This one is called 'Peckish'
It’s a beautiful day. You’re in the City Zoo.
You find yourself sitting in the swanky new amphitheatre, watching a live show called ‘Monkey Business’. It has been an entertaining thirty minutes so far. First came the Squirrel monkeys, followed by the Spider monkeys and then the Tufted Capuchins. The Apes were on next - a pair of orangutans, four chimpanzees and a young Silverback gorilla.
You’ve found a nice spot to observe the show, close to the stage, with a couple of empty seats on either side. Just perfect.
A lot of people chuckled when a young male chimpanzee proudly displayed his erection to the crowd. You had one too. Not because he had one, but because of what he did before he got his erection.
You noticed how he patiently observed and sniffed the anus of the chimpanzee that sat next to him. Within seconds of seeing him do that, you had an enormous swelling in your pants. Like always, you touched yourself. You loved to feel the hard, throbbing muscle struggling inside your tight trousers. Today, you even pushed the zipper against yourself just to see if it heightened the sensation.
Twenty minutes later, as soon as the show ends, you approach a young lady who’s standing on the stage. The pin-on label on her crisply starched shirt says ‘Lead Trainer’. You put on your friendly face and utter the first words to come out of your mouth that day. “Hello there, young lady. Would you be so kind enough to tell me if there are any repeat shows today.”
“I’m sorry sir, but there’s just the one show every day” she says, her voice bright and genuine. “But, if you have the time and come back in an hour, then you’d be able to meet Oscar, one of the older Orangutans…the ‘meet & greet’ section is just behind the amphitheatre.” You think about it for a moment. She sees the indecision in your face and adds, “Oh! And Oscar is quite a darling. He’s gentle with guests and loves it when you pass him a treat or two.”
You nod your head, making it look like you’re lost in thought and then ask “Is there any chance I’d get to see those cute little chimps. You know, up close and personal.” For the first time in this conversation, she looks you straight in the eye and says, “I’m sorry sir, but the chimps aren’t as well trained as Oscar and the Zoo doesn’t allow them any human contact…apart from the trainers, of course….”
You know it’s your turn to speak. You nod your head again and change your tone slightly. “I understand”, you say. “Could you kindly tell me if there were any other animals, in the vicinity? …You see, I don’t really want to walk that much... any other beautiful animals that I may see, till it’s time to meet Oscar. I’d be delighted if you could suggest where I could spend the next hour.” You tilt your head to the left and wait for her response.
She looks at you with a gentle toothy smile, holds up her index finger and says (in the sweetest possible voice you think she can ever create), “Hhmmm…. Sir, if you could just wait… just for 1 minute…. I think I know what to do.” She unclips her walkie-talkie from her utility belt, turns around and walks towards the far end of the stage.
You follow her with your eyes, but unlike most other men, you don’t check out her body. Instead, you concentrate on her face and try to catch the conversation that she’s having on her walkie-talkie. She’s now about 12 feet away from you, her body turned at an angle and you can read her lips. She refers to you as ‘an elderly gentleman’. She turns to look at you as soon as she says this. You’re standing exactly the way you were a few moments ago, with your head still tilted to the left. The only difference is the warm, innocent smile that you’ve perfected over the years, perfectly planted on your weathered face. She looks away and says “Listen, can you help me make it a special visit for this sweet old man?”
You don’t catch the response on her handset but you see a smile break out on her face. She motions to you and says, “Come. Come.” You follow her onto the stage, through the stage exit, into a short passageway and then out onto a path behind the amphitheatre. There’s a handsome, middle-aged man waiting for the two of you. You exchange pleasantries. He has a friendly voice and a pleasant disposition.
“Well then, do you like elephants, sir?”
“African or Asian?” you ask.
He gently grabs your arm “ Let’s find out now, shall we?”
You love being made to feel special.
The three of you walk to the end of the path, down a short flight of stairs and into another enclosure – the elephant stable.
You stand and watch a few elephant handlers hose down a massive Asian tusker inside a fenced enclosure.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” the man asks you.
You smile and nod your head.
“What do you do here?” you ask him.
“I’ve been in charge of the breeding program for the Zoo’s pachyderms for the last 20 years …. Here now, follow me. I’m going to introduce you to the latest addition to the family – a 4-month-old male calf. He’s absolutely gorgeous.”
The elephant stables remind you of airplane hangars with oversized cubicle-like partitions. There’s a faint smell of something that makes you stop in your tracks, bang in the middle of the stables. Your nostrils flare a little bit and you realize that you’re forcing yourself to take a very deep breath.
The next moment you find your knees giving way.
Your head feels extremely light.
Your body crashes to the ground.
Waves of thoughts and memories, deep from your past, start to flood your mind’s eye.
You feel your body shudder as reality fades from a blinding white to a shuddering blackness.
When you come to, you find yourself sitting on a comfortable bench, under the shade of a tree. Both the Zoo employees are sitting by your side. The lady offers you a cup of water; you take a sip and find relief in the cold and crisp liquid. The elephant handler puts his hand on your shoulder and looks you in the eye. ‘Sorry, sir” he says. “ I had no clue that the stench of elephant dung could affect someone this way. I offer you my sincerest apologies. Do you need me to call a paramedic? Are you still feeling nauseous?”
You look around you to get your bearings. You’re sitting outside the elephant stables, on a pathway that has a few benches.
“Thank you,” you say. “I’m so sorry that I …I …I don’t know what happened.”
You’re lying.
“I think I just need some fresh air. I’m fine. Just…let me be. I’ll be fine. I’m sorry. Thank you for your concern.”
“Are you sure, sir? We can’t just leave you here…” It’s the lady. She’s crouching down now, by your side. You gently put your hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “I’m fine, my dear. I just need some fresh air.”
You take another sip of water and breathe slowly and deeply for a few minutes.
“Alright, I’m feeling much better. Thank you, you two. I think I can take care of myself now. Please, don’t let me keep you from your duties. Go on, now. Leave me be. I’ll find my way out.” It takes another 3 minutes for you to finally get the 2 of them to leave. As soon as they step out of sight, you spread your legs and feel your crotch with your fingers. It doesn’t take long for you to find the cold, wet patch. “Hello, old friend,” you say, looking down at the stickiness; “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
You get up from the seat and start to walk away, quickly. In a few minutes, you find yourself in an open area, away from the canopy of trees that cover the pathway that you’ve just crossed. There’s a lake right in front of you, and it’s filled with flamingoes. The lake is a beautiful shade of blue, mirroring the sky above it.
To the left of where you’re standing, you see a spacious gazebo with a few comfortable looking benches that you walk towards. You’re feeling terribly tired now. You find yourself an isolated seat in the shade and allow the gentle breeze to play against your face. You close your eyes and think of the flood of long-lost memories that you managed to bring back to the surface when you passed out in the elephant stable because of an orgasm.
You close your eyes and the first wave of recollections hits you – You’re face-to-face with a young Japanese man and he’s got his rifle pointed at your chest. You raise your arms above your head and tell him that you willingly surrender. He turns his rifle around and smacks the heavy butt to your head.
The next wave of memories has you marching into in the muddy quadrangle of the Japanese POW camp that you spent the next 14 months in.
Hopelessness, sickness and death surround you.
You can see it and you can smell it.
You remember your first night at the POW camp – you were beaten, whipped and electrocuted even before anybody asked you a single question.
At the end of your interrogation, you were stripped of all your clothing and unceremoniously thrown into a dark cesspool, waist-deep in human faeces and flies.
Then you remember the day that you were reborn.
It’s the only real and meaningful memory that you’ll ever have.
You had been ferociously beaten, forced to watch the beheading of a fellow prisoner and then thrown back into the cesspool; at this point you had lost count of how many times you had been thrown in. This time though, for some inexplicable reason, you were looking forward to the next visitor. The Japanese soldier who stepped in a while later fumbled with his shorts and his 1000-stitch belt. As soon as he sat down on the wooden plank, his privates perfectly positioned to fit the hole in the plank, you moved away from the corner of the cesspool pit and positioned yourself in the dark, under him, with an estimation of where his buttocks would be. Your mouth was wide open and your heart was beating faster than it ever had. This moment changed everything for you. As your mouth started to fill up, you felt free. You felt liberated. You had pushed yourself to the utmost bottom, by your own free will. You felt no shame. You felt no fear.
You see yourself standing in that cesspool, screaming out at the top of you lungs. You hear someone else screaming back at you. It sounds like a little girl.
Her high-pitched wailing draws you out of the cesspool and back to the present.
Your eyes take a few moments to adjust to the light. Your head follows the sobs and you see a little girl, dressed in a denim overall over a striped t-shirt standing just outside the gazebo. You tilt your head to the left and call out to her.
“Hey there, little princess. What’s wrong?”
She looks at you, her eyes streaming with tears. You tilt your head to the left, raise your eyebrows and beckon her to come closer.
In less than a minute, you have her sitting next to you on the bench. Her face is still red from all the sobbing.
“What’s wrong, little princess? Why the tears? Are you lost?”
She nods.
“Oh! And who has lost you? Your mommy?”
Another nod.
“Now, now… Don’t worry, no one stays lost forever. We’ll find mommy. Ok?”
She just stares at your face.
“Did you know, at one point of time, I was lost too. But I found my way back.”
She finally speaks “Did you find your mommy?”
“Why, yes. I did. I did.”
“So is it just you and your mommy at the Zoo?”
This time it’s a no.
“Alright. Is Daddy here too?”
Another no. “My brother” she says in between tiny sobs, “I came here with my brother and my mommy.”
“Alright, my dear. Now, now, stop your crying. Wipe those tears away. How will you be able to look for mommy if you’ve got tears in your eyes, huh?”
She wipes away her tears and looks at you, straight in the face.
“I’m going to call you princess, is that ok with you?”
This time, an excited nod. A definite yes.
“So princess, tell me…
She interrupts you with a loud fart. As soon as she lets it out, she turns away from you and looks down. You take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She looks back at you, with a slightly embarrassed expression.
“It’s just gas, you know” she says, suddenly sounding mature.
“I do. I know. Don’t worry about it. Tell me, what did you have for lunch?”
“I had a hot dog and a beaver tail.”
You lean forward now. “Is that so princess?”
She not embarrassed anymore.
“Well, now I…LOVE…hotdogs. Did you know that, princess?”
“Really?” she asks. The innocence in her voice doesn’t make you feel any pity for her at all.
“Yes. Now, tell me how old are you?”
“Seven”, she says.
“What a coincidence, that’s my lucky number!”
“Really?” she asks again.
“No, not really. But I really, really LOVE hotdogs.”
You’ve got her attention again.
“And I especially love the hotdogs made by little girls”
She looks at you with a perplexed expression and says “I didn’t make the hot dog. I ate it.”
You look at her in the eye and use your calmest and gentlest voice “A lot of young girls and boys have made hot dogs for me. More girls than boys, of course. But, little girls make the tastiest hot dogs.”
She’s looks straight at you and then away and then back at you.
“Sadly, you’ll never be able to meet any of them and I’ll never be able to prove it to you. I guess you’ll just have to believe me.”
She’s not looking at you anymore. You know exactly what to do next.
“Come on now, let’s go search for your mommy”. You raise yourself from the bench and turn around to face the little girl.
A smile erupts on her face and she gets off the bench and stands next to you. You take her hand in yours and add, “Before that, would you mind if I got a quick bite to eat? I’m suddenly feeling very, very peckish…. Is that ok with you princess?”
