Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance (15 page)

             “
Okay,
here's what I've got,” Brandy said. “I'm not an artist, though,
so you will have to use your imagination.”

             
Brandy
essentially had scratched out what would be a section of
imitation-Everglade taking up two whole city-blocks. Animal Sphere
had the land, so that wouldn't be a problem. 

             
From
what McEvans could see, her design of a slice of the Glades was
perfect.  There was a little bit of cypress swamp in the layout,
along with a bit of a mangrove forest. It would be a mini-watershed
right here at the theme park.

             
She
also had marked up a behind-the-scenes area with improved alligator
corrals, for when McEvans and the staff would need to pull any of the
reptiles out of the public eye.  In Brandy's vision, there still
would be a bridge, but also a glass-bottom boat that could go out on
the water and a small cafe below water level that offered a
clear-glass, aquarium-style view of the gators swimming below the
waterline.

             “
This
is like Alligator Nirvana,” McEvans told her.

             “
I
was thinking about calling it Wooley Swamp,” Brandy told him. “You
know – like that song by the Charlie Daniels Band.”

             
McEvans
chuckled at that.

             “
What
are you doing for the next two years of your life?” he asked.

             “
Why?”

             “
Because
that's the least amount of time it's going to take to pull this off,”
he told her.

             “
Well,”
Brandy said. “I don't plan on going anywhere.”

             “
Good,”
McEvans said.  “I will have some folks cost this out
realistically, and then we'll have to get an update on applicable
zoning and environmental laws.  I'm not sure what we're in for
here yet, but we can at least get this to Stage 1.  Don't be
disappointed, though, if we start hitting speed bumps real fast.
Pulling something off like this never is easy, although it would sure
as hell be worth it in the end.”

             
Brandy
glowed inside. She had impressed him for real!

             “
I
need to add something here,” McEvans said, while sketching
something on her draft. 

             
When
Brandy took a look, she saw that McEvans had marked a spot for
'Shirley' to have her own private corral. 

             
That
would be a little tricky, since eventually 'Shirley' was planning on
disappearing for good for awhile, after she finished her current
visit.

             
Brandy
realized that with McEvans in such a good mood right now, she had
another opportunity.

             “
Jake,
do you remember those alligators that went after Shirley?  Two
of them are still around, right?”

             
A
cloud crossed McEvan's face.

             “
Yes,
they're still here.”

             “
We
need to keep them away from her,” Brandy told him.  “I've
seen them stalking her occasionally.  I think we should keep
them separate from each other, too.  I think they're a bad
influence on each other.”

             
McEvans
considered what she said.  It sounded reasonable, and Brandy had
more than proven to him that she understood reptiles.

             “
Go
ahead and take care of it,” he said.

             
Brandy
felt relief.  She could finally take care of this nasty business
with the Cliburns.

Chapter 17

             
The
day after McEvans gave the green light to Brandy's proposal, he
started feeling truly off-kilter. 

             
Shirley
had been back at Animal Sphere for about three days, so he had been
in a pretty good mood.  But the headaches he had been having
started getting worse.  They always seemed to occur when he
thought about having the 'Talk' with Rachel, and he would always
think the better of it and put  the whole thing off – yet
again.

             
He
also started feeling like he was walking around in a fog. 
Usually he would snap out of it when he would see Brandy – but then
when he would actually start talking to her, it would get worse. 
He thought about going to the doctor for a checkup – something
clearly was wrong – but then he would put that off, too. 

             
McEvans
hid how he was feeling from both Rachel and Brandy.  Rachel
remained her patient, understanding self, although their sex life had
been on hold for the most part for a few weeks now – since right
around the time he first trapped 'Shirley'.  It wasn't for a
lack of Rachel trying, but for some reason McEvans just wasn't in the
mood much anymore.  This was very unlike him. 

             
Rachel
did manage to pull out the stops, however, one night right after
McEvans had told her that he and Brandy had found Shirley again. 
That particular night had been pretty amazing, but the headaches and
the fogginess started the very next morning.  So, he hadn't been
in the mood since.

             
Brandy,
for her part, started noticing that McEvans wasn't looking so good. 
Well, actually, McEvans always
looked
good
,
but he didn't look
very
well
. 
When she asked him if he was okay, he always brushed her off, and so
she stopped asking. He was getting sloppy with the alligators,
though, making stupid mistakes – not handling them quite right. 
He got nipped a couple of times – nothing serious – but it seemed
to Brandy that he was behaving like a man who wasn't getting enough
sleep.

             
That
would be fine, maybe, if he just worked a desk job – but this was
not okay given the fact that his job posed the potential for physical
danger on a daily basis.  So she watched his back without being
obvious about it when they were in the gator pit.  And when she
shifted into 'Shirley,' she stayed close to him as well, letting the
other alligators know that she was marking her territory around him,
at all times.

             
His
mood, however, did make it easy for her to track down Hugh and Bobby
Cliburn and separate them without interference.

             
The
first Cliburn brother she would deal with would be Bobby.

             
One
night after McEvans thought Brandy had left to go home, she stripped
down in the employee locker room and snuck into the gator pit wearing
nothing but an oversized towel.  She hung the towel on a hook on
one of the fences and shifted.   She wanted to swim a few
laps in the swamp before facing the task at hand.

             
Bobby
already had seen 'Shirley' around, and when Brandy had him separated
from Hugh, both brothers knew the inevitable was coming. Bobby and
Hugh had shifted into human form several times on the sly – at
night and only for a couple of hours at a time – over the past few
weeks they were stuck at Animal Sphere.  Bobby frequently needed
to take a breather from being a reptile. But then he also started
feeling the pangs of meth-withdrawl.  The pangs were
non-existent for him as an alligator, but as a human he needed a
fix.  So now Bobby was stuck so that if he shifted back to being
human, this was a recipe for sheer misery for a meth addict without
an easy supply.

             
Hugh
and Bobby both already had smoked most of the pot that Jesse
unintentionally had smuggled into Animal Sphere in his belly. 
Hugh managed to retrieve it upon Jesse's demise.  That helped
Bobby some, but not by much. And since they'd been separated, Hugh
had sole access to whatever pot remained.

             
Thus,
Bobby already was in pretty rough shape when Brandy finally cornered
him. He was weak, and he was even somewhat apathetic.

             
After
Brandy finished her swim and was all warmed up,  she got out of
the water and shifted back into human form.  This she needed to
do in order to unlock the gate to Bobby's coral.  Dripping with
swamp water, she walked fearlessly among the alligators on the sandy
manmade 'beach' by the water.  No other alligator dared to even
snap at her ankles. Instinctively, they all accepted her as an Alpha
Female whether she was in shifted form or not.

             
Bobby
sat naked and shaky in his corral.  He was in human form,
scratching at himself in the moonlight.  He was starting to go
through an increasingly ugly bout of the shakes. Brandy immediately
knew what was happening to him, because she had seen her brother go
through this the last time he tried to get clean.

             
As
she stood over this pathetic criminal, Brandy felt no pity. But she
didn't want to fight him like this – in human form.

             “
I
know what you're here to do,” Bobby said to her, his voice low and
unsteady.  “Just make it quick.”

             “
At
least you can go out like a man,” Brandy told him. “You need to
shift before we do this.”

             “
Okay
– just give me a minute,” Bobby said.  “I don't feel like
I'm ready to die when I'm a gator.  But this whole place is
starting to feel claustrophobic.  I just need to rest here for a
moment.”

             
He
was trying to buy time.  But Brandy didn't have time. There were
a few moves she could make that would force him to shift – that was
part of the curse – but she'd rather that he do it of his own free
will.

             “
What
are the chances you have a cigarette?” Bobby asked her.

             
Brandy
remained silent.

             “
I
guess not, then,” he said.  He remained slumped in the dirt,
and then he just let out this sorry, passive chuckle.  “How
about this instead – I think maybe we can work something out. 
Your brother owed us about $5,000 when he died.  Normally, we'd
come collect that from you – but if you leave us alone and call it
even with Jesse – we'll forgive the debt.”

             
He
was smarmy and cocky to the end.

             
Brandy
didn't even waste a moment being insulted by the offer. She simply
couldn't let the Cliburns live.  So she grabbed Bobby's right
hand and bend his thumb inward.  She crushed his hand with her
own, jamming Bobby's thumb into his palm, squeezing and twisting the
second joint. 

             “
Fuck
– are you serious?!!” Bobby cried out, now in sudden and serious
agony.

             
Brandy
was attempting to use pain compliance on him.  She wasn't doing
any actual damage, but if she hit the right trigger point, it would
feel so excruciating that his involuntary reflex would be to shift in
order to defend himself or simply try to get away.

             
This
move wasn't working like she hoped, so she tried something
different.  Bobby was too weak to stop her, although he was
screaming now like a little girl.  She had to make this work
without any further delay, because she didn't want his yelling to
attract a security guard. Still tackling the same hand, Brandy bent
all of Bobby's fingers backward at once, and then spread his fingers
at the split between his middle and ring finger.  She pulled so
hard she could here a knuckle crack.