Page 55 of Tiger Queen

He grinned. “Nope.”

We got ready for bed then I joined Anthony in his bedroom. His dresser was filled with Mathletes trophies and Star Wars action figures, and there was a classic The Matrix poster on the wall.

I smiled as we slid under the covers of his double bed. He lay on his back and I rested my head against his bare chest.

“This is nice,” I whispered.

His hand gently stroked my back. “It is.”

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about what had just happened. I had finally had a threesome. With two guys I really liked. It was everything I had ever fantasized about and then some.

I can’t wait to do it again, I thought.

My phone alarm went off bright and early. Anthony was spooning me. I cuddled back into his warm body and considered staying in bed longer. I could feel his cock pressing against my ass, hard and hot. We could have some sexy morning fun…

I decided to let him sleep, so all I did was kiss him on the cheek.

If we were going to reopen the zoo we needed to hire some extra help. After feeding the animals, David and I spent a few hours posting two positions on Craigslist and Zip Recruiter. By the next day we had three applications. Unfortunately, the locals weren’t very qualified for zoo work, so we had to take what we could get.

Mary Beth was peppy like a cheerleader. She wore a permanent smile and drove a Volkswagen Beetle that was more rust than paint. Her only animal experience was working the front desk at a dog kennel five years ago, but she had the right personality to be a zoo tour guide.

Brandon was our other hire. He was kind of a surfer-bro stoner guy with two years of construction experience on his resume. That was good enough to hire him to help with the manual labor around the zoo: feeding, cleaning, repair work.

Neither of them lived close enough to commute to the zoo—Blue Lake was kind of out in the middle of nowhere—so that meant cleaning up the employee trailers by the house. As soon as I set foot into the first one I realized why David had given me the spare bedroom in the house. The previous occupants had trashed these trailers. The cheap composite flooring was covered with food stains and was warped around the edges. Garbage was everywhere: used napkins, chicken wing bones and bits of mashed potato, fridges filled with old meals that were moldy and disgusting. Anthony and I spent ten minutes trying to clean the first one before we gave up and decided to hire a professional cleaning service.

“Best two hundred bucks I’ve ever spent,” Anthony said as we examined the clean trailers. They weren’t great, but they were livable.

After Mary Beth and Brandon moved in, we spent two full days fixing up the zoo. Tidying up the walkways and making sure the enclosures were spotless. Stocking the vending machines, organizing the gift shop, and printing new zoo brochures. Getting it to a level where we felt comfortable allowing people inside. Mary Beth was kind of ditsy about directions and had to have basic tasks explained several times, but Brandon was fantastic. He accepted every request with a simple nod, and did a thorough job. Much better than I had expected from him.

The final thing we had to do was print new signs to place around the animal enclosures informing visitors of the new rules of the zoo. Ensuring that there were no animal taunting, no throwing food or other items into the cages, no shouting or trying to scare them into giving a cool reaction for Instagram.

We opened on a Friday. Anthony set up the social media announcements to get the word out. I didn’t expect many visitors the first day.

I was wrong.

“Hey, guys?” Anthony called on the walkie-talkie. “You should come see this.”

At eight forty-five in the morning, fifteen minutes before we opened, the parking lot was nearly full and a line had formed at the entrance. The three Haines brothers, our two new employees, and I stood in front of the visitor’s center and gazed at the bustling entrance with amazement.

“Oh, yeah!” Mary Beth said happily. “I posted about the opening on my high school’s Facebook page. It had, like, two hundred comments.”

David nodded sagely. “Alright. Everyone knows their job. Let’s see if we can make this work.”

Anthony and I took up our positions behind the desk in the visitor’s center. I heard the creak of rusted metal as David opened the gate. The line moved forward, snaking into the visitor’s center in a surprisingly orderly manner.

“Welcome to Crazy Carl’s Zoo,” I said with a smile to the first customer. “Tickets are twenty dollars per adult, and ten per child. Here’s a brochure for you. If you’ll turn to the first page, there is a list of new rules we would kindly ask you to follow during your visit…”

Once the tickets were sold and brochures handed out, the customers moved past us and into the zoo itself.

I tried to think of each person as a means to an end. That family of four? Their tickets would help feed the wolves. The six guys who looked like they were posted at Fort Bragg? Vitamins for the big cats. Every person I sold a ticket to was helping us afford food and medicine and care for the animals. That’s what mattered most.

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.”

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