Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance (3 page)

             
On
that night Hugh had shifted, then swallowed small bags of his stash. 
Brandy and Marianne had figured out by then that his covert
modus
operandi
was
to make large deliveries by swimming to his connection in gator form,
then expelling his narcotics stash out through his other end.

             
Brandy's
plan was to ambush Hugh Cliburn
–
mid-shit
–
on
land while he was still in gator form with a belly full of drugs not
yet fully expelled.  She would kill him immediately, which meant
that Hugh's body would shift back into human form.  Brandy would
leave him there, dead and naked in his own excrement filled with
little baggies of crystal meth, for the cops to discover.

             
But
things didn't go quite so well as planned. 

             
Brandy
did, indeed, ambush Hugh. She clamped her jaws shut on his left human
arm and yanked him into a death roll, which is a technique that all
alligators use in battle.  Gators will lock on to someone or
something with their massive jaws, then twist their whole body in a
repetitive full body roll.   The goal is to snap the
opponent's bones, ligaments, or whatever else, using torque.

             
Hugh
was wily, though.  Instead of fighting her, he rolled WITH her.
As long as he could keep rolling with her, he might lose some real
blood, but his arm probably would not break.  She managed to
dislocate his shoulder, but that was it.  Brandy must have
rolled about ten times when she finally let go, because this was
going nowhere.  Hugh immediately jumped up and bolted, running
naked in a zig-zag pattern away from her.  Alligators can run
fast, but only in short bursts.  And they cannot zig nor zag. 
             
The reality is, very few gators like to chase anyone on land anyway. 
He likely could have escaped Brandy even if he ran in a straight
line.

             
Brandy
– pissed beyond pissed that she had failed – shifted back into
human form, stood up and walked naked back to Marianne's SUV.
             

             
Brandy
was not remotely shy about walking around naked in the dark. 
She walked around naked as often as she could get away with even in
the daylight.  She had long since gotten used to nudity between
shifts. 

             
Even
though her figure was not going to be featured in gentlemen's
magazines anytime soon, she accepted her girth as being as nature
intended.  Brandy's two best features were her long, straight
glossy dark brown hair and mocha skin that never burned in the hot
Florida sun, even though her skin would be dry as leather if she
didn't take care of it the way she did.   The other
shifters thought she looked amazing.  Only regular human men
thought she looked like trailer trash.

             
Her
people – the Guyettes– were a mix of Scotch-Irish, Creole and
Seminole, and her family was spread out across the Gulf Coast all the
way from Florida to Louisiana.  In every generation, more than
one women somewhere was foolish enough or unlucky enough to get
herself knocked up while in her shifter state, thus hatching between
20-50 baby shifters at a time. For this reason alone, Brandy had no
less than 775 cousins. 

             
At
27, Brandy had a high school diploma but never finished an intended
degree at community college, even though she had straight A's and
showed promise in math and the sciences.  Money was too tight.

             
Her
dream ever since she was a kid was to be the first person in the
Guyette family to become a herpetologist.  In her mind, who
better than a Guyette to become a scientist specializing in the study
of amphibians and reptiles?  But everyone in Brandy's family
thought that wanting to be a “herpetologist” meant she wanted to
study herpes, so she just stopped bothering to talk to anybody about
it.

             
No
one in her immediate family was ever that ambitious, and she never
really had any support.  While the gator shifters as a whole
respected her size, they simply had no use for a woman with brains. 
Possibly this was part of what pissed off Madame LaBelle back in
1884.

             
Brandy
never had the chance nor the money to finish her degree, never mind
apply to a four-year college.  So she was stuck doing the most
boring job ever that – even though it paid higher than minimum wage
– did not help get her out of credit card debt.  Then after
her brother died, she lost direction emotionally.  She had hoped
that exacting revenge would clear her head and satisfy her heart, and
make her brother proud in spirit, wherever he was.

             
Putting
her clothes back on, Brandy got into the SUV, and Marianne took her
home.

Chapter 4

             
Hugh
Cliburn was pretty sure which gator had gone after him that ill-fated
night.  He had warned Brandy that he would give her a
respectable and wide berth and chock her attack up to a combination
of PMS and depression.  He was lying.  He really planned
get her back good, if the opportunity arose.

             
Tonight
at Animal Sphere, it looked like he might get his chance with his
brothers to back him up.  On the run from the DEA, they had
decided to shift and hide out in a lake in a swanky planned
residential community.  This did not go over well with the
locals.  The Cliburns were trapped and sent to Animal Sphere.
Jesse had swallowed a collective total of a kilo of marijuana, and it
was still in his belly right now.

             
There
was no mistaking Brandy – Hugh would know that woman anywhere. 
She was lounging just across the way with a new group of inmates. 
Hugh decided to lie in wait for a bit, and he whispered to his
brothers that they had just stumbled on a fun time to be had settling
a score.

             
Meanwhile,
Brandy had felt bad for a couple of the new gators (not shifters) and
tried to explain to them where they were and why they were brought
here.  They were too dumb to understand.  If gators could
sigh, she would.  Brandy didn't notice when the Cliburn brothers
slithered into the water and swam in her direction.  She had
become distracted when she saw Jake McEvans on the bridge overlooking
all of them.

             
Her
heart fluttered.  McEvans saw her, too.
 
What
was he doing here off-hours at night?

             “
Evenin',
Shirley!” he called out, summoning Brandy by her stage name.

             
Brandy
ditched the dumb gators and swam over to the bridge.  As she
came closer, she saw a woman appear next to McEvans.  The woman
slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze.  Suddenly,
Brandy's heart began to sink.  It looked like Jake McEvans had a
girlfriend.

             
Now
she was directly in front of the couple.

             “
Did
she really just do that?” the girlfriend asked.  “She really
came when you called?”

             “
Yep,”
he said.

             “
But
she's a reptile,” the girlfriend said.  “I thought reptiles
didn't have the capacity for connection or emotion, or anything like
that.  Or that they're just not that smart.”

             
They'e
not, honey, believe me, but shifters are,
Brandy
thought.

             “
I
know, Rachel,” McEvans said. “They're not supposed to be. 
But here she is.  She's an amazing gator.”

             
Rachel
was dark-haired and beautiful and svelte. If Brandy had the capacity
for crocodile tears right now, her eyes would start welling up.

             
Suddenly,
behind her she heard a familiar voice, in surround-sound infrasound.

             “
Well
hello there, Brandy Guyette!”

             
Brandy
circled and faced the three Cliburn brothers, with Hugh leading the
way.

             
Crap!

             “
What
the hell are you fools doing here?” Brandy asked.

             “
We
could ask the same of you,” Hugh said.

             “
Wait!”
said Jesse Cliburn.  “You must be that big ole'
record-breaking she-gator Jake McEvans trapped in Miami!”

             “
Yes,
that was me,” Brandy admitted, a deadpan tone in her voice.

             
Behind
her on the bridge, McEvans and his girlfriend Rachel observed the
interaction.  From above, what they saw was one huge gator
facing three smaller gators, who then floated in an arc so that now
the three were surrounding Brandy a.k.a ‘Shirley’.

             “
Jake,
what are they doing?” Rachel asked.

             
McEvans
didn't have a good feeling about this.

             “
I
don't know,” he said.  “Gators don't usually behave like
that.”

             
All
three smaller gators obviously were starting to be aggressive. They
looked like they were hunting in a pack, which made no sense at all. 
And they had come up on 'Shirley's' back, when she had not visibly
provoked them in any way.

             “
I'm
getting my gun,” McEvans said. 

             
He
disappeared momentarily from the bridge.

             
Down
in the pit, the tension continued to build.

             “
You
done roughed up our brother real good,” Bob said with a snarl. 
He had several teeth missing and a nasty scar running from his left
eyeball to the hinge of his jaw.  He was no better looking in
human form.

             
Brandy
suddenly dove underwater. She shot beneath the Cliburn brothers and
headed for the shallow end of the water.  If she was going to
have to fight them, she wanted to be in the water, but she didn't
want to be in too deep to start.

             
Hugh
went after her. In a split second they were locked and twisted
together.  She had his body in her jaws, while
his
jaws
tried to sink in on her neck.  Hugh's tail whipped back and
forth while Brandy tried to stay calm. One-on-one there would be no
contest, but his brothers were not far behind.

             
Jesse
went for a cheap shot.  He snapped her rear left leg, which hurt
like a son-of-a-bitch.  That was just to surprise her. 
Then he tried to head-butt her torso.  Bob came around the other
side and went for her neck as well, but couldn't open his jaws wide
enough to get a good lock on it.

             
Gators
don't just have thick scales.  Underneath they have something
called
scutes
,
which are bony plates.  When scales get rubbed or knocked off,
as they often do – especially in situations such as this – the
scutes also are shields, so it's like having two layers of armor. 
That means a big gator like Brandy can take a lot before really
getting into real trouble.

             
Thus,
Brandy believed she could survive this whole fiasco, but now she was
afraid that their real goal was to make her a cripple – to take off
a leg. This they could probably succeed at.   Losing a limb
would affect her in human form as well, and she couldn't afford the
doctor's bills never mind the fact that she had no disability
insurance.  She needed her legs!