Tiger Queen: A Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  The next girl in line stood out like a sore thumb. She wore a cocktail dress and a gaudy necklace of fake diamonds, and it was clear she had just had her hair and makeup done. She was with her boyfriend, who had a professional camera.

  “What time are the tiger photos?” she asked.

  I smiled apologetically. “Unfortunately we are no longer doing personal tiger photos.”

  The color drained from her face. “What do you mean? I came here to get my photo taken with a tiger.”

  “You passed five signs informing you that we are no longer offering that service.”

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “It is a new policy.”

  She glared at me like it was my fault. Granted, it was my fault, but she had no way of knowing that. “Carl always let us take photos with the tigers. I do it every year.”

  I took a deep breath to avoid saying something I would regret. “It’s not good for the animals.”

  “They always seemed fine with it!”

  My friendly demeanor slipped. “That’s because they were filled with sedatives to the point that they could barely sit up straight!”

  “Exactly!” she said as if that proved her point. “Like Prozac or something. It makes them chill! Why can’t you do that?”

  My hand ached. I realized I was clenching it into a fist.

  “Hi there!” Anthony said as he slid next to me. “I know it sucks that the policy has changed. But you can take all the photos you want from outside the enclosure.”

  “Do you know who I am?” she demanded.

  “I’m sure you’re a very popular Instagram influencer,” Anthony said patiently. “But we aren’t giving special treatment anymore. If you’ll step through this door and walk to the end of the path, our tour guide Mary Beth will lead you on the first tour. I promise you’ll enjoy the zoo even if—”

  The girl grabbed her boyfriend’s arm and they stormed out of the place. Anthony and I shared a look, which made me smile.

  Hundreds of people came the first day. That was a lot of money, I knew. Hopefully it would look good on the financial sheet too. It took an hour to sell tickets to everyone in line. As soon as it ended, I kissed Anthony on the cheek and told him I was going to walk around the park.

  The visitors all seemed happy and excited. There were a lot of children. The looks on their faces when they saw the big cats made something in my chest move. Sure, this place was a poor excuse for a zoo and the best thing for it was to close down, but the education for the children delighted me. I had first learned to love animals while visiting the National Zoo. The wonder I felt that day long ago was mirrored in the look on each child’s face.

  But then I started noticing behavior changes in the animals themselves. After getting a couple of weeks of peace and quiet, the sudden return of human visitors was jarring for them. The two female Bengal tigers paced their cages nervously. The wolves hid in the far corner of their enclosure where they were concealed by two bushes. The exotic bird section was a cacophony of noise from the toucans, pelicans, and hornbills screeching.

  Big Caesar was the only animal who seemed chill about the entire thing. He sat near the corner of his new enclosure where the pedestrian path bent and watched the visitors walking by, as serene and unfazed as a house cat. The visitors enjoyed him the most; the way he sat like the Sphinx and stared out at the people made for good photographs, even if it was through two layers of protective fencing.

  Mary Beth approached from the opposite end with a trail of people listening to her tour. “And here we have, um, our Siberian tiger,” she said. “You can tell he’s Siberian because he’s white! His name is Big Caesar. He’s named that because, um, he’s so big! He’s the biggest cat we have in the zoo…”

  Bengals can be white too, I thought with a groan. She hadn’t studied the information I had given her. I followed her around for the rest of the tour, staying far enough away that she wouldn’t feel pressured. Overall, she did okay. She got a few other facts wrong—like calling the chimpanzees monkeys—but it was her first day, after all. And despite the inaccuracies, the crowd ate it up and hung on her every word.

  Her tour ended at the gift shop side of the visitor’s center, so I hurried inside to help Anthony handle the rush of customers. Even though the items we sold were kitschy and cheap, people snatched them up like they were limited edition Beanie Babies and it was the year two thousand.

  When the crowd died down, I went back out to give Mary Beth some feedback. I found her around the side of Big Caesar’s enclosure, hiding behind a tree and looking at her phone.

  “You did pretty good for your first day,” I said.

  She flinched with surprise, then hastily shoved her phone back in her khaki shorts. “I’m sorry! I was taking a break. I’ll start the next tour soon…”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I told her. “Relax. You’re not in trouble.”

  “It’s exhausting giving a tour! That was worse than reading a term paper in front of the whole class. I thought real life would be so much easier than school.”

  I smiled and patted her arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it over time. But I wanted to mention some things you missed…”

  Suddenly a voice to my right caught my attention. “Go ahead now, Jimmy! Toss it on in there! Get it way in there this time!”

  I walked out from behind the tree. Two parents and a small boy were standing in front of the wolf enclosure. The boy reached back like a baseball pitcher and hurled something brown into the wolf enclosure.

  “Mom,” the boy whined. “They’re not coming.”

  “Toss another piece of jerky. Go on, now.”

  Rage bubbled up inside of me. One of the signs explaining the new rules and regulations was fastened to the fence right in front of them, and they were blatantly ignoring it.

  Before I could storm over there, David suddenly appeared on the other side of them. “Sir, ma’am, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  The mom rounded on him. “For what!”

  David tapped the sign. “No throwing items into the enclosures. It’s right here on the sign, and you were told the same thing when you bought your ticket.”

  “We can’t see the animals,” the dad complained. “How’re we supposed to lure ‘em out if we don’t give ‘em jerky?”

  “This is outrageous,” the mom said. “We aren’t going anywhere until my boy sees the wolves. He’s been watching that Game of Thrones and wants to see a darewolf.”

  “Direwolf,” the boy insisted. “I want to see the direwolves.”

  David pulled his walkie-talkie off his belt. “Curtis? I need security over by the wolf pen. We have some trespassers who need to be escorted from the grounds.”

  That got through to them. The mom ushered her boy away, all the while shouting complaints over her shoulder at David.

  “Who’s Curtis?” I asked. Both of us were watching the visitors march down to the entrance and out into the parking lot.

  “The head of security I made up.”

  “He sounds mean.”

  “Oh, he is. You totally don’t want to mess with Curtis.”

  Both of us grinned.

  26

  Rachel

  Having visitors in the zoo for eight hours a day complicated things. We had to keep a constant eye on everything. There was a lot more trash to clean up at the end of the day, too. People were messy.

  But we got into a groove with our respective tasks. I kept feeding the animals in the morning before we opened the zoo. David, Jake, and Brandon took care of most of the animal work throughout the day. Anthony brought his laptop behind the desk at the visitor’s center and did some work when it was slow. Aside from the morning rush of visitors waiting to enter the zoo, I spent most of my time walking the grounds and talking to people. Like a roaming tour guide who chatted people up and asked if they had questions. The visitors liked hearing from an expert, especially when they learned that I was the h
ead veterinarian. The kids had tons of questions.

  And the money was fantastic.

  “It’s looking great,” David announced at dinner one night. “We made close to ten grand on the first day, and we’ve averaged about five every day since.”

  “Does that include gift shop revenue?” I asked.

  “Nope. Just ticket sales.” David nodded in acknowledgment. “This will really help bolster our war chest. We’ve bought ourselves a lot of time.”

  “It’s not as bad as I expected,” I admitted. “The animals are definitely more skittish around so many humans, but things have gone surprisingly smooth.”

  “The two new hires,” Anthony said. “How are they doing?”

  We had invited the two of them to have dinner at the house. Brandon came the first night, but had not joined us since then. And Mary Beth politely declined, explaining that after chatting with people all day she needed to be alone in her trailer. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Brandon’s a fucking work horse,” Jake said. “Does what he’s told and works hard. No problems at all.”

  “I think I smelled weed coming from his trailer last night,” David said with a chuckle. “But I kind of expected that from him the moment we hired him.”

  “Mary Beth is fine,” I said. “Learning slowly, but she’s enthusiastic and the visitors love her. The only problem is that I caught her on her cell phone again today when she was supposed to be starting another tour.”

  “Probably Googling the difference between panthers and pumas,” Anthony joked.

  David reached across the table and put his hand on mine. “Thanks again for being okay with the reopening.”

  “Thank you for enforcing the new rules.”

  He shrugged. “That’s how dad should have run this place.”

  Jake made an unpleasant noise, but didn’t say anything more.

  Later that night I sneaked down the hall into David’s room, since it was the farthest away from Jake’s room. David and Anthony were already waiting inside. Anthony closed the door behind me and pounced on me like a hungry tiger, practically ripping my clothes off so they could cover my body with kisses. It was the third threesome we had had, and I couldn’t get enough. It was so much more exciting than one-on-one sex. So much more fulfilling.

  But tonight, David tried something new.

  I was on my hands and knees on the bed, sucking off Anthony while David fucked me doggy style. The three of us had been at it for over an hour. Both of them had already come once, and we were sweaty and drunk with pleasure. David gripped my ass with his fingers and spread my cheeks apart while fucking me in long, deep strokes.

  He adjusted his grip on my cheeks, and one of his fingers brushed the edge of my asshole. An unexpected moan escaped my lips. Urged on, David adjusted his grip again so that two fingers were pressed right against it. Another moan drifted out of me.

  And then he slid one finger inside.

  It was surprising. Touching the outside was much different than shoving a finger into my tight backdoor, but that’s exactly what he did. And it slid inside with surprising ease.

  It felt weird. It felt different. And then it felt really good.

  I made a noise deep within my throat like a wild cat. David began moving his finger in and out, a little bit deeper each time.

  “You like having that tight little ass fingered?” he crooned behind me.

  I couldn’t form the words to answer him. The combination of his cock in my pussy and his finger in my ass was so intense that an electrifying orgasm took hold of my body. Anthony held my face down on his crotch and came in my mouth moments later, followed quickly by David coming in my pussy from behind.

  “I didn’t know you liked that,” David said after.

  “Neither did I,” I admitted.

  “But you did, right?” Anthony asked curiously.

  I blinked. “Why do you ask?”

  A sheepish grin spread across his handsome, sweaty face. “Well, as soon as he did it your lips tightened around my shaft and you sucked me off like there was no tomorrow. I thought I could have gone for several more minutes until he started fingering your ass, and then… bam.”

  I kissed him on the lips. “Well then there’s your answer. I liked it very much.” Loose and relaxed from the lovemaking, I added, “Next time maybe you can try more than just your finger.”

  I left them standing there with their mouths open as I returned to my room.

  When I passed Jake’s room, the door was open. The tattooed man was sitting on the floor and reading a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.

  “Sleep well,” he said with a knowing smile.

  As I went to bed, I pretended like he totally wasn’t aware of what I was doing with his brothers.

  The days were beginning to grow hot at the zoo, which meant that the mornings were humid. The short walk from the house to the zoo the next morning left my face covered with sweat and dark stains under my pits.

  The band saw was buzzing noisily inside the food preparation building indicating that David had once again beaten me here, but then I saw with surprise that I wasn’t even the second person to arrive to work this day. A figure stood outside the building, her face illuminated by the glow of her cell phone.

  “Mary Beth? What are you doing here so early?”

  “I was hoping I could help you with the feeding,” she said cheerfully. “Maybe I could pick your brain and learn some stuff along the way? If that’s okay?”

  I smiled. “Of course it’s okay.”

  Despite my joy at Mary Beth’s initiative, it was kind of annoying having her with me. For someone who said giving tour guides exhausted her, she talked a lot. She peppered me with questions about the food, the animals, the dietary needs. What I knew about the zoo. She even asked about Crazy Carl himself, if I had ever gotten to work with him and if I thought he was really dead. Apparently there was a weird Facebook group that thought he had faked his own death to avoid the feds prosecuting him for illegal animal trade.

  But having Mary Beth shadow me helped with her tour skills. She incorporated her new knowledge into the tours she gave later that day.

  “We feed the big cats animal bones with most of their meals,” I overheard her telling one little girl.

  The girl gasped. “Won’t the bones get stuck in their throat?”

  “You would think so, but nope! Siberian tigers have a bite force of a thousand pounds. They can snap the bones of their prey like that.” She snapped her fingers. “The bones are good for them. That’s how they get calcium and other nutrients…”

  Later that day, while I was giving an impromptu lesson on the difference between Siberian and Bengal tigers, I caught Anthony snapping photos of me. He was trying to be all sneaky about it too, hiding around the side of the visitor’s center like paparazzi stalking Lady Gaga.

  “Another difference is their teeth. Hey Caesar, can you yawn for us?”

  The big Bengal tiger gazed back at us serenely.

  “Stay here everyone. Let’s see if I can’t convince Caesar to show us the goods.”

  After working at the zoo for a few weeks, I was a lot more comfortable around Big Caesar. I had gone into his enclosure several times now and never once felt afraid. I unlocked the first fence, closed it behind me, then did the same for the inner fence. Big Caesar sat up on his haunches and waited for me to approach.

  “My puppy does that when he gets a treat!” a little boy said excitedly.

  “That’s because Caesar knows he’s getting a chicken neck if he behaves for me.” I stroked the big cat’s fur and scratched him behind the ears. He closed his eyes and leaned into it happily. Then I used both hands to open his mouth.

  “A lot of people call these fangs, but that’s not the proper term for them. These are a tiger’s canines.”

  “Canine means dog!” the little boy said.

  “That’s right. Kind of silly for a cat to have canines, isn’t it? They can grow up to three inches in most
tigers. Now, you guys can’t smell it because you’re too far away, but Caesar has stinky breath! This is because their diet of meat causes a lot of plaque build-up on their teeth and gums. The meat particles putrefy and give the cats bad breath!”

  “Gross!” the children said in a chorus.

  I demonstrated brushing Caesar’s teeth with a brush, and how it was similar to how humans did it. Then I answered some questions and the group dispersed.

  “Thanks for being a good sport,” I told Caesar. He licked my cheek, which felt like wet sandpaper scraping across my skin.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket after I left his enclosure. It was my mom again. She’d called several times in the last few days.

  I still didn’t know what to say to mom and dad. They expected me to take a job at a legitimate zoo or animal preserve. The idea of telling them I worked at a place called Crazy Carl’s terrified me and filled me with shame. Eventually I would have to tell them something, but for now I didn’t have the energy to deal with it.

  I ignored the call and quickly sent mom a text that I was at work and would call her back later.

  “You’re good at that,” Anthony said as he approached.

  I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “Good at what?”

  “The tours,” he explained. “Educating the visitors. You have a knack for it. And unlike Mary Beth, you’re knowledgeable on the subject.”

  I smiled at the compliment. “Shouldn’t you be in the visitor’s center?”

  “Jake’s manning the counter.”

  I barked a laugh. “Now there’s a disaster waiting to happen. We should keep him as far away from the visitors as possible.”

  “He’s alright in small doses,” Anthony replied with a smile. “But if we leave him longer than an hour he gets grumpy and starts insulting the visitors. I got some good shots of you.” He hefted the camera.

  “Shots that you can look at later, when you’re in the privacy of your bedroom?” I teased.