Insatiable Curiosity (Patreon)

Coney Island sucks. 

The atmosphere is depressing, the amusement park looks as fun as a trip to the morgue, and the fishing is as likely to get you some drowned fool’s boots as it will any fish.

And yet, the people of New York insist on coming to, parading about, and funding this absolute travesty. Coney Island sucks, and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something.

Probably a hot dog… and it might give you food poisoning.

Marcus Bitterman scowled towards the gray sandy beach. He judged the people of New York incommensurably from his dorky innertube, having been ditched by the school group that he’d come to the beach with. After learning that the sulky boy with black raven hair and a personality that reeked of gross thanatology couldn’t swim, they’d convinced him to don a pair of water wings and given him their ‘Sugar Pop Princess’ innertube to use while they all went together to play in the sea.

And then, once they’d gotten about fifty yards out, a girl had laughed at him, called him a loser, and shoved the tube out before paddling away.

Now he sat with his arms crossed over his chest, feeling himself a sagacious judge as he imagined the entire coastline burning under-dragon fire. He had a good look at the long stretch of shops, from which he imagined stick figures fleeing as a great beast descended upon them, incorrectly believing he was more than a football field away from any sort of contact.

So when a very bright, gasping voice shouted, “DO YOU WATCH SUGAR POP PRINCESS TOO?!” Marcus nearly tumbled from the raft. He twisted his neck at a dangerous angle, looking upside down at the woman who tried to scare his soul from his body.

The first thing he saw were the teeth of a shark. They were huge, far bigger than those of any nurse shark that were commonly seen in the area, each tooth as fat as his thumb. Serrated, jagged, yellowed by nature. His eyes widened when next he saw the face of a woman, which carried the mouth of the monster between cute chubby cheeks, dark eyes sparkling with recognition as she prodded his raft.

Then Marcus noticed the girl’s skin was gray, almost the color of ash. Even beneath the waves she looked terrifyingly fat, and the gnashing teeth sent his skin crawling as the girl shouted, “Oh, sorry!! Hi!! My name’s Bitey! Do you wanna play with me?!”

She grinned. Wet brown hair was pressed down to her scalp and her shoulders.

Marcus tried not to move, mind flickering between incomprehension and disbelief of what he was seeing.

The tubby girl kicked powerful and wide legs, bringing up to her waist out of the sea. Horrendous pink scars dotted the sides of her wide stomach. She was inexplicably dressed in what looked to be a two-piece outfit that had been ripped down the center to make way for her gut. “Hey mister! Are you feelin’ alright?” she asked cheerfully, coming back down in the water.

Marcus stared, his mouth opening up but without words coming out.

“Don’t worry!” Bitey said, poking herself in one chubby cheek. “I ain’t gonna nom on ya!”

Marcus’s dull brain scintillated. The young man was suddenly exceptionally sure that the creature intended to nom on him. His mind went into a wash and he began paddling as awkwardly as he could away from the woman.

“Aweee, hey! Where are ya goin?”

He flailed his arms, trying to spin himself about, cursing his pretty pink floaties and was suddenly inspired to throw them back at the behemoth. “S-stay away!” he called, thin arms awkwardly lobbing the air-filled plastic three feet too short and then eight feet too far. 

“Relaaaax~” Bitey called. “I said I ain’t gonna eatchya!” 

This woman was going to eat him.

Panicking, he made the insalubrious decision to toss himself over the raft, believing with every fiber of his being that he would be able to swim for the beach faster than he could paddle.

He could not. Almost instantly, Marcus tumbled down through the waves, swimming in the fashion that a block of lead might, before being snatched by an undertow that robbed any air from his lungs.

Marcus tried his best to learn ‘The crash course of swimming,’ but was having much more success with ‘Intro to drowning’ before his eyes failed him in the murky depth, and his mind simply gave out.

In the next moment, he was coughing, lungs forcing out what water remained in his chest and dumping it onto the warm sandy beach. Hanging over him was an exceptionally soft woman with freakishly sharp teeth bared in a smile. She had been leaning over him like a fluffy cloud, blocking out what little sunlight could pierce the depressing sky up above, but now she fell back from her knees and onto her bottom. Her belly spread over her lap, nearly reaching down to the rolls on her knees.

“Good job, dummy,” she said, poking him with chubby, piggy toes.

Marcus coughed, drooping onto his back. They were laying on a decently filled beach, but nobody seemed even to notice the half-drowned man or his fluffy rescuer. Though, to be fair, Bitey wasn’t the weirdest thing on New York’s beach. 

She’d saved his life. It took him a moment to really understand that, for the bells in his head to chime with that knowledge. Even then, he felt like he couldn’t believe what his eyes had seen or his ears had heard.

“Dontcha know how to swim or nothing?” Bitey asked.

He turned and saw her feet plopping up and down in the sand, bobbing from side to side as she waited for his reply. 

When one didn’t immediately follow, she raised herself up on her seat, pointing a chiding finger. “Sugar Pop Princess would be so disappointed!” she nodded wisely, crossing her arms over her vast tummy. “Episode 63, ‘Learning to swim in chocolate with Fin.’

“What… are you?” Marcus asked her.

The girl looked at him, twisting her head like some sort of bird. “Eh? I’m Bitey! I said that already!”

Marcus blinked. “N-no, like… what… are you?”

She puckered her lips in a halfhearted frown before pushing her freshening hair back behind her gray shoulder. As it dried, it began to look fluffier, even curly at the sides, and lightened to almost a dirty blonde that looked at odds with the oppressive colors of the settling evening.

“Hmmm… Ermm… well, I guess I’m hungry?” she said.

It seemed like a phrase she might utter a lot, but Marcus didn’t say that. 

Instead he twisted away, looking back up to the boardwalk and, realizing that he must be still drowning and now hallucinating, decided that he’d like to hallucinate something nicer while he died. 

“Wanna go get a hot dog?” he asked.

Bitey’s smile spread impossibly wide, about half as wide as her belly. “Really?!” she exclaimed excitedly. The joy vanished as quickly as it came. Her hands shot down to her swimsuit and she fumbled around her belly. “Awe, crud…” 

She fished a small waterlogged wallet from between her cleavage. From it she withdrew a colorful red parchment that was inexplicably dry. On it, in bold letters was stamped, ‘BANCO CENTRAL DO BRASIL’. 

“You don’t think they take Real, do you? I left my American wallet with my other snack pack.”

Marcus’s hand dipped into his own swim trunks. His wallet was soaked, but it had real people money rather than her monopoly bucks, and since he was either still dying, or had actually been saved by the world’s friendliest… shark-woman, he was prepared for a little extra today.

He was not prepared for what came next.

******************************************************************************

Bitey was like a fish out of water as she followed him up the beach. All of the sharp movements and swollen confidence seemed to drain out of her the moment that somebody even looked at her, and she kept looking down at her waddling walk as if to make sure she were doing it right.

Marcus even felt a little bad for the woman. She was as wide as the naturally formed lane of the beach, holding her arms crossed over her belly as if it would somehow make her smaller than a boat.

The young man wasn’t exactly tactful. He felt a nervous stirring in his stomach, seeing how uncomfortable the girl was becoming as she looked more and more at the people around her. He noticed a girl with platinum blonde hair gawking at them before tapping her partner and gesturing. A sudden gust of wind fluttered through his chest and against his beating heart before he forced out a question.

“S-so,” he swallowed, trying to get his mind to work. “Umm… what kind of… hot dogs do you like?”

Bitey looked up sharply from the sand. She looked surprised, like she was unsure if he was speaking to her before replying. “Um... well, uh, I… I’ve never gotten one from the uhhh…” she nodded towards the boardwalk. “There. I dunno what they have.”

“What? Really?” Marcus asked, feeling genuine surprise. “You’ve never had a street dog? They’re great!” 

He then quickly remembered that he hated Coney Island.

“I mean…” he took a metaphorical step back, “they’re okay.”

He shrugged before looking back at his wobbling savior. They were passing by the blonde girl and her friend, now whispering heavily. Others had noticed them too, again mostly other women who were now either snickering under their breath or pointing out the freak. 

Bitey tapped her fingers together, her mouth pulled into an uncomfortable frown, and Marcus realized the feeling in his stomach. They were being circled in dangerous waters, dark glasses and tanning oil instead of fins and sharp teeth, and when Marcus noticed somebody’s smartphone, he was became intensely worried that Bitey was about to be the subject of a snapchatter’s feeding frenzy.

“… Oh, man!” Marcus’s slapped his hand against his forehead hard enough that the sharp noise echoed even on the packed beach. Several other groups looked up, mostly women. “I can’t believe I forgot my camera equipment! How are we gonna update your modeling blog?!” he asked loudly.

Bitey looked up sharply. “M-mod-”

He moved to her side. There wasn’t much room, and he ended up kicking sand over the sunbathing blonde. “Hey! Watch it!”

“Come on, Bitey!” he said, ignoring the girl. “We can get my 4k phone back at the van!”

“B-bu-but,” the tubby girl’s belly wobbled as Marcus clapped her on the back and began pushing forward. He’d have had zero effect, trying to push over 400lbs of flab with maybe 20lbs of muscle, but her nervousness had her nearly skipping forward by his guided hand.

As they passed by the others, he could hear their whispers.

‘That girl’s a model??’

‘No way… look at the size of her!’

‘I guess that explains her getup… I wonder if she’s famous?’

‘And you said I wouldn’t make it! Why can’t I be a model if she can?!’

This last comment was from a girl that looked about as much like an ogre as Bitey did a shark, but Marcus was too busy working on one girl’s issues and didn’t believe he had time to stop for another. 

They broke through the top of the crowd and onto the boardwalk, Bitey leaning back on his hand. “W-w-where are we going??” she asked. “Am I being kidnapped? My cousin got kidnapped in New York before! She said the pizza was great!” 

“Wh-No!” Marcus denied, taking his hand off of her. “I’m not kidnapping you.”

“Aw… can we still get pizza?”

Marcus frowned, but Bitey looked much more comfortable and friendly up here. There were a few female street performers that gathered people’s attention, including a rather tubby mime with long blue hair. Nobody gave them a second look, and many people didn’t even pay them a first.

“My cousin, she says that Manhattan has a nuclear plant that mutates the fish who swim in the rivers, and so I’m not allowed to go back there.”

“I see,” Marcus replied, not paying any attention as his head swiveled around. “Oh, there’s a stand. Come on.”

He walked forward with Bitey trailing after him now. “Yeah, she says that’s why they’ve got alligator girls, and that they speak Italian. I don’t know none, just English and Salty.”

Marcus nodded to the cart owner as they approached. He was a big man with a bigger chest and whose hair had migrated from his scalp to his face. A thick bushy unibrow hid his eyes. “Hey man. Can I get a couple dogs?”

“And I’m mostly just fluent in Salty,” Bitey continued. “I’m studying English, and then the uhhh… the television one. Sugar Pop Princesses, you know?”

The salesman scooped two dogs from a boiler, placing them each in a thick bun before adding a hearty scoop of sauerkraut, some onion sauce, and finally the spicy brown mustard. “Eight bucks,” he said simply.

Marcus closed his eyes, internalizing his hatred for this stupid tourist trap before grabbing his wallet. “That with drinks?” he asked, already knowing the answer and reaching for his wallet.

To his surprise, the merchant had paused. He felt a slight wobble in the air and opened his eyes, glancing over his shoulder.

Bitey was looking down at the boardwalk with a very shy frown on her face. Her fingers twitched nervously, completely unsure of herself. Marcus blinked at her before turning back to the guy. 

“She okay?” the man asked.

“Err… uh, yeah. Just a bit shy.”

The brow raised at one end, exposing a speculative brown eye. It lowered. “Yeah, alright. Drinks, fine.” He reached for two soda bottles. “Fries is extra though.”

“I think we’ll be-” Marcus began, only to be silenced by the growl of a belly more powerful than the hum of the crowd. He paused and then sighed. “Yeah, fries too please.”

“Twelve then.” The man began preparing two cups and loaded them with salty fries.

“You take card?” Marcus asked, opening up his wallet.

“Not unless you pay twenty.”

Marcus looked down into his wallet. He had maybe $55 in cash, and wanted something for the taxi ride home. Behind him, the belly growled louder, and he wondered if his drowning dream was some sort of financial nightmare. “Alright go on and add two more dogs.”

Marcus turned about and faced Bitey, who would have been looking at her feet had her belly not been in the way. “Hey… are you okay?” he asked.

Bitey looked up, and a light blush colored her cheeks. She looked very cute. “I… uhh… I’m not very… good around… people…” she said.

Marcus tilted his head. “You seem okay around me.”

She seemed to consider this, looking down at his chest. “W-well… yeah. I guess.”

“So relax,” he shrugged and tried to give an easy grin. “Nobody here minds you. What else does your cousin say? About New York?”

Bitey hesitated, tapping her feet on the pavement. “Hmm… well…” she looked up and clenched her hands into fists, determined. “She said that Coney Island sucks.”

Marcus snorted, unable to keep the laughter from lightening his mood. It made Bitey grin.

They got their four hot dogs, which he had intended to split evenly until Bitey had devoured her first while he was paying the man. It had only been a moment, just swiping his card through the machine, but the sound from behind him reminded him of a horror movie and when he turned around, Bitey was chewing with her mouth open. Mustard had squirted over her lip.

She froze, seeing him looking at her, squeezing her lips in together before chewing more carefully.

Mustard dribbled onto her tum.

She held her hand over her mouth, “Ish spicy.”

Marcus covered his own mouth as he snickered. 

He led her away from the stand and toward a nearby bench. She filled up most of the seat, her chunky thigh poking against his as they took their seat. Marcus threw out his earlier idea, that the people noticing Bitey was her issue. From how comfortable she seemed now that she had something to focus on, he bet that the distressful part was her noticing them.

She was chewing from her cup of fries, holding it up to her gnashing teeth and plucking a few large soft bites out at a time, with the other dogs still wrapped in her hand.

“So, how is it?” he asked her, unwrapping his own.

She swallowed, letting her head rock back. “Mhmm… it’s so much better fresh.” Her legs kicked idly, unable to reach the walk beneath their bench. “Most human food that I get is kinda soggy, most of the time. But it’s still really, really good.”

He grimaced. “You’re not eating, like, trash, are you?”

“No no!” she exclaimed. “Not like… well… sorta but not like you think. Have you ever been on a cruise ship?”

“No…”

“Well, you’d be surprised what falls off of them!” She unwrapped her hotdog and took a large bite.

One of the few things that Marcus knew about cruise ships was that they had essentially endless buffets. The other thing he knew was how often people fell off those ships.

Her sharp teeth gnashed the meaty dog, squirting juice over her lips while she hummed joyfully. “Mmm!” she looked suddenly alarmed and did her best to clap her hotdog against her fries. “Tnks fr th food!” 

Marcus wasn’t sure if she was saying it to him. By how quickly she returned to eating, it seemed to be some strange ritual. He took a bite of his own dog.

It was okay. As good as a street dog got when not served out of a truck. But the way she ate, and how obvious it was that she was trying to hold herself back, Bitey looked to almost be in heaven. He inwardly wished his dog tasted as good as hers appeared to.

Then he got to see the third dog, where Bitey let herself loose. It was gone in literal seconds, snapped in two by a wide mouth that looked almost to detach from itself before puncturing the meat. She ripped her head to the side, tearing the flesh and sending onions flying. A group of nearby seagulls looked up sharply, hopping over from between the crowd’s legs and began to pick at the scraps.

The other half vanished just as quick, and Bitey balled up the wrapper in a pudgy fist before gripping her drink. She raised her head back, drinking as efficiently as only a fish-woman could and making Marcus believe this might actually be happening, before crumpling the plastic in her hand and squeezing all air out. 

“Ahh, that hit the spot!” she said once she finished. “Totally worth it!”

“You didn’t pay anything…” 

“So!” she turned to him. “What about you? Did you have enough?”

Marcus looked at the remainder of his fries. They were okay, but he wanted something a little sweeter. He looked around, spotting a nearby shop. “Not just yet,” he said, tossing the remaining fries to the seagulls.

Bitey gasped, watching golden potatoes sailing through the air. She reached out with an open hand just as the gulls leapt and caught a number of fries straight in their mouths. She blinked at them. “B-but,” she began, her eyes watering.

Marcus rolled his eyes. He reached out and took her by the underarm. She was extremely squishy. “Oh, come on. I said I’d get you pizza, eh? I’ll get myself some gummy worms.”

“Pizza?! Oh, yay!” Bitey lifted herself off the seat, french fries forgotten, and followed him into the shop.

He ordered a personal pizza for her, sausage and pepperoni, and got a snack pack for himself. The teller gave him a ticket for his order, number 029. Then, noticing she hadn’t followed him to the counter, he headed to find her in the novelties section. 

She was looking at a pile of childrens’ tee-shirts and lifted one up. It didn’t even come down past her chest and was only just wider than her sternum. ‘I survived the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island.’

“Hey. I put the order in. Are you looking for souvenirs?” 

“Huh?? Oh!” she put the tee back down. “No. I just like looking at human stuff. I’ve got a collection back at home!”

“Where is home?” he asked.

Bitey shrugged. “It moves! I don’t have anything too important, mostly just stuff I found from you humans. Sometimes it gets wrecked by fishing boats. It’s not too bad, as long as I’m not inside it…” she laughed nervously, reaching down and skating fingers over her tummy scars.

Marcus frowned. He looked around the shop. Suddenly, one thing stood out to him. A variety of small yellow boxes, ancient looking and neglected, hung off a display near the corner. He laughed, walking over to them and looking at the packaging.

He could see Bitey looking at him curiously in a mirror before she followed after him. On the cover of the box was a sharp black camera with the brand name stamped on the front. The box also proudly displayed that the camera was reusable, used real film, and was waterproof.

“Hey, you ever seen one of these?” he asked.

Bitey held the box with both of her hands up to her nose.

“Number twenty-nine!”

******************************************************************************

He payed more attention to how she ate this time. He could see the visceral nature, even when she was trying to take her time with it. She hardly ever bit down and separated a piece, almost always tugging it around and tearing it instead. Grease clung to juicy lips as she snapped down the four major slices of her personal pizza, her belly giving appreciative gurgles of joy.

Then he learned that he probably should have eaten his gummy worms quicker, because the tubby girl had a majorly adorable pout. He wondered how she could still be hungry as fifth worm was slurped down into her tummy, but looking at her gut made him feel as if he understood at least in part.

After that, they began to walk without any real aim. The sun was finally coming out, just before sunset, basking the pier in a warm orange glow. Marcus found himself walking alongside her rather than in front of her, showing her how to use the little camera.

“Now, the flash won’t work underwater, so don’t expect it to. It can also only go down so far, about three hundred feet or else the pressure will get to it. You got that?”

“Sort of…” she admitted, awkwardly manipulating the object. “I just… I click the button here? And it-” The camera flashed, alarming both Bitey and a nearby seagull who had been following them, curiously hoping for additional scraps. The bird fluttered away.

“Now, if you take it to a shop, they can develop the film. And then you’ll be able to have pictures of when you visit human stuff.”

Bitey’s grip tightened on the camera. “Woooow… this is so cool…”

Marcus smiled, feeling pretty proud of himself. He crossed his arms behind his head, walking toward the edge of the pier. “Yeah, so you can have something nicer for your house. You know?”

There was another click from behind. He turned to see Bitey looking up from having just taken his picture. She was grinning widely, and he felt a soft one on his face grow in reply.

“‘Scuse,” a woman suddenly appeared from the crowd. She looked as if she’d come straight from Brooklyn, poofy dark hair and a long black miniskirt with leggings beneath. She talked with a heavy accent. “You twos want a picture together?”

“O-oh! Umm,” Bitey swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

The woman smiled, extending her hand for the camera. Bitey didn’t seem to realize that she’d need to hand over the camera for someone to take their picture, and was evidentially thinking twice now as she defensively held it. Marcus snorted and she turned to him before, blushing, she gave the woman her camera.

She came over to his side at the pier and stood next to him. Feeling uncharacteristically happy, Marcus put his arm around her shoulder. She looked up, shivered, and then sighed.

“Say fishcakes!”

“Fishcakes!”

“C-cakes?”

The flash triggered. 

They thanked the woman and retrieved the camera, going back towards the edge. 

“I wish I could check the image,” Marcus said, rubbing a hand over it. “I might have blinked or something.”

Bitey was slow to respond. She took the camera from him with soft hands, holding it reverently in her grasp. “It’s gonna be perfect…” she said. “I just know it will be.”

She looked up to him, smiling with her sharp teeth. Marcus felt almost as if they were alone on the pier, looking at her. As if they were somewhere that nobody else was, that nobody else could ruin. He wondered if he was truly dreaming, and if he’d ever see her again after he woke up. He hoped that he would.

“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly, and Marcus felt himself completely caught off guard.

“M-my… name? Oh, I didn’t…” he shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Sorry, I’m an idiot. My name’s Marcus.”

Bitey poked him. “You’re not an idiot,” she pouted, then returned to an easy smile. She extended her hand in the way someone who has only ever heard the concept of a handshake might. “Hi, Marcus. My name is Bitey. Thank you for being my friend.”

Floating beneath them, a pink innertube smacked wetly against the wooden supports of the pier.