Mending Fences

It was summer. The days were hot, and much as I would have liked to spend them out on the beach drinking with my mates, I needed the cash, and ended up working as a laborer at the zoo.

There was a half dozen of us. The zoo hired us cheap, and then sent us off on daily errands to plant gardens, fix enclosures, and do drudge work so that the actual zoo staff had more time to put on a show for the guests.

Each morning we'd show up at seven, and Felicity would bustle in, five foot tall and cute as a button -- not "Model perfect", but instead round, and bubbly, and flirtatious and warm, with tits till Tuesday.

Basically, the kind of girl that was a nightmare to be around when you hadn't had your morning coffee.

"Morning Trish,"

"Hrgmrm"

"Morning Nick"

"Yeah."

"Morning Jake!"

"Morning 'city"

She grinned, deep brown eyes lingering on me just a moment longer as she passed by.

Since the first day meeting her I had made a point of going for a morning run before coming to work. It cut my sleep short by almost an hour, but meant I was awake by the time I arrived, made it easier to put in the effort with 'City. She deserved it- not just for being exquisitely fuckable (oh man, those showers after the morning runs), but also for being a ray of sunshine: we all might have resented her her chirpiness, but I couldn't deny that it rubbed off.

There had been a couple days when she wasn't there, with Old Mungo dealing out the days tasks, and without Felicity's enthusiasm to get us started, the entire day had been a drag.

Today however she was in full swing, corralling three of the others and handing out a laundry list of jobs.

"First, you'll be heading up the the Giraffe enclosure-"

I zoned out, realizing she had picked out Trish, Kath and Simon, meaning that I'd be spending the day with The ChrisMelia.

There was nothing wrong with Chris, or Amelia for that matter. Amelia was sharp as a whip, and Chris was a cool dude, but they were a couple, a rather amorous couple, and there was only so much voyeurism that was entertaining before either jealous, or annoyance at having to do all the work set in.

I know Trish had asked Felicity to separate them, but 'City just laughed "One day

you'll

have a boy to spend the day with, and you'll appreciate it if I let you stay together then."

"But there ANNOYING Felicity, and they don't get any work done."

Felicity had waved Trish off, but afterwards had made a point of not putting the couple together

all

the time.

Some of the time they were together though, and since we generally broke into teams of three, that meant the rest of us took ChrisMelia duty in turns- usually once per week.

By the looks of it today was my turn.

...

Or... perhaps not.

Kath, Si' and Trish were leaving the room, Si' giving me eyebrows on the way out, and Kath and Trish talking about something. Felicity was talking to Chrismelia. JUST Chrismelia, which either meant I'd have to get my instructions from them second hand (bleurgh), or else...

"Is Jake coming with us?"

"Oh? No- I've got other tasks for Jake today."

ChrisMelia gave me a look, then stared at each other, obviously torn between questioning the special treatment, and taking the day for what it was: an eight hour shift in the company of no one but each other.

Romance won out.

"Oh. Cool."

'Melia nodded.

The pair filled out of the room, leaving me alone with Felicity.

"and how are

you

this morning Jake?"

Within an instant, I went from half dozing off to fully awake, and not the fun, excited 'something awesome is happening' kind of awake either.

"... good?"

Felicity gave me a sideways glance, and a smile, and I so so knew it was a trap, and I so so wanted to please her.

And you know I know.

And you know I'll do it anyway.

God damn it.

"You wanna do a girl a favor?"

My mind skipped, as I mentally cataloged the thousand and one `favors' I would like to do for this woman, the million different ways I wanted to please her, the-

"Yes. But I'm betting the type of favor you are asking for isn't the kind I'm thinking of."

Silently Felicity preened, her entire body twisting from side to side, staring off into the corner of the room with her secretive smile.

I took a few seconds to admire the blue of her dress, the firm

bulk

of her shoulders, before relenting: "Alright, alright, you win, what is it?"

"Mending fences."

"Figurative or literal?"

"Why not both? Why not wait and find out? Where's your sense of adventure Jakey"

Jakey.

You, my dear, are baiting me.

"Okay. Well, where am I going, and which fences am I mending?"

She took me by the arm, and led me out of the cool neon lit office, and over to "The Shed".

The shed was a shoddy old behemoth of corrugated iron, wooden posts and wire meshing. It contained the zoos fleet of 4 by 4's, service utes, and large plastic buckets. It smelt like manure and rotten hay.

"You'll be up at the east end. Cheetah enclosure. We've got some kittens that'll be reaching pubescence soon, and they'll need extra running space, so we're expanding the enclosure, which means-"

"More fences."

"Exactly!"

Felicity explained to me how the building supplies themselves were already there, although I'd need to take my own tools- listing off the tools needed.

"I'll go get the chilly-bin while you toss those in the back of number three" - she indicated the one remaining ute in the shed.

While Felicity was away I got my wits together, so when she returned I had my response ready:

"So, if I'm doing you a favor, do I get to ask one in return?"

"Depends how good you are at mending fences."

Mending fences...

"If I'm good?"

Felicity leaned forward, close enough that my arm instinctively wrapped around her waist.

"Do a good job Jakey... and you can ask me for anything."

"Anything?"

She held eye contact for long moments, before burying her face against my shoulder, my awareness of her lungs growing with each rise and fall of her chest, our breathing slowing, synchronizing.

"Yeah. Anything. Pretty much."

I kissed her on the top of the head. "You can make me dinner. At your house. Something really hearty after ."

Felicity snorted and shoved me away, dangling the keys to the ute in front of me. "You, dear Jakey, are a gentleman."

"Boy likes to feel cherished too, some times." I grabbed the keys and climbed into the ute, freezing a moment later and catching her eyes, "And..." I felt suddenly fragile, stupid. "Look, you're beautiful, and I respect you, and... if anything does ever happen between us... I want it to be because you choose it, because we choose it, not because... because... either of us feels like we ought to, or have to, or like we owe it to someone."

A sad smile. "You really are a gentleman."

"I try."

"It suits you: brings out the colour in your eyes."

Felicity pulled back her hair, and turned away, and in that moment I couldn't help but feel like I had lost her, couldn't help but wonder what was on her mind, a thought that continued to bother me as I pulled out onto the gravel `road', and drove the rickety beast to the east end of the zoo.

To the river.

I spent the day hammering away at holes with a hard iron rod, an activity just as sweaty, but nearly as enjoyable, as the obvious euphemism might suggest.

The clay was heavy and dry, punctuated by rocks that I needed to break, or dig around. The posts were two and a half meters tall, which meant that the holes needed to be almost a meter deep, and wide enough to drop a person into.

It was back-breaking work (if you did it wrong), and bloody annoying work if you did it right. Occasionally I'd take breaks from the digging to haul one of the posts along to its proper place, leaning it in the grass and taking a moment to gaze across the river at the tourists, and families and university students on summer vacation.

The view was quiet nice:

relaxed bright human animals, carefully cordoned off in their road shaped enclosure. There were bodies of all shapes and colours, great laughing Indian aunties with their nieces and nephews scurrying underneath, and musical lilting Irish redheads, comparing notes with -

"You really should pay more attention to your surroundings."

I freeze.

We might not realize it, in this day and age, but all animals have a prey instinct.

We see it most in rabbits and antelope, the sudden sharpening of the ears.

We don't think about it as humans, we don't encounter it very often.

It feels electric, unsettling. There is this sudden awareness of peripheries, of the presence and absence of sound.

There is a cat, stalking me in the grass, three scant meters from my throat.

I'm sitting down, but as I picture the situation, I remember that the cheetah is (aside from the lion) the only one of the great cats to hunt in groups.

I remember the angles of the hill behind me, and how easy it would be for a second cheetah to be sitting there, above me, or off to the other side.

I can see the tourists on the other side of the river, pointing towards me, in my general direction, and I can see that they are not all pointing at the cat that I can see.

"Felicity told me that she sent up some fresh meat,"

The voice is female. Husky. Somewhere in the back of my head I can feel myself laughing at 'Cities euphemism, a joke apparently lost on the speaker, who says the words with the disinterested calm of someone who does not have an unknown number of predatory felines eyeing up their throat.

"Yes," I reply "Yeah, that sounds right."

"You mind giving me the keys so I can fetch it out the ute? Girls are hungry, and there's a show on in half an hour."

I stand, ignoring the animals, and toss the keys behind me even as I turn around.

The woman speaking to me is short and dark -- her dusty khaki uniform a shade or so lighter than her skin. Petite, except with the iron hard eyes that perfectly match her pets. Her eyes do not shift from me as she catches the keys, and smiles.

I belong to her.

I belong in the same sense of a gazelle, being run down, knowing I have been chosen, knowing I am in the predators sights, waiting to be consumed.

Except unlike the gazelle, I want it, can feel some traitorous instinct urging me to fall.

"You want a hand carrying things?"

"I don't need it, but I won't stop you."

"It's my lunch break anyway. I'd like to see the show."

She bobs her head and turns, swish swishing through the long dry grass, prey and predators moving in her wake.

Her name is Paravati.

Her parents are form Pakistan, and she grew up there until midway through highschool.

She trained to become a vet, but half way through her training ended up working here over summer- an apprenticeship of sorts, that led into a full time position while she completes her training in between.

She works with the cats, Mjenka and her cubs being her favorite.

I watch the show, watch her brilliant smile as she hurls gobs of raw meat across the enclosure, and fielding questions from the audience, as she kneels amongst her pack, scratching heads and stroking tails.

She smiles, and the audience does not see the predator beneath.

They think she is a good woman- a role model to their children, do not see the soothing danger behind those deep dark eyes.

And afterwards she joins me at my work, helping to center the posts, commenting on how she plans to improve the new enclosure, asking questions about my studies, as we move around each other, carefully handling heavy columns, and sharp tools, the movements gentle, fluid, that tingling awareness of each others bodies, each others minds.

I can feel her watching me- feel wooden, even in the warm gaze of her approval.

I want her, want to run my hands right over her, and every so often she passes by, ducking underneath an arm as I hold the crosslink taut, and where any other girl would glance over her shoulder and offer a cheeky grin, Parvati does none of that.

She knows it.

I am already hers.

At the end of the day, as the tourists and zoo staff return to the gate, Felicity radios in and I answer:

"Oh- yeah, I'll be done soon. Paravati and I are just trying to get the concrete on this last post."

I barely notice the reply, and a few minutes later me and Paravati are sitting on a slope, staring out at the setting sun.

"Thanks for the help."

Paravati shrugs "Its a two person job."

"Hence why the help is appreciated."

She nods.

Mending fences... mending fences...

"Why did Felicity send me up here to do a two person job on my own?"

"So I could fuck you."

"Yeah. I got that. But why?"

Somehow the directness of it makes sense. Me asking the question, her answering it. No nonsense. No dodging around the issue. I understand her.

We don't look at each other, instead just staring down the sun. The sky blood red, the colour seeping into our surroundings, the water below surprisingly unenticing, despite our sweat, despite the acid burning into my back.

"She fucked my fiancée." Paravati shrugs "Ex-fiancée really. Whole wedding thing wasn't one hundred percent decided at the time, and it sure as hell ain't now."

I nod.

Paravati stretches, moving, rearranging herself on the slope. "Now the girl seems to think like she owes me something, keeps looking for ways to make it up to me, as if its her fault he was a spineless cheating coward."

"Hence she sent up fresh meat."

A nod. Paravati exudes disinterest, apathy boiling away beneath the surface, impatience.

And yet...

Mending fences...

"I guess I'm not the first boy she's sent up."

"Nah."

"What'd you do with the others?"

"Sent the stupid fuckboys back." Paravati stands looks down at me, unimpressed "Felicity has dreadful taste in men- my fiancée being only one example."

"Me being the exception?"

Her lips clamp shut, and for just a moment I wonder if she is going to hit me.

I stand, staring down her silent interrogation, the bloody light of sunset cutting sharp shadows across our bodies, half blinded half silhouetted. I can feel the cold wind cutting through the thin shirt of my uniform, the days sweat stinging now, can feel the tension in Paravati's body too- like a bow string ready to release, a predator ready to pounce.

I reach out and touch her cheek, the contacting triggering something: we snatch at one another, hands beneath each others' shirts, through one another's hair. Her tongue seeks domination, her teeth seek to catch mine, and there is not an ounce of gentleness in her. Her hand slips down my shorts, latches onto my cock, stroking at it, exploring it, and then just as suddenly clenching around my balls and squeezing, tight.

"Ah! Fuck. Pa-"

Movement stops.

I'm standing defenseless on the riverbank, with my hand up the predator's top, both of us panting heavily, her body so damn perfect, so damn perfect, and yet-

"You like pain Jake?"

I feel nauseous. Something wrong in the pit of my stomach, all my instincts telling me to fight her off, to flee.

When I hesitate to answer her grip tightens.

"Sometimes." I hold my voice level "Not like this."

My hand has slipped further up her shirt, past her breasts, coming to rest around the soft skin of her throat. She smiles.

"You're going to come with me."

She lets go, turns. I almost double over in relief, then give chase. We swish swish through the long dry grass, reaching the gate of the enclosure. Paravati swings it open completely at ease, and I follow. Cats slink around us, dappled shades of grey in the evening shadows.

Some part of me is aware that I should be afraid, yet the emotion does not touch me.

As we cross the rolling hills of the enclosure, Paravati yanks off her boots, tossing them aside.

A little later she shrugs off the shirt of her uniform, then twists out of her tight black sports bra, abandoning the garments as she goes.

I want to see her.

I want to turn her around and hold her, catch a full glimpse of her body, her flesh.

My heart hammers in my chest, even as my balls throb, and I know none of this is in response to danger.

We reach the crest of the hill, the mount, the entire twighlit park within view, and Paravati drops to a crouch amongst her animals. They circle and flock around her, their marks folding into one another, as she runs hands and skin along their coats and flanks, nuzzling into their shoulders, becoming one with the pack.

They care nothing for me, are interested only in their mistress, only in the ritual.

"Sit down Jake."

I sit, lean back on my elbows, stems of grass prickling up around me. Paravati pushes past a couple of her pack towards me, body at my level, her chest twisted towards me, and then she is over me, putting her weight on my shoulders and flattening me to the ground.

"I don't think you're stupid Jake. But I want you to be my fuckboy."

Her hair hangs down. Her face is round and slack, and I can see her tongue moving between teeth.

My breathing is slow, deep, and in the periphery of my vision I see dappled fur blurring with the shadows.

The sky overhead is red, each breath I take has to force itself against the weight of the beautiful woman on my stomach.

"There's just one last question."

I nod. Her eyes are black, apathetic, distant. Silently I wonder if she could kill me, if her beasts are trained that well.

Probably it is not a matter of training.

"Why is it that I will never forgive Felicity?"

Her skin is hot, and I run fingers along her side, studying her, pondering the question.

Mending fences.

Grass prickles against my ass, against my back.

Paravati has a fist twisted through my hair.

Around us cats move, restless, agitated.

Her skin is soft, yet her entire body is ridged against me. I want her.

"We're all just animals." I cup her breast in my hand, circling my thumb around her, my other hand resting against her leg. "We all have instincts."

Her breath catches, and she is

looking

at me now. The full force of her attention boring into me, my eyes, my throat, my lips.

Fresh meat.

"We have wants.... needs... desires..."

I rock my hips against her, my cock hard, bent inwards by the fabric of my shorts. Paravati sets to work unbuttoning by shirt.

"Hungers"

I rock again, in time with the gentle circling of my thumb around her hardened teat.

Soon we will lose patients with this game.

"We both know that there is nothing to forgive."

She yanks my shirt backward, over me head, pulling may arms up and away from her, her body close to mine, the sudden closeness of her breath against my throat, the sudden pressure of her chest against mine, two tiny buttons elevated and hard against me. I thrust against her again, and she laughs, melodious and low in the last amber light of day.

Her hand clamps over my mouth: "No more talking."

I nod.

"You are in my den, little boy." Her voice is low. Husky. Heavy with command.

Predators roam around us. Everything is sharp edged, orange and yellow, dripping with heat.

The sweat on our skin drips into fresh scratches, venomous, stinging.

"For what comes next, there is only one thing I need you to remember."

Nod.

"Do not roll on top. Do not try to take control. It is very important that my darlings know that I am the one in control. You are my prey, and as long as they do not fear for my safety, no harm will come to you."

Golden eyes watch us in the twilight. Curious eyes. Alert, patient eyes. Waiting for their signal.

"If they ever come to doubt, if you make them anxious, if you try to

fuck

me, try to

dominate

me like I deserve, they will defend their queen."