Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance (2 page)

             
Her
plan worked. Within seconds, McEvans stood upright, his hair dripping
pool water, with Brandy resting like a heavy barbell across his
shoulders.  At the gym, he could squat 400 lbs, and the water
helped to float her. He had to start crouching, though, as he headed
toward the shallow end in order to still get the benefit of having
her float some.

             
A
man had never scooped her up so easily before.  She felt almost
like a bride being carried across the threshold as he walked her
toward the stairs in the shallow end of the pool. Without the
buoyancy of the water, however, he couldn't manage her alone and
needed the assistance of a couple guys from his crew to actually get
her out of the pool.

             
Everyone
around them clapped and cheered.  Brandy felt sweet relief.

             
McEvans
slipped her into the covered flat bed of a pickup truck with some
help.  It was the first time she ever went home with a man she
had just met.

             
Not
too long after, McEvans would examine Brandy and figure out that she
was a she-gator – which shocked the hell out of him.  She
weighed in at 790 lbs (just around four times her human weight) and
also was about 1.5 times the length of an average female alligator.
Instead of being put-off by her size as a female, however, McEvans
was really, really excited.  

             
He
showed her off to his crew and his producers. He gave her a private
little corral by the wading pool, so she had her own space away from
the other alligators.  He gave her extra rations. 

             
And
then he made Brandy the star off his show.

             
It
couldn't go on forever, though.  After two weeks, Brandy sadly
knew she would have to escape and go back to her boring, normal life.

Chapter 2

             
Although
Marianne had run away, she had not abandoned Brandy.  Marianne
jogged five miles a day and was a petite little thing, so naturally
she was fast in general.  Brandy didn't blame her at all for
bolting and leaving her behind.

             
Marianne
tracked her best friend down pretty quickly at the Animal Sphere
theme park, and she came to investigate the gator pit within a couple
of days.   There was a little walkway where tourists could
hang out and watch the gators swim around a manmade swamp. 

             
Animal
Sphere was always packed, but Marianne patiently waited on the bridge
until she had a few minutes when no one was around.  Then she
called out Brandy's name, trying to be as discreet as possible.

             
Brandy
had been sunning herself on the opposite side of the bridge, but it
wasn't so far that she couldn't she her friend.  She waddled to
the water's edge, then dipped in and swam on over.  Marianne
recognized her immediately – there was no mistaking Brandy amidst
the others.

             
Gator
shifters can communicate with each other irregardless of whether they
are in human or reptile form.  In human form, a shifter always
will speak out loud.  In gator form, a kind of mental telepathy
mixed with reptilian body language is involved. 

             
Alligators
in general have no vocal chords, but they can roar and hiss, let out
mating calls, and emit something known as
infrasound
. 
Infrasound is low frequency and below the normal hearing range of
most humans, although gator shifters can always hear it, even when
they are in human form.  All of this further expands a gator
shifter’s overall vocabulary. 

             
In
addition to the fact that gator shifters can always talk to each
other no matter what form either party is in, they also can talk to
other gators.  Most of the time, however, regular gators simply
cannot hold up their end of a conversation.

             “
Oh
my God, Brandy,” Marianne gushed, “I am so-so-so sorry! I just
panicked and ran.  We have to get you out of here!”

             “
It's
not so bad,” Brandy told her. “It's kind of interesting
actually.”

             
What
she didn't admit to Marianne is that she had the hots for Jake
McEvans.

             
Marianne
was wearing denim short-shorts that were a hair's breath away from
exposing her butt cheeks as she leaned over the wooden railing to
talk to her friend.  A natural redhead, her teal tank top
contrasted stunningly against her creamy white shoulders splayed with
patchy brown freckles that reached across her back and upper chest.

             “
You've
been in shifter form for three days straight now,” Marianne. “That
can't be healthy.  How long have you ever been a gator without
turning back into a human?”

             “
No
more than 16-hours,” Brandy admitted. This was probably typical for
a gator shifter. “Do you think I'm really at risk here?”

             “
I
don't know,” Marianne said. “But don't you want to get the hell
outta here?”

             “
Yes,
of course,” Brandy said.
 
Eventually,
unfortunately.

             “
We
have to come up with a plan,” Marianne said. “I'll get Ray – he
can break-and-enter any facility around.”

             “
PLEASE
don't get Ray,” Brandy said.  “Then he'll think I owe him
one, and you know how he's going to want to collect.”

             
A
wicked grin spread across Marianne's face.

             “
Oh,
come on – let yourself give in to the bad boy just for once,”
Marianne said.

             “
The
problem is he wants to pretend to be a good boy – he wants to marry
me!” Brandy said. “But he's an ex-con, soon to be back behind
bars any minute I'm sure!”

             “
Desperate
times call for desperate measures,” Marianne said.  “We
can't leave you in here.  You should be more freaked out about
this than I am!”

             “
You're
right, you're right,” Brandy said. “It just has felt like kind of
a vacation.”

             
A
couple of male gators – not shifters – swam up beside Brandy to
scope her out.  She was used to this.

             
Brandy
communicated to them something to the effect of, “No chance in
hell.”  It wasn't mating season, so the two gentlemen callers
weren't really in the mood for love.  They were just looking to
flirt a bit, so when they were rebuffed, they swam off without a
scuffle.

             “
I
don't like the look of those two,” Marianne said.  “Look at
their shifty eyes.”

             “
We
alligators all have shifty eyes,” Brandy corrected her.

             “
Not
like
that
.
I know it's not the right time of year, but the longer you stay
trapped in gator form, the more chance you have of getting
preggers
. 
What if you start laying eggs in here!”

             “
Please!
Give me some credit!”  Brandy said. “I’m nobody's fool.”

             “
What
if you don't have a choice?  You're surrounded in here. 
What if you get
gang-banged?!
”

             “
Please,
Marianne,” Brandy said. “No one is going to mess with me with my
size.  I'm pretty good at reading the primal instincts of other
alligators, and the ones who aren't shifters are even easier to
dominate.”

             
More
tourists were coming, so Brandy and Marianne no longer had any
privacy.

             “
I'll
see you later,” Marianne said. “And I'm getting Ray to help,
whether you like it or not.”

             
Brandy
floated in the water and watched her friend take off.

             
It
turned out that Ray was out-of-town on some kind of mysterious
business, so Brandy was indeed stuck (happily) for two weeks.

Chapter 3

             
After
a show one day, Brandy was led back to the manmade swamp just in time
to see a new batch of gators arrive. Night fell so things were about
to get interesting. Alligators are nocturnal, so the party was just
about to get started.

             
Most
gators are loners, so even when they are in a swamp filled with other
gators – or a manmade pit at a theme park like this – they try
not to piss each other off (unless they are psycho). 
Fundamentally, normal gators are cowards.  Shifters definitely
are NOT.  Since shifters naturally merged human behavior with
alligator behavior, that meant they hung out with friends, family and
associates, and they could be aggressive.

             
Madame
Eve LaBelle, without thinking of the long-term implications of her
actions, had used her conjure to fill the swamps of Florida with a
new kind of reptile. If a poacher came across a shifted gator, he
often was in for a surprise, because everything he thought he knew
about alligators would turn out to be wrong. 

             
Since
no one from any of the cursed families had exposed the situation to
outsiders in over a hundred years, that meant that no one from the
state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission knew what they were
dealing with, either.

             
Up
until now, Brandy had figured out she was the only shifter in the
bunch at Animal Sphere.  That would change tonight when the
Cliburn brothers arrived.

             
The
Cliburn brothers were no good and plenty worse than Ray.  Brandy
had no doubt they were inbred, nasty as they were on all levels.
Okay,
fine,
she
would admit,
all
shifters intermarry among the seven families, but still, most of us
try to keep it no closer than third cousins.

             
Jesse,
Bobby and Hugh Cliburn were crystal meth dealers.  They had
supplied Brandy's little brother Charlie, who was hell-bent on his
own path of destruction and overdosed on crystal meth at the age of
19.

             
She
didn't recognize them at first, but they sure as hell recognized
her. 

             
These
were three shifters who were too crazy for payback to be afraid of
her size. Hugh had learned the hard way what Brandy could do when she
was pissed enough.  After Charlie's funeral, Brandy ran into
Hugh at a bar and spat in his face.  Her friends held her off
him, and he let the incident pass. 

             
But
Brandy wasn't about to let this go.  She forced Marianne to help
her stalk him for weeks after that, figuring out his every move, and
then she planned to get the bastard at his weakest moment. 
Marianne was scared of this plan, but she could not blame Brandy for
her wrath over her brother's death.  Plus, Brandy had a
reputation for delivering 'swamp justice'.  This wouldn't be the
first time she'd be doing the state of Florida a favor by getting rid
of some bad guys. 

             
So
Marianne eventually also agreed to drive Brandy to one of Hugh's
known delivery points, based on a tip that he was making a drop that
night.