Once Upon a Time

by A. J. Roman

“Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,” Weister said.

  “Not only has someone slept in my bed, but there she is - a blondine,” Papa Fritz said. He’d spoken in a hushed tone. The frau didn’t awaken. They neared the bed.

  “What should we do Papa?” Weister asked.

  “She can’t stay. We can’t have villagers living with us. Our reputation with the rest of our bear tribe in the forest will be ruined. Go get her coat. She has to go.”

  Weister, the youngest bear, retrieved her jacket and brought it to the bed. Papa Fritz shook Goldilocks on the shoulder. She turned to her side away from him. She was in a deep sleep. He tapped her harder this time. Still nothing. A third time he tried and it worked - she awoke and saw three brown bears staring at her. She rubbed her eyes and sat up.

  “Verdammt! I’m not dreaming,” she said.

  “No you’re not,” Papa Fritz said, “You broke into our home. Ate our supper and drank our beer. Slept in our beds.”

  “Schon gut,” Goldilocks said, not exhibiting any fear, “Give me my jacket and I’ll be on my way.” She arose (never having removed her boots), and made her way to the door. “When the weather clears, I will return and bring you a pot of stew, replacing what I took. I’m many bad things, but not a thief or a moocher. I don’t think I slept long here, and I did sleep atop the covers not soiling anything.”

  The three bears looked at her in wonderment, not quite knowing what to do or say. After several awkward moments, Papa Fritz said, “Fine. You owe us nothing. If you want to stay the night until the the storm passes, you can. I can sleep on the couch.”

  “No. I’ve a sorry enough reputation in the village. Next they’ll gossip I slept with bears. I’ll be on my way. Danke sehr.” With her closing words, she bundled herself in her coat, opened the door, and again braved the frigid weather without turning to look back at the home’s occupants.

  The winter storm, still in full force, witnessed a snow which fell deeper and heavier like a white blanket over her eyes. Goldilocks pulled her collar up around her neck and trudged far from the bears’ house looking for her own cottage. At least she thought she’d walked towards her home. In fact she’d circled her tracks without realizing her error. Exhausted and dazed, she found a half hollowed-out tree, took cover inside it, curled up and fell asleep again.

  Since the three bears were in hibernation, they slept through morning, only stirring by late afternoon. The snowflakes had stopped falling, and the trio departed their cabin to look for wood, berries, and honey - their daily routine. However, today there would be an interruption which would forever change their lives.

  Weister shouted to the other two, “Papa, Kleister, you’ve got to see this.”

  They lumbered over to him. He stood next to a huge oak tree. Protruding from its trunk were two leather boots and a dress. They perceived, by all appearances, that the motionless footwear and woman’s outer garment were none other connected to the blondine they’d encountered last night in their home.

  Papa Fritz poked one leg with a stick and Goldilocks rolled clumsily from her side to her back. She looked up and saw the inside of a tree. Like a crab, she slid out from under it and found last night’s three bears again staring at her. Again she wasn’t dreaming. She yawned and blinked.

  Goldilocks took notice of herself. She first recognized her hands or better said what had been her hands had become paws. Blonde fur covered them and her arms. Her fingernails were now long claws. She touched her face and felt her cheeks and chin. More fur. She looked down at her two legs and saw each thickly matted with smooth golden hairs. She felt her feet ache because now they were stuffed inside her heretofore inseparable leather boots. She unlaced them, yanked off, and tossed them aside. But her former toes (now feet paws?) weren’t cold at all. In fact, her fur mail warmed her entire body like natural thermal heat. She didn’t need her bear skin coat any longer.

  “That verdammt hexe,” Goldilocks growled, “I’ll have her for breakfast.” She had immediately realized Hilda Haftmeister had cast this spell upon her and for the immediate future - she was a bear - a golden bear.

  Weister said, “I’ve never seen a bear her color before.”

  Papa Fritz said, “Truth be told, me neither. We’re brown bears. I’m familiar with black bear tribes. And in the arctic, I’ve read about white polar bears, but...”

  “The witch. The verdammt hexe. She did this to me,” Goldilocks affirmed, arising from her seat by the tree and adjusting her dress. She stumbled a tad when she tried to walk, however, unaccustomed to walking with bare bear paws.

  “Let’s go up to our cabin,” Papa Fritz said, “We can sort things out there.”

  They helped Goldilocks stand upright and she walked rather stiff-legged in the snow to their log cabin. The four sat around the fire to discuss various alternatives. Papa Fritz took the lead.

  “You can’t go back to the village like you are. They could shoot you for sport or capture you and put you in a circus,” he said.

  “That hexe said I’d never fornicate another man. I’d never thought I’d become a bear,” she said, fuming on her insides at the witch and thinking of ways to exact her revenge.

  “Not just any bear. You’re distinctive. Your color is unusual, not encountered in this forest,” Papa Fritz said, adding, “You’ll need to be careful when you’re outside. You’ll need some protection.”

  “I don’t know how long this spell could last,” Goldilocks said, “Could be one day or forever.”

  “You can stay with us awhile,” Papa Fritz said, “As long as you’re a bear, our tribe will accept you. We’ll say you’re a long lost cousin from far north.”

  “You’re most kind. But I don’t even know your names,” she said, as she began to understand the complete dynamics of her personal transformation, “And I’m know as Goldilocks in the village.”

  “I’m Fritz, and these are my two jungen-Kleister, the eldest son and Weister the youngest.”

  “And there isn’t a jealous frau somewhere?” Goldilocks asked with a smile.

  Papa Fritz frowned, “She ran off with a black bear, verdammt French.”

  “I’m sorry, “she said, and then attempting to make the best of the situation inquired, “You bears have any more beer?” It sounded funny the way she asked.

  “You didn’t finish it all last night,” Papa Fritz said, “Bears and beer. We’re Prussian. Of course, we have more. And in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re one of us now.” He told Weister to go outside and pull a six pack from the ice chest where they kept food and drinks cold in the winter.

  Goldilocks asked, “So what do you bears do during the day?”

  “Most times, in the winter, we sleep quite a bit. Late in the afternoon - like today - we’ll hunt for wood, honey, and berries, have supper, then go back to sleep.”

  Goldilocks chugged a bottle of Michelob and popped open another. She allowed her eyes to drop below the tummies of the jungen. They were standing to one side of where she was seated on the sofa and she couldn’t help but notice substantial lumps in their trousers. She drank another bottle of beer and then another. Her lustful mind wandered. What the heck, she thought to herself, I should make the best of this situation. I am a bear now like Papa Fritz said and I can well attest.

  For their part, the bears were all amazed at her drinking ability. But for them, after a few bottles, this was “hibernation time”, and they were all ready to go to bed...and sleep.

  Papa Fritz said, “Goldilocks-- this has been an experience but we’re tired. We didn’t get much sleep last night. Tomorrow we can continue discussing different options if you haven’t changed back into a frau.”

  “But I should thank you for all you’ve done for me,” she said looking wistfully at bulges in their pants’ pockets.

  Papa Fritz looked at Goldilocks who’d been tran
sformed into “Goldibear” and he thought-- a rather attractive and voluptuous bear, she was. He hadn’t had any sexual relations since Mama Bear had run off months ago, remaining celibate since. But now - this was an opportunity which seemed quite alright. Seemed natural. Besides, she did want to repay them for their kindness. And she was a grown bear after all. Consenting adults. But Papa Fritz decided he was really tired and drowsy from the beer, so he said, “It’s getting late. Weister and Kleister go to your rooms. I’ll sleep on the couch. Frau Goldilocks you take my bed for this evening.”

  Goldilocks frowned, as did the jungen, but all three did as Papa Fritz had ordered. He retrieved a blanket for himself from the closet and went to sleep on the couch. The jungen underdressed in their rooms and within minutes were fast asleep. Only Goldilocks tossed and turned. She closed her eyes, then opened them and stared at the ceiling. With thick fur covering her entire body, she felt uncomfortable in her house dress; it was now a size or two too small. She rolled off the bed, slipped the dress over her head, and took account of herself in the mirror. A bare bear stared back at bare her.

  Strange--but covered in blonde hair from head to paw-- she didn’t feel naked. That witch, she thought to herself, maybe didn’t do me such a disservice - changing me into a bear and placing me in a house of three apparently healthy and virile male bears. They slept quite a bit though. She silently giggled and reminded herself of how the jungen had looked at her. Then she touched herself very carefully because she didn’t want to injure her private parts with her claws. She rubbed the backs of her paws between her thighs and brought them to her snout. She felt she was more than ready for some intimate, “bearable” explorations. She had made her decision. She opened the door to her room and tip-pawed to Weister’s bedroom. Taking a deep breath, she opened and closed his door with nary a sound being made.

  He was sprawled on his back in his own dream world. She lightly kissed his cheek to wake him and then put her finger to her lips for him to be quiet. Since this would be Weister’s first time, he didn’t know what to do. He let her have her way with him. Goldilocks had work to do - he was very soft, probably a little scared and not at all aroused. She massaged and licked him with her long tongue but surprisingly found his penis to be the length of a man’s middle finger - in two words- under-sized. “Too small” she thought to herself, as he squirted in her mouth, almost immediately after she had caressed it with her lips.

  Unsatisfied, Goldilocks, this time on all fours, cautiously entered Kleister’s bedroom. He must have been having a wet dream because his “bearhood” was as erect as a tall brown oak. She marveled at his size - he was big enough - no question she said to herself. She didn’t wake him because he already had a smile on his face. Instead she mounted him and rocked herself back and forth. Within less than a minute, he came inside her. Though he had plenty of quantity, there wasn’t any quality. “Too fast”, she thought to herself as she left him to his imaginary world.

  Disappointed twice, Goldilocks walked into the living room where Papa Fritz was asleep on the sofa. He snored so loudly, she second-guessed herself and thought, maybe I shouldn’t wake him. But then she saw his penis-larger than Kleister’s - much larger than anything she’d ever had inside her. She decided she would take matters into her own paws, literally and figuratively. Her furry lips tickled and nibbled on his ear causing his brown eyes to open wide. Her hairy blonde breasts with distended tits confronted his face. His pupils dilated. With her paw on his penis, she led him to his bed room. But then he stopped and shook his head.

  “No, my bed won’t hold both of us. It’ll break,” Papa Fritz said.

  “Where then?” Goldilocks implored, afraid he’d change his mind.

  “Come,” he ordered. He took her paw and led her outside, in back of their cabin, and he flopped on his back in the snowy blanket. Goldilocks discovered she wasn’t cold at all. She centered herself over Papa Fritz’s penis and eased down on it. She couldn’t move for an instant-feeling for the first time the pleasure of her vagina’s wall tendered by an organ of more than suitable length and size. A bear’s organ. She was no longer a “man-eating cougar”. She’d become a bear-eating bear. She rocked back and forth while Papa Fritz moved inside her as well, lifting his pelvis from the melting snow. He knew what to do as she drew him further in, deeper still. His paws on her shoulders, a kiss on her snout from his, as he stared at Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Goldilocks arched backwards as she hit one orgasm after another, turning her head skyward as well. She’d become his she-bear. No question. Forever. They were “just right” for each other.

  From that night onward, Goldilocks would remain in the house of the three bears. She never again would be intimate with anyone but Papa Fritz, he being “jenau richtig” - she had no desire to ever stray to have relations with other bears - brown, black, white, or even blonde. She became a mother to the jungen until they found female bears, married, and left to have families of their own. Never again did she wear leather boots (or need to) or ever black-smith (bears don’t ride horses). Every year they journeyed to shop at the distant plus-size women’s clothing store, purchasing conservative dresses befitting a matronly bear.

  They all lived happily ever after.

  One final item discovered in this story from the Haftmeister documents. One day, years later, Witch Hilda ventured into the Brown Forest. She was very old then, became disoriented, and searched for the path way to return to Hildadorf. (After the people learned Hilda rid them of Goldilocks, they renamed the village after her). She wandered, hopelessly lost. But an aged golden bear called out to Hilda to follow her. Goldilocks, herself renamed Goldibear, led Hilda to the main road which she then followed back to her village. It was the blondine’s way of saying danke sehr.

  A Curious Encounter

  M. Marie

  Upon returning to Wonderland years after her first great adventure, Alice is finding the magical location no less baffling or confusing. Lost and dismayed, she resorts to her childhood habit of speaking aloud to herself to try and calm her mounting frustration. However, while a certain grinning feline looks on, it’s an unseen stranger - with a stern, yet oddly familiar voice - that holds the key to reigning in Alice’s emotions and taking control of the spiralling situation.

  Alice was lost again.

  With a sob of frustration, the young woman collapsed in an overwhelmed, careless heap in the center of the path she had been following and buried her face in her hands.

  “Not again,” she lamented sorrowfully, her voice heavy with defeat. “This road is nothing but twists and turns. I fear there is no right way to go!”

  Although she usually liked to think of herself as quite mature and wise for her 19 years, Alice was finding the experience of returning to Wonderland quite a challenge to her adult self-image. With each new obstacle - or ‘adventure’, as the local characters were more apt to consider them - Alice felt her worldly airs evaporating. Frustrated and overwhelmed, she wanted nothing more than to give in to the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and console herself with a good cry, as she had done on more than one occasion during her first visit to Wonderland.

  She had only been a child back then, though; behaviour that was perfectly natural for a 7 and a half year old was certainly less excusable in a woman of nearly 20. Closing her eyes, she slowly drew a deep breath, hoping to calm her turbulent emotions. The woods around her were whispering, though, and the voices on the wind jeered her. Her own voice was so soft when she spoke, that the tearful words were almost carried away completely by the breeze.

  “Oh dear, Alice. What are we to do now?”

  Although she was often in the habit of speaking to herself, and, as a child, had even gone so far as to box her own ears on occasion in disappointment at her behaviour or performance, today she seemed incapable of consoling herself.

  Her breath hitched and she felt a single tear finally escape her lashe
s and trail slowly down her left cheek. This first tear was quickly followed by a second, then a third.

  Before she could stop herself, Alice’s resolve dissolved completely into tearful wails. The loud sounds of her crying carried easily through the otherwise silent forest, and her slender body shuddered with sobs as she lifted the hem of her skirt and wept into the fabric.

  Her sadness seemed bottomless. Her throat soon grew sore from the wracking sobs and plaintive cries. She tried in vain to calm herself, employing both gentle soothing and firm chastisements, but the tears would not abate. The young woman was growing near-hysterical with the fear that she might never stop crying, when a strict, loud voice suddenly snapped, “That’s quite enough, Alice!”

  Alice froze, her eyes wide with surprise. Who said that? She hadn’t heard anyone approach, but that little detail wasn’t alarming on its own. Wonderland was full of mysteries and curiosities. She had been startled or snuck up on often enough during her previous visit that hearing a strange voice behind her wasn’t surprising on its own.

  The tone of the voice was, though.

  A tiny shiver of fear - or was it excitement? - shot through her. Lowering her hands, she sat up. Alice could feel a cold gaze falling on her face and kept her eyes lowered, timidly. Submissively.

  The voice continued coolly: “Look at you! Lying in the middle of the road, crying like a child. You’re acting like a naughty little girl.” There was a pause, and then in a lower voice that drew a soft gasp from Alice’s parted lips, she added, “You’re much too old for this type of behaviour.”

  “Am I?” Alice spoke before she could stop herself, and her question hung hesitantly in the air for a long time before a response came.

  “Do you need me to remind you of how much you’ve grown since coming here last?”

  Alice couldn’t find the words to answer. She trembled, caught between fear at what that strict voice might be suggesting and a deep, demanding desire to learn exactly what was being threatened.