Bear This Heat (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) (2 page)

“But you didn’t disappear,” I say. Redundant… clumsy… yes, but I hope that it will prompt further insight.

He blinks, licks his lips. “Almost.”

- Excerpt from
Interview with a Shapeshifter
by Circe Cole. Printed with expressed permission.

*

The great big bear padded slowly in the desert night. The empty plains of sand, broken intermittently with frail, leafless shrubbery, glowed a languid purple, red mixed with the soft blue light of the full moon overhead. With his head low, and beady black eyes facing forward, the bear’s shoulder blades jutted up alarmingly out of its back with each forward step, giving the slim yet large caniform an almost feline quality, but more in the vein of a tiger, rather than that of a tabby cat.

The bear was lean. Eating infrequently, and sleeping even less so, the wear of the search had taken its toll. But it would all be worth it, the bear knew. He lifted his head, sniffed the air, and caught the scent of an animal that did not belong in the desert, much like he didn’t. It was just the faintest hint, carried on the arm of a light breeze, fleeting, half a second there, and half a second gone. The moving air in the desert was of a deceptive quality, because whatever it touched, it leeched any moisture it could. The wind was to the hot and parched person walking the sandy wastes what the sea water was to the man stranded in a lifeboat with no land in sight.

But, in the evenings, it was enough. The bear was certain he was on the right track. The wind, gentle, slow, filtered through his generous coat, finding its way through the weaving fur to touch his skin in brief bursts. But it did little to cool the broiling blood beneath. The bear had become accustomed to controlling his exertions, taking in deep and long shuddering breaths, salivating endlessly, and moving slow and only in the night. Being so far out of is habitat, it was the only way to contend with the blanketing desert heat, even in the evenings, for the heat escaped upward through the sand in great columns, and it warmed the underside of his body.

And the bear needed to keep going. He had little other goal in life than to find another like himself; another animal in a place it did not belong. Perhaps even a companion. Maybe a brother, maybe a sister, or maybe, if he was lucky, a mate.

What that other animal would end up being, friend or foe, lover or acquaintance, did not matter to the bear. He would be content with simply finding another like himself. It would calm that aching storm in his heart that told him every single day that he was alone in this world. That he was an aberration, something spit out by Mother Nature by accident, a chance pairing of the right genes with the right circumstances at the right time.

Any sort of knowledge confirming the opposite would do wonders to quiet his surging frustration. Answering the question of whether or not he was alone would bring the bear the peace he sought. And, for now, peace was all that he sought. Love, a mate… they were just distant ideals. He knew of the possibilities, but didn’t dare to give them safe harbor in his mind. They were best cases which he cast aside; forced himself to forget. For now, at least.

He had given up on that many years ago. He had exhausted his lust, emptied himself everywhere he could. He had lived a life of vice, brief for him, but what might be half a life time to a normal man or woman. But that lifestyle had been unrewarding, he eventually figured out. Something akin to an existential crisis had struck him in his seventieth year, and he had set out then to find the ultimate truth about himself, about what he was, and whether there was another like him anywhere in the world.

The bear once again caught a whiff of that scent. The smell was odd, and the trail it left almost bare, like breadcrumbs the size of rice grains sprinkled on rolling sand dunes. But it was something, at least. More than that, it was all he had to go on.

In the distance he saw illumination on the underside of a single voluminous cloud that might or might not bring welcomed rainfall to the region. On one side of the sky, the massive moon drowned out the stars, and on the other, the giant cloud shrouded them.

But illumination on the
underside
of a cloud… now that was unusual in the middle of nowhere. He cleared a ridge, eyes scanning the distance, where he saw the telltale signs of human civilization. Lights on posts, conical corridors of yellow cast down onto winding slabs of dusty concrete and black, sand-swept tarmac. Circles and squares of red, flashing brighter intermittently, attached to the end of moving rectangles.

This was the only place where people lived for miles and miles. This had to be where that other like him was going. Where else would the animal he was chasing go? Perhaps he had finally found that companion. He allowed himself a brief glimmer of hope that soon he would get his answers, and silence the need to know that boiled constantly in his thoughts. Perhaps, then, the bear would start to understand his place in the world.

A great sheet of metal erupted out of the darkness, glowing harsh white and green. Rectangular, and supported by two thin poles, the signpost was momentarily blinding in the night. A dusty rumble sounded to the bear’s side, and when he looked, his eyes flashed yellow, and his face was lit up for the tiniest fraction of a second, before the turning road took the light off him. The rumble waned, faded, and as the bear looked after the four red squares getting smaller and smaller.

He returned his attention to the town of glowing yellow, unaware that inside the car, the driver and his passenger had exchanged two questions that went unanswered: “Did you see that?” and “What the hell was it?” The bear did not fail to notice the large sheet of metal, briefly lit up, had the words printed on its surprisingly reflective rusting surface: ‘Welcome to Salty Springs. Population: 25,000’.

It was on the edge of the small desert town, a forced oasis in the unforgiving dry wilderness, that the bear began to grunt. He padded against the cool evening sand with his paws, hopped up onto his two hind legs, and looked out at the settlement. He sniffed the air again, felt the fleeting respite of its coolness rush into his lungs, and then the bear dropped back onto four feet, an indescribable elation filling him.

He began to run. At first a lumbering jog, but soon he found his rhythm and accelerated into a sprint, with deceptive speed, and in the bear’s eye was a glint, a shine. The bear stopped suddenly, skidding to a halt, sending plumes of dust and sand streaking outward into the night, and began to sprint in a different direction, the volume of his hoarse inhaling matched only by the thunder of his paws against the ground. The taste of dust and sand was bitter and metallic in his mouth, but by now he was used to it.

The bear ran toward a nearby tree, small and thin. He had his mouth open, tongue a little extended, a smudge of reddish pink against the bear’s brown hues, and to a chance passerby, it might look like the bear was
smiling
.

Nearing the tree, the bear slowed, turned, and then hoisted himself up onto its hind legs again. At over ten feet tall, the sight was monstrous, and terror-inducing. The bear was a huge beast, his true size concealed when he moved on all fours. The bear then began to scratch himself, digging his nails into his chest and stomach. He backed up against the tree, and did the same to his back, snapping off branches and twigs as if they were made of brittle straw.

The bear groaned then, and it turned into a roar, not one of violence or ferocity, but almost an exclamation of pleasure. To someone who just happened to be there at just that time to see that sight, it might seem like the bear was playing, having fun, all alone, in the middle of the desert.

And then the bear dropped back on all fours, and lay down, relishing the feel of the cool sand. Panting, but unable to expel heat quickly enough, the bear knew it would have to lie like this for maybe half an hour to cool off and let the warmth of his spirited exertion out.

But the bear still wore its seeming smile. Lying alone in the night, fur now crimson with the desert sand, he was content.

And as the minutes passed by, and as the bear cooled, his shape started to slowly change. The bear started to shrink. His fur started to recede. Lumps of flesh began to compact, retreating
inward
. It might look like, to a chance observer, that the bear was being sucked into the ground, or at least into itself.

But then a new shape began to form. As the bear slowly lost its defining qualities, a man was left in its place, at first a vague outline: torso, arms, and legs. Then there were fingers, and toes. The claws receded into nails, the fur turned into body hair. The snout shrank into a mouth and nose, and the ears moved down toward the sides of the head. His eyes turned from black to a deep green, and the irises were speckled with cream-colored streaks.

And then the bear was a man, lying naked, and laughing. On his face was a look of pure and utter joy. He put his thick and veiny arms behind his head, looked up at the sky, and just laughed. His abdominals sprung out in harsh relief as laughter spilled from his mouth, and as tears streamed down his cheeks. And when it finally ebbed, he lay there smiling, happy, his white and slightly imperfect teeth almost shining with reflected moonlight.

But then even that faded, too. The feeling was gone. Like a drug, it came and went so fast, and the man, all six-foot-three of him, got to his feet. His muscles, stringy, ever-ready, rippled beneath his skin as he moved. His calves were like rhomboids, his thighs thick like a sprinter’s.

He walked, putting each of his bare feet into the large paw prints he had left behind when he was a bear. His feet, not small, looked tiny in comparison. He followed his own tracks back to where he had started, and saw there his clothes draped over desert shrubbery, exactly where he had left them. He put them back on, jeans and a t-shirt, humming to himself, something forlorn in the tune, a sadness almost.

He sighed then, as though immediately missing the time he had spent as a bear. But he knew the sun would be rising soon, and he would not be able to stay in that form. It was too hot for that. The bear could not shed that heat quickly enough. It would be dangerous.

Picking up his duffel bag, military-green and full of everything he owned, he strode toward the road, and then walked along it toward the sleeping town of Salty Springs.

*

Interviewer: What is it like? The shift?

Caleb: It’s like a drug. [Pause.] You feel high.

[Anastasia nods.]

Caleb: You never want it to end, you know?

Anastasia: It’s addictive.

Caleb: Yeah, it’s addictive.

Anastasia: You can like it too much. It’ll make you crazy.

Caleb: [Looks at Anastasia. Brow knitted.] That doesn’t happen to everyone.

Anastasia: [Folds her arms.] Yes, it does. Given enough time.

Caleb: [Voice raised.] No, it doesn’t make you crazy. Maybe you get lost, yes. But you don’t go crazy.

Dylan: There’s something about it, Caleb. I think Ana’s right.

Anastasia: See! [Looks at interviewer.] Trust me, Circe, you do. I’ve seen it happen before. I even lost Caleb to the shift one time.

Caleb: I thought we agreed we weren’t going to mention that.

Dylan: Why haven’t I heard this story before? Do tell.

Anastasia: [Shrugs.] I won’t say any more than that, Circe. But, I’m just saying, it can have a hold on you. Can change you. Can make it so you never want to be a human again.

Interviewer: Never?

Caleb: Some choose to live as their animal. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Anastasia: It’s not how we were meant to live.

Caleb: How do you know how we were meant to live? You shift as rarely as possible.

Anastasia: I am aware of the effect it has on me.

Caleb: You just seek control, like with everything else in your life.

Anastasia: [Voice raised.] Better than what you do, which is to give in at the drop of a hat.

Caleb: I’m never not in con- [Interrupted by Interviewer.]

Interviewer: [Interrupting Caleb.] Okay, I think it’s time for a short break. Cup of tea or coffee anybody? I’ve got some biscuits, too.

Dylan: Biscuits for me! But can we continue the same discussion after nap time, Ms. Cole?

- Excerpt from full transcript of
Interview with a Shapeshifter
, by Circe Cole. Printed with expressed permission.

*

Purple and pink smeared the sky, and clouds like freckles glowed on their undersides with an orange-red hue the color of grapefruit. Shafts of light streamed through gaps in the cloud cover at a harsh angle, and the rubicund desert sand seemed to sparkle in the morning light.

But Sasha was in no state of mind to appreciate the brilliant sunrise.

Instead, she felt tired and impatient, and just slowing down for corners in her rattling, beat up car was trying her temper. The cup of coffee she had gulped down before heading out of the door was doing making a proper effort to mimic decaf, for she found no respite from her weariness in the bitter black and piping hot liquid she had forced inside her in three gulps flat.

She barely slowed as she took the sharp right-angle bends through the suburban sprawl, and her car shook with continuous complaint. She had her lights flashing, but the siren remained mute. Even so, she was sure the blinding blue would wake kids in their bedrooms, a flare of light like the flash of a camera.

The town of Salty Springs was a small sprawl, with a city center consisting of just two ‘competing’ supermarkets, and a single-story shopping mall. Low bungalows grew outwards on a rectangular grid that spoke of planning-by-panel, and it meant that navigating the small suburbia was just a series of right-angled turns with not a curved bend in sight. To Sasha, the driving in Salty Springs was about as boring as it got.

“Damn,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head while peering out her driver’s side window at the rising sun. Cresting over the tops of the low-lying bungalows, light glancing off the slatted tiles, she could see that it was going to be a hot day. Sometimes, the sun just looked fiercer. Having lived in the town her entire life, a real desert person, her intuition was often correct. And sometimes, she hated being correct.