass. Inside were several animal cages, most of them empty. One held the penguins, their cell split between water and land. The last cell...
	Odile was in the corner, head on her knees, her tail still. Michael threw himself against the bars. “Odile!” He said in a strong whisper.
	She looked up. “Michael!” She gasped, then chuckled a bit. “It's been a while.”
	Michael started to go through the keys to figure if any of them went to the cage door. “What happened?”
	“I got caught.” She said. “They tangled me in a net. It was like the six-ringed thing, but worse. I  tried ripping it, but by the time I could get free, they got me around the neck. I think they saw me because of the pink swimclothes... I should've known better. I should never have dressed like you cityfolk.”
	“Don't be silly.” Michael kept trying keys. “Maybe it's not good camouflage, but it's good fashion. Why don't you come over here to the door?”
	“I can't.” She stood, revealing a metal collar around her neck, itself affixed to a chain and that chain mounted to the wall. She had only a few feet of chain, allowing her a small quarter-circle of her cell to sit in. They lock her up, and refuse her even part of her own cell to sit in.
	Michael redoubled his effort to look for the cell key. A black key fit inside, and he turned it. The lock clicked out of place, the door opened and he ran inside. They embraced, the chain rattling behind her. They kissed, Michael pushing her backwards into the wall. Michael went back through the keys, trying to find the keyhole on this horrible collar. There appeared to be none, a single hole in the front like the hex-key lock on public building door locks. He had no key in this shape.
	“Who has the key to this?” He asked. “Who unlocked it before?”
	“I don't know his name, but he's... got a white shirt on.” Odile explained.
	That wasn't particularly helpful. “Did he have a nametag? Like this?” He pointed to his chest. Odile looked at the nametag, squinted, blinked, and looked up at Michael, feeling more helpless than ever. “You can't read?” Michael asked.
	“What use is reading in the swamp?” Odile asked. “Who do you reckon would've taught me?”
	“It's OK. I'll find the guy with this key and I'll get you out of here.” He reluctantly let her go, turning on the ball of one foot to leave, but Odile didn't let him go.
	“Don't leave me here, Michael.” She pleaded, pulling him back. “Please.”
	They looked at each other. Even if she wasn't significantly stronger than him... he was still helpless to resist. They took a seat on the wet floor, still holding each other.
	“Have they hurt you?” Michael asked.
	“No, except when they captured me. They cut off my air with a wire... hook thing coming out of an oar. It wasn't like not being able to breathe. I can hold my breath a real long time. It felt like I would die from something else.”
	“They were cutting off blood to your brain, maybe. That sounds horrible. What about the show? How did that start?”
	Odile shrugged. “They said people would want to see me, so... they told me to dive from the high thing and do some other stuff. I've never been seen by so many people. They said were going to feed me a 'mackerel,' whatever that is.”
	“It's a fish. You've probably eaten them before. They're around here, but maybe not in the swamp.”
	Odile's eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh yeah, they fed me something called...” She looked off, searching for the word. “Steak. It was this big slab of meat. That was so good! I could almost stand to stay here, if they keep feeding me that.”
	For a moment, it looked like Odile had forgotten she was a prisoner. “When we get out of here, I'll get you all the steak you can stand.” Michael promised.
	“How?” Odile said. “What if you can't get me out? Maybe I'll be stuck here forever.”
	“You won't. They can't keep you here against your will. You're not a slave. You're not an animal.”
	“I don't know.” Odile mused. “I'm not a wild animal, but I still killed those men just for trespassing in my swamp. Maybe this is what I deserve, to stay behind bars and in a cage like a criminal.”
	“No, don't say that.” Michael huffed. “You're no criminal, and you're no animal.”
	Odile looked at Michael, her vertical pupils wide.“How can you be so sure what I am... when I don't even know what I am?” She took him by the head and stared at him intensely. “What am I, Michael?”
	Michael gulped. “You're the woman I love.”
	And they kissed with incredible intensity. Michael delicately slipped his tongue in her mouth, and they flicked against each other. Her cold breath gave him goosebumps, even in the moist, warm air of the enclosure.
	His hand forming a W, he pushed two fingers into Odile's slit. Her head bucked back, the chain clattering at the sudden movement. How Michael wanted to kiss her sweet neck, entirely covered by this horrid collar. His head went between her breasts and moved back and forth. It felt like he put his face into the palm of a catcher's mitt. His head moved to her nipple and gave it a gentle nibble.
	Michael pulled his fingers from inside her, leaving a string of fluid hanging like fishing line. He yanked her bottoms downward to her knees, and then off her scaly feet. He fumbled his fly open and freed his suffering erection from his Speedo.
	“Wait a minute.” Odile looked down at his unit.
	“What? What's wrong?”
	“I know what that is.” She pointed. “That's not a second brain at all.”
	“No, it's not. It's a penis.”
	The word meant nothing to her, but she knew what it was supposed to do. “Doesn't it go all the way inside your body when you don't need it?”
	“No.” Michael said, almost shouting. “What kind of nightmare would that be?”
	“I don't know, it's just not what I expected.” A long pause. They looked each other in the eye. “Are we still doing this?” Odile asked.
	“If you want, absolutely.”
	Odile kissed him rather than answer. Michael placed his hands on her hips and slowly pressed himself into her. Inside, it was slick, narrow... and rather cold. American Pie had not prepared him for this. He pulled his hips back, withdrawing most of the way and sliding back in. He started with a slow rhythm, moving his hands further upwards as he grew comfortable with the motion.
	Michael looked at Odile. She was silent, her lower lip sucked in and gently held in place with her top teeth. Her eyes were closed, her hands were clenched shut momentarily, then open to palm her own breasts. She was breathing hard, her tail thumping against the floor of the cage, her legs kicking out involuntarily.
	She is so into this, Michael thought. What was he so worried about? His penis was a decent size, and this girl loved him. It was perfect. This was perfect.
	It was time to turn up the gas. Michael sped up, and Odile started to moan involuntarily. They grew deeper, more guttural, as her head rolled back with every gasp. Michael felt entirely entwined with her, moving as a single unit. Then something grabbed him. He felt Odile slip away from him. He threw his hands out and tried to grab her, but her cold reptilian skin slid out of his fingers.
	Two men had grabbed him by the shoulders and pried him off Odile. They had apparently tried yelling at him to stop, but that went unheard as they were in 'the zone.' Michael thrashed about and tried to break free of the two men, not making any attempt to cover his erection. Odile stood and tried reaching out for Michael, but he was dragged out of her reach.
	“What the hell are you doing, you weirdo?” Yelled someone, as the men dragged him into view. It was Salty Peter, if that was really his name. But it was definitely him, with his inexplicable two eyes and no hook hand or peg leg. Michael fantasized about Odile breaking loose and making this man much more authentically piratey with one clasp of her jaw.
	“You can't keep her prisoner like this!” Michael yelled, trying to bring his hand down to cover his boner, but the men were too strong and he couldn't reach.
	Salty Pete made a disgusted grunt, took the plastic pirate hat off his head. Another identical hat was already underneath it. Salty Pete apparently had a number of them stacked there like chairs in the corner of an unused meeting room. He tossed the hat and it landed on Michael's boner like the world's worst game of horseshoes.
	“I locked her up because she could have killed us.” Salty Peter snarled, still inexplicably talking with a pirate accent. “How did you get so close to her?”
	“You can't just lock her up! She's human! She has rights!” Michael repeated, trying to work his way free without letting the pirate hat fall off his groin.
	“Get this freak out of here!” Salty Pete pointed behind him, towards the door. The men started to push Michael away, and Odile held out her clawed hand.
	“NO!”
	All the heads in the room turned to her. Salty Pete cocked his head to the side, looking at Odile through the bars. “By the barnacles in Neptune's beard...”
	“Do you really fucking talk like that?” Michael asked.
	“Watch your language. This is a family establishment.” He admonished Michael from a short distance. Turning back to Odile, Salty Pete asked, “You can talk? Why didn't you until now?”
	“Because you choked me when you dragged me in here!”
	“We only did that to stop you biting and scratching us!”
	“Can you blame her?!” Michael yelled. “I'm just trying to get her out of here.”
	“Oh, that's what you were doing, sure.” Salty Pete said.
	“Don't talk to the freak, man.” Said one of the employees holding Michael still.
	“She is not a freak!” Salty Pete said sharply. Michael was surprised he hadn't got the chance to said it first. “The only freak here... is him.” Salty turned back towards Odile with an icy state. “I'll deal with you later, lass.”
	Odile's hand went over her heart as she felt something she hadn't in a long time; the barest sliver of fear.
	At Salty Pete's command, the two men dragged Michael, kicking and hollering, down the hall to the fire door and out of the park, the hat suspended on his unit bouncing as they stepped.
	It was not Michael's proudest moment.
	Finally free of the men's grip, Michael tucked himself into his pants. He looked up at Peter from the sand. Getting thrown out by him, or his damn brother, was about as embarrassing as he thought it might be.
	“Give me back that shirt.” Peter outstretched his hand. Michael pulled it over his shoulders and tossed it to him. “I'll get this back to... Michael. Now, whoever you are...” Peter pulled a white hankie from his coat pocket and grabbed Michael's hand. He smeared the hand print on the back of his hand into a light, indistinguishable blur.
	“You are banned from Salty Peter's Cove of Fun...” He said severely, tucking the hankie back where he pulled it, the two guards standing opposite him like Secret Service agents. Michael felt hate boil inside him, and he stood up from the sand without pushing himself up with his arms, about to give Salty Pete what for. 
	“For a week.” Pete added. “If you entered into the watermelon carving contest, you will get a partial refund of your entry fee.”
	Michael was so staggered, he had no retort. The men turned around and closed the door behind him, leaving him in the grass-speckled sand in the back of this resort.
	A week?
	He balled his fists. They ruined what was a beautiful moment between him and the woman he loved. She was still in there, suffering, captured, alone.
	Michael decided on a tactical retreat. He wanted nothing more than to bust back in there and finish what he started, but he relented. He would not even find some place or discreet bush to finally crack out a sly one; that jism was meant for Odile, and they stopped him from giving it to her. He would hold it in his painful gonads until they would be reunited.
	Walking around, Michael found the parking lot again. He would not wait a week to see his trapped beloved again. He would be there tomorrow, bright and early.
	After all, he thought, as his hand entered his pockets and touched the keys he's purloined from the sleeping guard... 
	He's got the keys to the kingdom.

Chapter 13: Croc-in' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu

	After being thrown out of Salty Pete's Cove of Fun in the most embarrassing way imaginable without them dragging through an adult-oriented magic show and having the clown make unflattering comparison to a balloon animal, Michael got a lift to the closest motel. Graciously, there was one vacancy, which he put on his credit card. He walked to the closest store a quarter-mile down the road and bought supplies.
	He took a long, cold shower, no condensation on the mirror as he stepped out onto the mat. Michael hadn't seen his reflection in the preceding week, and could scarcely recognize himself. His hair was flat and uncombed, his beard thick, his eyes sharper and more visible against his tanned skin. The week of barely eating anything had burned away a few extra pounds of fat he normally carried, his muscles more visible and defined. He knew his choice was between a flat stomach and a beer every now and again, and he chose the beer.
	The corner of his mouth turned up as he looked at himself. He got a girlfriend, and suddenly, he's more confident. Amazing how that works. Nevertheless, he shaved off the beard she seemed to enjoy. He had to change his look enough that he might not get identified.
	Despite the bed being much, much more comfortable than Odile's straw-lined cot, Michael had restless, lonesome sleep. And not just because he swore any time his skin itched, it were the bed bugs come to drink his blood and infest him for all eternity. This was, by far, the crappiest motel he'd ever been in. It was the kind that advertised 'free cable' as a selling point, the pool long ago closed because they could never afford to fix the cracks in the shallow end that let all the water out.
	Michael woke around six o'clock. (another forgotten benefit of civilization: knowing what time it is!) The man at the front desk got him a cab to go further into the city to run some more errands, grabbing some new clothes, a hat, sunglasses, a folding hex wrench set that he suspected would open the lock on Odile's collar, and most crucially, real underwear.
	As it turns out, it cost a lot for a taxi to chaperone him around all morning. Finally, his bank and credit cards had value again. He ended his trip at the entrance to Salty Pete's Cove of Fun.
	Michael forked up another twelve bucks for his hand-stamp. That all-summer pass on the lanyard started to make more and more sense. The park was less occupied this early, which wasn't what he wanted. He hoped to move through the crowd without anyone noticing him. Then again, he was an adult at a theme park with no children. That hand stamp was probably one of those trackers they put on endangered animals to see how they migrate.
	Thinking of the least suspicious activity he could do, he went to the driving range on the grown-up section of the island and purchased a bucket of golf balls. He had never played golf in his life, and didn't realize you were supposed to bring your own clubs. They did have loaner clubs for people who apparently only golf on vacation. Apparently, that variety of person did exist.
	Michael hit a few balls, watching them disappear into the glare and land invisibly in the distant grass. People do this for fun? He kept hitting them, occasionally deflecting the small talk of the older men who questioned his form. That golf ball retriever wasn't driving around yet, as there weren't enough balls down field yet, so he couldn't even try to hit that thing to see if he could hit a moving target. He returned the club and basket, wondering why someone would do this instead of the firing range.
	He entered the lobby of the hotel, entering the restaurant and ordering breakfast. This place thought it was fancy as hell, as a glass of orange juice was seven dollars, and it wasn't the size of one of those orange buckets from Home Depot. All he wanted was some eggs... and maybe a coconut opened by Odile.
	More people were starting to filter into the park, and thus the hotel lobby and other areas. Michael moved towards the entrance of the theater where he'd seen Odile perform against her will. The door was surely locked, but he had the key. He searched the keychain to find the right key...
	But the door was slightly ajar. Michael shrugged and tucked the stolen keys back into his pocket. He made a beeline to the animal quarters. The first face he encountered was somebody kneeling near the entrance to the animal cages. He had two thin tools in the keyhole, like he was trying to pick the lock.
	“Can I help you?” Michael asked automatically.
	The man turned to him quickly. He had sandy blond hair, indistinct tattoos on his arms and one eye slightly higher than the other. “You work here?”
	Michael went with it, hiding the hand with the stamp on it. “Yeah, what's the problem?”
	“They can't get this door open, so they brought me in to open it.” He kept looking at his picks, like the keyhole was a peephole.
	“I have a key for that door.” Michael looked through the keys. With horror, he remembered the door was unlocked last time. What key was it? The man removed his picks and Michael tried a random key. It didn't fit. He tried another. Nothing.
	“I know it's on here.” Michael said.
	He didn't know it was on there. He was just really hoping it was. He could sense this slightly suspicious man look around and grow impatient. The fifth key fit the lock, and he turned it and threw the door open perhaps too enthusiastically.
	“That was easy.” The lockpicker said, tucking his tools into a pocket on a rag, rolling them up and inserting them into his coat. Both men walked into the animal cages, shoulder-to-shoulder.
	The animals were all there, but the far cage, where Odile was yesterday, was empty. The shackle that bound her to the wall was open, sitting in a puddle of water in a dip on the floor.
	The lockpicker looked around. “Wait, this is where the animals are?” He said. “This isn't the lock they told me to get open. No wonder your key still worked. I got to go talk to someone. I don't know what's going on.” He left.
	Michael felt lost. It was encouraging to know she wasn't chained up like a junkyard dog anymore, but... where had she gone?
	Michael stepped out of the animal enclosure, but nearly bumped straight into a familiar face. It was Salty Greg. He was not in his lion tamer's 'uniform,' but apparently his curly mustache was authentic.
	“Hey, you work here?” Asked Greg.
	“No.” Michael said, momentarily disarmed that Greg didn't recognize him without the beard.
	“Then what were you doing in there?”
	“It was a joke.” He tried to cover. “I thought you'd pick up on the sarcasm.”
	“Sorry, maybe it was a dumb question.” Greg shrugged. “Where's your nametag?”
	“I took it off and lost it. It keeps getting caught on the bars in there and I ripped my shirt the other day.”
	“Are you doing anything? Can you get Pete out of the drunk tank?”
	Michael blinked. “Salty Pete?”
	“Yeah, he found his way back there again. We need him for the show at noon. Go get him.”
	“I don't have a car.”
	“Here, take mine. It's the only BMW out there.” He threw him keys.
	Michael stared at the keys, a few seconds passing. “What are you waiting for? Chop-chop.” Michael was woken from his confusion, and he ran out the backstage area and to the parking lot.  In the first row was a BMW with the vanity plate “SLTYGR.” Surely that had a more unfortunate, alternate interpretation, but there was a maximum of six letters on vanity plates.
	Michael piled in, started the car and drove off. This was the first time he'd driven a BMW. It felt powerful, though he would resist the desire to open her up in this crowded parking lot.
	So... Michael's mission, should he choose to accept it, was to go to the drunk tank pick up the person who caught him fucking Odile. He'd been in worse situations than this. Like that one time, he almost got killed in the swamp, and eight days later...
	Well, Michael didn't kiss-and-tell.

Chapter 14: House Upon the Croc

	Michael had driven to Davie, Florida, about twenty-five minutes of highway driving out from Salty Pete's Cove of Fun... to retrieve Salty Pete himself, the man who had seen him make love to his reptilian paramour.
	Two police officers hoisted Salty Pete down the steps of the police department, his legs dangling below him like a marionette held too low to the ground. Salty Pete was still dressed as he was last night, but no more plastic hats decorated his balding bonce. He held his arms up to shield his eyes from the sun.
	The cops shoved him in the backseat of the BMW like he was the last thing to pack on moving day. Salty Pete pinched his legs up to let them close the door. He'd taken this ride a few times before.
	Michael started to drive off. “I got stuff for your hangover, sir.” Michael said in a fake voice, not sure he'd recognize it from last night.
	“Not so loud.” Peter protested, his hand pawing into the shopping bag. There was a styrofoam box with a greasy drive-thru breakfast. Only styrofoam was sturdy enough to keep this grease off the backseat of the beemer. There was also a gel ice-pack, a bottle of Advil, a cup of black iced coffee, and appropriately enough... lots of Gatorade.
	Pete dropped an unsettling amount of the Advil afloat in his iced coffee, removed the lid and sat up long enough to drink the whole thing. Michael shrank in his seat. Would Pete open his squinted, crust-infused eyes long enough to recognize him?
	Salty Pete returned to his reclining position. “What's the cold thing for?”
	“That's to put over your eyes.” Michael offered. “It always helps me when I have a headache.”
	“That's a good idea...” Salty Pete slurred, plopping the cold pack onto his eyes. It was also good to keep Peter's eyes covered so he had no change to recognize him.
	“You keep that on your eyes, sir, and you'll feel better in no time.”
	“What's your name, lad?” Salty Pete asked.
	A pause, too long of a pause. He couldn't say Michael, because he kicked Michael out for fraternizing with Odile. No, wait, he knew the shirt was stolen, so maybe he wouldn't think it was him. Honestly, he was still thrown off that this guy's name was actually Peter, like his buddy Pistol Pete from the gang. How many Peters did he know?
	“Dave, sir.” He said, passing a sign that promised he was leaving Davie, Florida. The sign should come with an apology.
	“Yer a good lad, Dave boy. I won't forget this.” Salty Peter huffed.
	The rest of the drive was thankfully uneventful. He pulled into the employee parking lot and helped Salty Peter to his feet. He was feeling better, but “Dave” insisted Peter keep his head down so the sun wouldn't hurt his eyes. “Dave” brought him to the kitchen, where he helped himself to some dark liquor, to help complete his hangover cure.
	Michael tried to duck out of the galley, but he was stopped by a humungous man in a chef costume. Well, perhaps it was an outfit rather than a 'costume.' If he wasn't a chef, he was definitely an expert eater.
	“Where you going? You work here, right?”
	“Sure, why the fuck not?” Michael mumbled.
	“What was that?”
	“I said, 'Yes, chef.' ”
	The giant chef pushed a cart with a silver cloche and platter atop it. “Take this to room 212.”
	Michael walked behind the cart and pushed it along, searching for the elevator. He rode up to the second floor and located 212. He knocked on the door.
	“Room service.” He announced through the door. Was that what people said when they delivered room service? He'd never had the chance to do it, either giving or receiving, certainly not at the roach motel he stayed at last night.
	“It's open.” Called a woman's voice. He opened the door, holding it open with his foot and he pushed the tray in. Real hotel workers probably learned that maneuver in training.
	Sitting at the end of the first of the two beds was a woman in a short bathrobe that stopped at her hips. She had her legs crossed, her dyed-blonde hair teased, her eyelashes long and her lips painted red. Her beauty could stagger at a distance. At this range, it might be lethal.
	“Thank you, darling.” She said, her voice husky.
	Michael wheeled the tray between the beds and removed the cloche. Inside were a dozen oysters plated in a circle. The woman took two of them and slurped them up, gently licking her lip.
	“I've heard that these are an aphrodisiac.” The woman growled as she ate two more. “Actually, I know they are. I've done lots of research.”
	“Maybe you've had enough.”
	“You can have some, if you like.” She passed her hand over them.
	“No thanks.” After a week of no ejaculation, an aphrodisiac was the last thing he needed in his system. The woman methodically went through the last eight oysters and ate them all as Michael watched. She set them down one atop the next in a tower of discarded shell.
	She licked her lips again, even though he was pretty sure nothing got on her lips. On the other hand, that was a sturdy brand of lipstick she was wearing, refusing to smear no matter how she tried. She looked down to the shells with a bit of fake shame. “Oh, I'm such a pig.” She pouted.
	“If everything's all set, I'll take this out of your way.” He backed up the tray.
	“My sink's broken.” She said, standing and putting her foot in front of the cart, almost causing him to run over her foot.
	“I'm not a plumber, miss.”
	“No need to be so formal, tiger.” She purred. “What's your name?”	
	“Michael.”
	“I'm Missy.” She smiled her pearly-white teeth at him.
	“Nice to meet you.” He said. “Can I call you 'miss' for short?”
	“If you like, tiger.”
	“I'm still not a plumber.”
	“Would you at least take a look?” She stepped forward and placed her hand on his bicep, giving it a gentle, admiring squeeze.
	“All right, I'll take a look.” She led him into the bathroom and got down on her knees, bending over to open the cabinet under the sink... but somehow never got to it. The stupidly short hem of her robe slipped up to her waist, revealing her bare backside to him.
	He had resisted it up until now, but that did it; Michael was hard as hell. Missy folded her arms under her head, ass in the air like Bambi on ice, as if she expected him to start without a word.
	Michael reached past her and turned on the hot water. It seemed to get hot quickly, though not as quickly as her, evidently. “Looks fine to me.” He said, turning away from her. She jumped up and stood between him and the door.
	“Can you fix the TV?” She begged.
	“Are you asking me to fix the cable?” Michael asked, turning back to the TV. “Maybe I should have brought a pizza.” He went to the remote, and the TV wouldn't turn on. He tapped the batteries out into his palm and turned them around. He pressed the power button and the TV turned on.
	“Batteries were in backwards.”
	“You're so smart.” She pushed him down to the bed with a finger. He stood, slightly stronger than her finger, and wheeled the cart to the door.
	“If that will be all, I'll be off.” He pulled the doorknob down until it clicked.
	“Wait.” She said, and Michael turned back to her. She stood a few feet from him and threw her arms back, her robe thrown to he floor behind her. Her body was flawless, unless one wasn't a fan of really big breasts, in which case, she could probably persuade one to become one.
	Michael nodded his head involuntarily. “Nice.” He said, not knowing what else to say.
	“I know you're not gay, so... what's wrong?” She said, dropping the velvety, sexy voice and speaking more plainly. It was weird seeing a gorgeous naked woman stand there casually, rather than seductively. “You don't have a ring, either. What's wrong?”
	“Nothing. I just don't have sex with people I just met.”
	“This isn't a trick, I swear.” Missy said. “I'm not married, I'm not in a relationship. There's no hidden camera. I'm perfectly healthy. I don't want money; I've got plenty. I'm just a real-life card-carrying nymphomaniac.”
	Michael doubted she had the card on her at this moment. “Have you talked to a doctor, or did you come to this conclusion yourself?”
	“I talked to two psychiatrists. I had sex with them both, and they agreed.”
	“I don't think 'nymphomania' is actually used as a medical diagnosis anymore.”
	“No, you're right, but it's so much more fun to say than 'hypersexuality,' which is what the doctors called it. I like to think I'm the nymph, and it's everyone else who's got the mania.”
	“Can't believe we're still talking while you're standing there naked.”
	“These are real, by the way. I know most people think they're fake, but they're not.” She put her hands under her breasts and shook them gently, giving them a natural fatty jiggle.
	“Is that supposed to change my mind, the fact that they're not implants? Fake or not, those are super awesome.”
	“Thank you.” She smiled. “The boobs, I can't really take credit for. That's just good genes from my mom. But I work hard on everything else.”
	“You really won't take 'no' for an answer.”
	“I will. I just almost never hear it.” Missy said. “So... why not?”
	Michael looked her up and down. She was beautiful, intensely so. Once she dropped her seductive persona, he was far less suspicious this was some sort of entrapment. The obvious sultry character she played was so phony, it was dissonant. As she was, he could imagine having sex with her... if he wasn't afraid this succubus would devour his wiener the second he freed it from his fly.
	That thought led to one of Odile, sweet Odile, hopefully not chained up somewhere else, but still lost. Missy's body was similar to Odile's: Missy was shorter, with breasts were only slightly larger than Odile's. And hair.
	When Missy was bent over, presenting her rump like a mandrill, there was something missing. The tail, that majestic appendage that swung in a way that you could tell her mood just by watching it, if you knew the signs.
	He had his answer. “Because I'm already in love.”
	Missy laughed gently, her breasts shaking as she did in what he was sure wasn't entirely involuntary movement. She stepped forward and hugged him. He put his arms around her, feeling her warm, soft flesh squish gently in his hands and against his torso.
	Soft flesh... after so much contact with his carapaced lover... this felt weird.
	He pulled himself away from her and lowered the handle on the doorknob. He released it and turned back to her. “Let's say... I changed my mind... would you still be down?”
	“Of course.” Missy said. “I'm not holding a grudge. A few people have turned me down and called me a 'slut' or something, and yeah, they burned that bridge, if they were ever going to try to come back. Don't sweat it, kiddo.”
	“I'm pretty sure we're about the same age.”
	“Age is just a number.” Missy said. Michael finally excused himself from the room, holding the cart close to his groin to keep his erection hidden until it subsided... whenever that would be.
	Age is just a number. Like 212. Or 38E.

	Michael returned to the kitchen where he apparently worked now. Getting a real job was as easy as his father used to say; just walk in and do the job. The humungous chef, more a giant teapot than a man, was in the process of crumbling his chef toque in his fingers, pitching it to the ground and stomping on it. How often he did this, only the other workers could know.
	“What's wrong, chef?” Michael asked.
	The chef looked at him, and then pointed to a burger with a bite taken out of it. “Would you eat that?” He bellowed, as if Michael was responsible.
	Michael abandoned his cart like a careless shopper and inspected the burger. It looked like a crescent moon, such a big bite was taken out of it. The inside was red, the lower bun soggy with the red juices inside, be they blood or whatever. He peeled the bun off the top and found the outside was barely browned by the cooking process.
	“That's awful rare for me, sir.” Michael said.
	“She said it wasn't rare enough!” The chef howled. “I've never made a rarer burger in my life!”
	The chef continued on a tirade on how she was probably just trying to get sick from the burger being too undercooked, and she would try to sue us, and bla bla bla... Michael tuned him out. The shape of that bite in the burger reminded Michael of something... and the chef did say it was ordered by a 'she...' 
	He gasped in realization. “I think I know what she's looking for.” Michael hustled into the kitchen to wash his hands.
	“Dude, do you have a boner?” Asked one chef assistant, stirring a sauce about with a whisk as he investigated Michael's member.
	Michael quickly washed his hands in the dishwashing sink, wiped them on some paper towels, and looked the assistant dead in his eyes. “What can I say? I love food.”
	Asking to be directed to a portion of raw ground beef, he scooped out a generous handful, sculpted into a meatball, depressed the ball into a puck, sprinked it on both sides with salt and pepper...
	And placed it on a new bun without cooking it. He placed a single leaf of lettuce atop it like the fig leaf over Adam's genitals before placing the bun on top.
	“You can't be serious.” The chef said.
	“Can you get any rarer than this?” Michael asked pointedly. Nobody else seemed to have an answer to it. “Not unless the cow's still breathing, you can't.” He plated the burger and picked it up. “What room is she in?”
	“She's in 116, all the way down the hall.” Someone answered from the back.
	Michael passed the confused chef and whispered, “If you're stressed out, go to Room 212 for a while. Trust me.”
	The chef looked at him, perplexed, as Michael dashed off with a tray and the special extra-rare burger. He reached the end of the hall, 116 on his left. He knocked three times, very politely.
	A few seconds of waiting, and the door opened just a crack. “Yes?” Said a familiar voice, with an unmistakeable hiss beneath it.
	“Room service.” He squeaked. The door opened the rest of the way, and revealed Odile, standing there in a white bathrobe.
	“Michael!” She smiled, pouncing on him and almost knocking him over. They kissed for a few seconds before he coaxed her back into her room. Salty Peter was hopefully asleep somewhere, but he couldn't afford to be see with Odile and get banned from the Cove of Fun for TWO weeks.
	With grandiose presentation, Michael lowered the tray in front of Odile, who had returned to the bed. “Lunch is served.”
	Odile picked up the burger in her clawed fingers, looked at it, and took a bite. She swallowed it, and nodded. “OK, this is good.” She made the burger vanish in three more bites. Michael had always been attracted to women who could put it away. “I don't know why the others ones were so bad. I couldn't eat them.”
	“They were cooked.”
	“What?”
	“Never mind.” It was like they'd never been separated at all. He hopped into the bed, taking off his boots before bringing them up on the bedsheet. “This... is much nicer than the animal pen.”
	“It certainly is.” Odile said, watching the ceiling fan turn slowly above her. “When Salty Peter found out I could actually talk, we agreed I shouldn't be in with the animals. All I had to do was promise not to hurt anyone.”
	“Wow.” Michael put his arm around hers. “I feel kind of stupid now. I had this idea of me rescuing you from here. I had a plan to get a truck and drive through the back of the building and break down the wall of the animal cages, or maybe smuggling you out in the cover of night. I even got this special wrench that I think would open up that collar. But I realize now that... you're no damsel in distress. You don't need me to save you.”
	“I may be strong, but...” Odile looked out into the distance. “I could've escaped when they caught me... if I had killed someone. But you've told me not to do that. And I don't think I would have got out of that cage because I wouldn't have said anything.”
	“Why didn't you say anything?”
	“I don't know. I was angry. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.”
	“Speaking of satisfaction...” Michael brought his body on top of Odile's. “Do you think we could finish what we started last night?”
	She chuckled deep in her throat, and they kissed for a bit. She sighed. “I don't know if I should. I'm tired, and if I'm tired and you do that, I think I'll fall asleep and miss the show.”
	Michael sighed. This was a bit of a far conclusion to leap to after he'd given her only two orgasms. Nevertheless, better safe than sorry. “I guess you're right. Maybe we'll do it after.”
	“That's a long time from now. What should we do?”
	“Let's watch some TV.”
	“Is that what that thing is?” Odile asked. “I thought it was some sort of opaque fish tank.”
	Michael turned the TV on and found the programming guide. He flipped through the list, trying to find something to watch. He read out a few titles as he sat there. One caught Odile's ear.
	“Lake Placid?” She looked to him, gently drumming her claws against his chest. “What's that about?”
	“Oh...” He shook his head, scrolling it off the screen. “You wouldn't like it.”

Chapter 15: Croc the Kasbah

	Michael waited in Odile's room for the performance to finish. He didn't think it'd be a good idea to be seen in the audience, just in case someone else recognized him as the guy who got flashed by Odile in that unusual moment of less-than-family-friendly fun. After all... he was banned for six more days.
	Besides, he just saw the show yesterday. What did people do here for a whole week? Then again, he spent a week in a one-room hut. That demonstrated how important good company could be.
	Michael started out of a doze when he heard someone rattle the doorknob repeatedly. He opened it without looking to see who it was, knowing it was Odile.
	“I'm sorry, I locked the door.” He apologized, letting Odile back into the room. She was in her new swimsuit, a green one-piece suit that the director of the park, whichever salty person they were, evidently found more appropriate than the small pink bikini. Of course, Odile stepped out of the swimsuit once she was inside, slipping it off her shoulders and gently pulling it down her scales. Someone had thoughtfully cut a hole in the back for her tail, but this just made getting free of it even more difficult. Maybe she could argue for a less revealing two-piece bathing suit to make this transition easier.
	Odile freed herself from the polyester and spandex shackles, waving her hands gently on her flesh, shivering a bit as her skin dried. She moved back over to the bed and slipped under the covers.
	Michael joined her, cuddling next to her, the only light in the room being the news broadcast on the television. “How was it?”
	“Better than the first time.”
	“Did people like you?”
	“I guess so.”
	“See? When you get down to it, you're not so scary. Anything interesting happen?”
	“There was a guy who was forced to leave.”
	“Why? What did he do?” Michael imagined whatever brought it on, it wasn't what got him thrown out yesterday.
	“He was holding something like this.” She made her hands into a rectangle. It was the shape of someone watching or recording something with their phone.
	“Someone was trying to record the show, maybe?” He proposed. At least they had the decency to turn their phone sideways and not record vertically like an uncivilized Saxon. “I don't think they let you take pictures during the show.”
	“He was weird-looking. He had these pictures on his arms.”
	“Tattoos?” He asked. “Did he have blond hair?”
	“Yeah.”
	That description matched the man trying to pick the lock to the animal cages, though it probably matched lots of other Floridians with criminal records.
	“He also fed me something out of a metal thing like the soda water you drink. It tasted weird.”
	“The guy in the audience?”
	“No, Salty Greg.”
	“Was it a sardine?”
	“I think that's what he said. It wasn't the fish that was weird. It was what the fish was coated in.”
	“They sell sardines in olive oil, I think. I've never had them myself.”
	“What's olive oil?”
	“It's oil they make out of olives.”
	A long pause. “OK. What's an olive?”
	“It's a tiny fruit they make olive oil out of.”
	Another long pause. The meteorologist tried to make the weather of southern Florida sound remotely interesting. “That doesn't tell me anything.”
	“I'm sorry, Odile. I don't really know anything about olives.”
	“I guess I'll have to get used to city folk food, then.” Odile shifted a bit. “I was eating better when they thought I was an animal.”
	“If you ask for an uncooked steak, I'm sure they'll give it to you.”
	“I guess. I hope that's in my contract.” Odile said.
	Michael looked down at her. “Contract?” He asked. “You signed a contract?”
	“Salty Greg gave me this thing to sign. I don't know how to write, so he said an X was fine.”
	“You can't read, sweetheart.”
	“He explained what the contract meant. And he showed me how to draw an X.”
	“Did you have someone there to make sure it wasn't some sort of trick?”
	“Who would that have been... except for you?”
	Michael sighed, a bit disgusted. “I'm going to have a talk with Greg tomorrow. I want to make certain you didn't get screwed.”
	Odile pulled him in closer, her head on his shoulder. “You're so sweet.” She whispered, planting her lips against his. They kissed, pulling his body against hers. He pressed his face into her breasts, eventually choosing the nipple to his left. She tensed a bit, placing one claw on his head. Despite her enjoyment, she found herself slowly drifting off into sleep.
	Michael came back up, resting next to her. Things were much better today than they were yesterday. He was finally reunited with his love, and in an air-conditioned hotel room, no less. No densely humid swamp, no grubby motel, no cages...
	Of course, Michael rued as he thought about Odile's contract... he wasn't getting screwed, either.

Chapter 16: Punk Croc Girl

	Late the next morning, Michael left Odile's private quarters and returned to the lobby of the hotel to scrounge up something resembling breakfast. Rather than face the difficulty of getting room service to deliver a completely uncooked steak, he would fetch it himself.
	He was anticipating Salty Greg finding him and giving him the keys to his Beemer again to summon Salty Pete out of the drunk tank again. There was Salty Greg, walking right towards him. He set down his tray of breakfast food, bacon, sausage, toast and a less traditional variant on steak and eggs.
	“You, can you help me with something?” He pointed, the epaulets and bangles on his ridiculous coat clattering gently as he walked. “Where's your name tag, anyway?”
	Michael came up with another excuse. “I opened up one of those big umbrellas in the dining area and it caught the name tag and ripped by shirt up. The name tag flew to who-knows-where.”
	“Well, you need a name tag, so come with me.” Greg said. “What's your name?”
	“Davis, sir.” Michael lied. “Can I deliver this and you bring me the name tag after? It's for 116, and... I don't think we want her getting hungry.”
	Greg nodded sternly, still a little afraid of his costar. “Good call, Davis. Meet me back here in a few.” He went off. Michael brought the tray of food to Odile. Michael coaxed her into the bathtub so she could eat the raw steak without getting blood on the sheets. He only then saw that the claws and tough skin on her legs had ripped the fuck out of the bottom of the bedsheets, tearing them to ribbons as they slept. He blew a gentle raspberry; he couldn't do anything right. Except make some eggs. That he was good at. He shoveled some of them in his mouth, a sausage and ate the toast on the way back to the lobby.
	“Sorry, Davis.” Greg met him. “I couldn't find the label maker, so just pretend that's your name for today.” He handed him a name tag with a name already in place: Michael. “If someone says Michael, that's you today.”
	“I'll try to remember.” Michael put his name tag on. “So... what else do you need?”
	“There's someone standing outside the parking lot causing trouble.” Greg explained. “Try to get rid of them, but if nothing else, get them to get rid of the megaphone. You can hear it inside the park, and it's annoying as hell.”
	Oh, good. He didn't even really work here, and somehow, he always got saddled with the crappy tasks. He saw a pile of kid vomit and scented sawdust somewhere in his future.
	“I'll see if I can get rid of her.” Michael said. He walked out into the park. Before long, he could hear the indistinct screech of amplified speech coming from somewhere. He couldn't tell what was being said, but the tone sounded familiar.
	On a hunch, Michael took a small detour to the cotton candy vendor. He asked for a specific flavor combination of watermelon with a touch of blue raspberry added, creating a plume of cotton candy in the color Wikipedia might call “deep pink.” It was such a strong pink, it was almost purple.
	Rather than take a bite, he held it in his left hand as he walked towards the entrance, parting the crowd of people and passing under the crooked legs of the pirate to find a woman barking into a megaphone. She was dressed in a tank top, khaki board shorts and flip-flops. But her hair...
	Michael held the cotton candy up to his eye. He's matched her radioactive shade of pink almost perfectly. He should have added a little more blue raspberry to make it just a shade darker.
	Now that he was closer, he could make out some of the squawking. “This place exploits animals and feeds you slaughter and murder!” She barked into the megaphone.
	Hearing that, Michael thought out his strategy. “Excuse me.” He called out from behind her. She turned sharply, and he got a look at her face. Behind her thick horn-rimmed glasses and lipstick that nearly matched her hair, she might have been attractive. But she had a face that had those permanent lines near the mouth, the result of someone spent their entire life frowning.
	Michael handed her the cotton candy to her. “Welcome to Salty Pete's Cove of Fun.”
	She accepted the cone of cotton candy, looked Michael dead in his eye and threw it to the sidewalk. Not about to be intimidated by her, he leaned down, picked it up, the candy sticking to the humidity-moistened ground, and took a bite.
	The woman groaned. Michael shook his head. “I'm not about to let this go to waste.”
	“I wouldn't have eaten it anyway. I'm vegan.”
	Of course you fucking are, Michael thought. Nevertheless, he was confused. “Cotton candy's not vegan?”
	“It's made with white sugar! White sugar is filtered with bone charcoal!”
	Michael shrugged. “All right. I legit did not know that.” He nevertheless took a second bite before crumpling up the treat into a wad and pitching it into a nearby garbage can. “I've been told by management that... we don't mind if you're here, and we don't mind if you hand out fliers or talk to people or whatever, but... the megaphone has to go. We can hear it in the park, and it's annoying the customers. So that has to go.”
	“You can't silence me, fascist!” She shouted into the megaphone, pointing it into the air rather than directly at Michael. It was still loud enough to be painful. “There are animals in this building forced to perform! The latest prisoner is a chimera, half-human, half-gator, forced to caper around in a bikini to titillate men and disgust your children!”
	Michael blew his breath out sharply. Alligator. He let it go, trying to engage her again. “The person you're speaking of works for us voluntarily, miss. She's treated fine, just like all the animals and all our employees. She's getting the best of both worlds, surely.”
	“I don't believe you, fascist!” The woman barked. “Bring her out here so I can free her from this enslavement!”
	“That'll be her choice to come out here or not, miss. But I'm not doing anything until you put that thing away.”
	“You can't silence me, fascist!” She repeated.
	“No-one is silencing you, miss.” He responded. “But I can't let you, someone who isn't even a customer, disrupt the people who actually are paying to be here. You can stay, but the megaphone has to go.”
	“Call the pigs on me, then, if you're man enough.” She said, graciously out of the megaphone, getting right in his face. She really was the kind of woman who would be beautiful, if she had an entirely different attitude. Nothing deflated beauty like arrogance. In fact, that tank top was suspiciously filled-out for one of these granola-girl types. Weren't implants against the feminist creed? Maybe they were real; he'd now seen two sets of naturals recently that were larger than expected, verging on too much. Hers looked entirely like two halves of a musk melon tucked into the skin.
	“I'm not calling the cops on you, lady.” Michael said, stepping in a little closer. “That's what you want. You want to be on the news tonight, talking about the poor animals and whatever. We're not doing that. So you can rest assured that, no matter what you do here today, we won't call the police.”
	“Great!” She said with new vigor. “Salty Pete kills animals!” She screamed into the megaphone.
	Fed up, Michael grabbed the horn of the megaphone and lowered it, leaning in and glowering at the woman. “We're not calling the police, but that doesn't mean you're free to do whatever you want. My boss told me to get rid of you. I didn't think that was necessary. So you are standing on this sidewalk entirely at my discretion. So, you can either voluntarily put this thing back in your car, or I will rip it out of your grip and smash it to bits.”
	“You wouldn't dare.” She squinted past her glasses.
	“If you're sure about that, then go ahead and use it.” Michael said with increasing tension. “But let me tell you, no-one in the park wants you here, everyone hates you and no-one will shed a tear if you leave... or if you just disappear. If you want to see how far you can push this, we can see if and see if any bystanders will come to your aid if I smash this thing over your head.”
	“I want to talk to your manager.” She moved one foot back.
	“I don't actually work here, sister.” Michael confessed. “I stole this shirt and they haven't caught on yet. I don't even know who Michael is. I'm sorry, but you're so unlucky, they sent out the only person here who isn't actually getting paid to put up with you. You can feel free to tell them. I'll bring Salty Peter out here myself if you want, but do you think he'll believe you?”
	Michael sighed. “I really didn't want to do it like this, and I still don't. So remember, if you want to get rid of me, give me that megaphone. You can stay here and hand out pamphlets and yell until your voice wears out. But if you use that megaphone again... the cops will be called. But not by us. By you. And they won't get here in time before I bodily drag you into the pen where we keep our star performer. We employ her under the condition that she doesn't eat any of our customers. But then again, you're not a customer, are you?”
	The woman was silent, but defiantly stared at him. “You don't believe me?” Michael continued. “Trust me, she almost ate me. She's eaten some other people, too. This is one-hundred percent true. She's a capital-C carnivore. She is the perfect mixture of two apex predators, and if you really think she's some weak animal that needs your rescue, it shows how little you really know about her. So, if you look in my eyes and still think I'm lying about anything that I just told you... I beg you, go ahead and use that megaphone just one. More. Fucking. Time.”
	They glowered at each other for a few seconds. A gentle tic appeared under her eye, and she broke eye-contact first. Michael pulled the megaphone from her grip by the horn. He spun it around, pulled the switch on the back, opened the battery compartment and dumped the four D-batteries onto the ground like the spent shells from a revolver.
	He clapped the device shut. “If you're still here at lunch time, I'll send someone out here with a veggie-dog or something for you, on me.”
	“I'm not eating anything from here.” She spat. “You'd probably sneak some meat into it something.”
	“I wouldn't do that.”
	He was absolutely going to do that.
	Michael walked away, back towards the entrance of the park. In one of the handicap spots closest to the entrance, he saw... a BMW. Salty Greg said he was the only one with a BMW here, and this wasn't his. Instead of an unfortunate vanity plate, this had an indistinct collection of letters and numbers like any other plate. He understood why Salty Greg spoke with such authority as to owning the only BMW in the lot: if you could afford one, what were you doing taking your family here?
	Michael re-entered the park, going back down the path he'd come from the hotel, eventually to report to Salty Greg that she had been taken care of... and he didn't hear her voice at all. There was the scream of ungrateful kids and the rabble of overweight families shuffling about unhappily...
	God, if he actually did work here, he'd REALLY try to get himself fired.

Chapter 17: Croc Market

	Michael continued to lay low in Salty Pete's Cove of Fun. The places he could go weren't much fun. His main mission was missing the gaze of Pete himself. He knew to avoid the noon-time parade, where Pete could, most often, barely stand and wave at the crowd from the fore of his boat-shaped float. He would wander the park at certain intervals to take pictures with kids and the occasional lass, but if you wanted to know where Salty Pete was, the best bet was the hotel bar, 'steeling himself for a long sea voyage.'
	It was a shame, but he could go longer without a beer if he must. He also wisely avoided Odile's show, where they had apparently taken her suggestion for a two-piece swimsuit so her tail could move more freely. She never spoke during the show, a artistic decision that Greg thought made her more mysterious. After the show ended, Michael was backstage to help walk her off, but he caught Greg's ear before he could walk off and get out of costume.
	“Greg....” Michael said. “Odile says you made her sign a contract?”
	“Well, yeah, everyone who works here signs a contract.”
	“Did you know that she can't read?”
	“I knew she couldn't sign her name, but... we explained what it all about.”
	“I want to see it.”
	“The contract?” Greg sneered gently. “Why? What business is it of yours?”
	Michael swooped in, ready to pin Greg to the wall if he had to. “Who was looking out for her when you had her sign this contract? Do you think an illiterate woman from the swamps can be said to have capacity to enter a legal agreement like this?”
	“There's nothing weird in the contract!” Greg backed up, hands raised innocently. “It's completely standard.”
	“Then let me see it.” Michael demanded.
	Greg sighed. “Let's go to the office. I'll get Kris to make you a copy.” He brought Michael to the office, a single room with a secretary of some sort on one end, and a further private office in the next room. It was almost entirely devoid of pirate imagery with the exception of a clock built into the center of a ship's wheel on one wall.
	It was immediately propelled to number two on his personal list of favorite rooms in this god-forsaken resort, the first being wherever Odile was. Greg introduced him to Kris, the secretary or whatever her job title was. She was a slim woman in her late twenties in a black blazer with a deep enough decolletage to reveal the tiny mole near the peak of the cleft. She had tiny glasses, dark hair whipped into a bun against an unsharpened pencil, and as he'd see when she stood to work the copier, a gray skirt that kissed her knees.
	She fed the original contract into the copier it predictably spat out a duplicate, slightly warm from somewhere in the belly of the copier. Kris brought the stack back to the desk, aligned the corner of it underneath the stapler, and threw her fist down onto it, the thwack making the other objects on her desk and Michael jump about the same height.
	Kris picked up the duplicated contract and held it out to Michael. “Here you go.” She said, in a voice so meek, it almost sounded like a squeaky door hinge. She looked down once her sentence finished, like eye-contact was painful.
	Michael took the contract from her and thanked her. Kris immediately returned to her computer, the previous outburst, if it even was one, changing nothing in her flat demeanor. She must have very little opportunity to get her tension out. Maybe he should tell her to go to 212 for a good time. That was probably inscribed on some public lavatory somewhere in the park, though likely not in the ladies' room... unless Missy put it there herself.
	Michael weaved his way back out from the backstage area, into the hotel proper and back to Odile's room. She was in bed, tucked under the covers, clinging them tight to herself. She looked cold.
	“Are you cold?” Michael asked.
	“No.” She answered.
	His instincts were off. At least she wouldn't ask him to turn down the air conditioning. “Do you remember that thing they had you sign?”
	“Yeah...” She said as Michael took off his shirt.
	“I've got a copy of it here. I want to go over it to make sure you understood what you agreed to.”
	“They explained it, but if you want to make sure, I reckon that's prudent.” Michael slipped into bed next to Odile, and she put her scaly arms around him, pressing her less-scaly bosom against his chest. Michael lifted the cover sheet and started to read.
	“This Performance Contract (herebe after referred to by “Contract”) is made effective on the twenty-eight of June... I, Odile, (herebe after referred to by “Performer,”) hereby offer services as a privateer for Salty Dave's Cove of Fun (herebe after referred to by “Contractor.”) Performer will sail to the set (hereby after referred to by “Set”) one halfed-hour before landfall. The Performer be performin' before sundown for the...”
	Literally what the fuck is this? The contract was half legalese, half pirate lingo. It was entirely indecipherable. Not that he really thought he had much change penetrating the legal mumbo-jumbo, but he certainly had a better chance than Odile. This is the contact Salty Greg described as 'completely standard?”
	From what he could gather, the only stipulation was to perform every day the park was open. It didn't say for how long, or how much she'd get paid. Then again, maybe there was a gentleman's agreement regarding her living in this room and the chefs passing her raw steaks...
	By the time he wrung this info out of the first pages of the contract like trying to wring sweat out of a baseball cap, Odile was fast asleep, her nose slits gently whistling cool air against his shoulder.
	Michael flipped the stapled page and gasped. Odile gently rolled her cheek against him, but did not stir. Somehow, a photocopy of a woman's breasts had gotten mixed into the contract. Michael was pretty sure it wasn't there when Odile was negotiating it in the first place. She was naïve, but not that naïve.
	Even in glorious monochrome, they looked pretty nice. She wasn't as stacked as Odile, or as wonderfully scaly, but this was the kind he'd grown up appreciating. He looked at it for a bit before flipping to the next page.
	Now, the incomprehensible words might as well have been in Turkish. Every word floated towards his brain and bounced off, clattering into a wastepaper basket. He flipped back to the titties. That was more worthy of study.
	His intense scrutiny was rewarded quickly. At the peak of the cleavage was a tiny oblong mole. These were Kris' breasts, the allegedly shy secretary he'd just met.
	A blush crawled up his face, and the bedsheets shifted as he grew erect. Seeing the breasts alone had not inspired this, but knowing who they belonged to, that cute, shy woman...
	He looked to Odile at his side, rubbing his hand down the scutes on her back. He sighed. It was just a picture, after all.
	Michael continued to scan the document, barely able to comprehend it. It was too late for this kind of work. He flipped the page without being sure he'd fully grasped the implications of it.
	The implications of this next page were clear, however. It was a photocopy of a woman's butt.  The average xerox of the human hiney might not always betray the gender of the model, unless he was a free spirit who proudly let his testicles rest on the glass like a trophy. In this one, the artist had posed in such a way where the single line of her vulva was visible between her legs.
	Not since his youth was his lust so stirred by a single piece of paper. He closed the contract, set it on the nightstand... and picked it back up and flipped back to that page. He was spellbound. Why on earth was this in the document? Was this some sort of game perpetrated by Kris? Could this be some sort of accident? The xeroxing was clearly intentional, but maybe she thought she'd gotten rid of them all. The other side was blank, so it didn't seem like the piece of paper had been reused.
	Michael threw the contract to the floor, out of his reach. Despite his current state, he would, in fact, not be the kind of man who wakes up his girlfriend for sex.
	He turned off the light, put his arms around Odile, and recoiled as her foot moved towards him and poked him. In the morning, he'd ask her if there was any way she could trim those down.

Chapter 18: Rock Out With Your Croc Out

	Even getting to be bed later, Michael was the first up. He did his morning rituals and walked out into the lobby, grabbing some things for breakfast for Odile (and some for himself). The chef was surprised to see him here so early, and privately thanked him for that tip about room 212. He then went into more detail than Michael really wanted to hear about the sex this 400-pound man had with the much more sensibly sized woman. He congratulated him, but he hoped not to find her as a Wile E. Coyote-style pancake.
	Michael eventually convinced Odile to try a piece of bacon, even thought it was cooked. She wasn't impressed. Michael had joked he couldn't be with someone who didn't like bacon. He meant it... at the time. Breakfast in bed eventually became 'watch the news in bed.' The weather looked hot, sunny and drier than average for this time of year. It would probably be a very busy day at the park.
	“Odile...” Michael grabbed the contract from the floor and opened it to the page with the photocopied breasts. “Was this page in the contract you signed?”
	She looked at the xerox uncomprehendingly. “No.” She shook her head. “What does it mean?”
	“It doesn't mean anything. It's a joke or something.” Michael closed the contract and rolled it up. “I think I need to talk to someone about it.”
	“OK.” She nodded. “I'll be here, watching the... thing.” She didn't even point to the television. She'd only had one in her life for a few days and she was already becoming a couch potato, and with no couch to speak of. He drew her attention away for a  few kisses, and then walked off towards the office, dodging the attention of anyone else.
	Michael arrived at the office, and to his slight surprise, Kris was there, too. He thought maybe she wouldn't have to show up before 9:00 when she was there late yesterday, but thus were the tribulations of being an indispensable member of Salty Pete's Cove of Fun. She was dressed in a blazer with a white sweater under it, the clearest sign that she never left the comfort of this air-conditioned office except to get to her car and leave this godforsaken place.
	There was no bell outside the door, so Michael tapped on the glass. Kris looked up from her keyboard and stared at Michael. A few seconds passed, and she resumed typing. Michael decided to try the door, and it opened.
	“Hello, Kris.” Michael said.
	“What can I do for you... Michael?” She looked at his name tag.
	Michael had removed the two obscene pages from the contract before stepping in, each with a little tear in the upper-left corner where it had been stapled. “I think there was a mix-up. These were in the contract.” He passed them to her face-down.
	Kris stopped typing. She lifted the paper and looked at it briefly. “There was no mix-up.” She shook her head and continued.
	Michael cleared his throat. “Is that you?”
	She stopped typing sharply, and looked up to Michael. “What makes you think that?”
	“The mole.” Michael pointed to the same region on his body as where her mole was, about the center of the sternum.
	Kris' eyebrow  rose above her glasses momentarily. She pulled at the turtleneck collar of her sweater over her head, revealing it to be a dickie rather than a complete sweater. This revealed her deep cleavage, the edges of her lacy bra visible on the side of the blazer. But between her breasts... there was no mole.
	Kris pulled the pencil out of her hair, scattering her hair down around her shoulders. It wasn't a pencil today; it was a washable marker. She took the cap off with her teeth and drew the oblong mole exactly where it was yesterday. She capped the marker and whipped her hair back into the messy bun with one hand, a trick Michael wouldn't mind seeing again.
	“So...” Kris stood, suddenly looking much taller in Michael's mind. She reminded him of a teacher, and he felt very small before her. “You've seen everything I have, so why don't we even the playing field?” She looked down to his crotch.
	Michael obediently brought his fly down, unfastened his pants and scooped out his junk, hanging it over the waistband of his boxers. She giggled gently, and Michael felt his face redden as he grew erect.
	Kris smiled. “Wow, do you just do whatever someone tells you or what?” She chuckled, moving in a bit closer. “You're clearly proud of it, so...” She put his hands on his cheeks. “Why are you blushing?”
	Michael didn't respond. Kris turned her hands over, placing the backs of her hands on his cheeks. “Wow, it's so warm. Anyway, pretty good. Most guys don't pull it out until they hear about my collection.”
	“Your what?” Michael asked. Kris walked to the door and dropped the window blind on it. “We couldn't have closed that earlier?” He pulled his shirt over his penis.
	“Don't get dressed yet.” Kris instructed, opening a drawer with its mini-key and pulling out a stack of papers. On the top of the stack was a photocopy of a penis, a quite small one occupying a small fraction of the paper. Michael wasn't sure it was actually erect.
	“Flip it.” She instructed. Michael curled the pages past his thumb, fanning them outward into a large flipbook that only lasted a few seconds.
	“Is this really what it looks like?” He opened it to a random page, and a few pages after. Each page in this scrapbook was a photocopied penis, organized by size so it would show a slightly jerky animation of a cock growing and occasionally changing skin tone.
	“It is exactly what it looks like.” She answered. “I've been collecting these since before I was even at this job. I've got lots of guys who work here to add to it. I know every single penis in that list without having any of it written down.”
	“So... you want to add me to the flipbook?”
	“That's why those pages aren't stapled.” Kris coaxed Michael towards the copier. He stood on a chair to get his penis at the height of the glass, placing its full length on the glass. Kris gently closed the cover onto his junk, the springy white material on the underside of the cover squishing it a bit.
	Kris pressed a few buttons on the control panel and the copier started to whir. The warm light advanced down the glass plate. A copy left the other side of the copier. Kris retrieved it and showed it to Michael.
	Had something gone horribly wrong? The xerox of his dick looked like his pinkie. Did xeroxes have that testosterone-damaging radiation they used to think cell phones and laptops had? Was this some sort of witchcraft or voodoo that stole inches from him to give to some other lucky bastard? He threw the cover off the copier and looked down. It was the same size as when she closed the lid.
	Kris burst out laughing. Suddenly, Michael felt like a total jackass. “You set it to like, 30% magnification, didn't you?”
	“I do that to every guy.” She laughed, stealing a quick kiss from Michael's mouth.
	“Even the guy on the top of the stack?”
	Kris paused. “No, not him. That would have been cruel. He didn't seem to know how little... anyway...” She pressed some more buttons and a second copy slipped into the collection tray. This one much more accurately reflected reality. Michael tucked himself back in as best he could, took the smaller xerox and dropped it into the paper shredder.
	“Thank you for your contribution.” Kris said. “I'll sort your page wherever it should go... probably closer to the end.”
	That was nice to hear. Michael looked at the collection of xeroxes one last time, flipping to the last page. The final entry was some blessed fellow whose member was large enough to stretch across a standard piece of paper, the long way. “Who was this guy?”
	“Oh, he still works here. He's some Asian dude.”
	“Really?”
	“Racist.”
	“What? Is he really Asian, or did you just make that up so you could call me racist? That would make you the racist.”
	“It's Florida. We're all racists.”
	Michael could only shrug as he left the office, not seeing exactly where in the stack it was placed. He walked back towards the lobby and saw a small crowd of employees walking in a single direction. Michael followed them, wondering what the fuss could be... until he heard the familiar cry of over-amplified complaining.
	Oh, good, Michael thought. She's back to cause more problems. He headed towards the entrance, ready to deal with her again. As he approached, the amplified squawks gave way to a general murmur.
	Today, at the entrance, there was a crowd. Not a line of overweight simpletons who couldn't afford real entertainment. A crowd of protestors with signs, multicolored hair, at least one hackey-sack, dreadlocks on white dudes somehow allowed to participate despite their cultural appropriation, and not a single employable person among them, thus why they could all join this protest on less than a day's notice.
	Michael looked for the deep-pink haired woman he scolded the other day. He didn't see anyone of her description, focusing on those with the megaphones. The crowd looked bigger than normal, as they were obstructing the entrance to the park to the people.
	“Excuse me?” Michael asked a random unclean white man with dreadlocks under a backwards ballcap and no sleeves on his shirt. “Who's in charge around here?”
	“Nobody's in charge, man.” The man acted like Michael had made a ridiculous faux pas, as if this scrub was ready for the Victorian-era cotillion.
	“Then who's holding the megaphones?”
	“They just have those, man. They must go to a loooot of protests. I would, but...”
	“I know, the grow-op needs you there to count buds.” Michael said. “Let me talk to someone with a megaphone...” He found a random woman whose fist held in the air revealed her topiary of pit hair. Another advantage to his wonderfully scaly girlfriend. “Excuse me?”
	“We're not leaving!” She said into the megaphone.
	Michael grabbed the megaphone out of her hands without another word in one quick swipe. “Listen up, everybody!” He said into the megaphone, addressing the crowd. “These things are not allowed here. We can hear it in the park, and it's annoying.”
	“Hypocrite!” Said someone else, into a megaphone.
	“Fine, I'll just yell.” He hollered to the crowd. “You can't use these, and you can't block the way in for customers! Stop obstructing the entrance, and we'll listen to your demands or whatever.”
	To his surprise, the crowd started to move to one side, allowing a narrow avenue to form on the side and a line of customers to dribble through to the dozing cashiers.
	“All right.” Michael said. “Now, rather than just yelling whatever you want, why don't you start a chant so we can at least have a clue what you want, OK?” Michael waved his arms around, “So... what do you want?”
	“Free the slave!” The crowd chanted in startling unison.
	Michael looked at the crowd. “What?”
	“The alli-girl. We call her Alli!”
	Michael pinched the top of his nose. Alligator... “She's not a slave. She's probably asleep in her room right now. She can do whatever she wants. Well, she signed a contract, but outside of that, she can.”
	“You're keeping her prisoner!” Someone yelled.
	“No, we're not. Trust me.” Michael said. “She's perfectly comfortable.”
	“Bring her out here!” A voice called from the crowd, a suggestion the crowd seemed very excited about. They barked their support, and Michael waved his hands down to the ground to settle them.
	“She's not big on giant crowds of strangers...” Michael insisted.
	“That's what we want, buddy!” Said the dreadlocked dude. “Talk's cheap. You can say she's fine, but we want to hear it from her mouth.”
	Michael looked at the crowd, feeling helpless. “It's her choice if she wants to come out here. But... I'll see what I can do.” He turned back to the entrance of the park. A “fellow” employee followed him for a second and asked. “Yo, you know who plays the alligator girl?”
	The word was like poking a sore tooth with his tongue. Alligator. Michael slowed to let the man catch up, a Japanese-American man named Kevin. Michael said, “I know her, yeah. I'll talk to her.” A thought was still on his mind, and he subtly looked down at his coworker's groin. Could this be the guy whose Xerox lurked at the bottom of the stack?
	“Are you looking at my dick?” Kevin asked, his face curled into a confused sneer.
	Fuck. “I sure am.” Michael said. “It looks pretty good from here.”
	“I'm not gay, dude.”
	“I'm not, either!” Michael tapped his chest for emphasis. “Women compliment each others' breasts and asses all the time, why can we guys compliment each other's dicks?”
	“Well, the compliment is accepted and appreciated, but I won't be checking you out to return it.”
	“That is totally fine.”
	Michael went off to find Odile. Kevin spent the next half-hour at work slightly distracted as he tried to process what just happened.

Chapter 19: Shepherd the Croc

	Odile was in her room, sleepily watching whatever this program was that came on after the news. Everyone was yelling at each other, and occasionally, big men in black T-shirts had to separate them so they wouldn't fight. Why didn't they just let them fight, and whichever one was victorious could eat the other one and mate?
	The city was weird.
	Michael came back in, hands folded nervously behind him. “Odile? We might have a problem.”
	“What's wrong?” She asked, turning her head to him, blinking in her slightly slow way.
	“There's a mob of people out there that want to see you.”
	Odile started up, leaning up on her elbows, she looked to the window to see where the sun was. “When is it?” She asked. “It's not time for the show, is it?”	
	“It's not the audience, Odile. They think Salty Peter's keeping you chained up in a cage.”
	Relaxing a bit, Odile looked down. “They were. Not anymore, though.”
	“Let's not tell the crowd that.” Michael helpfully suggested. “They want you to make an appearance. They want to see you and have you tell them that you're being treated right.”
	Odile sat silent for a long time. “Do I have to?”
	“No, you don't.” Michael insisted. “You don't have to do anything.”
	A shorter pause. “Should I?”
	Michael sighed, rubbing his eyes, sliding against the sheets to get closer and hold her against her shoulders. “I don't think we're getting rid of them until you talk to them. But... then again, something about this is fishy.”
	“There are fish?”
	“Not that kind of fish. Anyway... you said someone got kicked out for recording the performance a few nights ago. He had tattoos. Now, tattoos and Florida go together like salt and pepper. But nevertheless... I saw a guy with tattoos trying to pick the lock...” He stopped himself, knowing she barely was familiar that doors even had locks, much less that they could be 'picked' “He was trying to get into the animal cages without a key. He said someone hired him to undo the lock, but... I'll bet I could have just kicked that door down if I had to. You don't pick locks unless you want to get in and not let anyone know that you did.
	“And yesterday, there was a single protestor agitating for your freedom, and today... there's almost a hundred... See the guests on that show? How they're rowdy and unsophisticated?” Michael gestured to the TV. “They're sort of like the people outside, except you have to wear a shirt to get into a television studio.”
	“Do a lot of people watch this?” Odile asked.
	“Yeah, this is national television.” He answered. That comment brought a thought to his mind. “Not to disrespect your show, or Salty Greg, but... for your five minute appearance in one show, that plays only once during the day, and is in the adult part of the park, and has only been a feature for less than a week...  why are they paying so much attention to it? If I went up to anyone who'd been here for a few days, I'd ask them 'did you see Salty Greg's Animal Extravaganza, or whatever it's called?' And they'd probably say, 'What is that?' So why the sudden popularity?”
	Odile looked at him. “You think it's a trap?”
	“I'm just suspicious.” Michael said. “And I think the best idea would be to not go out there at all.”
	“OK.” Odile relaxed and continued watching TV. “How are you going to get rid of them?”
	“I don't know if I can.”
	“I could scare them away.”
	“No, that's not a good idea. You'll scare the kids, too.”
	“That's my only idea.” Odile rolled her shoulders, tail swiping back and forth lazily. She never had to learn how to interact with the public without eating them.
	“I've got an idea.” Michael said. “But I don't think it's a good one.”

	Michael knocked on door 212. A tense second went by, where there was no answer. Michael hoped she was still here.
	“It's open.” Missy said eagerly, through the door.
	It was, and surely, so were her legs. Michael entered, and found Missy on the bed, painting the fourth of five toenails. Upon seeing Michael, her eyes lit up and her smile widened. She jumped up, tipping the pink toenail polish over onto the bed. She grabbed Michael and hugged him.
	Why couldn't he have found a woman this eager to see him before he went into the swamp? High school would have gone much differently.
	“You're back!” She kissed him on the cheek. “I was hoping you'd change your mind.”
	“I haven't.” Michael said, despite his second brain straining in his jeans at her touch, her sight... even her smell. He gently pushed her away. “Missy, I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you?”
	“Sure.” Missy said. Michael assumed she would be game: she knew how accommodating she could be.
	“Could you come downstairs with me? I want you to meet my girlfriend.”
	“Totally!” Missy found her room key, something Michael could barely believe she actually had considering how seldom her door seemed to be locked. She skipped out of the room with Michael.
	“Hey, thanks for sending the chef my way!” Missy said. “He was actually very good.”
	“I wasn't sure he could actually make love to you without having a heart attack, but... he looked stressed out.”
	“I helped him with that. And he helped me, too! He's amazing at cunnilingus!”
	“Not so loud, Missy.” Michael looked at the passing families.
	“But he was!” Missy insisted, no less loud. “I shouldn't be surprised. He clearly eats a lot, and he's a chef, so he's got that world-class tongue. Good for him.”
	They entered the stairwell, the exit to the stairs being very close to Odile's room. “So... are you thinking some sort of menage action here? A little threesome?”
	“No.” Michael insisted. But now that she had suggested it... maybe.
	Michael brought Missy into the room. “Odile, this is Missy, a friend who's on vacation here.”
	“I'm not on vacation.” Missy corrected him, and then got a look at Odile. She gasped, her mouth slowly falling open. Odile stood up and stalked slowly towards the unfamiliar woman.
	“It's nice to meet you.” Odile said for only the second time in her life.
	Missy stepped forward slowly, reaching out and touching Odile's hand. She looked at it, touched her scaly skin, and stepped in closer, looking at her features, her vertical pupils, her tail...
	“My goodness...” Missy said, inching in closer until they were only a few inches apart. “You're so beautiful.”
	If Odile could blush, she would have. She smiled shyly, showing off her daggerlike teeth. “Thank you. I reckon you're awful pretty, too.”
	“That's what they tell me.” Missy went in for a kiss. Odile ducked away.
	“Oh, no... sorry. I'm not... I'm flattered, but...” Odile the mighty swamp queen was suddenly the bashful girl. Michael's erection threatened to rip his fly and detatch itself from him just so it could actually be involved.
	“Missy, I have a crazy plan, and it doesn't involve sex at all.” Michael explained. “Do you think you and Odile look alike at all, other than the obvious? Like, height, measurements, stuff like that?”
	“She's at least four inches taller than me.” Missy pointed out the most apparent difference (well, the second most).
	“Do you have high heels, like really big ones? Like fuck-me-heels?”
	Missy sneered at Michael, incredulous. “Do I have fuck-me-heels? Of course I have fuck-me-heels. Don't be silly.” She kept looking at Odile. “Why don't we go to the mirror?”
	They entered the bathroom so she could look at herself and Odile. “We have similar lips. Her cheekbones are less prominent. She's a little more muscular than me, but that could just be the scales.”
	“What about... these?” Odile gestured to her breasts. “Whatever they're called.”
	“They're called 'tits,' sweetheart.” Missy said. “And yours look pretty nice.”
	“I don't know. They just get in the way when I swim.” She looked down at them.
	Missy moved over and reached her hand and pulled Odile's breasts out of her bathrobe. She allowed this. “Man, those are really nice.” She nodded. “And for me, tits don't get in the way. They move stuff out of the way. They open doors and help you. They are your two best friends. So I should stop smothering them.” Missy threw her robe completely off and looked at her breasts in the mirror. “I think I've got you beat, Odile.”
	Odlie looked to her right, at Missy's legendary rack, and back into the mirror for the direct comparison. “I don't know. They look pretty close to me.”
	“Well, the hand is faster than the eye, so let's try this way.” She spun Odile to the side, her tail pulling the shower curtain along as she turned. They faced each other, and before Odile could react, both of Missy's hands were on both of Odile's breasts. She kneaded them in her palms, folding them against her thumbs, which gently rotated her green nipples. All in the pursuit of science, of course.
	“Yeah, those feel a lot like mine.” She lifted them upwards, trying to gauge their weight. “But I still think I have you beat.” Missy said. “See, touching them has me all hot now...” Missy dropped the breasts, which returned to their position with a single bounce. She slipped her hands behind Odile's head and kissed her once, very slowly, on the lips.
	Michael, watching the whole spectacle, his boner aching in its denim prison, wondered if this was what the other guys on the Internet meant when they called him a 'cuck.' He thought it was the insult du jour, but maybe they were right after all.
	Released from the kiss, Odile did smile, but neatly pulled out of Missy's grip. “Michael, will your plan work?”
	“I think so.” Michael said. “Missy, get dressed. I'm going to take you outside.” She dressed in her bathrobe with the utmost reluctance. “More than that. Like, real clothes.”
	“I don't have any real clothes.”
	“What?”
	“I live here. And all I own are swimsuits and lingerie.”
	“OK, well, go get a bathing suit to put on under it.”
	She left. Odile tucked herself back into her robe. “She seems nice.”
	“Maybe. I've only talked to her twice, and she's tried to have sex with me both times.”
	“Well, I tried to eat you when we met, so...” Odile chuckled dryly, drifting off into another thought. “She's really pretty. I... wish I looked more like her.”
	Michael swung his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I choose you, every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Don't forget that.”
	Odile hummed gently.

	Outside the park, the crowd was starting to regret starting the protest so early. They were a giant sweating mob. That much was normal, but the sun was directly overhead, and there were no water fountains outside the park. The protest has lost much of the vigor it had started with, but it came back when someone recognized the hapless park employee who had told them he'd summon the enslaved half-human cavorting hopelessly for Salty Peter's amusement.
	Michael hustled to the front of the crowd, a woman in a bathrobe walking barefoot behind him. Michael would personally rather eat a nacho chip off the floor of a movie theater than walk around here barefoot, but it didn't bother her. Maybe she just didn't like the Y-shaped tan lines flip-flops would leave on her feet.
	“Hello, everyone!” Missy surprised Michael by immediately taking the floor. “I'm Linda Faiman. I work here at Salty Peter's Cove of Fun, but most crucially... I am an actress.”
	Michael watched the crowd settle a little as she spoke. “I'm so happy you're all so concerned for my well-being, but... The Amazing Alligator Woman, or Alli-Girl, as I like to call her... she's just a fictional character. It's me in about four hours of makeup. I think Julie, the makeup head, she's going to be thrilled you all convinced Alli was a real person.”
	Missy opened her arms. “Don't be sad that you were fooled. There's nothing foolish about compassion and caring. I'm so glad you all came out in support, but... I'm doing just fine, folks! Thanks for coming out!”
	She started to walk away. The crowd crackled with life again, but for once, the anger wasn't directed at Michael, but at each other. One guy shoved the dreadlocked dude. “You idiot! You told me she was real!”
	“Hey!” Michael pointed sharply at him. “If I knew I was going to have a riot on my hands, I would've told you all to get lost from the start. So if you're going to fight each other, do it somewhere else!”
	The crowd, mostly defeated, dispersed with the excruciating lack of enthusiasm of the end of movie night in the lounge of an old folks' home. Michael sighed and returned into the park. Missy was standing there, waiting for him. “You just told 100 people to bug off, and they actually did. That is the hottest thing any guy has ever done.”
	“They wouldn't have believed me if you weren't so convincing. Thank you so much. I owe you one.”
	“Fuck me.”
	“You just met my girlfriend.”
	“Girlfriend is just a word.”
	“If you really want some...” Michael said. “Look for an employee named Kevin. He's Japanese. Trust me.”
	“How do you know?” Missy asked. “Are you gay?”
	“No, I'm not. I just--” Michael attempted to explain it gingerly. “I have it on good information.”
	Missy shrugged. “All right. I'll keep my eyes out for him.”
	“Do you really not own any normal clothes?”
	“I own ONE one-piece swimsuit, which is black, so it's perfect for funerals.”
	“Well, I'll see you by the pool.” Michael split off from her to return to his room, though perhaps he should pretend he was 'working' for a little while longer. If he saw Kevin first, he'd have to give him a heads-up.
	He unlocked Odile's room and entered. She wasn't on the bed, so he turned to his left and found her in the bathroom, sat on the toilet backwards, her arms leaning on the tank.
	“Whoa! Close the door!” He threw his hands over his eyes. Odile looked over at him like nothing was out of place. Unmoved, she slapped the door with her tail and shut it.
	Michael gave her a few minutes to finish up, flipping through the channels in vain to find something to watch at almost noon that wasn't the news or the Price is Right.
	Odile came out, but he never heard the toilet flush. Despite this evidence, Michael was pretty certain she wasn't actually raised in a barn. He had heard the shower run for a minute, and her leathery skin was sparkling with moisture. He stood from the bed and grabbed her, and they kissed. They toppled into the sheets, shuffling back as Michael unfastened his jeans.
	Odile noticed, and pushed Michael back a few inches, enough that she could speak. “I'm sorry, I don't want to do that right now.”
	“That's OK.” Michael said. “Maybe tonight, after the show, then?”
	“I don't think so.” Odile said. “See, while you were gone, I tried doing that thing you did to me... to myself, and... I scratched myself.”
	“Are you OK?” Michael asked.
	“I'm fine, but... I don't think it's a good idea for us to do that right now.”
	“You're right.” Michael shifted around behind Odile and spooned her, her tail passing between his legs. “But... maybe we can do the other thing?”
	Odile turned back to face him. “What other thing?”
	“You know... the other thing.” Odile's face was as blank. In the interest of demonstration, Michael brought Odile back to the edge of the bed, her legs hanging off and her knees touching the carpet. Michael took her tail by the base and coaxed it away from her rear...
	What he was looking for, between her buttocks... it wasn't there. Now he understood why she was confused. There was only one entrance and one exit.
	One exit... Michael realized something Odile had in common with birds, frogs and the platypus. If he'd known this... maybe he wouldn't have been so eager to get his mouth on it. Then again, plenty of the most virile men ever to have their sex tapes committed to VHS were more than happy to do that. Why was he, perhaps ironically, such a pussy?
	It didn't matter. The moment had passed. He gently patted Odile's buttocks, seeing if there was any reaction. She looked at him like she wasn't sure what he was working towards. He sighed. “How about I get us some lunch?”
	“That sounds good.”
	Michael tucked everything back in, and took off on the errand. He would get her something nice, but the combination of this discovery and his own shame at his uncontrolled revulsion... he wasn't very hungry.

Chapter 20: Croc Climbing

	Days passed, and Odile and Michael fell into a routine. They'd wake not too early, Michael would scare up some food from the kitchen for breakfast in bed, or breakfast in bathtub if Odile got a steak. He'd then pretend to work for some time. To be fair, sometimes, the work wasn't pretend, like the time he finally got press-ganged into cleaning up vomit off the sidewalk. Apparently, determining whose responsibility the puke was worked something like Tag. If you were the first person to hear about or see the vomit, it was yours.
	He lucked out, it seemed. It was near enough to a hose and a drain, it really wasn't that difficult at all. He just sprayed it down the drain and generously splashed the area with a bucket full of some unknown disinfectant he found in the janitor's closet. The janitor was nowhere to be found, sadly.
	He had spent time with Odile idly watching TV, but the lack of entertaining programming on the  meager hotel cable and Odile's tendency to sleep in the relative cool of the indoors... Michael would spend his afternoons letting her sleep, while he went to the hotel's underused gym.
	Michael had never worked out before, except for going for the occasional walk or jog (and one embarrassing year of taekwondo when he was a kid). Maybe that was because he had nobody to go with. Running on the treadmill next to him was his work-out partner, Missy.
	How he wished there were two treadmills facing each other, rather than all in a line. No sports bra could hope to keep those orbs in place, so Missy didn't even bother, exercising in a green bikini. Michael knew some of his bustier female friends complained about the discomfort untethered bouncing provided when running or exercising, but Missy didn't seem to care.
	Lucky him.
	“How are things with Odile?” Missy asked.
	“Good.” Michael tried to talk and jog at the same time. “I mean, we're still sort of stuck here. I don't know how we're going to get out of here, especially with that contract.”
	Michael had told Missy some of the details on how they'd come to wind up here, but by no means all of them. “Well, this beats living in the swamp, eh? And the view's better.”
	It certainly was. From here, he could see the mountains. Michael didn't even bother saying it aloud, as he knew that's exactly what she meant. “Yeah, but I don't think Odile wants to be here forever.”
	“I saw the show last night.” Missy said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “It was... well, she's the most interesting part. The rest of the show sucks. Yes, a duck will follow you if you lead it on with a Cheez-it. Riveting entertainment.”
	Michael stopped his treadmill and looked at her. “You went to the show?”
	“Yeah. What else was I going to do?” She continued to run for a few seconds before hopping off the treadmill.
	“You really shouldn't be seen in the same place as Odile.” Michael said.
	“Oh, none of those hippies were there, Michael.” Missy said. “You told me nobody else knew about that, not even Salty Peter himself. So nobody would know about it.”
	“Unless they had someone in the audience.”
	“You're so paranoid.” She waved her hand at him. “What are they going to do? Throw a hacky sack at you?”
	As it turned out, the parts of his story that he'd left out... those were the reasons he was paranoid.
	Missy's finger went to her neck, below her ear and just below the end of her jaw. “I think that's good enough for today.”
	“Yeah, I'm pretty tired.” Michael said. “I guess I'll see you later.”
	“Oh, no you don't.” Missy said pointedly. “You always leave to shower back in your room. Well, not this time. I'm not done talking to you, so you're going to shower here.”
	Michael shrugged. “Yes, ma'am.” He said with a gentle smirk. “We here at Salty Peter's Cove of Fun are here to help you in any way you need.”
	“Any?” She said eagerly.
	Michael sighed. “When we started exercising together, and you said, 'do you want to have a workout together and get sweaty,' I was indeed able to parse that was a double entendre.”
	“It was a single entendre. I was asking you for sex.” Missy said. “But then we got here and started working out, so I was like, sure, let's work out. It was like I was asking you to eat some clam and you actually started eating a clam.”
	Missy lead him into the men's locker room. There was nobody else around. Missy and Michael were the only ones they'd ever seen inside it. “OK, time to shower. You first.”
	“Why me first?”
	“Because I want to show you a trick.” She smiled.
	Hoping this would be the kind of trick he liked, but without much confidence, Michael slipped the sweaty shirt off his torso. He caught a glimpse of his form in the mirror. His physique was hardening slowly, his muscles deepening more than he had when he was eating nothing but coconut and banana. He'd been on the run long enough that he was finally starting to consider getting a haircut.
	With Missy looking at him expectantly, Michael dropped his gym shorts, under which he wore nothing. He stood facing her, nude. Missy stared at his unit, mouth open, closing only to swallow a little saliva.
	Standing there naked didn't embarrass him, but he felt the blush race across his face as he slowly grew hard as she stared. Once he reached a full erection, she stopped staring and looked at him in the eye. “Ta-da!” She shouted. “I can give men boners just by staring at them!”
	“I think it works the other way around, too.” Michael mused. “Was that why you did this?”
	“No, but now that you've got a boner, now you won't feel weird about it happening when we're in there.” Missy said, undoing the knot in her bikini top and freeing her giant breasts from their emerald prison. She stepped out of her bottoms and walked freely into the shower, her loofah hanging from the bend in her elbow like the tassel on a mortarboard.
	Michael followed her in, and she turned on two showers next to each other, as if she anticipated him trying to escape to one across the room somewhere. He stood under the second one, scrubbing himself with his bar of soap. Missy filled the loofah with some fragrant pink soap that would undoubtedly confuse whoever would next step in here.
	“They still don't know you don't really work here?” Missy asked, lathering up her breasts.
	“No, and now that most people recognize me, I think I'm out of the woods until someone checks the records or realizes I'm not getting paid.” Michael scrubbed his arms, trying to lift the layer of sweat off himself.
	“Everyone knows who you are now?”
	“Just about. Even Salty Peter himself, but...”
	“But what?”
	“I'm avoiding him because... he walked in on me and Odile having sex.”
	Missy turned to him. “You're not a virgin?”
	That was another detail he'd left out of his background. “How did you know I was a virgin?”
	“You're NOT a virgin if you've had sex, Michael.”
	“Well, we got cut off. We didn't finish. I don't know if I am or not anymore. But the main thing is... he thought I was someone who snuck in by stealing someone's shirt and nametag and went in to have sex with her.”
	A pause, where the water pelted the suds off Missy's immaculate tits. “But that's exactly what you did.”
	“He's the only one who saw that, besides two other guys who threw me out. Everyone else just thinks I work here. I'm just hoping he writes it off as a drunken hallucination.”
	“And you haven't made love to Odile since? Wasn't that like ten days ago?”
	“Shit keeps getting in the way. She's more lethargic than she was in the swamp. She's inside all day, no sunshine. That's the real reason I want her to get out of here. I think she wants to go back to nature.”
	“Well, if you're able to resist my charms,” Missy gently rubbed the loofah under her arms. “I'm sure you really love her.” She pointed at him, the gesture slinging a tiny blob of suds at him. “By the way, that's how I knew you were a virgin. I knew because they're the only ones who turn me down. And not all of them, either. Some of them are more than happy to lose it to me, and I'm more than happy to help them get that incredibly arbitrary milestone out of the way and give them pointers on what to do next time. But some people are hung up on it... like if they're in love.”
	“I haven't been masturbating, either.” Michael confessed, trying to clean his groin with a gentle touch, like cleaning a loaded gun.
	“Jesus.” Missy said. “That's not love. That's just crazy. But, to be fair, I never masturbate. I just find someone to fuck.”
	“Why do you live here, anyway?” Michael asked. “I've never been clear on why you live at an amusement park.”
	Missy looked at him, and then away. She hung the loofah on a hook and took her bottle of shampoo, one that claimed to be gentle on hair dyes. She told the story as she lathered and rinsed her hair.
	“When I was little, I wanted to go here, but my father wouldn't take me. He was a drug addict. Not an alcoholic, though he was also that, but 'alcoholic' doesn't do justice to what he was on. He was on the big H, and all our money went into it until we lost our house and I had to move in with my maternal grandmother. She died, dad went to jail, mom abandoned me... and to make up for all that bad luck, I won the lottery. I took it in the yearly installments, but... the first one set me for life. I just do day-trading from my laptop now and either make money or don't. And I pay a lot less in taxes if I just don't own a home. I don't even own a car. I've got nothing to worry about, an endless supply of bored and sexually frustrated tourists to fuck...
	She grew still, as the water pounded on her shoulder blades. “And no friends.”
	A pause. Michael turned off the water. “One.” He said, facing her.
	She turned to him, a smile growing on her lips. She jumped forward, grabbing his head, and kissed him. Her lips were burning hot, and Michael reciprocated the kisses until Missy slipped her tongue in his mouth. He stepped back. “Friends, Missy.”
	“Oh, you get erections when talking to your friends?”
	“I might if they were naked.”
	A beat. Missy turned off her shower head. “Stopped again by your impenetrable wall of logic.” She walked out of the shower and towards the benches, finding a pile of towels and taking one. She wrapped herself in it and tossed one to Michael, who did the same. “What say you and I dry off and get some lunch? I'm hungry.”
	“I've been eating in our room a lot, since Odile can't really leave the room during the day...”
	“Honey, if she's awake, we'll get room service and eat it with her. But I bet you she'll be asleep.”
	Michael took that bet, returning to his room in his towel, his sweaty clothes under his arm. He entered the room and saw Odile curled up in bed, tail moving gently under the sheets. He crossed the room and saw her eyes closed. He turned the television off, set the remote on the nightstand and kissed her on the forehead.
	Odile's eyes opened. She looked up at him, smiled and closed them again, going back to sleep knowing he'd be there when she woke.
	Michael dried off, dressed and went out to get some lunch, wondering exactly what Missy would wear.

	A white robe, probably with nothing under it. Michael didn't know why he couldn't have guessed what Missy would wear to a lunch date. While waiting for Michael to realize she was right, she's ordered an assortment of foods that magazines would list as aphrodisiacs: avocado, bananas, pomegranate, coffee and, of course, twelve oysters. Missy got a few looks from fellow lunchgoers as she finally picked the banana up, but they were all disappointed when she sliced it the long way.
	Michael was less concerned with that, and more curious why she was spreading the avocado on the sliced banana like peanut butter on toast. Missy picked up on this. “This is like a smoothie, but without the smoothie.” She took a bite and chewed it unenthusiastically. She didn't appear to be one of those women who has fooled themselves into thinking they like the food that keeps them trim.
	“So... Odile's not jealous?” Missy asked after swallowing.
	“No. I hope she understands, I do love her, but... she knows nothing about the real world, so... it's actually hard to have a conversation with her for too long. She's very eager to learn, but... I sort of like that she's not like all the other Florida women out there.”
	“Yeah, Floridians aren't exactly the cream of the crop.” Missy agreed. “Take me, for example.”
	“Oh, shut up.”
	“Hey, you wouldn't do me, and my self-esteem has crumbled like cotton candy in the rain.” She slurped up a few of her oysters, and it was now apparently to Michael that she was eating in a completely random order.
	“Dude, what are you doing?” Said someone behind Michael. He turned his head. It was Kevin. “What are you sitting around for?”
	“It's my lunch break.” He took a dinner roll and bit into it in protest of this interruption, and in defiance that it was actually lunch rather than dinner.
	“Well, Salty Peter's looking for you, apparently.”
	Michael and Missy traded a knowing glance across the table. “Well, then.” Michael stood. “I should be off, then. Why don't you keep my friend company for lunch, then? Missy, this is Kevin.”
	Missy's eyes widened in excitement. “Oh, so you're Kevin! I've heard so much about you!”
	“You have?” Kevin said flatly, as Michael pushed him into his seat.
	“I'll talk to you later, Missy.” And Michael was off, wondering what all the fuss was about.
	If Salty Peter really wanted to see him... he was in trouble.

Chapter 21: School of Croc

	Michael heard from his soon-to-be-new-best-friend Kevin that Salty Peter himself was looking for him. The only time they'd really gotten acquainted was when Odile and he were doing the same. He had hoped he had avoided his gaze for... however long he'd be here. He was pretty sure he'd spent more time in Salty Peter's domain than the swamp.
	He could try to avoid Peter, but he only made a few announced public appearances. The rest of the time was spent riding around the park on his modified Segway that had a figurehead and a ship's wheel. It was past noon, so the parade was over. Peter could literally be anywhere. It was miraculous he hadn't run into him at some point already; avoiding him was getting increasingly unfeasible.
	Maybe he wouldn't recognize him. His mind seemed permanently soaked with brandy. But he couldn't take that chance. He would have to learn where he'd be. The person who'd know that... was in the office.
	Michael made his way to the office to talk to Kris, but strode headfirst into the view of Salty Greg. “There you are.” Greg said, as Michael tried to hide his surprise. “I've been looking for you. Can you bring her around to re-negotiate the contract? I've finally got Salty Peter for a few minutes.”
	“He's in there?” Michael pointed to a door with a frosted window in the office.
	“Yes, he is.”
	“Is he hung over?”
	“No.” Greg said.
	Michael sprung his trap. “Is he drunk?”
	Greg paused. “He's not sober too often.”
	“We don't really have a lawyer, but I don't want your lawyer to come to us in a few weeks to re-negotiate again because now Salty Peter wasn't capable due to being intoxicated at the time. So... maybe now's not the best time.”
	“Like I said, he's not sober very often, so...”
	“That's a bigger problem than our contract dispute.” Michael said. “This is his health we're talking about. We can wait for him to have a day where he's reasonably sober to do this. I think that'd be best.”
	Greg shrugged, defeated. “Alright. I'll tell him to find a day to lay off the sauce and we'll try to work it in then.”
	Michael tried not to visibly relax, but this was the desired result. The day Salty Peter would be sober would hopefully never come, at least not before they finally got out of there. “Thank you for being so understanding.” Michael said, turning to leave.
	“Did you get this memo?” Kris said meekly, holding a few papers up under Michael's nose. He took the unstapled papers from her. He thanked her and left.
	Between two memos about the upcoming July 4th planning, and about employees taking too much soda from the concession stands on their breaks (evidently, people were filling up their own cups rather than using the provided paper cups. Scandal!), of much greater interest was the new Xerox of  Kris' ass, with a lipstick print on the paper over the left cheek, adding to the value of this like the certificate of authenticity of a signed baseball.
	Michael had to hand it to her. Kris had figured out a system in which employees actually looked at the memos.
	He returned to the room, bringing an uncooked pork chop from the kitchen. He gently rose Odile from her slumber, watched her eat her chop. She'd never had a pig out in the swamp. The waters were too deep for any pig to wander out  without getting eaten by some other predator first. Also, pigs probably weren't native to Florida anyway.
	After the late lunch was finished, he finally brought out a pad of paper with Salty Peter's cartoon face plastered on it. On each page, there was a letter written in pencil. He flipped the notebook to a random page and she successfully identified every letter from memory. The only mistake she made was with the letter 'W,' but calling it “double-thing” was close enough for now.
	Odile's reward for passing the test was to go back to sleep, and Michael's reward was taking a nap next to her, because, what the hell, if they aren't going to mess around, he might as well relax.

	Odile's appearance at the animal extravaganza concluded, Missy invited her and Michael to visit another oft-neglected section of the hotel, an offshoot of the gym. Clad in towels, the trio entered the hotel's sauna. Odile walked a little shyly though the halls to get there, hoping to not be seen. Michael stayed behind her, looking at her tail, it keeping her towel from covering her rear.
	Missy held the door open for them, letting them take a seat on the wooden bench. Before the door was even fully closed, Missy dropped her towel. She messed with a control panel near the door, and the coal-bearing stove in the center of the sauna turned on. 
	Odile sat with her towel on in the corner, but Missy encouraged her to take a more natural posture for her. She demonstrated by spreading her towel out on the bench, lying down on her belly, her breasts spilling forward onto the bench and looking even more generous. She pulled her phone out from somewhere and patiently waited for the heat to rise to where the steam would fog her phone.
	Despite the sneers and glowers she got from strangers, Odile was not one to be shy about her body. She shed her towel, but did not spread it on the wood. She was used to resting on the dock of her shack. She spread out like Missy, leaving room for her tail to hang from the bench, pointing lazily towards the floor.
	Michael looked back and forth between them, and whipped his towel off as well, folding it and resting it in the corner, where he sat. Now he could tell his friends he'd been surrounded by beautiful naked chicks and it would be true.
	Time passed, the heat slowly grew, and they sat there. Michael had his hands on his thighs, his eyes closed. Odile was almost certainly asleep, her arms folded and her head resting within them. There was no sound but for the occasional hiss of the stove and the very faint beep from Missy's phone.
	Once the stones in the stove were hot enough, Missy spooned some water out of the wooden pail onto the stones. They turned to steam immediately, and the atmosphere slowly changed to the humidity one associates with a sauna, or a swamp.
	The hiss of the evaporating water stirred Odile. She looked up.
	“So... you live in this part of the world, where it's always humid...” Odile said, the heat giving her some energy. “And then you use those machines to make the air cool and dry. And to relax, you go into a room and put the water and heat back into the air.”
	Michael looked over to her, a sheen of sweat forming on his tanned body. “I guess so.”
	Odile scoffed. “You cityfolk...”
	“Do you feel better?” Missy asked Odile, her body dotted with moisture.
	“I do.” She sat up, breathing out her mouth hard. “I'd almost forgotten what warm felt like.”
	Missy looked to Michael, pointing with her eyes towards Odile. She rose her eyebrows suggestively.
	Michael looked to Odile. Seeing her smile gently, even as she panted like a dog, her scales shining with dew, her deep cleavage inviting, her tail waving...
	“Odile?” Michael got her attention. She looked up, and Michael kissed her. That got them started. He advanced over her, and they kissed wildly. They knew Missy was there, watching, and that was no problem at all.
	Michael had stayed at half-chub while the room got hotter, but now he was ready to unleash his kraken.
	Turning her back over onto her stomach and pulling her firmly, but slowly, by the tail until her knees slipped off the bench. Holding her by the very base of her tail, holding it up out of the way, he probed his fingers within her. Odile lowered her head, then pulled it back upwards, her mouth a 'O.' Missy dropped a spoonful of water on the coals, filling the room the steam. To be fair, she wasn't sure they needed the help.
	Withdrawing his fingers, Michael went for it, pressing himself into her while holding the base of her tail. He pumped back and forth, gently at first, sliding all the way in, and then... much less gentle. He found “doggy-style,” if that was the appropriate term, to be a less interactive style than missionary: her breasts and face were facing away from him, less accessible. But Odile seemed to really like it. This was probably the way she was used to it.
	Breaking her previous promise that she never masturbated, Missy found her hand rubbing the peak of her womanhood, biting her lip as she watched this spectacle. She sped up at the same rate Michael did, but found she couldn't keep up. Normal masturbation was just so boring. She pulled out her phone, silenced it and repeatedly rubbed her lock screen in the wrong pattern just to feel the buzz of the “vibrate on touch” feature.
	Michael's hand left Odile's tail, and went to her buttocks, planting one on each as he sped up moreso, craning his head back.
	And that's when the fire alarm went off. An absolutely unreasonably loud, ear-shattering squawk that would surely cause hearing loss if endured for too long, 
	Michael jumped back, leaving Odile in her compromising position. She staggered to her feet, one foot planted on Michael's towel right as he jerked it from the floor. The towel ripped in half, leaving him with a piece no larger than a dish towel.
	“What is happening?!” Odile screamed over the noise, grabbing her towel. Missy grabbed her phone and towel and the three dashed out of the sauna, the gym, and the hotel, taking an exit nobody else seemed to be using. Michael left the paved area with the parasols and tables and ran further down, into the brush closer to the beach, covering himself with the shredded towel.
	The alarm could still be heard, even that far from the hotel. Michael couldn't seem much of what was going on from his vantage point.
	“This wasn't a fire drill, was it?” Missy said. “I've been there for one of those, but they didn't actually set the alarm off.”
	“No, I think someone pulled the fire alarm for real.”
	A pause. The susurrus of trees and grass hummed all around them.
	“Goddamn, it's freezing out here.” Missy shivered, finally taking the time to wrap the towel around herself.
	“It's just the contrast from the sauna.” Michael looked at Odile, holding her towel to her side brazenly like Michaelangelo's David with the sling over his shoulder. “Odile, may I?” He outstretched his hand and she gave him the towel without hesitation. He wrapped his lower body in the towel.
	“What do we do?” Odile asked.
	“We're going to wait here until the fire trucks come and go.” Michael said.
	“Why?”
	“Because there is a chance someone pulled that fire alarm on purpose to shake Odile out.” Michael said. “They knew you were here, since you did the show maybe an hour ago.”
	“You're being paranoid.” Missy said.
	“I have to be.” Michael said. “If this is a regular fire alarm, they'll check the whole building, but they're not necessarily going to check the bushes out here. If someone comes looking for us, then it's because they wanted to smoke someone out of the building.”
	“Should I hide?” Odile asked.
	He looked to her. In the low light, she faded very nicely into the grasses. “I suppose that should be pretty easy.” Odile slipped into the grass and crawled on her belly, and Michael immediately lost sight of her. His Florida education had not prepared him for this evidence of the millions of years of evolution that she had apparently gone through. He could hardly ever confidently walk through grass again, for fear of placing his foot down and pulling back a stump.
	Michael and Missy waited. Missy took off her towel and put it on the ground so she wouldn't have to sit her bare rear on the sand. The sun was low enough that the sand wasn't hot, but she wasn't about to get any in her crack. She shivered as the gentle breeze evaporated her sweat, and she tried to snuggle up to Michael, but he moved away.
	“If you want my big towel, I'll go back to the little one.” Michael offered. “You've all seen my dick, so...”
	“It's OK.” Missy smiled. “I'll be fine once I dry off.” She unlocked her phone and checked the time.
	“You said you didn't masturbate.” Michael said, looking at the phone.
	“Well, not all the way. Speaking of which... do you want me to just finish you off?”
	“No, but thank you.” He adjusted his wilting erection through the towel.
	“Are you really saving it for her? How long has it been?”
	“Eighteen days? Who cares? When we finally don't get interrupted, it'll be nice.”
	Missy leaned over to Michael and pecked him on the cheek. “You're a special kind of guy, Mike.”
	“Hey!” A voice called out from a distance. Without warning, Missy threw Michael's towel off and jumped on top of him. Too startled to say anything, he froze as he saw a person emerge from the edge of the path. “Whoa!” The man said. He was fortyish, dressed in a polo, as if he'd walked off the golf course. Missy jumped off Michael and pulled the towel in front of her. Michael grabbed the one Missy was previously sitting on and covered himself. “You two OK? Someone pulled the fire alarm.”
	“We were fine until you came over here and ruined the mood.” Missy said.
	“Didn't look like he was into it...” The guy shrugged.
	How was it the only time it would be advantageous to be caught with your boner out, he didn't have one? “I'm not into her, I'm sorry.”
	“Why not? Jesus, she's a babe.”
	Michael had to say something. “She's my sister.”
	The man cocked his head to the side. Missy grabbed Michael and kissed him regardless. “Alright, I'm out of here.” The man made his escape.
	“Oh, what's the big deal?” Missy cried out, still holding Michael in his arms. “This is the South! It's Florida! It's like the double-South!” Once the man was out of view, he turned sharply back to Michael. “I'm your sister?” She hissed incredulously. “Was that really the best you could come up with?”
	“What am I going to say? I'm impotent?”
	“That would have been better, yes.”
	“Can I come out now?” Odile asked from the tall grass, in a move that went against all her instincts.
	“Yes, I think we're clear.” Michael went over and coaxed her out of the vegetation like a gentleman helping her step out of a carriage. The three stood there for a moment.
	“I reckon you were right.” Odile said. “I think someone's got a keen interest in me.”
	“This is going to keep happening as long as you're doing that stupid show.” Michael said.
	“I thought we took care of that.” Missy said.
	Michael's eyes fell on Missy severely. “No. The people looking for Odile... I wish they were hippies.”

Chapter 22: Croc You Like A Hurricane

	Michael got up slightly early, but no less brightly. He skipped breakfast and went to the back halls to find one of the only other people in this godforsaken resort he trusted. He knocked on the office door and heard the gentle mouselike voice of Kris through the door, asking for him to come in.
	“Hey, Kris.” Michael said. “Can I ask a favor?”
	She stopped typing briefly. Michael knew this meant she was definitely paying attention. “Regarding what?” Kris asked softly. It was like she didn't remember that time where she Xeroxed his cock.
	Michael persisted. “My friend is the performer who plays Alli in Salty Greg's Animal Show thing. You gave me a copy of the contract, and... it's really weird. It's written like some old-fashioned parley between pirates.”
	“That's Salty Peter's stylistic choice. The contracts are still legally valid.” Kris noted.
	“Well, my friend who plays Alli...” Michael kept trying to avoid using her name. “I don't think she had adequate legal representation at the time. I want to re-negotiate it.”
	“I could schedule a meeting with Salty Peter, if you like.”
	Michael was also avoiding that. “Maybe you could just show me the original.”
	Kris squinted suspiciously. “Why do you need to see the original? I gave you a copy. Weren't you happy with it?”
	“Ecstatic.” He said. “But...”
	“Are you trying to get out of the contract by destroying the original?” Kris said.
	Michael was disarmed.
	His silence answered her question. She continued, “Obviously, I can't let you do that. But I assure you, Salty Peter is easygoing with contract negotiations. You have nothing to fear.”
	Michael sighed a bit, and Kris went back to her word processing. He turned to leave, but she stopped him. “Did you get this memo?” She typed numbers with her right hand and held the memo aloft with her left. Michael took the papers from her and flipped to the middle. Folded within was a collage of photocopies of Kris, from her face to her legs, all nude and roughly arranged into a slightly fractured centerfold.
	He gasped and folded the uneven pictures back into the document. He looked to Kris, who looked back from her desk with a growing grin. She sighed and returned to her work. Say what you will about Kris' meek demeanor, she knew how to make her job fun. And his. If he actually worked here.
	Michael rolled up the 'memo' and stuck it in his back pocket. If he and Odile were just to run off... would anyone chase them from here? Her contract was signed with a bloody “X.” Nobody knew any of his contact details, or even his last name. He could call a taxi and...
	No, that wouldn't work. Cabbies aren't even known for picking up visible minorities, much less sexy half-human chimeras. Maybe he could steal a car... and face the wrath of law enforcement. They could try to find his rowboat and return to the swamp... but with her supply of city-folk food severed, how long could he stay there?
	Michael felt more trapped than he did in the tiny swamp hut.

	Michael did a few rounds of the park, checking for issues or customer service problems. He saw a kid, mouth agape, staring at the melting mound of strawberry ice cream that was once on his cone. Michael quickly urged the man at the ice cream parlor to make up another one, even though they apparently weren't supposed to do that. Michael didn't care, and gave the kid the new ice cream, taking the cone and placing it over his own nose to make a silly face. The kid didn't smile, but he was happy his ice cream was back.
	He felt like he was finally getting the hang of his 'job.' He was even making friends, as he was reminded as he ran into Kevin standing outside the terrifying robot pirate theater.
	“Did you have a good talk with Missy?”
	“Not really.” Kevin said. “She just immediately wanted in my pants, so... we went up to her room, and I told her I didn't have a condom, so she opened this drawer absolutely full of condoms, and then I started to get freaked out that she was a prostitute or insane or something, so I left.”
	“Aw.”
	“And then two minutes later, I changed my mind and came back, and she still had sex with me.”
	“Whew.” Michael sighed. “I thought you were going to let that ball sail right across the plate.”
	“Well, it was weird.” Kevin said. “I've never done a one-night-stand before. It was sex without any emotional attachment at all. Like, we could have had sex again right there—well, she could have, I definitely couldn't have—or I could come back at any time and we could do it again, but if I never came back, it wouldn't matter to her. I wonder if she's legitimately psycho.”
	“She's not. She's just a nymphomaniac.” Michael explained. “That's better than getting all clingy or whatever.”
	A long pause. “Is it?”
	“Either way, you're welcome.” Michael patted Kevin on the shoulder. “And thank you for not giving too many details about the actual sex.”
	“Workplace sexual harassment is a real thing.” Kevin said. “Like if your coworker checks out your package and insists he's straight.”
	“I'm just looking out for my friend Missy.”
	At lunch with Missy, she thanked him for introducing the two of them. They took their meal in her room this time, so she could let loose on the details that Kevin had spared him.
	“Dude, it was huge!” She cheered.
	“I'm glad.” Michael said, trying not to feel too inadequate. After all, she made it clear he could have her whenever he liked.
	“It was ridiculous. I really wasn't expecting it.”
	“Why weren't you expecting it? Because he's Asian?”
	“Oh, screw you. I'm never expecting eleven inches!”
	Eleven. Michael wished she hadn't put an exact number to the image. Then again, he knew its size compared to a piece of paper. He could no longer say it was a trick of the photocopier or magnification. But that number would haunt him like the ghost of Hamlet's father.
	Missy continued. “He almost cut me in half with his mighty katana. He swung it like Bruce Lee and I was like...” She mimed getting sliced down the middle, making unromantic squish noises with her mouth to indicate her guts falling out.
	“Bruce Lee didn't use a sword... did he?” Michael shrugged. “I'm more a Jet Li-Tony Jaa kind of guy.”
	Missy slid across the bedsheet, closer to him. She swung her leg around and sat in his lap. “Has it really been about three weeks for you?”
	“Yes, ma'am.” He said tensely, growing hard in his jeans.
	“How do you do it? If I go one day without one, I feel like I'll go crazy.”
	“Cold showers.” Michael shuddered. “I'm up to two a day now. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. It also helps keep me cool.”
	Missy's hand went between his legs and pawed around the center for his balls. She found them, gently massaging them in her hands. “If I squeeze these, they're going to go off like a grenade.”
	“Please be gentle.” He begged.
	“I'm always gentle.” She let them go. Her hand slithered around his shoulder and she kissed him. He tried to move back, but she held him in place, kissing him for a long time.
	Michael eventually worked his way out of her grip, his cheeks reddened. “What was that for?”
	Missy's mood cooled a bit. “Because I feel like you're going to leave soon.” She said. “And I'm going to miss you. I don't know what I'll do when you're not sending other men to fuck me instead of just doing it yourself.”
	“We can keep in touch.” Michael suggested. “I'm not leaving the state or anything. I doubt Odile could live anywhere else. Do you have an email address or something?”
	“Give me your cell phone. I'll call myself and then you'll have my number.”
	“I don't have a cell phone. I lost it in the swamp.”
	“Not the only thing you lost...”
	“Oh, my God....”
	He coaxed an old email address out of her, and she resolved to actually start checking it.

	Michael returned to Odile's room. She was in bed, the lower half of the bed now so shredded, it looked like a grass skirt. The housekeeping no longer bothered to change the sheets if they were going to get ripped up by her claws.
	As he expected, Odile was still asleep. He set his hand on her shoulder. The gentle contact was enough to pull her out of her shallow sleep. She looked up to him and smiled. “Is it morning?”
	“Not anymore.” He answered. “Odile, do you still feel safe here?”
	The question seemed to confuse her. “Why would I feel unsafe?”
	“I know you're strong and tough, but there are still apparently people looking for you.” Michael said. “If you want, we can try to make a run for it.”
	“But they have a contract.”
	“It's just a piece of paper with an X on it.” He said. “If you don't want to stay here anymore, we can go.”
	Odile looked at the floor and pulled up an old placemat that was designed to look like a treasure map. It was a maze that ended at the X, where the treasure was buried. Michael had used the back of it (and a crayon) to try to teach Odile the alphabet before finally buying the notebook from the gift shop.
	“This piece of paper has an X on it.” Odile observed.
	“I suppose it does.” Michael chuckled. “But this sort of X is a good thing. You follow the map, find the X, and you get treasure.”
	“What's treasure?” Odile asked.
	“It's something valuable. Like money or gold or spices.”
	“Did you have a map when you found me?” Odile asked gently.
	“No. I got lost. But I'm still happy with what I found.”
	Odile smiled and looked off. “You know more about the city than I do. Do you think we should leave?”
	“I was hoping you'd make the decision. You're the one who will be in greater danger.”
	“No. I'll leave it up to you.”
	Michael sighed. “Let's do it. I'm sick to death of this place.”
	This would be one job he was glad to quit... if he really worked here in the first place.
	There were no clothes handy for Odile other than her two-piece swimsuit, so Odile wore that under a robe. Michael tried to wrap a towel over her bald cranium the way women wear to hold their wet hair up, but his attempts at this were pitiful unstable turbans that collapsed once she moved. Michael just rested the towel over her head and twisted it to give it the illusion of a ponytail within. Finally, she gave her the sunglasses he'd bought earlier.
	This was hardly a good disguise, but it was the best they could do from here. He could take her out of the park and they could hitchhike, or maybe he could call a cab after all. 
	Michael and Odile left their room and passed through the dining hall, trying to avoid the glances of the customers. He hoped nobody would stop them to ask about her, but... as it turns out, he was stopped by someone else.
	“Hey, dude.” Said Kevin. “Oh, hey Missy.”
	Shiiiiiiiit. Michael spun on his heel to face Kevin. “We're in a hurry, Kevin.”
	“Wow, that makeup really is incredible.” Kevin leaned in. On the two halves of Michael's brain, one was droning, 'shut up, shut up, shut up,' and the other, 'eleven inches, eleven inches, don't look, eleven...'
	“They work really hard on that makeup, Kevin.” Michael said. “Please don't touch it. It'll smudge.”
	“Holy crap, her tail!” Kevin said, checking out her appendage. God dammit, even his name rhymed with 'eleven.'
	“Kevin, we don't have time. It's showtime.” Michael took Odile's scaly hand and started to pull her away.
	“The theater's that way!” Kevin pointed. Michael ignored him until Odile stopped in her tracks, leaving him to look back to her, wondering why she'd stopped. He turned to what she was looking at...
	And Michael was now staring into the tall, red-faced, bourbon-breathed visage of Salty Peter himself.
	Michael froze. Play it cool, he thought. It'd been almost two weeks since he'd last seen him clearly. Maybe he wouldn't remember his face.  He was drunk most of the time, but today... he seemed pretty sober. He wasn't leaning on anything.
	“Lass...” Peter said to Odile. “It's been an age since I lain my old eyes an ya. How are ye getting on?”
	“Hello.” To Odile's stubby earlike holes, he might as well have been speaking another language.
	“I'm sorry, we need to get her somewhere.” Michael tried to disengage. But Peter glanced down at his nametag.
	“What's your name, lad?” He squinted suspiciously.
	“Davis, sir.” That was the fake name he gave him, wasn't it? Maybe it was Dave.
	“Aye, yer nametag says Michael.” He pointed his fingers at the nametag.
	“Oh, they just didn't have one in my real name, so I've been going by Michael for a while.”
	“I recognize you, son.” Salty Peter said.
	Michael was ready. He was ready to declare his love for Odile and how it was natural and wonderful and nothing to be ashamed about. But Salty Peter said something he didn't expect.
	“You're Michael... Walter's brother.”
	Walter.
	His brother. His currently incarcerated wannabe-gangster brother. How the hell did Salty Peter know about him? He had barely ever breathed his name since he went inside, and he hadn't told anyone about him since arriving here. He'd never even told Odile what his brother's name was.
	As much as Michael thought he was equipped for this... he wasn't. He grasped at the cliff's edge and took purchase of nothing but dry grass. He was falling. It was over. Never mind Salty Peter knowing about him doing the beast with two backs with Odile. This was the end.
	Michael drew in a slow involuntary gasp and stepped back. He interposed his body between Pete and Odile. Peter pressed out his arm and grabbed Michael by the throat with almost unbelievable strength. Michael's hands picked weakly at Peter's fingers, but his grip was like a monkey wrench.
	Salty Peter pulled Michael closer and growled, “You dare bring the Mafia to my peaceful cove?!”
	Michael couldn't respond, but not for a lack of choking tears and spittle. Odile stepped to his side and spun, swinging her tail under Salty Peter's legs without doing the same to Michael. Salty Peter fell, and Michael was freed. They scrambled away, dashing into the kitchen, but Salty Peter was on them already, grabbing Odile by the tail. He pulled her back and got her by the throat. He summoned a roll of black gaffer's tape from some unknown pocket and wrapped her wrists together behind her back before rolling her on her stomach and wrapping her legs together as well.
	Odile was alarmed how automatic this action was to Peter. She tried to cut the tape with her claws, but Peter started jamming corks on the end of each of her fingers. The corks... Michael wasn't as surprised to learn he had on hand.
	Michael withdrew a knife from a conveniently placed block and he approached Salty Peter. The pirate looked at him and ordered, “Stop him!” Behind him, the enormous chef grabbed Michael by the arms, slapping the hand holding the knife against the counter to send it scattering off somewhere. The chef struggled to keep his grip on him, so he tried his only known fighting technique: he fell forward onto Michael and pinned him bodily to the ground.
	Michael had the wind knocked out of him. This was worse than being carried out by the two foot-soldiers with his wang out. He looked on helplessly as Peter wrestled with Odile. Once she was tied up, he removed himself from her back. She snapped her jaws at him, and he stepped away. His hand zipped in and pinched her lips shut.
	Odile tried to roll away, tried to pull her jaw open... but she couldn't. As Michael had heard once on the Discovery Channel (or maybe it was Bill Nye)... all the strength in her jaws were in closing them, not opening them. Odile huffed through her nose slits, her expression softening to a helpless glare. Before she could try to worm out of his grasp again, Salty Peter ran a strip of tape from under her jaw to over the top of her head, holding her teeth together and her jaw closed.
	The chef appeared hypnotized by Odile's tail, still left to swing freely, however hopelessly. “Wow... fried tail fritters for days...” He eyed her hungrily.
	“You shut up, fatty!” Salty Peter barked sharply, pointing his finger. “If you even think about hurting her, I'll make a thousand candles out of your blubber!”
	The chef looked up to him, unwilling to move off his prisoner until Salty Peter grabbed Michael's hair. The chef rolled off  Michael, who took in some much needed breath. When Salty Peter rose his hand and pulled Michael up to his feet, Michael took hold of Peter's arm, hung from it and kicked with both feet into Peter's bread basket.
	Peter didn't even budge. It felt like kicking a statue. Michael brought his feet back to the floor. Peter glowered at him. “I will protect this cove from anyone who means it harm.” He snarled, emphasizing each word. He let the last word hang for a second before slamming Michael's head into the solid maple butcher block cutting surface of the counter, knocking him unconscious.

Chapter 23: Croc-in' on Heaven's Door

	The wind whipped around him, tossing his hair and clothing around as he tried to endure the wind. He wasn't sure where he was, but he was surrounded by tall buildings. He walked down the street, where there seemed to be no cars on the road. The sky looked red, but not the red of a sunset. It was the unsettling crimson of an old rose or a nice car.
	He kept walking forward, looking around for a landmark or something else that would help remind him where he was. Over the wind, he heard some metal clatter from somewhere, but couldn't source it. He saw a manhole covered with the appropriate sewer lid, but it looked to be firmly in place.
	When Michael looked back up from his feet, Odile was there. The dissonance seeing her scaly nude body in the middle of the city was bizarre. Why was she here? Why was HE here?
	He walked closer to her, but when he tried to speak... there was no sound. He could feel his mouth moving gently, but nothing was coming out. 
	“Are you OK?” Odile asked. “Do you need help?”
	Michael didn't respond. He couldn't figure out how. Odile just smiled at him. “It's OK. You're safe with us around.”
	Michael found his voice somehow. “Us?”
	Between him and Odile, the sewer lid was propelled into the air, presumably by some sort of subterranean gas detonation. Before it could return to the ground, something jumped out from the sewer behind it. The sewer lid landed a great distance behind Michael, smashing a car into  a crumpled V-shaped wreck.
	When Michael turned back to Odile... there were three more women like her standing behind her. They had slightly different body shapes and heights, but they were all the same scaly beauties Michael had learned to appreciate.
	“We sisters will protect you, my love.” Odile cooed as she reached behind her and produced an orange bandana. She brought it over her eyes
	And that's when he finally woke up. Michael's head was pounding with the bass beat of his own slow heartbeat. The world slowly fell into focus, but the walls were wobbling around like gelatin. Michael tried to outstretch his arm to bring himself up from his fallen position, but his hands wouldn't move from behind his back. Every time he moved his arms, he heard the rattling of a chain.
	(In retrospect, it seems obvious that his hands were tied behind his back. But while suffering an untreated concussion, Michael felt pretty smart for taking only a few minutes to solve that riddle.)
	Michael pulled himself up into a sitting position. He was on the floor, concrete. The walls were steady enough to see that he was in a cell with iron bars. And, he eventually determined, he was chained to the wall behind him.
	Having just brought himself up, something almost knocked him back down, as over ran the cold but loving grip of Odile's very welcome hug.
	“Are you all right?” Odile asked breathlessly.
	Michael sighed. “Tis but a scratch, dearest Odile. I am fit as a fiddle, but how camest thou in this pickle?”
	That's how it went in Michael's head. In reality, he made a meaningless moan that could have emerged from the mouth of Frankenstein's monster. Odile cradled his head and comforted him until he gained his senses again. She didn't know what a concussion was, but she knew she could hold him and he would feel better.
	Minutes passed, and Michael found himself. “Odile?” He croaked weakly. “Where are we?”
	“I don't know.” She answered. “Are you feeling better?”
	“Sort of.” He huffed. “There's so much pressure on my head.” Odile immediately moved her hands off his head. Michael chuckled. “It's not you. It's the blood pressure in my head.”
	Odile looked around to her featureless cell, looking for support from the blank white brickwork. She got an idea. Resting Michael's back against the wall, she fiddled with the metal contraptions that held his pants up. It was clearly a more complicated latch than the ones on her overalls. She got the pants open and pawed at his groin. She stroked his wang around, waiting for it to warm up and grow hard.
	Michael started to grunt as her hand ran up and down his unit. Even to her unlearned ears, it wasn't the good moans of sexual congress, but the sharp grunts of discomfort and pain. Darn her scaly hands. They were softer than the rest of her body, but compared to his flesh, it may as well be a nail file. There must be something soft she could use...
	Odile pulled Michael's dick from his boxers and placed it between the softest thing she had on hand: her breasts. She pressed them together to envelop his erection in the cold, slightly slick flesh. Michael's breathing increased, and surely, the blood was moving away from his brain to what she no longer called the second brain.
	Somewhere in this therapeutic rubbing... Odile felt herself growing aroused, too. This hot stick of meat rubbing near her cool heart, warming her... watching as the tip of his cock engorged as she rubbed her tits upwards. She wished her tongue could go past her teeth to touch it, or perhaps even take it in her mouth. Of course, that would be the last thing she would ever do. She didn't want any harm to come to this nice thing.
	She sped up her massage, but Michael didn't seem to be paying attention. Maybe he wasn't fully awake yet. Her fingers moved to her nipples, twisting them gently as she kept rubbing it up and down. Her breathing was starting to grow harder as she watched his legs twitch involuntarily.
	“What the hell are you doing?!” A previously unseen loudspeaker squawked at them. Odile jumped away from Michael, allowing him to drop senselessly to his side, the tip of his dong barely touching the concrete floor.
	Odile looked around for the source of the sound. Not finding it, she spoke uncertainly to the drop ceiling sky. “First aid.” She'd heard someone say that before.
	The loudspeaker stayed silent. Odile relaxed, helped Michael back to his sitting position, tucked him back into his jeans and cradled him until he came around again.
	The first thing he said when he woke wasn't something romantic, sadly. It was:
	“Why does my dick feel like someone rubbed it with sandpaper?”

Chapter 24: Croc This Town
	
	Odile cradled Michael's head and held him close, waiting for his senses to return to him in full. One of the first comprehensible questions he asked, besides the one about the sandpaper and his dick, was what happened?
	Odile was conscious the whole time. She explained it as best she could.

	Odile was being carried by her four limbs, a bag put over her head. If she'd known about the trend to make fashionable luggage out of her brethren, she might have felt insulted to being carried like so much suitcase. She was thrown into the back of some room, where she was free to thrash around a bit, trying to break free of her binds.
	The room started to move, and she could feel herself sliding about the room. She must have been in one of those wheelie-boats that scoot over the solid blackwater with the yellow stripe. They drove just far enough for her to nearly get her legs free.
	The truck stopped and Odile was dragged back out of the truck, her hood removed. “Lass!” Said Salty Peter, still dressed up and still 'in character.' Odile calmed down a bit and listened. “I'm going to let you go. Don't do anything foolish.”
	Odile allowed him to remove the tape from her face, somehow using a clearly plastic cutlass to cut the tape on her arms as well. Odile moved away from Salty Peter and removed the rest of her binds before asking him. “Where's Michael?”
	“Ye shouldn't worry yourself about him, lass.” Salty Peter advised. “He's bad news. He's not a friendly pirate like me.”
	“Where is he?!” Odile jumped up towards him. He dodged back effortlessly, keeping his distance.
	“Now you calm yourself, or you'll be tied up again.”
	“Where is he?!” She shouted, hissing, bending at the waist to bring herself lower, her more natural predatory position.
	Peter didn't move back. “He's still unconscious.”
	“What's unconscious?”
	“He's sleeping, and he won't wake up until he wants to.”
	“Where did you take us?” Only now did Odile consider her surroundings. This was the city. Not the fake city of the theme park. This looked like a regular city. With buildings and people and shoes and everything.
	“Where the Mafia will find him.”
	“What's the Mafia?”
	“It be not actually the Mafia, like LCN.” Odile continued to look at Salty Peter sideways. “Look, Michael is evidently an errand boy for organized crime. I'm throwin' him to the sharks so they don't come lookin' at the cove. You should swim back to the swamp before they find you, too.”
	“I'm not leaving him.” Odile said. “I will protect him.”
	Peter had begun moving Michael's motionless body out of the passenger's seat of the featureless van. “They will kill you! You can't let yourself get hurt because of one foolish landlubber! I won't keep ye prisoner, but ye can't throw yer life away! Why stay here for this bum?”
	Peter rested Michael's unconscious body against a rusted newspaper rack for a paper that no longer published. Odile looked down on him, and up to Salty Peter.
	A single tear fell from her right eye.
	Salty Peter groaned piteously. “Oh, lass...” He shook his head. “You can't protect him. Their guns ain't plastic like mine!”
	“Better they shoot at me than him.” Odile said. “My skin is stronger. I am stronger.”
	Salty Peter lowered his head. “You do what you think ye must.” He said. “I wish ye luck.” He entered the van's driver's seat. “But... don't come back to the cove. What's after him... don't bring it back to me. Them cannons on the roof near the entrance... they ain't plastic.”
	“You protect what you want to protect.” Odile said shortly. “So will I.”
	Salty Peter drove off with an empty van and a little sadness in his heart as he watched her fade into a dot in his rear-view mirror.
	From here, things were less clear in Odile's memory. She tried to carry Michael off somewhere they could be safe, but there were too many people around. Some brave souls actually came up to her. She snapped and snarled at them, but she knew Michael wouldn't want them hurt unless they threatened her life. Soon, a crowd was gathering all around, to where she couldn't even escape.
	She might have set him back to terra firma, ripped off her robe and swimsuit and screamed, “Is this what you want?!” and thrashed about on her belly, inciting people to try to fuck with her if they thought they could. Not in those exact words.
	Someone called animal control. The poor bastards who showed up were not ready, their flimsy poles snapped like pretzel sticks as they fought with her. They were unprepared when another team of animal control experts drove up, and they were armed with aluminum baseball bats. Odile avoided getting hit in the head, but finally got overwhelmed by the throng of thugs. She was tied up again and tossed into the back of their van and driven off.
	The animal control people were confused. The other van had no identifying marks, other than the license plate. Who else was doing animal control around here?
	But nobody noticed as the unconscious man was hauled into the same van.
	Odile was dragged hand-and-foot by four men in the back entrance of some building, by some strange green-felted tables, down a flight of stairs and into a cage not unlike her first home at the park. A moment later, they brought Michael down. Odile jumped to life and swung her claws out through the bars, but some brave man got in close and pressed the barrel of a large revolver right up against her forehead.
	Odile stopped moving, snarling at the man. He looked eager to end her life, and she wasn't sure the skin on her head would withstand a bullet as well as the scales on her arms. Other men went inside the cage and locked Michael's arms to the back wall of the cell. Once he was safely trapped, they backed off.
	At the moment the men left the cage, Odile swiped her hands up and ripped the gun from the man's hands. Everyone else's guns came out, waiting to watch this chimera work a firearm. Instead, she swung her arm in a mighty arc and slammed it barrel-first against the corner of the cage. The cage rang like a bell, and only when the sound faded did she slide the gun along the concrete back to its owner.
	The man picked the gun up off the ground, but could already see the barrel was deflected about fifty degrees upwards. He scoffed. He'd have to ask for a new one.
	Odile looked at all the other men pointing guns at her. She opened her arms. “Anyone ELSE want to shoot me?” She stood there, glaring at the men defiantly until they backed off, holstered their firearms and left.
	The next time someone checked on her in person, rather than through the security cameras, they found she'd used her claws to scratch six circles into the white brick of the back walls, three rows of two.
	Nobody knew what it meant... except for Odile.

Chapter 25: Croc is Dead

	If Michael hadn't fully recovered from his concussion, he was good enough for now. He was aware he was no longer in Salty Peter's Cove of Fun, unless they had a surprisingly non-pirate themed dungeon where they'd been sentenced.
	“So we don't know where we are...” Michael said, still held in the tender scaly clutches of Odile. “But we're not at the park anymore.”
	“That's what I reckon.” Odile responded. “We're in the city somewhere, but I don't know where.”
	“Do you think you can break my chain?” Michael asked.
	“I already tried.” Odile pulled her head back and looked into Michael's eyes. She smiled regretfully, showing a few missing teeth, the base of a few shattered ones refusing to leave her gums. “I shouldn't have tried biting it, but I wanted you free so bad.” Michael was amazed how little her having no front teeth affected her speech. Unlike everyone else in the South who loved tobacco but didn't love Colgate, her front teeth would grow back.
	“Why do you suppose they chained you up, and not me?” Odile asked.
	The answer seemed obvious to Michael, but he answered anyway. “Because they want you to eat me.” Odile's eyes widened, her vertical pupils narrowing. “That's what they wanted you to do from the start.”
	Michael addressed the air, knowing someone was watching, and probably listening. “Whoever you are...” He projected, making sure he could be heard. “Come down here. I want to talk.”
	There was no response from the loudspeaker. Michael put his still-throbbing head onto Odile's shoulder, and she his. Odile had never felt weaker in her life, not even when she was the one chained to the wall.
	A few minutes later, two loud locks slid out of place on the door, and someone walked in. It was a beautiful blonde woman in a black dress and high heels. She looked like a classy woman who'd interrupted her night at the opera to talk to some political prisoners.
	Michael removed himself from Odile's grip and stood as close to the front bars as his chains would let him. “Have we met?”
	“Only once.” She reached into her purse and retrieved a distinct pink wig, exactly the same color and style of the protester he'd talked to outside Salty Peter's.
	Michael sighed. “Do you drive a BMW?”
	The woman looked surprised. “How did you know?”
	“I saw it in the parking lot.” He answered. “Didn't think anything of it at the time, but... it makes sense now. You're part of the gang.”
	“I'm Sue Singer.” She said.
	Michael knew that name. She was the wife of David Singer, a high-ranking enforcer in the gang his brother was part of. “Oh, I've heard of you. I'm Michael. I'm Walter's brother.” He paused. “Forgive me for not shaking your hand.”
	“You've caused us a lot of problems.” Sue said coldly. “How did you stop her from killing you?”
	Michael didn't feel like giving the real and still embarrassing answer. “She was full.”
	“Well, she won't stay that way.” Sue said.
	Odile stood up, able to move closer than Michael. “I will never eat him. I will sit here and starve before I eat him.”
	“Thank you, sweetie.” Said Michael.
	Sue pursed her lips together. “We'll see.” She moved to turn away, but Michael called out.
	“My brother... you guys threatened to have him killed in prison if I didn't do your drug deal.”
	“That sounds about right.”
	“Do you know what my brother was planning?”
	Sue was silent.
	“He was tired of the problems with cocaine and crack and other hard drugs in Florida, and he was tired of the gang's 'not-our-problem' attitude towards it, so... he planned to kill you all. He was going to find when he could get the most of you together in the same place and take out as many of you as he could. With a gun, a bomb, I don't know. He didn't get that far. He told me his plan because he trusted me. And I told the police. They got him on some sort of weapons charge, but they had no evidence of his plan, and he never mentioned it to anyone else.”
	Michael leaned forward, the chain holding him upright as his center of gravity moved past his feet. “I could have let him do it, and all my problems would be over, and there might even be less drugs in Florida. But I stopped him. Because it would still be wrong for him to take anyone else's life just because he lived in an era where he had access to modern weaponry. That's what makes him different from me. He thought violence was the answer. I don't, unless there is no other option.”
	“When you made those threats against me at the park... you reminded me of him.” Sue said.
	“I tried to picture how he would have handled a situation like that.” Michael said. “He never really had a job where he had to work with the public.”
	“And I never had a blog where I talk about 'micro-aggressions,' but... I'm a quick study.” Sue said. “But it doesn't matter now. We have both of you now. I don't believe her when she says she'll let herself starve. She is an animal, and even if she were human, she will eventually eat you, and she'll eat anyone else we put in front of her. The only thing that changed from the previous engagement is we don't have to keep renting rowboats. Now, our garbage disposal lives right under the sink, just like in the Flintstones.”
	Sue turned around. Michael barked, “Listen to me.” She turned around slowly. “If you let us both go--”
	She didn't even let him finish that one. “Why would I let you BOTH go? Even if I felt like letting you go, we're keeping her, no matter what.”
	“If you let us both go,” He repeated. “that will be the end of it. We'll find somewhere to live, and you'll never hear from us again. But if you leave, and we get out of there... I promise you all will die in agony. She'll go through you all like box of chocolates, taking one bite and leaving you to die in the most painful way imaginable. Your ranks will empty and her belly will fill. You'll wish I'd just let my brother set off a bomb at the pool hall or whatever he was planning.
	“Let us go, and this can be avoided, and you can have your criminal enterprise. But if you walk away... then we will ruin you.”
	“Are you trying to be your brother again?” Sue sneered smugly.
	“No. This one's me.”
	Sue blew a sigh out her nose. She reached into her purse, pulled out a pistol, pointed it at Michael, and fired.
	Odile was just fast enough to intercept the bullet, and she fell to the concrete in front of Michael, clutching her chest, her hands unevenly overlapped over a wound.
	“NO!” Michael screamed, going down to his knees. Sue's mouth fell open in horror. Had she just killed their most prized possession? She ran out of the room.
	“Help! Somebody HELP HER!” Michael screamed out to whoever was listening. Odile pulled Michael's face close to hers, and she winked.
	Whoa. Where did Odile learn to do that? He'd never talked about the human tradition of winking. Odile moved her left hand off her right wrist and revealed the bullet hidden underneath her hand, flattened against her scales. She smiled and continued her twitching and gasping.
	For his part, Michael continued his act of desperation, pulling on the chains with his body weight and thrashing around, hollering for help.
	Sue returned with the first guy she found. He was only a few years older than Michael, but far more muscular. Michael took a wild guess and assumed this guy was probably not a doctor. Sue pulled the key to the cage out of her purse and opened the door. Odile resisted the instinct to jump out of the cage immediately. She let the 'doctor' kneel down to her and inspect her 'wound' before springing up and slamming him to the side as she darted out the door, right for Sue.
	Sue fired again, just before Odile pinned her to the wall and stripped the gun from her hand. Odile hissed from the pain, shaking the flattened round from her scaly exterior. “That still hurts.” Odile snarled.
	“Don't you hurt her!” The 'doctor' yelled, holding the still-helpless Michael in a loose choke-hold.
	Odile turned the gun on the doctor.  He didn't move. Michael's body was mostly in front of his. Michael wore no regret in his face. If he died, and Odile escaped, that was good enough.
	The gun didn't seem to scare the doctor, so Odile swung it back around and shot Sue in her left kneecap. Her mouth widened to scream, but Odile's scaly hand was over her mouth to smother it. She howled endlessly into her hand, tears tumbling down her green fingers.
	“See?” Odile said flatly. “It hurts.” Odile turned to the doctor. “Let him go.”
	The doctor undid the lock on Michael's shackles. He walked out of the cell, rolling his sore shoulders. “Do you have a radio?” Michael asked. The doctor handed it over. Michael said to him, “Don't walk, run out of here. Tell everyone you see to leave everything behind and go.”
	Obediently, he ran. Michael stood shoulder to shoulder to Odile, still pinning Sue to the wall and covering her mouth. He held the radio to Odile's mouth. “What do you want to say to everyone listening?”
	Michael pressed the button in. Odile thought for a second. “Do you know who this is?” She purred, hoping her unique voice would come across on the low-fidelity radio.
	Nobody responded. Michael pointed the radio at Sue. “Your line is 'help me.'” He said, as Odile lowered her claw from her mouth.
	“Everyone you two have ever known is now dead. Congratulations.” Sue growled.
	“Does that include you?” Michael asked, pointing the radio back at Odile, which was aflurry with concerned calls from sensitive goombas wondering what happened to their matriarch.
	“I'm a predator, but I am not a monster.” Odile continued speaking into the radio. “I don't eat people unless they threaten my life. You used me to do your dirty work. So this is the only warning you'll ever get. Turn yourself in to the local police. It is the only place you will be safe from me. Anyone who stays will meet me face-to-face and will experience my wrath.”
	Odile looked down at Sue's knee. “Is the bullet still inside you?” Sue looked down nervously, it no longer necessary for Odile to cover her mouth.
	“Don't worry.” She smiled her broken teeth at her. “I'll get it out.”

	On the way out, Odile gnawed the bone a bit before throwing it over her shoulder. “Michael...” She asked, wiping the blood from her lips with the side of her thumb, her tongue too short to do the job.
	Michael turned, seeing the bloody bone with the foot still attached on the floor. Odile looked him in the eye and asked that question every guy wants to hear.
	“What's the Flintstones?”
	Michael chuckled. “It's a cartoon.”
	“What's a cartoon?”
	“It's like television, but drawn on paper or in a computer.”
	“I'm not sure I understand.”
	“It might be on Netflix. I'll show you an episode.” He stepped out of the back entrance to the hideout. The outside was filled with light, as if they were walking out on stage. The light was mostly white, some red and blue. Three police cruisers were pointed headlights-first at the doorway. The light was too intense to make out many details, but they saw four uniformed cops had their guns drawn and pointed at them.
	“Hands up!” They cried.
	Michael slowly rose his arms. “Do what they say, sweetie.” Michael said. “Don't hurt them. They're the good guys.”
	She brought her arms over her head. “I thought we were the good guys.”
	The police officer handcuffing Michael advised him to be silent. He did so. Odile allowed two cops to shackle her hands behind her back, but one of them casually cupped his hand underneath Odile's right breast.
	Odile gasped and leaned at the offending officer, a short-haired fellow with sharp cheekbones and a small nose. “What?” He smirked.
	Glancing momentarily at Michael, all she did was sneer.

Chapter 26: For Those About To Croc (We Salute You)

	Davit Avanovich exited his car, dismissing his driver for the night. He left his garage and entered his mansion. He passed through the parlor and a few other rooms, not encountering his wife at all. Maybe she'd gone to bed. That would make a very early night for her, and a surprisingly sober one.
	Davit lurched his way to his bedroom, It was dark, but he saw a figure asleep in the bed. He stepped out of his shoes, stripped his suit off and came to rest on the other side of the bed.
	“Davit Avanovich?” A voice said from somewhere inside the bedroom. Davit looked around in the dark before pawing to the lamp and turning it on. A young man he'd never seen before had a gun trained on him. Davit panicked and threw the drawer out of his nightstand. His own firearm wasn't there. It was probably being pointed at him at this very moment.
	“What do you want?” He looked out to him, reaching behind him to his wife's shoulder, touching something that felt more like luggage than his lovely wife. He turned. Asleep next to him was a green scaly monstrosity with anomalously nice boobs. He jumped away from the monster and fell to the floor. The monster stood from his bed and walked around.
	“I wasn't asleep, I swear.” Odile shook her head and rubbed her eye with her knuckle.
	“It's OK, sweetie.” Michael said, returning his attention to the man. “Davit, near as I can tell, you're the one in charge of the gang, organized crime, whatever it is, that my brother used to work for.” Michael said. “They told me to deliver some drugs down south through a swamp or else they'd have him killed in jail. But they weren't real drugs. It was a setup so I would encounter her and she would kill me for trespassing on her swamp.”
	Davit was still trying to catch his breath. The nude green woman bent down to one knee, looking at him. “When I was younger,” Odile hissed. “I remember the first human boy I saw. He saw me near a beach, and we just looked at each other. He wasn't afraid of me. I wasn't afraid of him. We fascinated each other. Neither of us had ever seen something like the other before. He ran off to his father when he heard him calling. I never saw him again.”
	She leaned in. “Was that you? Is that how you knew to send people you didn't like into the swamp?”
	Davit blinked. “When was this?”
	“Ten cycles ago.”
	“Ten years ago?” Davit blinked again. “No, that wasn't me. Ten years ago, I was thirty-nine.”
	Odile looked a little perturbed. “Oh.” She said simply.
	Davit pointed at Michael. “Was it him? Looks like he's about the right age.”
	“No, it wasn't me.” Michael swore. “If she'd told me that happened ten years ago, I would've told her you couldn't have been that boy, but...”
	“Then why were you sending people to my swamp to get eaten?” Odile asked.
	“You were eating them?”
	Odile stared at him. “Did you know I existed before right now?”
	“No, I did not. Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you? I have so many questions, it's boggling.”
	“Then why were you sending people into my swamp?”
	“The first time I did it, the guy disappeared. I sent him with fake drugs to go meet up with the Cubans who were flying in on a seaplane. They said he didn't show, so I figured he drowned or got pulled into a wormhole or the...” He looked at her. “the animals might have gotten him. When it worked a second time, I figured it was a pretty good way to get rid of people. No burying bodies, plenty of plausible deniability.”
	“If you didn't know, why did we have some of your people trying to get her out of the animal park where she was working?”
	Davit shook his head. “I don't know what you mean. It's not like my subordinates tell me every little thing they do. Maybe someone below me knew about it, but thought I wouldn't believe it until they could bring you to me. Which is true. I wouldn't have believed it if they told me they were wasting time to capture a man-eating swamp monster.”
	Michael's eyes fell on Odile. “If there was someone who knew, we must have already encountered them, or they went to the police before we could. The only one who seemed to know was Sue, but she's out of the picture.”
	Davit looked at them uncomfortably. “What did you do to her?”
	“She's alive... probably.” Michael said. “She only ate part of her.”
	“What the hell did you do that for? She doesn't work for me! She just comes around and acts like it!”
	“She shot at both of us!” Odile hissed.
	A long pause. Davit threw up his hands. “All right. I'll give you that one, then. So... are you going to eat me?”
	“I'd honestly rather not.” Odile said. “So... he's got something for you.”
	Michael reached into his bag and pulled out a laptop. He put it on the bed, facing Davit. Reaching across, he typed in the name of a banking website.
	He paused. “What's your wireless password?”
	“I'm not telling you my wireless password.”
	“If you knew what we were planning, you wouldn't care.”
	Davit scoffed. “I'll type it in myself, thank you.” He did so, and the laptop connected to the Internet. Michael brought them back to the banking website. “How much do you have in the bank?”
	Davit typed in his information. The number came up, which he announced out loud. “About eight million.”
	“Transfer seven million to this account.” Michael handed him a folded piece of paper with a nine-digit number on it.
	Davit looked at him, finding himself staring down the barrel of the firearm. “Seven? You're not going to take it all?”
	“We can, if you want.”
	“No, I like the first deal better.” Davit typed it in and authorized the transfer. Watching the number jump down felt draining. He sighed heavily and closed the laptop. “Now what?”
	“Go outside.” Michael instructed.
	“I'm going to get dressed first.” Davit went to his closet and pulled out some new clothes. He selected a new suit, dark blue, with fashionable tie and cufflinks. Odile stayed near him as he dressed. Michael packed the laptop back into his messenger bag, but only after a few important keystrokes.
	“I have another memory.” Odile piped up. Michael looked at her across the room. Davit continued to dress as he listened. “My earliest memory was being picked up when I was very small. I assume I would've still fit in my egg... if I actually came from an egg. I remember being picked up by a man... who I reckon may have been my father. I don't know who else could get so close to me.
	“He held me in both hands and dropped me in a little white pool. The pool quickly turned into the most intense whirlpool I reckon I've ever seen. After being tossed around, I wandered around these tubes, which brought me to bigger cavernous tubes and... eventually, into the swamp.
	“It was only when I came back to the city... did I realize what the whirlpool was. It's where you city folk... put the stuff you have no use for. The stuff you never, ever want to see again.”
	Davit's hands stopped in the middle of tying his full Windsor. He turned to her. “I'm sorry that happened to you.” He said gently. “I would not have done that. If I'd known you earlier in your life, I would have given you a job.”
	“Sue said she would keep me locked up and eating people like the Flint-Stones.”
	Davit squinted. “What episode of the Flintstones has cannibalism? Anyway, Sue was a bitch. Who cares what she says? What I mean is, I'd let you work for our organization.”
	“Did you ever give it a name?” Michael asked.
	“If our group has no name, they can't have an FBI file on us.” Davit finished tying his tie. “At least, that's what I thought fifteen years ago. I bet they just put it under Operation: Dandelion or something else something else decidedly non-masculine.”
	Fully dressed, Davit looked at himself in the mirror, and presented himself to the only female in the room. “How's my hair?”
	“You're asking me?” Odile's hand came down on her bald scalp.
	“You ready?” Michael said. “Head outside.”
	Davit walked down the stairs,  and his hand reached the doorknob before he realized he wasn't being followed. He looked back. His house felt as empty as when he first arrived. Davit turned the doorknob to his front door and walked down the steps. Behind the wall, he could see red and blue lights flickering. He reached the gate. At least four SWAT members had rifles trained at him.
	“Hands up!” The commander shouted.
	Davit instead pressed a button near the gate, causing it to slide open. The SWAT poured in. “On the ground!” They commanded.
	He did not get on the ground. This was real Italian silk. He did put his hands above his head without being asked. He was cuffed and dragged into a police car.
	Among the chaos, a woman in a short skirt and blazer walked into the house. She walked around the house slowly, her heels making gentle taps against the hardwood floors as she did. She went up the stairs and found the bedroom, turning the corner to find Michael and Odile tangled in the expensive sheets of Davit's bed.
	The agent cleared her throat. They looked up from the bed and freed themselves from the sheet's entanglement. Michael adjusted himself under his jeans and greeted the agent.
	“Hello, Kris.” He said. “If that is your real name.”
	“I'm not a spy.” Kris smiled. “I'm WITSEC. Witness protection.”
	“How did you get involved in this?” Michael asked.
	“I should ask you the same question.” Kris said as they started to walk out of the mansion. “Of course, I'm limited in what I can tell you, but... did you ever wonder why photography wasn't allowed in Salty Peter's Cove of Fun?”
	“What are you talking about? People took pictures with Salty Peter all day long. He even took a few with his eyes open.”
	“It's a rule. It's on the list of rules at the entrance. See... people under federal witness protection aren't allowed to contact the media, and they're almost always hesitant to get their picture taken.” Kris explained as they walked out of the mansion. “So... you're right. It couldn't possibly be him.”
	Michael stared at her. Odile gently came to his side. “Salty Peter's is a weird place.”
	“It's the happiest place in Florida...” Kris crowed the corporate message admirably, adding, “south of Orlando.”
	A pause. Odile looked back at the other officers. Nobody was paying attention to her, the scaly Valkyrie standing nude in the lawn. “What happens to us now?”
	“I'm sure the justice department would be interested in your testimony...” Kris said. “But I don't see how you could do that without exposing your friend to scrutiny... which I'm sure you don't want.” She sighed. “So... if anyone asks, I'll tell them you two just... slipped away.”
	Michael looked about, at the night sky, and at his reptilian girlfriend. He held her hand sideways, unable to weave his fingers between hers with the webbing between her fingers. They turned to leave, vanish into the night.
	Kris spoke up again, hand outstretched. “I will need that laptop back.”
	“Damn.” Michael stopped. “This thing is awesome.” He took it out of the messenger bag, which was actually his.
	Kris took it back and held it under her arm. “We couldn't hear everything in there, but... why seven million?”
	“Everyone deserves to have enough money to defend themselves in court.” Michael said. “I figured a million gives him a better chance than my brother got with the public defender.”
	“You know Avanovich probably has several bank accounts, right?”
	Michael blinked. “I did not know that.”
	“And they'll ALL be frozen now he's in federal custody.”
	Michael was silent.
	Kris finally laughed. “You really aren't a criminal, are you?”
	“No, ma'am.”
	“So where did the seven million go?”
	“To the Everglades Foundation.”
	Kris leaned back a bit. “Wow. You sure you didn't want to use that to disappear and protect yourself from whoever is left who wants to kill you?”
	Odile brought Michael closer, pressing herself against his back, her arm across his stomach. “Let them try.”
	Kris took Michael's hand, leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Good luck out there. If you need anything, of if you get yourselves in trouble, you have my card.”
	“Thank you, Kris.” They turned to leave again, but Kris stopped them again, raising her arm.
	“Here's a memo.” She said. Michael turned back. She held several sheets of paper, rolled into a tube, held in her gently closed fist. Michael accepted it and walked off. He flipped through the document, trying not to look like he was going for 'the good parts,' even though he absolutely was.
	On page six, there was a picture, possibly taken from a cell phone, of Kris' lower body with her skirt hiked up around her waist, revealing her nude lower half. Finally, he thought, she'd graduated from the photocopier and into the art of the obscene selfie.
	“What now?” Odile walked along with Michael as they slipped out the gate.
	“I don't know.” Michael confessed. “We're free, I guess. No more cages for either of us.” They approached his car, parked a little ways off. Michael flipped through the memo and almost dropped it in shock.
	On page eleven of this mostly meaningless document, there was a full nude picture of Kris standing on the sidewalk... next to an equally nude Odile. They stood with arms over each other's shoulders, both making the peace sign with the other hand. To their right was a number on the brick: 1210. Michael looked back. The same number was near Davit's home gate.
	“When did...” He mumbled, looking to Odile, who just smiled. They made it to Michael's car, where Odile wrapped her claws around him, pressed him against the side of the car, feeling his straining erection in his jeans against her mound. They kissed eagerly for a minute before Odile released him and stepped back. She stood at a distance where she could gently bat at Michael's manhood with the very tip of her tail. He stood there and accepted this unbearable teasing for as long as he could before embracing her again.
	They piled in his car and drove the shortest distance they could to find something approaching privacy. Michael tipped his seat all the way back, unsure it would ever return to the upright position, and threw Odile down below him.
	At long last... nobody would interrupt them this time.

	Afterwards, Michael did indeed get his seat back up. He dressed himself and leaned uneasily on the steering wheel, mopping sweat from his neck with a crumpled napkin from a coffee shop. Odile was sat in the passenger's seat. She was not sweating, of course, but looked properly exhausted.
	Michael pulled his head off the steering wheel, leaving a small horizontal mark across his forehead. He looked at Odile. “You've never done that before, have you?”
	“No.” Odile confessed, taking deep, relaxing breaths.
	“Then... why did you stop trying to eat me when I said I was a virgin?”
	Odile looked at him, vertical pupils wide. “I still don't know what that means. I never did. I just hadn't heard anyone else say it before.”
	“It means I hadn't ever done what we just did.” He explained.
	“Oh.” She said shortly. She stared out at the empty parking lot they'd come to rest in, distant headlights drifting back and forth along the nearby main road. “Well. Having just experienced it, I'd say I wouldn't have wanted to die without doing that at least once.”
	Weakness found its way into Michael's exhausted voice. “Are you going to eat me now?”
	“Probably.” Odile chirped. “It's time to eat that second brain of yours. And the first one, too. I'm going to do the full praying mantis.”
	“It's fine.” Michael moaned. “If you want to eat me, that's fine. I'm sure part of me would be with you forever. It's almost romantic.”
	Odile tapped him with her tail. He turned, and saw her suppressing a huge smile. She grabbed him and kissed him.
	“No one will ever hurt you again.” She promised.
	And they kept kissing.

EPILOGUE: Croc-worth Orange

	Michael never dreamed he would own a home. And he still didn't. This was Missy's newest acquisition, but she wasn't ready to leave the comfortable niche she'd dug herself in Salty Peter's Cove of Fun. Officially, Michael was house-sitting for the past three months, an arrangement that could very easily last for years.
	He'd found a job as a janitor at an office, working second-shift most of the time. It wasn't glamorous, but... after his time at Salty Peter's, he wanted something where he didn't directly work with the public, even if he scrubbed toilets and refilled tampon dispensers. It was preferable.
	Today was Saturday, his day off, and he went out to the backyard and the underground pool. Near it, the addition Missy helped pay for was a custom koi pond... but not for koi.
	Odile crawled out of the smaller pond pool and came to rest on the hot concrete. The water danced off her scales into a small puddle under her naked form. She looked up and saw Michael coming by with a cold beer for himself, and her new favorite drink from the city: coffee.
	She got to her feet and sat in that most city-folk outdoor sitting arrangement: the plastic deck chair. She blew the top of the coffee as she'd seen Michael do a few times. He sipped his beer, and she gently sipped the hot brew. It filled her stomach with that intense warm feeling without even needing to drink the blood out of a bird's neck.
	Maybe these cityfolk had some thing figured out after all. Although with how hard Michael had labored to teach her how to read... Odile really thought she'd be doing it more often. But everything had a screen on it. The TV, the cell-e-phones, the computer... everything was some sort of video device.
	Odile finished her coffee and set the mug down on the armrest. “You want to take a swim?”
	“I can't right now, honey.” Michael said. “The filter's still not working. I need to fix that.” He finished about half his beer before standing and approaching the large pump apparatus at the edge of the pool.
	Odile left her mug on her chair. “All right. I'm going to go watch some TV.” She went inside, Michael watching that tail swing with every step. She could strut around nude, or shrouded in a habit... but that tail never lied. It was hypnotizing. He would follow it anywhere... but there was still a pool to fix.
	Michael undid the top of the large pump tank and looked inside. He didn't see anything inside, though... the interior looked lumpy and weird somehow. He closed it. He looked further down the line, decoupling two pipes from one another. He could hear water running through one of them, but not through the next.
	As the two pipes separated, something fell lifelessly out of the pipe. A purple tentacle, extending into the main pump system.
	“Oh, no.” Michael said aloud. “How did this get in here?” He grabbed the tentacle and pulled on it, expecting the rest of the poor dead animal to slither out with little resistance. But the tentacle wouldn't budge. He pulled harder, the tentacle giving enough resistance that he could lean back on his heels and be held up by the force.
	Without warning, the tentacle wrapped itself around his arm like a helical staircase. He shouted, pulling harder, as the creature slowly pulled its massive body out of the three-inch diameter pipe.
	The trapped thing was white, except for the purple arm. It had disguised itself to look like the inside of the pump cylinder. The camouflage faded to a gross mottled purple and brown. The skin was bumpy and warty like a toad. How he wished it was just a toad.
	As it stood to its full height of approximately five-foot-three, it somehow formed a voluptuous hourglass figure. Her arms split in two near the shoulder, if these tentacles could be called 'arms.' Her legs did a similar split, eight limbs in all. Her face was long and devoid of a visible mouth or nose, but two tiny funnels emerged from the side of her elongated head. Her eyes were poised on the side of her head, set into deep protrusions in her face and horizontal pupils.
	“You thaved me!” She sputtered, throwing all four “hands” upwards.
	“What the fuck is this?!” Michael shouted loud enough that it might come up at the next community meeting.
	“Ttthank you!” She slapped all four arms over his body, each sucker kissing his body repeatedly. “I am your humble tthervant! Ooh... you tathste so gooooood...”
	“Get off me!” Michael lacked the strength to push her off when she enlisted all eight tentacles, her legs joining the action to slither under his shirt and try to undo his pants. She got his jeans unfastened, and started groping at his groin.
	“I'm Octavia, by the way.” She made the introduction far too late, in Michael's opinion. He continued to struggle mightily in the confusing amorous grip of this cephalopod.
	“Hey!” Called Odile, who had been brought back out of the house by the commotion. She glowered at this competitor to Michael's affections.
	Octavia squealed, released her sucker grip and scattered clumsily away on all eights, taking the color of the grass before disappearing down the street, then adopting the gray of the road surface.
	Michael collapsed to the ground. Odile came to his side. Rather than be grateful he wasn't hurt, she scowled. He hadn't seen her this visibly upset since they first met and she was intent on killing him.
	“Who was she?” She demanded, gesturing in the vague direction Octavia made her escape.
	“I don't know, honey.” He croaked weakly. “She was stuck in the filter.” He caught his breath, and both he and Odile saw, at the same time, standing up like a monolith in the middle of the desert, his boxer-clad ink-stained erection.

Coming Soon: Ock, Croc and Two Smoking Barrels: Squid Pro Croc
(not really)