Her ToyBear

by Bonnie Burrows

  Jocelyn and Vernon, his loving parents. Loving parents, indeed. If they loved him so, how could they have known about Adela not said a word to him? What kind of parents were they? Jennifer remembered her initial anxiety and apprehension at the prospect of meeting them.

  She recalled how afraid she was of facing their judgement as the almost middle-aged human woman who had taken their young son to bed, not knowing what he really was, and made him love her. She had so feared their judgement, their disapproval, and their possible contempt. If only she had known what they were keeping from him. It made her feel like an angry mother bear herself that they had kept Adela’s fate from him and left him open to this. What kind of parents were they?

  And it was not just his parents; it was this whole place. It was this place where people kept secrets, and then there were secrets within the secrets. To be sure, Wesley must have had other friends when he’d lived here, other people who knew both him and Adela when they were lovers. None of them had bothered to tell him, either. All it would have taken was a phone call, a text, an E-mail—anything. Shapeshifters and their secrets: damn the lot of them.

  It was late morning now, almost lunch. Jennifer was not hungry. She felt empty, but not hungry—as empty as this bed was, with no beautiful, handsome, hard, and very horny young Wesley to share it with her. Jennifer’s sobs came out in shudders at how sweet and how prolific he was: erect at a moment’s notice, always ready, any time, any place. Would she have nothing of him but those memories for the rest of her life?

  She had no appetite for lunch and was not sure she would have one for dinner. All she wanted was him.

  _______________

  Jennifer stayed alone in bed all through that day, not watching television, not listening to music, not surfing on her iPad. She did nothing but lie there and replay their whole relationship in her mind: the times she had spent drawing and painting him, and all the other things she had done with him. The bed felt like an ocean in which she was just a little speck of an island without him.

  Somehow she managed to finish the dinner that she ordered from room service. She retired early, but sleep did not come easily and did not stay for long when it did. She was asleep and awake and back again all night, a pattern to which she had grown accustomed when sleeping with Wesley because he often nuzzled her awake in the middle of the night for “just one more time.”

  Somewhere in the small hours, she dreamed he was there, snuggling up behind her, kissing her neck, fondling her breasts and her muff, slipping his erection into her wetness while humping her bottom. But when she awoke and reached for him, the emptiness on the other side of the bed reminded her of where he really was. Morning felt as though it were a thousand years away.

  But when morning did come, it found Jennifer, carrying some of Wesley’s clothing in a tote bag, back at the edge of the Glade where she’d been only yesterday—standing silently, waiting.

  The Hornes were there as well, as she’d expected. She stood apart from them and did not look at them. She told them she wanted nothing more to do with them until Wesley returned, and she meant it. Which was why Jocelyn was the one to take the first step.

  Coming up beside Jennifer, Jocelyn said, “I understand how angry you are at us, and I know you said you had nothing to say to us until he came back. And I know that even after having a relationship with one of us, you can’t really be expected to understand our ways. You pointed out that we’re not human, and we’re not. And you’re not an Ursan. There are differences between us that we can’t change. But we still feel love and hurt and sadness, the same as you do. Wesley’s father and I are sad for what you’re going through. We wish you had the same faith as we have. We wish you knew, the way we know, that our son is coming back. We’ve raised him from a cub, taught him everything we know.”

  In spite of herself, Jennifer heard herself reply, “And taught him not to get involved with anyone like me.”

  “That’s true,” said Jocelyn. “But what a parent teaches a child and what the child actually does are two different things, sometimes. The best you can hope for is that the best of what you taught him always stays with him. We taught him to be kind and to love. And he loves you. We know that.”

  Again, Jennifer had nothing to say. She did not respond to Jocelyn and did not return the gaze of Jocelyn’s eyes that she felt on her. At length, Jocelyn went back to her husband while Jennifer kept her eyes on the other side of the meadow.

  Slowly, the bears began to emerge from the distant forest.

  The same people were there, clustered and dotted in groups around the edges of the Glade, as yesterday morning. The bears ambling out of the thicket found the ones with whom they had parted and quickly trotted over to them, roaring and growling out their greetings. Upon reaching their friends and loved ones, every bear accepted pats and scratches and hugs of welcome and morphed back to a naked and grateful human.

  Jennifer watched the returnees stand up and stretch and watched their loved ones help them dress again. She clutched at the tote bag, anticipating Wesley’s appearance out of the thicket. She watched the forest across the Glade, keeping her eyes trained for any rustling as a sign of his return.

  And she kept watching.

  And she watched, and she waited. And she paced back and forth. She cast her eyes away toward Wesley’s parents, who stood and waited ever so patiently, their eyes on the trees in the distance. She looked back that way as well. She sat down in the grass, and stood up again, and paced back and forth, and sat down again.

  A few more bears came out of the forest beyond the Glade, and their loved ones welcomed them back to humanity. As each one morphed and dressed, he or she left with the ones who’d been waiting. Jennifer anxiously watched them file by, returning to the trail leading away from the Glade and back to Osborn Wood.

  As the hour approached noon, only Jennifer and the Hornes were left at the edge of the Glade.

  Jennifer sat still in the grass as if she had turned to stone. The tote containing Wesley’s clothes sat beside her. Her slow breaths were her only movements. Her expression was vacant. Inside her head, she played out the future that she saw for herself and Wesley: the togetherness, the intimacy, the places she wanted to take him, the places they had not yet gone, where she wanted him to make love to her in the weeks and months and years to come.

  She fought to keep her imagination clear in her mind, to stop it fading away like smoke, to will it to be real. She saw it blurring at the edges, fading like old photographs that she had seen in school. And she heard her voice crawl forth in a whimpering tone: “No…”

  Jocelyn and Vernon came up alongside her. Vernon helped his wife crouch down next to Jennifer. Softly, Jocelyn said, “Jennifer…it’s all right. This happens. Sometimes it takes another day.”

  Jennifer refused to look directly at her. She still kept her eyes on the other side of the meadow. “He’s coming back,” she forced herself to say. “You said he’s coming back.”

  “That’s right,” said Jocelyn. “He is coming back. But it’s just going to take him a little longer. We might as well go back. You should go back to the Lodge, get something to eat, get some more rest…”

  “I’m staying,” said Jennifer, flatly. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to be here when he gets back. I’ll be right here.”

  Jocelyn looked up at Vernon. They told each other with their shared expression that Jennifer would not be convinced. Nothing they could say would move her. Vernon helped his wife back up, and together they took one last look at the human woman sitting in the grass before making their way back to the trail.

  Jennifer stayed where they had left her, alone at the edge of the Orson Glade, and watched the forest on the other side. The only sound was the birds in the surrounding trees.

  _______________

  Early in the afternoon, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and the need to get out of the sun forced Jennifer wearily to her feet. The aching of her muscles and joints was nothing compared to the achin
g in her heart. She looked one last time across the Glade to where she had expected Wesley to appear. There was still no Wesley. Picking up the tote bag, she trudged back to the trail, feeling the hopes inside her grow as dim as the light under the forest canopy.

  She returned to the suite and sat down on the bed. She took out her iPad and went back to Wesley’s page at Mucho Models, which she had not visited since the night she found him. She observed that he had shut down all activity there and remembered him telling her that he’d done that after she had found him morphed in her bed and thought he would never see her again.

  He couldn’t bring himself to go back to modeling for anyone else, he’d said. What, she wondered, was he doing with someone else now? Jennifer looked admiringly at the photographs of him, discreetly showing everything but what he’d had inside her all those times. And she ached for him even more.

  After lingering on his modeling page, she took out a partially filled sketchbook she’d brought with her that contained some drawings of him, showing what he did not show on the Internet. She lingered on these as well, remembering the hours spent in pursuit of her craft before their time together had turned to the pure pleasure of Wesley’s body and what lay at his loins.

  Unable to go on just looking, Jennifer became restless and broke out her pencils. She began to fill up new pages with new drawings of him, rendered from memory. She knew every delicious inch of him, and she put it all down: the sweetness of his face, the bristling of the hair on his chest and his legs, the gentle arc of his erection, and the beading of his pre-seed at his tip.

  She lost herself in the sensuous act of drawing him for want of having him, and somehow that helped her. She began to feel stronger and found she was hungry again. She ordered food from room service, a big meal to satisfy her restored appetite, and she ate it ravenously when it arrived.

  After eating, she put on some music and returned to drawing. This was how Jennifer would spend her evening until she finally went to bed—resolving that somehow, some way, this night would be the last she would spend without him.

  _______________

  The next morning found Jennifer and the tote bag with Wesley’s clothes back at the waiting place at the Glade.

  She was aware of his parents standing nearby, but they were only peripheral figures for her. All of Jennifer’s attention was fixed on the spot opposite where she was standing, the place where she had seen Wesley disappear with that other bear two mornings ago. Her whole world was now this place, and it would remain so until she saw him come back from that forest.

  Letting the bag rest in the grass at her feet, Jennifer crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, a reflection of her resolve. The other morning, Vernon had stopped her crossing the meadow and going into that forest. She had not seen any of the other visitors to the Glade go there. She imagined there must be some etiquette, some protocol, some taboo or custom, even some Ursan law against it. She did not care.

  Ursan customs and taboos were for Ursans. She was human, a member of a species that went where it wanted and did what it wanted, arrogant and presumptuous as it was. Human beings over thousands of years had shaped so much of nature to their will. One human woman would not be stopped from crossing that field and going after what she wanted most in the world, consequences be damned.

  Jennifer crossed her arms and whispered through clenched teeth: “Wesley.”

  The far forest remained still.

  Speaking up more clearly, she repeated: “Wesley.”

  From the other side came nothing.

  She took a deep breath, put her arms at her hips, and called more loudly, more strongly: “Wesley! Wesley!”

  His parents watched her, admiring the strength that she showed in the face of something that so few humans knew and so few would ever understand. She was not at all the partner that they would have chosen for their son. But they were Ursans, after all, and they knew that nature in the end would always have its way.

  Jennifer raised her voice, and the sound of her call rang out loudly and sharply across the Glade. “WESLEY! WESLEY! WESLEY…!”

  The returning silence swallowed up the echoes of her voice. Frowning and wetting her lips, Jennifer started to pace back and forth as she had done yesterday morning—this time not with anxiety and fear, but with determination. One way or another, she would reach him. If he was near, he would hear her. If he was not…she would go to him, no matter what.

  She almost sounded like a growling bear herself. “Come back to me, Wesley. Come back to me now. Come out of that damned forest. Come back. Come back…”

  And that was when she saw a rustling in the tall grasses and underbrush at the far side of the field.

  Jennifer’s pulse quickened and she called out again: “WESLEY!”

  A few more seconds passed, and then out through the tall grasses came a loping black shape, headed directly for her.

  A smile broke out across Jennifer’s face, a smile of renewed elation, the validation of everything she had hoped for, the repudiation of everything she had so feared. The black bear in the distance locked eyes on her. She heard his sounds coming across the expanse of grass. First he grunted and growled. Then, as his pace quickened into a run, he roared at her.

  Jennifer clasped her hands and beamed a radiant smile in the direction of the oncoming bruin. She heard his parents calling out to him nearby, but her entire world now narrowed down to that one quickly approaching black-furred shape. In another moment the bear would reach her and transform back into her Wesley, and he would be in her arms again.

  And then came another sound from the opposite forest. Jennifer blinked and looked past Wesley in the direction from which the sound came. Wesley himself stopped running and turned around to gaze that way. From where he had emerged, there was a new rustling.

  The other bear appeared out of the thicket, bounding quickly, crossing the distance between there and Wesley, roaring with every long stride.

  Jennifer turned pale. She glanced over at the Hornes and saw them watching nervously. Suddenly they were as much on edge as she was. Jennifer turned back to the two bears in the grass. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Adela…”

  The two bears faced each other. Adela opened her mouth wide and emitted a long, rasping roar at Wesley. He returned her sound, his mouth agape as well. They moved in half-circles in the field, Adela clearly trying to block his path and Wesley refusing to be blocked. And their roars and rumbling growls carried on.

  “Oh my God,” said Jennifer to herself. “She won’t let him go.”

  Jennifer watched the two bears wheeling about in the meadow in their ursine dance of mutual defiance. She gasped as Adela reared up on her hind legs, towering over Wesley, and let out the most piercing, bellowing roar she had ever heard.

  She clutched at her heart as Wesley reared up in front of the female and let released a sound perhaps even more blood-curdling. The air was charged with animal fury now. What would this creature do to Wesley? What would he be forced to do to stop her? And what could Jennifer do about any of it?

  Suddenly, Wesley charged forward and slammed his chest into Adela’s shoulder, bellowing thunderously. Just as suddenly, Adela’s roars cut off, and she sank back down onto all-fours in the grass, grunting and growling, her head cast down. Wesley returned to all-fours as well and backed away a few steps, then turned and continued quickly on his way back across the field.

  Jennifer’s smile returned, a smile on the verge of tears. Arms spread wide, she called, “Wesley! Oh, Wesley!”

  She dropped to her knees, and he ran to her, practically knocking her down when he reached her. For the first time since they had left the city, Jennifer laughed. Wesley’s snout was at her face and her neck and her bosom. He nuzzled and pushed at her, grunting and bellowing.

  They fell onto the grass, and Wesley kicked his mighty bear legs in the air as Jennifer, laughing, tickled his bear neck and his bear chest. The Hornes looked on, all sweet, warm smiles, happy for their son’s happine
ss. The smiles dropped from their faces an instant later when a shadow fell across their son and his lover—and another furious roar rang out in the Glade.

  “Wesley!” cried Jocelyn, too late.

  Gasping, Jennifer looked up at what suddenly blotted out the sun, right into the looming black shape of Adela on her hind legs once more, baring both her fangs and her claws. Neither she nor Wesley had noticed her running at them again.

  Everything became a blur. Wesley rolled back to all fours, and Jennifer rolled away from him, bringing herself back up to sitting on her bottom and watching, horrified, as Wesley reared up before Adela. The roars of the two bears split the air. Adela charged, smashing herself hard into Wesley and toppling him down onto the grass. Then she wheeled about and faced Jennifer.

  Jennifer scrambled back on her bottom as Adela dropped to all fours and advanced on her, growling with menace. In another blur, Jennifer made it to her knees and found Adela’s gaping, fang-filled snout only inches from her face. Jennifer broke into a sweat, feeling her blood turn to ice. And then…she shocked herself.