Bayou Queen: Taming the Maneater (Complete One-Shot) (Patreon)

*All comic names used are entirely fictitious.*

The tugboat's piercing whistle blasted through the muggy, swamp air of the bayou.  Edward, known as Eddie by his friends, if he had many, jerked up from his half-asleep position against the rails.  He peered blearily through the thick, hanging fog, barely able to make out anything of the surrounding landscape.  Underneath the barge, the murky water frothed as the large vessel chugged slowly ever onwards.  He rubbed at his eyes underneath his glasses, attempting to massage away the bleariness caused by the oppressive heat.

"Ya done woken up dere, boy?" cackled the tugboat captain.  Eddie glanced behind him at the top of the stairs leading up from the railing he had been leaning on.  The wood of the barge was faded and dreary-looking, and its captain even more so.  He was some sort of Feline, with matted fur, a cropped tail and ears, and an eyepatch over one eye.  He couldn't have looked more cliche if he had tried, wearing just a set of overalls and nothing else seemingly on his squat and hunched-over body.  His accent had also taken some time to get used to.

Eddie yawned.  "Sorry, Captain, didn't mean to pass out."

The man laughed again, his voice wheezing.  He picked up a massive jug from his side and swigged at it again.  It actually had three black X's on the side of it.  "Dis heat do that to ya, if'n ya ain't a'used to it," he grinned, a small stream of wetness staining his already spotted fur.  If Eddie had to guess, he was probably a Lynx but that was only from wild speculation.  The man was so dirty that there was no telling the original color of his pelt.  His one eye was glassy and pale.  "But we done made good time."

Casting his eyes about the area once again, Eddie grinned excitedly.  "So, we're here?" he asked.

"Chor, course we here," the Anthro guffawed with a yowl.  "Aint chu able to see the beautiful dockside of Bonaparte?"  He gestured with a gnarled paw that was seemingly permanently curled into a claw.

"I'm...afraid I can't, Captain," he replied.  The Human didn't mind the strange, eccentric older man.  At first, he had seemed intimidating and crass, but it was easy to assume such things.  The Cohabitation Law was some ten years past, and yet it was still hard not to slip back into old ways of thinking.  Not that Eddie had ever engaged in the racist mentality towards Anthros, but he knew plenty that had and still did.  "They don't have swamps like this in Canada."

Captain, or at least that was the only form of addressing that the Feline had ever given him, swigged from his bottle again.  "Canada, eh?" he drawled.  "Ain't never been up dere.  S'is cold, innit?"

"Very cold," replied Eddie.  "Regina gets a lot of pretty weather too though."

He heard Captain let out a rasping cackle of laughter.  "Regina," he wheezed.  Eddie rolled his eyes but he chuckled too.  He was used to people laughing at the admittedly funny name of his home.  Captain noticeably peered through the fog, leaning more atop his steering wheel.  "We should be dere in two shakes of the cattails," he announced.

Relaxing back against the rails and sliding down until he was sitting on the uneven deck boards, Eddie pulled out his journal and documented this latest leg of his journey.  His quest, taking him from his big-city home in Regina, Canada had brought him all the way across America to the state of Louisiana in search of the final missing piece of his collection.  He'd had to take off all of his vacation time to even have this be possible, and it was as nerve-wracking as anything he had ever experienced.  He had barely five days of budgeted time left to make the trade, sail back up the river, board his plane, and be back home.  He only prayed it would be enough.

Everything that had been possible to go wrong on this venture had seemingly congregated in a universal attempt to stymie or halt him.  Flights had been canceled, traffic jams, someone had even stolen some of his luggage at the St. Louis airport and he had been forced to hunt it down through the terminal before he got it back after a ten-hour argument with the belligerent old couple and the security guards.  They couldn't have known how valuable what he was transporting was, mainly because not many people saw the same value in it as he did.  Well, most didn't.  He double-checked that the package was still securely stuffed in his pack, for probably the dozenth time that day.

Captain spoke up then.  "Ya mind me asking what'chu got stuffed in dat dere bag that be so important to ya?  Act like it gonn' poof an' vanish."  Eddie glanced up at him, but the Lynx had not seemingly even looked down at him.  Anthros had crazy good spatial awareness.

Wincing, Eddie hesitated.  "Something that...hopefully, will turn my bad luck around," he said, trying not to be too cryptic.  "I'm just nervous."

"Ya ain't done here to meet some fille and propose, is ya?" chuckled Captain.  Eddie looked up at him in confusion.  His smile was lopsided, showing snaggled yellow fangs with an overbite.  "Met 'er on the internets and come down 'ere for the magic?  I hear 'bout plenty of catfishin' but best kind round dese parts is the actual fish."  He guffawed at his own joke.

Eddie blinked, trying to puzzle out what he had said before it clicked.  "Oh, a girl?" he prompted and the Feline just twitched one short ear.  "No, I'm not here for a girl.  My life is chaotic enough without trying to start dating."

"Fair nuf'," Captain chuckled.  "So why ya out 'ere, so far from home?"

He looked out across the foggy marshes again.  He didn't like talking about it, but there was something about the old cat that made him feel like, despite how he looked, that he was a really kind old person, just with a twisted sense of humor.  "Family," he relented.

Captain didn't say anything.  They steered around a fallen tree that stuck up out of the mire.  Its rotting shadow had several hundred fish teeming within it from what he could see before they slowly chugged away from it.

"I came out here...to try and finish a collection," Eddie continued.  "It's worth a lot of money to the right buyer."

"And chu thinkin' that some soul out 'ere's got the missing piece of what ya looking for?"

"That's what they said over Instant Messaging.  I saved the records and printed them out to make sure I had memorized every detail.  They agreed to trade what I'm missing for something that is just as rare."

"Den, after that," Captain rumbled.  "Chu gonn' sell it to some big payer and what?  Lot'o trouble to go for, just for family.  Some sick grandma?"

Eddie shook his head.  "No, nothing like that.  I'm trying to do some good for my brother's family.  His wife just had a baby, and I want to make sure they don't have money trouble for a long time.  It's just her making ends meet.  My niece had...complications and the bills got really expensive.  I'm trying to do some good for once."

"Noble," chuffed the Feline.  "But why you brother not helpin' out?  He deadbeat, or somethin'?"

Looking down at the water, Eddie stayed quiet.

Captain seemed to pick up on what was left unsaid.  "Sorry dere, boy," he said eventually.  "Dat's a lot to put on shoulders young as yours.  He military?"

Eddie nodded.

"Shame.  What'chu doing's special then.  How old's she?"

"She'll be two this year," he admitted.  "Her name's Hazel.  After my grandma."

"S'a good name," commented the wizened old Anthro.  "And chu really think the answer to all dat s'in 'ere in Bonaparte?"

"All I have is hope to go on."  Eddie looked back up at Captain.  "Is it a small town?"

"Good ol' Bonaparte," chuffed the Feline.  "Oui, she is pittoresque, but she's got dat charm.  Old.  Was born dere, meself.  Gonn' die dere too, chor'nuff."

"Any kids?" ventured Eddie, not minding talking more while the scenery remained unchanged for the most part.

"No, boy, no kids for Captain," he growled softly.  "Never was the type.  Born alone, work alone, die alone.  Still, got dat family, just not like me.  Whole place is my family."

Eddie smiled.  "It sounds nice.  What was the word you said again?"

"Pittoresque," responded Captain.

Familiar with French, Eddie nodded.  "Quaint.  I'd have given anything to grow up in a small town instead of a big city.  So many people and problems."

"Won't see Captain ever in big city," cackled the Lynx.  "Most civil folks can't stand the sight a'me.  Probably m'stunning good looks.  Make's em jealous."  He flicked his ears again.

Eddie wasn't sure he should laugh or stay silent, but the hilarity of the man's obviously self-aware attitude was too much.  He chuckled and Captain joined in, a harsh rasp to Eddie's ordinary cadence.  "You're quite the character, Captain," he joked.

"Thanks, I wrote meself," countered the Lynx, and they laughed again.  He reached up then and tugged on the whistle, making it cry out once again through the fog.  "Best get up dat bag, boy.  Welcome to sunny Bonaparte."

Sitting up straight again and putting away his journal, Eddie narrowed his eyes.  Dark shapes had begun to appear out of the fog.  They seemed to resolve themselves into buildings, most of them boat-houses.  The farther they went, the more of them he saw.  Gangplanks and walkways connected the ones that were birthed side-by-side, and the whole place looked like some run-down black market trading town at first glance.  Then they passed the outskirts of the docks and he saw Bonaparte for what it really was.

It actually was a modern town, just small and rural.  The ship bumped up against a wooden pier and Captain pulled on the whistle one more time.  Onlookers from all around in the general vicinity turned to look, then, as one, beamed and smiled.  "Ahoy Captain!" they all yelled, startling Eddie.  Captain just waved back as he slung a thick coat on over his overalls and limped his way down the steps.  He bustled past the Human and unhooked the chain gate.

Bowing gallantly, Captain waved a gnarled paw for Eddie as if he were some cruise-liner tour guide.  "All's ashore dat's goin' ashore," he chortled, jerking his head.  The Human was his only passenger, and he wasted no time in collecting all of his things and stepping off the boat.  It felt nice to have solid ground underneath his feet, even if it was cracked and slightly sloped pavement.  "So, where chu headin' first for ya big trade?" asked Captain, stumping along with him but much slower.  One of his legs seemed to barely even function, heavy as a tree-root and completely stiff.

"To...be perfectly honest, sir, I don't know.  All I was told was the address was in the area around Bonaparte.  They didn't say much else."

"Dey didn't give chu no name?  No' smart, boy, goin' somewhere new without knowin' who chu looking for.  Good way to get in trouble."

Eddie couldn't help but agree.  "The only thing I got was an address and the screenname they used for the alias on the trading website I had been using.  It's all verified and I double-checked everything for authenticity.  I came prepared but I know this still all sounds risky...," he admitted.  His face flushed, knowing he must have looked and sounded ridiculous.  A complete outsider in an area where he knew nothing and no one, supposed to meet up with a shady dealer where anything could happen.  If things hadn't been so desperate, and the timeline so tight, he never would have resorted to this.

"What's an alias?" Captain piped up suddenly, cutting through his self-doubt.

"An alias?" he asked. Captain nodded. "A nickname."

"Oh!" grunted the Feline. "I knew dat.  Follow me.  Stick wit' the Captain, chu won't turn wrong."

Eddie happily walked alongside the Lynx.  Everyone who saw the old man would wave and greet him, to which he would return the gesture.  It really did seem like everyone looked at Captain like a regular here.  He had always wanted that kind of feeling himself and would have settled for living in such a place in a heartbeat.  If only it weren't for the mugginess and the heat.  He slapped at a bug that tried to land on his already saturated skin, persistent in biting him it seemed despite the layer upon layer of repellent he had on.

Despite that the road beneath their feet was paved all like a road, there were no cars from what he could see.  Glancing behind him, now that they were higher up, he could see the docks were filled with dozens of tethered boats, skiffs, canoes, and rafts.  Everyone it seemed used the waterways to get around.

"So what's the name, nick or otherwise?" the Lynx asked then.

"They called themselves the Bayou Queen," he told Captain, fishing out another note from a pocket.  "Said that I needed to get out to this address."

Captain glanced at the note himself, peering with his one glassy eye at the line of text on the laminated piece of folded paper.  A strange wiggle of his nose came then, distorting his whole face.  He seemed to be deep in thought for a moment.  "I don't think I know'em, not by that name.  Don't got no one with dat kinda ego round dese parts, aside from meself, and I ain't no King.  Could be a Duke though, dat's noble innit?"

"Duke is a noble rank, yes," chuckled Eddie.

"Settles it," grunted Captain.  "Everybody!" he suddenly yowled, attracting everyone's attention.  The volume was shockingly loud, setting the whole street to ringing.  All eyes, Human and Anthro alike turned to look at the pair of them.  "Call me Captain Duke," he declared, his hunched-over frame swelling up importantly.  Eddie suddenly got the sense that the ancient Lynx had once been a very large man.  Then again, most Anthros were big compared to Humans.

"Ahoy, Captain Duke!" everyone, young and old, chorused, and then they all laughed and returned to their normal activities.

They kept walking, the newly named Captain Duke looking pleased with himself.  "So...if you don't know them, do you know the address at least?" prompted Eddie, still amused by the man's antics.

"Chor," Captain grunted.  "Captain Duke knows Bonaparte like back of mah paw.  Where chu goin', boy, though, Captain's boat won't fit.  Got a buddy that can take ya," was all he would say.

Shrugging, Eddie settled back into step with his escort.  As they crested the hill at last, they came in sight of a brightly polished building set on a curb.  The roof was domed and rounded, almost like a repurposed railway car.  A hand-carved wooden sign hung from a pair of hooks over the double doors.  "Drifter's?" Eddie read.  He glanced at Captain.

The elderly Lynx didn't even pause in his staggering gait, striding right up to the doors and opening them.  He glanced behind himself then, motioning with his head.  "Come on in, boy," he cackled.  "Grab a seat.  Old bones're creakin' and Captain Duke could use a coffee before we find yo guide."

Following suit, the Human followed the Anthro inside.  The interior took him aback.  While the town outside looked, admittedly, dingy, the inside of Drifter's was as clean as could be.  It looked like an old-school diner.  Gleaming, polyester stools were lined up underneath the counter of a bar.  Padded booth tables lined the walls, which were set with multiple shaded windows.  Even for midday, the place was pleasant but not over-packed.  Most of the occupants ate and talked happily.  At Captain's behest, Eddie took a seat at an empty booth and he watched the Lynx groan as he shuffled up and sat down on a stool.

"Martha!" he called, cutting through the chatter.  "Where's you at, baby girl?!"

A second later, a matronly but not old Border Collie Canine woman, wearing a white and pink outfit and a frilly apron came bustling out.  She had her wispy hair done up in a bandanna and she had a tiny puppy babe angled on one hip with a big paw, a pot of coffee in the other.  She looked slightly frazzled but not too badly.  She smiled as she saw who had called her, adjusting the baby on her hip.  "Hello, Captain Duke!" she grinned.  "I thought that was you."  Wordlessly, she pulled a cup from a hook on the wall and poured him a cup of coffee.  "Back home for a bit, old man?"

Eddie could barely believe that his new moniker had spread so far so fast.  For his part, Captain just sipped gratefully at his drink.  "Nah, Martha," he grumbled, sounding pleased at the flavor of his cup of joe.  "Gotta ask favor though."

"Course, my dear," Martha grinned even wider.

"Need to borrow Joe.  Got a boy that need's trip down the bayou.  Mah boat's too big for the channels."

Martha glanced behind Captain then at Eddie, ears perking up.  The baby in her arms cocked its head adorably, suckling on a pacifier that was shaped to its canine muzzle.  She immediately smiled at him.  She had that classic, housewife charm that made you feel safe and welcome.  "Sure!  I'll go get him."  She placed the baby in a rocker that was set up on the counter right beside Captain, strapped it in, and then turned to bustle back into the kitchen through the doors she had come out of.  "Joe!" she could be heard to holler a second later.  "Get your tail outta that chair.  Captain needs a favor!  Make sure your ski works!"

For his part, Captain just continued to sip at his coffee, wiggling a finger to entertain the pup.  It immediately giggled and waved its tiny paws up at him, obviously used to playing with the old Feline.  Eddie smiled and rose up, peering over the Anthros shoulder at the tiny babe, once Captain had noticed him staring and motioning with a jerk of his head to come to see.  As he looked down at the adorable ball of fuzz, he was amazed to see how small the pup was.  Anthros were naturally so big, and yet they started off as the tiniest things one could imagine.

"Dis 'ere," explained Captain, "Is Eddie."  The Human realized that he was talking to the pup, not him, almost as if the barely newborn were as adult and able to share in a conversation as easily as anyone else.  "Say hello, Jolie, like'a big girl."

Jolie babbled something around her pacifier.  Her tiny tail wagged.

Eddie felt his heart melt and he waved.  "Hello, Jolie," he murmured softly.  "Aren't you the most precious pup ever...?"

The tiny Anthro babe giggled.  Captain winked at him.  "She likes ya, boy," he commented.  The doors behind the counter opened at that moment and both men glanced up.  "Ah, Joe," said Captain.

Eddie looked up too and then balked.  Joe was huge, having to duck his head nearly flat with his shoulders to get under the doors that his wife had easily walked through.  The woman had still easily been a foot taller than Eddie, and this was her husband?!  Joe was a massive specimen of Canine, something close to a mastiff with jet-black fur, and he gazed down at him impassively from beneath looming brows.  His face was a mass of wrinkles and folds, casting his features in a perpetual scowl or frown.  He made a sound, close to a grunt of acknowledgment, but it was drawn out and rumbling like a truck engine.  He turned to look slowly at Captain.  His expression didn't change, but his tail wagged once behind him.

"Hello Joe," purred Captain conversationally.  "Doing good?"

"Hmm," rumbled Joe.

"Need a favor."

"Hmm?" the big head cocked slightly to the side.

"Your ski still working?"

"Hmm," he growled again.  His voice didn't change, not in inflection, not tone, not even volume.  It was always that same monotone rumble, like distant thunder.

"Dis boy needs a ride down the channels.  You know dis 'dress?"  Captain snagged the piece of paper from Eddie and handed it over.

Joe took the paper in a paw that looked as big as a frying pan, lifting it up to his face.  He studied for several seconds then lowered it again and snorted.  His jowls blew out and his nose twitched towards Eddie for several seconds before he turned, around, grabbed his keys off a hook behind the kitchen doors, and jerked his head.

The Human started as Captain slapped him on the back.  It felt like someone had thrown a branch at him or hit him none-too-lightly with a baseball bat.  "Joe'll take care of ya, boy," he purred, sounding like a sputtering motor.  Eddie followed Joe out of the doors, but stopped when Captain shouted one last thing.  "Just don't let 'er eat ya!"

"Wait," balked Eddie, looking back inside.  "Let who eat me?!"

Captain's only response was his most maniacal Cajun laugh yet and he turned back to the counter, drinking his coffee.  Eddie's face flushed and he abruptly didn't feel as safe.  All the same, he had come here with a purpose, so he followed Joe down the boardwalk and back towards the docks down the hill.  Joe's open shirt and baggy shorts flapped around his huge build, parting the crowd wordlessly from his size alone.  All the same, everyone smiled and greeted Joe personally, and Eddie couldn't help but notice that every time someone did, his tail would wag furiously even if he never said a word.

Finally, they got to the docks.  Joe's bare footpaws made the wooden wharf creak as he walked straight up to the side of a polished white machine.  Joe's "ski" was in fact a massive jetski.  He climbed onto it without preamble and inserted the key, winding the cuff attached to it around his wrist.  As the engine roared to life, he tested various controls and then looked across at Eddie.  Sensing he was supposed to get on, he moved quickly to do so.  Joe handed him an oversized life jacket and he clipped it on, securely tucking his pack against his belly before settling into the shaped seat.

Joe gripped the handlebars and reversed the machine before he took off, startling the Human now clinging to his bulky back through the shirt.  He heard the Canine growl but the tail thumped once, letting him know it wasn't in anger.  And so they sped off, away from Bonaparte and down a river channel that branched off from the main culvert he and Captain had come down before.

The entire trip, Joe said nothing, didn't look at anything, and barely seemed to be aware of Eddie behind him after they set off.  Twists and turns had Eddie feeling a touch queasy and he was nearly thrown off several times but clung on with his knees and one arm around Joe.  He at first tried to look around as the scenery flashed by all-around at their speed, but nothing stuck out.  It was the same marshland for as far as the eye could see.  Then they exited the river channel and it opened back up into another section of marshlands.  They turned down another opening, and then another.  Eddie had no idea how Joe kept it all straight since there were no markers, no signs, nothing.  It would have been simple to get lost out here.

Finally, they exited the latest channel and rounded a bend in the river.  A dark shape loomed out of the low-hanging fog and Eddie's eyes went wide.  It was a riverboat, a classic, old-style one, birthed on the riverside and secured to several massive trees by chains that glistened with moss and river slime.  It looked slightly in disrepair but still functional.  An actual modern satellite dish was mounted on the very top.   Parked beside it was another jetski, although this was no flashy, painted modern machine.  It looked like the one out of the Rescuer's movie, black and built like a steam tank.  The whole situation reminded him starkly of that film.  If there was some captive little girl having to go down into a sinkhole filled with Pirate treasure, he wouldn't have been surprised.  He checked his phone.  No signal.  Of course, there wasn't.

As the engine slowed, he thought he saw movement at an upper deck window.  "This is the place?" he asked Joe nervously.  The Canine growled.  "Great..."  He pondered asking Joe what kind of person lived all the way out here, but he hardly suspected that he would suddenly become eloquent and explain the situation.  So instead, as they drew up alongside the boat and docked it, using a free-hanging rope off the side to tie the jetski up, he just took off his life jacket and warily mounted the deck.

Somewhere inside the riverboat, something creaked ominously.  He swallowed and glanced back at his guide, who was still loitering around on the jetski, looking up at him.  Joe gestured with his head at the door.

"I just...knock?" he asked.  Joe grunted.  Eddie took a deep breath and turned to do so.  His hand had barely brushed the faded wooden frame when a voice called out from inside, startling him.

"What you want?"  It was deep, harsh, and contained a hissing sound alongside the heavy, Cajun accent, although not as thick as Captain's had been.

Hello?" ventured Eddie, nervous clenching of his stomach not making it easy to speak.  "I'm looking for... Bayou Queen?  I was told this was their address?"

"Who's asking?" the voice demanded.

"This is Hopeless-Roman?" he stammered out.  Something behind the door creaked again.  He thought he heard something click and he imagined a shotgun being loaded.  The door began to rattle.  He readied himself to leap out of the way if he heard anything like a trigger being remotely pulled.  "I-I came here to trade for a...really rare...piece of geek m-memorabilia?"

The door opened suddenly and he flinched, ducking his head down into his arms in a desperate attempt to protect himself from what he was sure was going to be an attacker.  He had never been so scared in his life.

***

The door opened fully and a pair of yellow eyes stared down at the cowering Human in front of them.  A grumbling hiss built up in the massive, scaly chest, and a cloud of smoke billowed forth from the jaws from around the seemingly tiny cigarette clenched between two long, sharp teeth that showed even when the jaws were shut.  A shock of red hair stuck up from the top of the crocodilian skull, obscuring one eye from view.  The Anthro crossed their arms, arching a ridged eyebrow down at the still huddled-over trespasser to their domain.

Bernadette Reine, Bernie as she preferred to be called, waited a solid minute before the situation abruptly turned funny to her.  She started to chuckle.  Lifting a massive paw, she plucked the depleted cigarette from her lips and tossed it casually over the side of the riverboat into the water to join the numerous other butts floating there.  "You gonn' show me your face?" she asked, cocking a fist on her hip.  "Or ya just gonn' stand there all day shivering?"

The person flinched before, very slowly, cautiously, as if expecting her to lunge at him at any second, he stood back up to his minuscule height and lowered his arms from around his head.  Bernie had just pulled out another cigarette, jamming it into her lips and about to light it when he revealed his face, eyes still pinched shut behind thick glasses.  The lighter hung there in her grasp, and the cigarette nearly fell from her slightly open mouth.  'Well hello...' she thought.

<figure> </figure>

The young man was scrawny, wearing a red coat that seemed too thick for the weather.  Given where she knew he had come from though, that seemed easily understandable.  His skin was slightly tanned but not dark at all, his short, normally well-combed, brown hair.  He barely came up to her chest, if that, and she could have put two of him side by side across her shoulders and still been wider than both of him put together, if barely.  Her lips at the front rolled up a bit, showing more of her teeth and she looked him up and down multiple times.

"Howdy," she growled out, using her most sultry voice.  "I didn't expect you'd be so gosh-darn cute when I met ya in person."

His eyes opened, revealing a beautiful cocoa brown color, and he stared straight ahead.  Knowing where his eyes would naturally see first since he was barely tall enough to look straight at them at what would be his eye-level, she jutted her chest out, making the tiny, blue denim shirt she had tied underneath her breasts strain all the more to contain her assets.  The mountainous expanse of green-scaled cleavage rippled at the slightest movement and her long, plated tail dragged along the floor behind her as she adjusted her stance.  Her paw remained arched on one hip, her also tiny pair of denim shorts riding up across her thunderous thighs, fraying at the seams.

Hopeless-Roman's eyes went as wide as saucers and his mouth fell open in a startled daze at his first immediate view of her.  Then, almost as if resisting the earth's gravitational pull, he forced himself to look up from her chest.  His dark eyes climbed higher and higher, slowly across her chest and to her collarbone and broad shoulders, up her thick neck, and finally to her scarred, scaly muzzle and bright yellow orbs that gazed sultrily down at him from behind her thick red bangs.

As their eyes met, she gave him her brightest and toothiest smile.  She heard that Humans liked big smiles.  She hurriedly stashed the cigarette behind her, leaning down and crossing her arms behind the small of her back, which also had the added benefit of making her chest sway even more.  His eyes, of course, noticed before flicking back up to her face.  His cheeks had started to become very flushed and she had to internally kick herself to not try and just grab him from how cute that was.  She had a natural love for making people uncomfortable or ill at ease, given her size, but this was a whole different level of enjoyment.

"Should'a warned me that you're even better lookin' than I figured ya would be," she teased.  "Hope I'm not too much'a shock for ya myself."

"B-B-," he stammered out, again almost making her melt.  "Bayou Queen...?"

She grinned even wider.  He actually flinched at that and she quickly toned it down.  No need to actually scare him.  "That's me!" she crowed.  "You come a long way just to see little ol' me.  Makes'a gal feel special."  She glanced up from him at last and straightened up.  "Dat you, Joe Drifter?" she asked.  The Mastiff nodded and actually cracked a doggy grin at her, his tail wagging.  "I thought dat was yur fancy ski' on da water.  Come on in too, get a drink.  How's the baby?"

Joe climbed dutifully up off his machine, passing the still stunned Human and chuffing at him before lumbering inside.  Joe was about as tall as she was, so he didn't have to duck beneath the landing.  She gave him a friendly nod, then turned back to her other guest.  She arched a brow again, feeling playful.  He still hadn't moved.

"You gonn' come in?" she asked.  He started.  "Don' worry sweetie, I dun' bite.  Unless ya ask me to."  She laughed then, punctuating each note of it with her usual deep, rolling hiss.

"T-thank you," he murmured and shuffled awkwardly past her.  His eyes never left her once, although he had to crane his neck up to do so and he clutched his bag against him nervously.  Oh how badly she wanted to both antagonize him further as well as stop teasing him so much so he would calm down.  The boy might have a full-blown panic attack if he didn't.  She shut the door behind them all.

"Take a seat on da' couch," she told her two guests.  "I'll go get somethin' to drink for y'all.  Joe, ya like Mountain Dew?"  Joe chuffed.  "How 'bout you?" she asked, looking over her shoulder back at him as he sat in her massive couch.  "By the by, didn't get yo' name."

"I'm...Edward Sikes," he mumbled out.  "M-Mountain Dew sounds great."

She beamed more.  "Eddie," she growled.  "Dat's cute.  My name's Bernadette, but e'er soul calls me Bernie.  Eddie and Bernie.  We'd be cute together."  She cackled and disappeared into her kitchen to get the drinks.  Her day had just gotten a whole lot better.

***

Eddie swallowed hard and let out a shuddering breath as he watched the massive tail vanish behind the hanging curtains that separated her living room from the apparent kitchen and pantry.  He looked around.  The interior of the riverboat had been completely remodeled.  While it wasn't the cleanest, it looked like an actual home.  He'd seen far worse apartments.  There were all kinds of modern amenities.  A flat-screen tv, actual gaming set up, although the controllers looked huge, a wall of nothing but DVDs and blu-rays, as well as a bookshelf of comic books, manga, and graphic novels.  It was startling, to say the least.  Even HE didn't have this expansive of a collection, and he had been acquiring material since childhood.  There were even several issues of multiple series that were completely out of production!

He glanced up at Joe, who sat beside him.  "S-so," he finally was able to say.  "You know Ms. Bernie?"  Joe grunted.  "She seems nice?"  Joe actually nodded, his tail wagging once.  His stomach loosened up somewhat.  "Family friend?"  Joe chuffed.  Eddie let out a quiet and relieved breath.  Joe didn't seem like the type to lie or to abandon him to what at first appearances appeared to be some kind of monster-sized crocodile woman.  Sure, her attitude was intimidating as hell, what with all those big-toothy grins and how she liked to loom over him.  It wasn't hard to do either, given that she was over eight feet tall, almost topping nine, and she was massive in the sheer proportion of her scale-armored bulk.  His face flushed a bit as he also had to make himself admit she was massive in...other ways too.

He shook his head furiously and put his mind away from such less-than-decent things.  If Joe said, in not so many words, that she was nice, then he should be as polite and respectable as possible.  So what if she could bite his head off?  So what if she could probably crush him with various parts of her anatomy?  So what if...that might have been rather nice?  He shook his head again.  'Don't let your Simp mindset interfere with what you came here to do', he told himself firmly.

The curtains that served as a kitchen door slid open and Bernie the Crocodile returned.  She not-so-much stomped her way over, several cans of bright breed and red-lettered aluminum clenched between her fingers.  She deposited them in front of both men atop her coffee table, providing coasters, and bending down to do so right in front of Eddie.  It gave him a view straight down her straining shirt front, not to mention once again showing him exact defiance for the laws of gravity for how those moved.  He forced his eyes away, thanking her for the drink.  Joe chuffed and both cans hissed as they were simultaneously clicked open and sipped from.

The soda was cold and refreshing.  Bernie took a seat in an armchair facing them at a slight angle, leaning her scaly chin on her fist.  Maybe it was just his nerves being frantic but it really felt like she was deliberately eyeing him. It made him feel like a piece of meat, and not in a good way.  The Croc literally looked like she wanted to eat him.

Once they had passed several minutes of sipping at their drinks, Joe draining his much faster due to size, Bernie cleared her throat.  "So, how 'bout we get to the business y'all came down 'ere for?"

Eddie sat up straighter.  "Yes ma'am," he stated.  He reached for the zipper of his bag.

Bernie lifted a clawed hand, however, stopping him.  "Well hold on now," she chided, chuckling again.  "Don't ya wanna inspect what you trading for first?  Don't blow your trump card before ya guarantee the product."

He blinked in surprise.  That made a lot of sense, and here he was ready to pull out his pride and joy.  "Y-yes that would be best," he admitted, forcing a smile onto his sheepish face.

She hummed.  "Joe, why don't ya head on back to the town?" she asked suddenly.  Eddie's eyes went wide and Joe licked his chops, also looking a bit unsure.  That alone didn't help his nerves.  "Me and Mr. Roman 'ere will conduct our business, then I'll take 'im back myself on the motor."

Joe pondered this, then glanced slowly down towards Eddie.  His ear and wrinkly brow lifted slightly as if he were asking if Eddie, the newcomer under his ward, was comfortable with this.  One big, dark, glistening eye met his own and he wanted to plead for the silent brute to stick around.  Bernie may have looked and acted harmless, but the air she was putting off made his blood run cold.  He glanced back at her then.  Her smile was bright, toothy, and she played with a strand of her short, fiery hair between two scaly fingers.

Eddie took a deep breath, remembering his other 'trump card' in his pocket.  The can of Anthro-Away spray was a welcome feeling against his leg.  A less than open-minded cousin, who had admittedly had a bad run-in with an Anthro a few years ago, had insisted he bring it with him when he learned where Eddie was going.  He wasn't defenseless, if still alone, but he really didn't want to use it.  Anthros were just people too.  Also, he abruptly felt a surge of guilt when he realized that Joe probably wanted to go home and relax, maybe spend time with his child or get back to work.  Eddie always found himself thinking of others before himself, and that he was imposing on them whenever he needed something.  Odds were, Bernie might just have been as socially awkward as he was, and he was projecting his nervousness into the situation, making it tenser than it needed to be.

Taking a deep breath, Eddie smiled up at Joe.  "If you trust her, then I'll be fine.  Thanks for the ride over, Mr. Drifter."

The Mastiff Canine chuffed again, nodded, and stood.  He put his empty can of soda in a plastic bag hanging from a hook on the wall, alongside dozens of others, exited the boathouse and climbed back onto his jetski.  The engine roared to life and Eddie heard him speeding away.  The drone of his machine faded easily into the mists of the swamp.  His eyes slowly gravitated back towards Bernie.

She looked pleased with herself, still eyeing him warmly.  "Y'all seem tense," she remarked then.  "Be honest, sugar, do'I scare ya?"

Eddie tried to smile and deny it.  "Of course not," he lied without sounding convincing in the slightest.  "I'm just...nervous about being in an entirely new place is all."  He looked around, trying to change the subject.  "You have an amazing collection.  I at least know I'm in exactly the right place.  Have you been collecting long?"

She hummed.  "Long 'nuff.  Started when I was just a baby Croc feels like.  Started with Man-Eater when I was t'ree, was hooked ever since."  She gestured at a row of comics bearing the name of the Anthro supervillain, ironically also a large Crocodilian.  He'd read a few of those.  The character was fascinatingly complex despite his brutish persona and methods.  "But that ain't the one ya came down all this way to see," she stated a second later, redrawing his attention back to her.  She stood, looming over him.

Eddie couldn't help but shrinking back slowly into the couch as she took step after step closer to him, teeth glinting, eyes bright, and her outfit straining at the seams to contain her.  It was the most exhilarating fear he had ever experienced, equal parts terrified and aroused by how little clothing she wore and how much it was trying desperately to hold her assets in.  Why did he have to be such an addict for big women?  The danger factor just made it all the more intense, and he'd never felt it quite so powerfully before.

Bernie stopped right in front of him.  Her paw lifted and he flinched on instinct.  Instead, when he calmed back down, he saw she was just offering a hand up out of her admittedly trap-like couch.  He grinned, feeling guilty for assuming the worst, again.  "Thanks," he said, taking the paw.  He was more or less just pulled out of his seat than him trying to stand up, and she kept a hold of his hand in hers.  Her paw dwarfed him completely, and her palm was strangely textured, almost like sandpaper but gentle.  She had claws, instead of nails, which dominated the trunks of her thick fingers, and he found his eyes tracing the individual plates and scales along her wrist.  It was a very warm hand.  He looked back up into her eyes and she cocked an eyebrow teasingly.

"Shall we?" she asked, eyes sparkling.  She turned, large fingers folding in around his, and she began to more-or-less pull him along behind her.  He had little say in it and just tried to keep up, not wanting to be dragged along behind her, and careful not to step on her tail.  They left the living room and ascended a flight of stairs.  They creaked underneath her scaly feet.  In no time they had climbed to the second floor.  The walls were decorated with various themes, ranging from nautical nets, hooks, and mounted fish, even an anchor, to swords and other weapons that actually looked real.  If it wasn't for the location, her set-up might have been his ideal geek lair, and even then, the inside of her home was incredible, if a bit messy.  Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of a person who lived entirely in the fantasy work of others.  Just like him.

Eventually, they arrived at a door and she opened it.  She gestured with her head for him to go in first and he did so, using a hand to brush aside the hanging ropes of beads and shells that she hung up just inside the frame.  It was too dark to see anything until she clicked on a light nearby.  The room was dimly lit, with just mood lights, from what he could see.  A massive bed dominated one corner, four-poster, and a very scratched-up headboard.  A treasure chest, reminiscent of a pirate movie prop, lay at the end of it, currently closed.  Another bookshelf was across the room from it, also stuffed with comics and such, but these ones were wrapped carefully in plastic.

"Take a seat, sweetheart," she quipped cheekily.  When he looked around, confused on where to do so, she actually bit her bottom lip.  "On the bed, if ya like."  She turned deliberately away then, ticking through issues with a claw.

Trying to contain his nervousness, Eddie did as she suggested.  He had to virtually climb up to even get onto the plush mattress and he felt himself sink in slightly as soon as he had.  The bed was magnificently comfortable, but it had an odd scent to it.  It reminded him of her own musk, from what he had smelled of it earlier on the stairs, but much stronger.  He tried to put it out of his mind, facing forward again.  This was a mistake.

"Now where'd I put dat issue..." Bernie pondered aloud, bent over completely at the waist as she kept ticking off plastic sleeves.  Her tail lifted up very slowly as she spoke, showcasing the incredible view of her tiny denim shorts as they rode up along the swells of her posterior.  It didn't even cover all of the cheeks, and his eyes remained locked as the seams actually burst slightly at the severe angle she was pushing her body into.  He tore his eyes away when she spoke back over her shoulder at him.  "Sorry dis is takin' me so long sugar," she chuckled, sounding genuinely embarrassed.  "I swear I organize dese t'ings better than it seems."

"N-no trouble!" he squeaked out.  His hands clutched hard onto the straps of his pack and he tried to rein in his surging awkwardness.  "I'm in no rush."

"Ain't you just the sweetest t'ing," she chuckled again.  "Ha, dere ya are!" she abruptly snarled and delicately extricated a wrapped comic from the shelf.  She stood back up, carefully keeping the front against her chiseled and scaled belly before she crossed over to the bed and sat down beside him.  "Ok, I'll show you mine, an' you show me yours."  Her eyebrows wiggled down at him.

His face went slack.  "W-what?!" he squawked.

Her face split in a huge grin, filling the room with a deep barrel laugh and she clapped her spare paw over her eyes.  Her laughter rang around her bedroom.  "Oh Spirits," she giggled, trying to rein herself in.  "Yo' face when I said dat!  Y'all are just too cute, mon cher."  She finally got a hold of herself, just as Eddie was internally kicking himself repeatedly for reacting that way.  She gestured at her plastic-sleeved treasure with a nod.  "Comics?" she teased.

"R-right!" he stammered.  "I k-knew that was what you meant.  It's just...when you said that I...got the wrong idea!   That's all, I'm really sorry."

Her eyes sparkled beneath her mop of red hair.  "Y'all gonn' give dis Croc-girl a heart attack, Eddie," she teased.  "Bein' so cute like dat."  She leered down at him.  "What were ya thinking I meant then?"  She actually leaned a bit toward him more.

"N-nothing..." he grunted unconvincingly.

"Dose red cheeks don't look or sound like nothin'," she purred.  Actually purred.  That rolling hiss in her chest had lowered octaves.  She looked hungry again.  "Be honest, Eddie...do I scare ya?"

He opened his mouth to answer as he had before, but he realized there was no point.  "You don't...scare me," he admitted, looking down and away from her.  "It's just...I'm really nervous."

"Why, mon cher?" she asked.  Her tail curled slowly around his hips, making him feel both trapped and comforted.

"I'm not used to...being around women like you.  Women who...act like I have something to offer."

"Seems like ya got a whole lot to offer, in my so-modest opinion," she countered.

He sighed.  "Unless you mean the contents of my backpack, I highly doubt that.  I'm really sorry if I've offended you at all by saying this but...I'm not at all used to being around someone I'm so attracted to..."

"Big Anthro women?" she asked, right on queue.

He flinched.  "Really...big...women in general.  But yeah...that too."  His face felt hot and he shyly unzipped the bag he was holding onto.  He reached in and with great hesitation, pulled out the comic he had brought to barter with.  "Let's just...let's just do this, before I die of embarrassment."  He showed it to her, gingerly handing it over when she reached out a claw.

Bernie took it and placed her own flat on her lap, face-down, so she could inspect the one he handed her.  Her eyes glittered as she read the cover.  They went wide.  "Hold on..." she muttered.  "Dis is a first issue of the series..."

"Mint condition," he confirmed.  "Gargantua, issue seventeen.  First appearance of the Force Formidable, with alternate cover art featuring Gargantua in the red and black uniform.  It's signed by the creator too.  I can't tell you how many people have tried to get me to trade this over the years."

Her huge paws held the comic carefully, careful not even to crinkle the wrapping too much.  "Chor'nuff..." she breathed, reminding him of Captain.  "Dis is...probably one of the rarest issues I know of."  She looked at him oddly.  "And you want to trade dis for...what?"  She glanced down at her lap, reaching down and handing him the comic she had procured.  "Hell-Diver issue three?  Chor, he's rare, but..."  She turned her eyes back to the treasure in her paws.  Her eyes had dilated slightly and he smelled her musk grow a bit stronger.  Aggression apparently smelled differently between different species of Anthro.

He numbly placed the comic he had come all this way for on his lap as she had.  "I've been collecting since I was young," he told her, drawing her attention.  "I never even understood the rarity of comics and why they go for so much.  That issue was originally my grandfather's, who got into the collecting side a long time ago.  When...stuff happened in my family, I was approached by a collector who offered to buy my entire set.  The cash out for it was enough that I could help my brother's wife and her kid for a while after he..."  He swallowed hard.  Tears burned in his eyes and she seemed to notice.  "After he died."  He pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his face.  "Sorry."  His voice was rough.

A large paw brushed his shoulder and settled there.  She patted him gently.  "Babe, I'm sorry too," she grunted.  He glanced up at her slightly fuzzy shape.  She put down the comic she had been practically drooling over.  "But...I can't take dis."

His eyes went wide in shock and he jammed his glasses back on.  "Wait!" he yelped.  "What?!  B-but...that's why I..."  His chest tightened in panic.

Bernie immediately held up a hand.  "Calm down, bébé," she told him firmly but kindly.  She placed the comic gingerly on the bed beside her and vaulted up.  Her feet made heavy thumps as the floor took her weight and she moved over to her bookshelf again.  "I can't take something so special from ya without offering what it's worth it to me properly."

He raised his hands.  "N-no please, I'd feel guilty taking more than we agreed on online!"

She flashed him a look, making him freeze in place.  "Darlin'," she growled softly.  Her eyes were cloudy and mysterious, causing his voice to fall away to silence.  Any other objection he might have said was useless beneath that gaze.  "I insist."

He stayed quiet, heart hammering and his palms sweaty as he had clasped them together to better keep a mental grip on his self-control.  He watched her silently as she poked through her shelf, pulling out various issues and piling them in one paw before she finally returned.  He gaped when he saw the number and rarity of the issues she had to show.  "Ms...Bernadette," he started to say.  "This is really gracious but all I need is just the Hell-Diver.  These others are great but..."

She shook her head, red hair bouncing.  "I ain't talking 'bout dese 'stead of the Hell-Diver," she growled.  "I'm talking 'bout all of 'dem."

His eyes and mouth went as wide as they could go.  "Ma'am!" he rasped.  "This is over three grand worth of comics to the right collector!  Mine isn't worth that much on its own..."

She put a finger over his mouth, stalling him again.  "It's worth dat much to me," she stated flatly.  She glanced at his issue, and then back towards him, but not meeting his eyes.  "I know...how special a comic like dat'll be to someone like you.  When I lost mah daddy...he left me all o' his collection.  He were a geek too, one of the old crowd, like yer grandpa.  The money he left me, this boat, and mah comics...I know how special somethin' like dis is to someone like ya."  She placed the entire pile of plastic-sleeved graphic novels into his lap, folding his hand atop of them.  "Please.  I know what it's like, growing up without a daddy."

His mouth went dry and he stared up into her glistening eyes for a long moment before he felt himself nodding.  "O-okay..." he whispered.  She smiled, and it dispelled all of his previous thoughts about how she had been looking at him before.  She had the brightest teeth he had ever seen.  Even with how many of them there were.  His stomach clenched and he felt a wave of emotion rising up in him.  "S-sorry," he muttered, wiping at his eyes again.  "I'm trying hard not to hug you like a weirdo right now."

She grinned wider.  "Oh, didn't I mention?" she teased, making him pause.  "It's all dese comics, and one hug."

He sniffed and grinned back at her.  "Well who can say no to that deal?" he asked, trying to joke back with her.  He held out his hand.  "You have a bargain, Ms. Bernedette."

She enveloped his hand in her scaled and clawed paw.  They shook hands, and then she tugged him abruptly forward.  He went willingly, even though there was nothing he could have done to stop her anyway.  The rush of intense satisfaction at that feeling was instantly and completely overwhelmed as her arms folded in around him and his face was buried in her armor-plated but softly-textured collarbone.  Her musk overpowered everything in his world.  His arms, without giving them the mental command to, lifted and wrapped around her waist, as much of her as he could reach.  Her arms completely enveloped him for her part, and her muzzle leaned slowly down to lay atop of his head of dark hair.  He heard the rumbling hiss inside of her deepen again, back to that purr-like cadence.  It was almost like music, the rolling sound of her hiss alongside the pounding drumbeat of her heart.

"Call me Bernie, sugar," she muttered down at him.  One big paw rubbed his back.  "We friends now."

"Whatever you say," he mumbled, face half smooshed against her and his body half smothered by the massive globes of plush flesh and straining fabric that were pressed into him.  "You can call me whatever you want."  His face burned a bit but he didn't care.  He would have traded way more than a comic book for a hug like this at any other point in his life.

Eventually, they let go of one another and she winked down at him.  "I'd offer to cook ya something to seal the deal, but I don't know what ya like.  Got a preference?"

He grinned.  "Umm...I wouldn't ever have expected you to offer so...whatever you like?" he prompted.  She nodded, already seeming to have something in mind.  "I just have to make a call."  He checked his phone, gratefully noticing that on the boat he did in fact have reception.  "Can I borrow your wifi?"

She nodded, seeming pleased with herself.  "Chor."  She gave him the password.  As he typed it in, she winked.  "But house rule's that if you pull up porn, y'all gotta share it."  She bellowed with laughter and he actually joined in.  "I'll go get the stove on," she declared then.  She stood but shook her head when he seemed to think he had to leave the room too.  "Y'all can make yo call in here, bébé," she grinned, flashing her teeth.  "Just be careful if ya decide to snoop 'round.  Not saying I have nothin' to hide, but..." she gave a hissing chuckle and winked.  His face heated up for some reason.  "Trespassers beware."  Her eyes flickered down toward her treasure chest.

"T-thanks," he immediately said.  "I wouldn't dream of poking through your stuff though."

"Shame," she clucked, then laughed.  "I'll go get cookin'.  Come down when yer done."

He nodded and she left the room, taking his traded issue with her.  He immediately laid out all the comics she had given him on the bed, made the flash on his phone turn on, and snapped several pictures of his hoard-like haul.  He sent them as an email to the buyer he had been in contact with excitedly.  As soon as they had sent, almost immediately, his phone rang.  It was the contact.

"Hey man," drawled the thick accent of the buyer.  "Where'd you get all those?!  Did you rob a store or something?  I don't remember you saying you had those issues."

"I just traded one of my personal set for them," he explained.  "Is there a way we can add them to the deal?"

"Hell yeah," came the man's satisfied voice.  "I'll throw in an extra few grand for all that.  Round it up nicely to an even number.  But hey, listen, bit of bad news.  I ain't going to be in Regina for a week or so.  Some stuff came up.  I'll let you know but it could be a while.  Just hold onto those comics and don't sell them to anyone else."

"Yeah!  Of course!" promised Eddie gleefully.  "I'll make sure to hold them for you.  Thank you so much sir!"  There was an abrupt surge of static on the other line and he winced a bit.  "Hello?"

"Cutting...out," came the buyer's voice.  "Think I'm losing...Call me back later."  The phone clicked off.

Eddie looked at the screen confused then shrugged.  That was when the lights flickered.  He hurriedly stacked the comics back up and put them delicately into the pack before he checked the radar.  The signal cut in and out and he got an error message.  "Weird..." he muttered.

"Hey, mon cher," came Bernie's voice suddenly from down the stairs.  "You may wanna come down 'ere a sec.  Got somethin' to show ya."  She didn't sound playful at the moment.  He shrugged and did as she asked.

***

Bernadette had been cooking up some of her special waffles on the griddle when she saw the lights start to flicker.  Eddie hadn't been alone in her room for very long, so she turned on the TV and activated her secure transmission line.  There was some static and then a newscaster appeared.  "...and a sudden sweeping storm front is due to strike the lower coast of the States," he announced in a chipper but serious voice.  "Outlying towns and cities should expect blackouts. If you have plans for this weekend, I recommend putting them off."

She blinked in surprise and glanced out the windows.  Sure enough, a wall of solid gray had built up in the far distance but was steadily growing closer, all without her being aware.  The dangers of living in a swamp, she told herself.  There would be no way to get back to Bonaparte anytime soon, not on a ski.  She glanced up at the ceiling above her, where she could hear the muted but excited chatter of her houseguest.

"Hey, mon cher," she called.  "Y'all may wanna come down 'ere a sec. Got somethin' to show ya."

A second later, she heard the stairs creaking as he climbed down them.  She slid the waffles onto a plate and then prepared them at the table.  By the time he'd arrived, she emerged from the kitchen curtains, carrying drinks.  His eyes went wide and his smile returned, looking small, shy, and making her hungry for a lot more than just waffles.  Or hugs for that matter.

"Wow..." he muttered, looking at the setup she had prepared.  "Those smell so good..." he commented and her tail waved slightly behind her without her meaning to.  "What's up?" he asked then, eagerly taking a seat across the oaken table from her.  She placed the plate down in front of him along with the maple syrup and condiments that most people liked to adorn their waffles with, including fresh fruit, powdered sugar, even chocolate sauce, and whipped cream if he had a sweet tooth.

She grinned at his praise and his eagerness, but then she gestured at the windows.  "Storm's rollin' in," she announced.  "Can't drive y'all back to Bonaparte in that and not risk the comics.  Only got the ski.  You may have to wait it out 'ere."

His eyes broke from staring hungrily at the waffles and glanced out the window at her beckoning.  they went wide, the tint of his glasses reflecting what he was looking at.  "Woah, when'd that happen?" he asked, swallowing.  "We're gonna be okay here, right?"

"Chor!" she grunted.  She took her own seat and reached up to turn on a gas lamp.  "We may lose power though, so I 'ope ya ain't 'fraid of the dark."  She grinned at him across the table.  She had turned off all the other lights in the house by now, and the lamp overhead cast a certainly dim and romantic mood over their dinner.  The distant peal of thunder made her scales actually itch.  "Storm ain't gonn' bother dis old boat, though.  An' if ya get scared, y'all can just hold onto Bernie."

His face once again flushed, making him look even cuter in the dim lighting.  "Oh...o-okay," he muttered.  He looked away from her and back down at his plate.  He looked guilty all of a sudden.  "I never meant to impose on you like this, especially after you were just so..."

She cut him off with a rolling, hissing chuckle.  "Sweetheart, you keep thankin' me, and I'm gonn' have to think up extra ways to pay me back for all the debt you sayin' ya owe me.  You're my guest, and I intend to be a good host.  I'll make up the couch to sleep on, and y'all can have my bed.  I'm up late usually anyway."

Eddie balked at that suggestion, a bite of waffle halfway to his lips.  To her amusement, he had used powdered sugar and the maple syrup, which she also preferred, while taking a portion of fruit just to snack on as well.  "I couldn't take your bed!" he protested.  "Not only because I'm a guest but...it's too big."  He seemed to be trying to think of anything to use as an excuse.

"Too big?" she teased.

"I'd get lost in it!" he exclaimed.  "I might never be able to get back out again without help."  She saw the slightest hint of a teasing light creeping into his eyes and she loved how it looked on him.  Seeing him more confident and relaxed around her had its own merits, but she had to experiment just a little more.

"Well, I'd hate to leave y'all all alone in such a big and formidable place as my bed."  She leaned in over her meal, crossed her paws underneath her chin.  Her teeth twinkled in the light, as did her eyes.  "Ya wanna just share it then?"

All of his confidence wilted away immediately and she giggled in her thick purr, utterly satisfied by the transformation.  "I...uhh..." he stammered out.  "N-not that...I'd...be...against it but..."  There was a flash of lightning outside off in the distance, briefly illuminating them for a second, making him jump.  His scent had spiked just then.

Her eyes lit up and she put down her fork very slowly.  "Not against it huh?" she teased, showing more of her teeth.  Thunder clapped nearly overhead and the light drumming of the rain began to sound from above their heads.  It steadily got heavier and heavier as they stared into one another's eyes.  "Maybe I'm afraid of thunder and I wouldn't mind somebody to hold," she offered.  "Y'all seemed to enjoy our hug so much earlier, could I convince you on dat account then?"

Eddie met her eyes again, the flicker of the gas lamp reflected in his glasses.  He looked conflicted, nervous, excited, and eager all at once.  "W-well...I'd hate to refuse a lady's request," he ventured cautiously but unable to hide the way his eyes twinkled.  She could all but feel them shyly stray from her face and back down her throat again.  She leaned her chin against her paw, the motion drawing his eyes like magnets to the way her breasts compressed against herself and the table she was now leaning herself against.

"True gentleman," she purred, eyes hooded and sparkling again before she just chuckled.  "Well, as much fun as that'd be, why don't we finish eating first?  We can discuss what comes after...after."  She knew that if she didn't stop, she might not be able to.

Eddie almost looked relieved, as well as slightly disappointed which just made her inner predator hum, and he nodded.  He picked up the bite of waffle he had been about to eat before and popped it into his mouth.  His eyes went wide and his spare hand clenched her tablecloth hard.  He chewed very slowly, drawing it out.  At first, she was worried that he didn't like her special recipe, but then he swallowed.  If real life were closer to an anime, sunbeams might have started shining out of him.  "Oh by all that is Holy..." he breathed.  He looked down at his plate, eyes almost brimming with tears.  "Those...are the best waffles I've ever tasted."

Immediately, her tail went rigid and her whole body zinged from head to toe.  She beamed wider than she ever had before and she leaned both fists underneath her chin.  "Why, thank you very much!" she giggled.  "It's an old family secret recipe that I don't cook for just an'body."  She watched him dig in like a starving beast, content to do just that.  She wasn't entirely hungry for food, but even her over-sexed mind couldn't find anything but adorable purity in how much her guest was enjoying her cooking.  He scarfed down every bite as if he had not eaten for a week prior.  As soon as his plate was empty, she passed him her own.

He looked up at her in surprise, mouth still half-full.  "Aren't you gonna eat?" he asked, chewing furiously.

She grinned.  "Nah, I made dese for ya, and you're making my whole day with how much you seem to like 'em."  He beamed back at her and accepted the extra waffles without a second objection.  She poured him a glass of milk to go with it and he drank it gratefully.  Once he had finally cleared yet another plateful, she sighed, leaning her cheek onto her paw again and gazing at him as he cleaned up his placemat.  "Y'all too cute, you realize that?"

He blinked up at her.  "Me?"  She nodded.  He chuckled hesitantly.  "Why would you say that?"

"Because I don't remember the last time someone looked like they loved my cooking so darn much, and it makes a girl feel appreciated."

Eddie blushed and looked down at his plate.  "I appreciate everything that you've done for me so far, Bernie.  I appreciate everything...about you too."

Her eyebrow raised and a slow grin stretched her toothy muzzle.  "You do, huh?"  She stretched in front of him, deliberately trying to make her assets and muscular frame stand out all the more on the pretext of popping her back, which made her ridges and scales rattle slightly.  "Mind flattering a girl and tellin' her just which parts...specifically?"

The Human's face seemed to heat up and he chuckled.  "Not without it sounding like empty-based flattery, which it isn't," he admitted.  "I've never met a woman like you, Bernie, and I'm not entirely sure what to do or say that won't make me come across like..."

She laughed.  "Like a character out of a tall-girl Doujin?" she teased.  "Ya gonna call me Bernie-Sempai?  Y'all want me to call you Eddie-Chan to make you feel less silly?"  The Croc winked, letting him know she was joking.  He joined in with her chuckles, but he still seemed flustered.  "See, dere's only one issue with dat."  Her eyes twinkled in the gloom and he looked up at her, puzzled.  "I'm as much of a geek an' a weeb as y'all are," she rumbled.  "Did ya...happen to open my treasure chest up dere?" she asked, jerking an eye up at the ceiling.

"No, I didn't," he answered, looking as honest as possible.  "I didn't even think about it.  I'm a guest in your house and snooping wouldn't have been polite, especially after all you've done."  Another thunderclap boomed above them, but neither looked away from each other's eyes.

She stood slowly from the table and began to walk around it toward him.  "Come with me, I wanna show ya something."  She held out a paw, as she had before, and Eddie took it.  He stood up from his chair and once again they wandered up the stairs.  She used her tail to help keep him firmly behind her without getting lost, having let go of his hand to hold a lantern above her head and provide them some light.  She had the ability to see better in the dark than a Human did, but she wanted to keep the mysterious air high.  More thunder rolled and the rain hammered harder above their heads as they reached the second floor.

As they entered her room again, she handed him the lantern and gestured at the large treasure chest in front of her bed.  "Go ahead," she growled softly.  "It ain't snoopin'."  As he nervously opened the large chest, she plopped herself onto her bed, mussing up her hair slightly and trying to pose herself as sexily as possible.  It had been a while since she'd been this excited about a guy, and she'd never had such a perfect specimen for her unique tastes as him.  She grinned.  As the storm rolled on overhead, things were about to get very interesting...

***

Eddie nervously lifted the lantern above his head as his hands shakily opened the chest lid.  Row upon row of folders greeted his eyes, as did the paperback spines of what looked like several dozen manga.  He didn't recognize the covers, all of them emblazoned with a little red sticker on the top corner.  He wordlessly reached for one, pulling it gingerly out, and balanced the lantern on the chest rim so he could skim through it.  Black and white images leaped out at him immediately.

The content made his stomach jerk and his face heated up rapidly.  He kept reading.  It was written in English, but there was no doubt what kind of material he was reading.  His hands shook a bit.  It was nothing at all illegal, sick, depraved, or disturbing, but at the same time, it definitely was exactly what anyone might suspect it to be.  He shakily returned it to its fellows and, driven by a thrilling curiosity, he pulled out another.  This time, he wasn't just flustered.  He was flat-out embarrassed.  He did in fact know this one.  He looked slowly up past the chest for where Bernie had been, but she wasn't standing there anymore.

He looked around, lifting the lantern up again, book in his other hand.  The dim light fell across first a long, spined, and ridged tail, draped over the side of the bed.  His eyes followed it, up across the comforter to the huge Croc girl now laying in repose atop of it.  He gulped.  She was posing herself exactly like the main girl out of the doujin he was holding onto.  Her one visible eye sparkled beneath her mop of short red hair, her teeth catching the light of the lantern with a sinister gleam.

"Howdy," she purred sultrily.  "Find one ya liked?"

Eddie's whole body went rigid and he almost dropped both the manga and the lantern.  He shakily put the latter up onto a dresser nearby, casting the room in its dim, warm glow.  Bernadette was silhouetted on the bed, spread out as she was.  A flash of lightning came from the window behind her, making all of her exquisite, oversized details seem to jump across the room at him temporarily.  When it faded, accompanied a second or so later by another thunderous boom, he realized that the rain wasn't the only thing hammering right then.  His heart was putting it all to shame.

She held out a paw.  "Can I see which one ya picked out?" she asked sweetly.  Wordlessly, he held it out and she plucked it easily.  The book looked tiny in her palm as she flicked it open with a claw to an especially spicy scene.  "One of my favorites..." she growled.  She met his eyes again and tossed the book back away from her without a second thought, never breaking eye contact with him.  "Now, you gonn' make me wait any longer, mon cher...?"

Swallowing hard, the Human shakily began to take off his long-sleeved red jacket and dropped it at the foot of the bed.  He suspected she had very specific plans, as he levered himself up into the thick, plush mattress, aided by her tail.  He slowly and carefully reclined to lay down on his side, facing her.  The lantern light reflected off of his glasses slightly, making his eyes seem brighter as they gazed at one another.  Her lips rolled up slowly, revealing more of her teeth, and he felt a thrill, unlike anything he had ever experienced, now coursing through him.

Then, Bernie began to move.  She shifted from her relaxed position, sliding slowly more onto her belly and then levering herself up on her powerful arms.  She crawled, one paw over another, toward him.  On instinct, he began to lay flat on his back as she now loomed over him, deliberately dragging her scaly bulk against him.  Her paws supported her now as she now rose above him on her paws and knees.  Her thick tail tapped a small rhythm on the bedframe below.

Her muzzle was now barely inches from his face, her chest slowly compressing down against his own more and more and making those plush mountains firmly conforming against his slender frame.  She chuckled in that purring, hissing voice, flipping some of her hair casually up out of her face.  "Welcome to the bayou," she rumbled.  She lifted an eyebrow up, prompting him to say the line that was the only likely and fitting thing to say in this situation.  It was like a test.  Say the answer to her little riddle, and he could experience the wonders of the swamp's self-declared monarch.

He licked his lips as her musk filled his nose.  It was sweet and thick.  "Hail...to the Queen?" he prompted hopefully.

Her yellow eyes lit up with a light all their own and she lifted herself slightly up.  One paw raised and slid across the swell of her chest, now swaying once again before his eyes, and then she took a firm hold on the knot holding the shirt beneath them.  She raised an eyebrow down at him, as if teasingly asking if that was what he wanted her to do.  He nodded, more emphatically than he ever had about anything in his life.  She hissed softly, rumbling above and against him, and her claws tugged.  The shirt veritably exploded open, falling to her sides limply and releasing her monstrous proportions of scaly mammaries freely.  He gaped, mouth going dry before swimming with hunger again.  She didn't wear a bra.  He doubted that many bras in her size were even made.

At her eager, inviting eyebrow wiggle, he lifted a hand and slid it across the smooth, only slightly ridged flesh.  It was softer than he could ever have expected it to be.  A simple fold across the front earned a test squeeze and to his absolute delight, he found out she had inverted nipples.  He groaned and without any further need to prompt or invite him to do so, he used both hands and began to explore to his heart's content.  He planted his face in between their swaying masses, groaning softly and arching his body up against her.  She leaned down against him gently, careful not to use her full weight, but he desperately wanted to.  Yes.  He was a size guy.  For once, he wasn't ashamed of it.

"So eager..." she chuckled, then let out an actual gasp of surprise and delight as his mouth found a way to excite her enough and cause something to emerge from the massive orb he had been kissing all over.  He fastened onto it with a small growl of his own, testing it with nibbles and suckles in equal measure.  He heard her rumble again, his glasses sliding up over his face before she removed them for him.  Her paw slid down behind his head, cradling it and taking the pressure off his neck to hold it up.  "G-good boy..." she growled weakly.  He could feel her tail lashing from here as she pinned him in place until she was satisfied by his fervent praise and worship of her well-endowed chest.

He mumbled something up at her and when she lifted up, he didn't repeat himself.  Instead, he just transferred to the other breast and resumed what he had been doing to its sister.  He could feel her claws kneading his head through his thick hair, her muzzle pressing soft kisses to the top of his skull.  His hands left no single inch of her chest untouched, and his lips felt slightly raw already but he didn't care.  This was like one of his personal fantasies come to life.  "I love Louisiana," he mumbled through his mouthful of Croc flesh.

She laughed loudly above him.  "And I'm starting to love Canada!" she returned.  She rolled then, easily flipping them over.  He finally disengaged his mouth from her chest and lay panting atop her, looking down at her gorgeous, amused face.  He actually reached up and combed some of her hair out of her face.  To his shock, it was softer than anything he'd ever touched, her red locks utterly fluffy.  She winked up at him.  "That all you have a hankerin' for to taste?" she asked, almost sounding hopeful.  He glanced up and down her huge body, then grinned.  Her eyebrows lifted and she beamed even more as he got what she meant.

"Hell no, I want more," he gasped out.  He lifted himself up off of her and she lifted her legs, having had them firmly squeezing around his hips, and now holding them straight up.  She wiggled her claws into the hem of her shorts and began frantically tugging.  They came off with no small amount of effort from how tightly they had to stretch to fit her, and he realized another wonderful discovery as they finally slid up high enough along her thighs for her to just yank them off.  "Woah..." he whispered as he beheld her naked body.  "T-those are some...umm...lacy...tiny..."

She hissed up at him, making the whole bed vibrate.  "Ya like em?" she teased, then slid a clawed finger across the see-through, minuscule triangle of cloth in front and pulled it to the side.  "That any better?"  The view it revealed had his face heating up for a woman to so openly and vividly exposing herself completely to him.  He had never had anyone so enthusiastically been...this into being with him.

"Just...don't crush me," he chuckled, mouth feeling dry and only one source to quench his thirst in view.  He slid slowly down her, kissing every inch of her plated belly that he could, hands following close behind.  As he touched her naval, he moved his explorative fingers lower still, parting her thighs around his face and then resuming his journey every southward.  His hands cupped down and around her now bared posterior, squeezing both cheeks and marveling at the muscular and plush cushions of her bottom.

He could feel her breath amping up as his mouth slid ever closer to her groin.  And then, he was right in front of it.  He had expected it to be clear of any body hair, as the rest of her had been, but a short thick patch of fiery strands tickled his chin and cheeks.  He grinned up at her eagerly, nervously, and she returned the look with equal parts flame and hesitancy.  He breathed across the lips and she actually clenched before his eyes.  Her feet planted themselves firmly around him, just behind his shoulders, and her clawed hands wound themselves up into her sheets.  "Ready," she told him a second later, nodding down at the Human laying atop her lower body.

He took a deep breath and leaned down.  His first, tentative lick shakily brushed across her amazingly soft and velvety folds.  The flavor, texture, and scent made his head swim and her reaction was priceless.  She dropped the dominant predator act all at once, whimpering hard and biting her bottom lip so hard he saw her fangs creasing the scaly skin.  He dove in.  He wasted no time trying to build himself up to resisting how strong she felt and burned against him.  He worshipped with full fervent greed at her temple, basting her and praising her without a word or psalm wasted.  He paid full homage to the swampland Goddess and Queen.

Eddie's hands had curled up around her thighs as much as he could reach, not even fully halfway as he used the grip to virtually crush his mouth against her core.  His tongue had already gone numb and his lips burned against hers, but he didn't care.  He didn't even know that he could allow himself to stop.  Every single time he took the chance to look up, he saw his Croc writhing above him, letting out savage snarls and bubblingly cute whimpers in equal measure.  Her jaws kept snapping and clattering open and shut.  One paw had worked itself up into her red hair, clenching hard, while the other rubbed at her own breasts, tweaking her tips and working herself up more and more.  He loved that he was making her feel so good, as small as he was compared to the gigantic Crocodilian.  Then his tongue tip hit a special little nub and she nearly rocketed up off the sheets.

She started to whimper and moan out his name now as he paid special attention to that little button that had been so deeply hidden before.  She even worked her other paw down to stroke his own hair, careful not to hurt him with her claws while also making it very clear he was not to move until his task was done down here.  He didn't mind at all, in fact he just delved deeper and more greedily, using his whole mouth on her special spot now.  Her appreciation for his devotion could be heard and felt through the shuddering of her thighs around him and the literal vibrations her growls were causing in the bed.  Her paw clenched suddenly and he knew she was close.  He kept going, despite the cramp in his tongue, the exhaustion setting in, and his lack of air was starting to make his head swim.  He had to persevere.  And his persistence was rewarded.

Bernadette gave out her loudest cry yet as she clenched hard before and against him.  She hurriedly gripped his hair and pulled his face slightly up from her soaking loins, her thighs shuddering over and over and clapping shut where he had just been.  Her entire body shivered like an earthquake before she finally collapsed.  Her panting breath filled the room and her hair was a mess over her face, obscuring most of it.  He drew in heavy, shuddering gasps for air, leaning back when she released her hold on his hair.  He was feeling light-headed.  He licked his lips, savoring her taste on his tongue.

One of her eyes cracked open through her hair and she slowly but surely smiled.  It was a full-toothed grin.  Her claw swept the bangs up out of her face and she beamed up at him.  "Wow..." she groaned.  "Damn, sweetie, ya really did a number on me...Count this Bayou Queen impressed!"

He grinned back down at her.  "You...don't know how good that makes me feel..."

Her eyes gleamed.  "I think I do..." she growled, licking her own lips.  "Because I intend to show you something even better."  Her thighs opened wide again in an invitation and she reclined fully on the bed before him.  When he moved, without pausing, to return to where he was, her tail stopped him.  She actually laughed.  "Eddie," she chuckled.  "That ain't what I mean, but I applaud y'all's enthusiasm!"

He blinked in surprise.  Then he got it.  "Oh!" he blushed, smiling despite his foolishness.  His fingers wormed slowly into the collar of his sweat-stained shirt and he tentatively pulled it slightly up, as if asking if this was what she meant.  She growled heavily, nodding.  He wasted no further time in extricating himself from his constrictive, long-sleeved shirt, and then began working on doing the same with his pants.  In short order, he was wearing just his boxers and he quickly slid back up along her body to now lay entirely atop of her.  His feet barely reached her knees like this, with their faces once again now barely a few inches away from one another.

Her big paw lifted and brushed his soft hair, stroking his cheek, and then teasing his skin with the tips of her claws.  "So sensitive..." she breathed, noticing the dull, red lines that her prodding caused.  "I gotta be careful not to hurt ya..."  She grinned.  "Never had a boyfriend so much smaller than me."

"Boyfriend?" he asked, voice cracking from its hopeful enthusiasm.

"What else would I call you?" she chuckled, teasingly leaning up and kissing his lips.  She leaned back down.  "I'd say ya taste good, but that'd be a bit narcissistic."

Eddie grinned.  "You could...just as easily call me slave, servant, pet..."

Her paws closed in around his slender, smooth-skinned body and held him to her naked, scale-covered one.  "I think I'd rather call ya...mine," she breathed.  His eyes brimmed with sudden happy tears and she kissed each and every one of them away.  Her lips might have been covered in scales but they were so soft and supple.  Her teeth would nip occasionally at his cheek or lip, and she then pushed his chin to the side to lick all over his throat.  He shuddered hard against her as she leaned him slowly further and further back.  He felt her rising with him as that teasing hot tongue kept exploring more and more.

Suddenly, he felt her lifting up completely and he nearly fell backward before she caught him, holding him up with incredible ease.  His legs gripped at her ribs as she nosed all over his belly and then down across the front of his boxers.  She met his eyes as her teeth hooked the thin fabric, careful not to nick him, and pulled.  He expected the cloth to just shred and rip beneath the power of her jaws, but instead, she just worried him out of them with the tiniest, most gentle of tuggings.  She divested him of them completely, leaving him now held entirely up in her paws, naked, and vulnerable.  She inspected him up and down, eyes sparkling.

"S-sorry," he muttered as his self-conscious side began to show suddenly.  He knew he wasn't the most built, or the most in shape.  He was skinny, but his stomach had a bit of fluff to it, and he had quite a bit of body hair that he wasn't a fan of.  Even the musculature in his arms wasn't from lifting but just from basic everyday activity and very...active nightlife that mostly involved Google's Incognito mode and a lot of self-hate.  "I know it's not much...to look at."

Bernie's eyes glowed again.  "Never apologize to me for perfection," she growled up at him.  "I got a type, sweetie.  Insult it again and I'll think you're kink-shaming me."

His eyes went wide down at her as she pressed her muzzle hard up against his proudly standing tower, breathing a hot breath over the admittedly trimmed base.  Her lips were hot and wet against his balls, and she nuzzled her scaly nose against his predominant vein on the underside of the shaft.  "K-kink?" he asked shyly.

"Eddie," she grinned.  "What kind of manga did ya see in dat dere chest?"  His eyes flicked toward it and back to her.  "That's my kink."

"S-smaller Japanese guys?" he tried to tease her, but then jerked at her growl.  Once again, he realized that being slightly afraid of her just made his arousal more intense, as he pulsed before her eyes.

"Smaller.  Guys.  In general."  She enunciated each and every word.  "And compared to me, ya are absolutely tiny.  I love it..."  She growled again, this time more sultrily, and her nose kept rubbing against him.  "But, because of reality bein' what it is, we have to take this easy for the first time."  She began to lift him back up to sit straight and then lower him along her body again.  She plopped him into her lap, his arms firmly around her bulky shoulders.  "How first then?"

Eddie blushed in front of her but he ventured a hesitant smile.  "We could...like we were before?" he asked.  "Me on top?"

Bernie's face lit up.  "Sounds great, mon cher."  She noticed him shiver when she said that and she arched an eyebrow even as she began to recline back onto the sheets, letting his legs free from around her ribs and letting him slide back down her into position between her thighs.  Both of their breaths caught as they lined one another up.  "Y'all like when I speak French?" she teased, biting her lower lip hard as he tried to get the angle right, pushing experimentally at her admittedly crushingly tight entrance.

"A-always have," he admitted, trying not to lose his composure or seem too eager as he kept brushing against her.  Finally, he felt some purchase, helped along by her paw sliding down to spread herself wider.  His head caught and they shared a gasping breath in preparation.  "Ready?" he asked, both to make sure for her consent as well as announce just how ready he himself was.

She nodded.  "Bébé, I've been ready since I saw you at my door."  He blinked in surprise and she looked away from him, scratching at her cheek with a claw.  She actually looked...embarrassed?!  He gaped.  She glared at him a second later.  "It's not every day that the perfect, most adorable guy shows up at my doorstep, shares my interests, and is as scared of me as he is turned on."

It was his turn to blush and look away.  "You could tell...?" he asked.

She ground herself up against him, and the friction served to make him slide slowly further inside of her, passing the bell end and eliciting a gasp from them in surprised and joyful relief.  "I was only staring at it...all...day..." she breathed, huffing through her sharp teeth.  "Now...can we stop talking about it and actually use it the way I've been fantasizin' about all dang day?"

He met her eyes again and they shared a smile.  "Okay...Bernie..." he whispered and her clawed paws cupped his entire head gently, stroking his hair and cheeks before he took a firm stance and pushed.  His entire length slid into her at once, sealing them together.  She was hot, and tight, and he almost lost his head as she clenched around him fully for the first time.  He shuddered hard, abdomen and loins sharing in that muscular spasm at the incredible sensation.  Her claws released his head immediately and she flopped her own back onto her pillows.  She pulled him down against her warm belly, hugging him to her hard as they adapted to one another's shape and heat.

After a long minute or so of just savoring being together as they were, the Croc finally let him up from her crushing embrace.  She nodded once.  He rose slightly up, hands taking a tight grip on the sheets around her belly, and then he began to move.  He started slow, still getting used to the way she shifted and coiled around his shape inside of her.  It was unlike any Human girl he had been lucky enough to get this far with in the past.  He'd even gotten lucky once at a Convention with a Fox woman, but that had been a one-time thing.  None of it at all compared to the perfection of his first time with Bernadette the Queen of the Bayou.

He soon lost himself in the rhythm of his hips, rising and falling over and over, his slender hips actually clapping against her scaly groin.  She responded to every single one it seemed, panting with the motions and genuinely and eagerly arching into them every time.  He at first worried that he wasn't big enough for her, but she seemed to be enjoying it so much that he quickly reassured himself he was worried about nothing.  He couldn't even think about how long they had even been going at it like this.  They might have just started, or been at it for at least thirty minutes.  It was explosive and hot, warm and comforting.  He'd never had this kind of connection with another person before.

For her part, Bernie was in ecstasy.  True, she had toys that were bigger than Eddie, but it was the real flesh and blood embodiment of her fetish suddenly brought to life that far surpassed any private, all-night play session from the past.  She had been known for years as a man-eater, eagerly bedding any man who wasn't too terrified of her to try, but she had never enjoyed herself as vigorously as she was right now, and she never wanted anything more from those men than a one-night of passion since she was such a homebody and introvert.  Eddie was gentle but eager, combining speed and passion with a true lover's dedication to making sure they both enjoyed it as much as possible.  It was almost like he was worried about overdoing it for her sake and that just made her love him all the more.  She adored the shape of him as well, but she'd always had a soft spot for a human's equipment.  Every pulse, every inch, all of it was sheer perfection to her.  Her paws ran up and down his body again and again.  Outside, the storm continued to rage.

They switched it up like that for a long while.  He stayed atop of her since she was terrified that if she got on top that she might overdo it and crush him, but he seemed more than happy to maintain control of their mating.  Sometimes he would sit straight up, gripping onto her thighs for support, or letting her tail hold him up.  That always seemed to make him incredibly energetic and smile the widest, feeling her thick, armored limb coiled against his back even as his hips bucked down into her over and over again.  At other times, he would again lay flat on her belly again, head buried in her cleavage, and those were the instances where he achieved his fastest speeds and deepest plunges.  Eddie could truly get into his stride like that, and she had no need or wish to disturb him during those glorious periods of thrusts and pulls.

Their energy seemed bottomless, but his endurance was not.  He might have kept up like that for hours more, but the overload of pleasure and sensation was, at last, reaching its breaking point.  He was currently laying against her once again when the urge began to build, stronger than any other point before in his life.  He stiffened, panting harder for breath and clinging to her.  "Bernie..." he groaned.

Currently, in the throes of yet another orgasm, the Croc at first didn't even realize he was speaking.  When he whined again, she finally lifted her head, clenching her teeth.  "What's the matter mon amour?" she panted rapidly.  "Are ya okay?"  She picked up then exactly what the situation was by a sudden, firm pulse as he was forced to stop at its intensity.  He swelled thicker inside of her in preparation for the final stretch and her eyes went wide.  "Oh!" she grunted, then she beamed.  "Oh!  Don't worry 'bout pullin' out, you just stay where you are!  What do ya need baby?  What can I do?"

"Just...don't...move?" he asked, then stiffened his legs and actually lifted up, gripping her hips in an attempt to lift them as well.  She happily did it for him, using her tail to support herself as she elevated her hips just enough so that he could balance atop of them, her legs now straight up in the air as he held onto them.  And that was when he truly started to hammer down into her.  Her whole body shook and shuddered at his frenzied pace and she braced herself with her paws against the headboard, claws gouging new grooves into the wood.  He was even deeper like this...

Eddie came, hard, going as deep as he could reach and letting out a dominant if also loving cry of triumph.  Each swelling pulse filled her with the fruits of their combined labor, and she felt every single one.  Her chest rumbled harder and deeper than it ever had, making the whole room echo with the vibrations of her victorious snarl.  Her legs and body shook as he kept going until he finally tapered off.  He sagged against her, gasping.  She let herself back down none-too-steadily and he collapsed atop of her, head supported by the pillows of her prodigious bosom.

Her paw stroked his hair as they gasped together for breath, him more heavily than her but both of them thoroughly and utterly satisfied.  "Eddie..." she whispered in rapture.  "Good boy...very good job...you were incredible, mon cher."

"R-really...?" he panted up at her, still gasping for air.  "Y-you...?"

She met his eyes.  Both of their heads of hair were completely thrown into mop-like birdnests.  "Hell yes," she growled.  "I'd pull you up and kiss ya if I didn't want ya to stay exactly where ya are...I don't wanna waste a single drop right now..."  She clenched firmly, dominantly around him and he whimpered.  "Sorry..." she chuckled, not sorry at all.  "But that's mine now."

"Okay..." he whined.  His arms wound around her as much as he could.  As they shifted against one another a second or so later, he abruptly hissed at a flare of pain registered through his sex-haze.  "Ow..." he muttered.

"What's wrong?" she asked, blinking away her own stupor as he had to sit back.

The more he went, the more hot and irritated the flares got.  "It's my hips..." he muttered.  "I...gotta pull out okay?"

She whined but nodded.  Both gave a groan as he slid free and then he sat back, wincing.  She sat up and eyed him.  Her eyes went wide in surprise and worry.  "Good lord, mon amour, your legs..."  She felt a surge of embarrassment and guilt.  His poor thighs and hips were chafed red and looked quite raw from rubbing against her scales.  She hadn't thought about that.  The constant rough friction had rubbed them thoroughly.  He was actually missing all the previous leg hair that had been there around his thighs.

He inspected them himself, eyes wide.  "Woah...talk about scale-burn."  He looked up at her and actually grinned.  "It doesn't hurt too bad," he assured her, which neither of them truly believed.  "It looks worse than it feels."

Bernie groaned and sat up slowly.  Her whole body was tingly.  "Next time, we can put some pads between my thighs and yours," she promised.  "Or...just less of the back and forth, more of the up down."  Her eyes sparkled.

His went wide.  "N-next time?" he asked worriedly, actually gulping.

The Croc cackled.  "Not right now, Eddie," she promised.  "Some soothing oils, a nice massage, and a soak.  Then we can try again later.  That okay?"

He breathed a sigh of relief.  "Oh, yeah that sounds wonderful.  I thought you meant..."

She giggled and leaned down to lick his cheek.  "I'd love to, but I wouldn't dream of making those worse than they are.  Not unless you had it in you and even then..."  She pondered it and him.  "You don't want to again do ya?"

His face heated up before her eyes and he looked away.  "I-it's not that I don't..." he started to say.  His lower limb surged back to life slowly before her eyes and he shivered.  "I've...gone all night sometimes before by myself."

Her growl once again softly filled the room and he glanced back up at her in both equal parts worry and eagerness.  "Say no more..." she breathed and used her tail to shove him back onto his back.  She rose up, straddling him and then rising up more to actually squat.  Her feet were planted firmly around him and she leaned her paws on her knees as she stared down at the tiny Human now trapped beneath her.  "If you really aren't too sore, and ya want to, Bernie your Bayou Queen will take over for round 2."

"A-after that though..." he whimpered up at her, taking firm grips on the comforter.  She padded his hips up with pillows to get the angle and support right.  "M-maybe just some cuddling?"

"Cuddles," she agreed, found the proper position, and mounted up.  She gave another savage snarl and then reached down to suddenly grab his legs in her paws, hiking them up and now holding his body mostly up off the bed while keeping him firmly buried inside her.  Her tail shoved pillows underneath his shoulders and neck as he squeaked beneath her.  "For now...I've always wanted to try it in Amazon."  She snarled down at her prey.  "Now pet...squeal for your Bayou Queen."

His eyes went wide and he held onto the pillows and tail beneath him.  "Hail to the Queen..." he muttered yet again.  The storm rolled on for hours.  And so did they.

***

Four days passed at Bernie's boathouse.  The entire first night had been furious, frenzied, and passionate.  Even those words failed to accurately describe their antics.  After that, they had collapsed together into an exhausted stupor that lasted through the night and into the following dawn.  Eddie and Bernie were not just incredibly compatible lovers, but also well-matched friends.  They shared the same love of comics, video games, books, and of course romantic endeavors.  Not just in the bedroom but they also were constantly surprising one another with little gestures of fondness and affection, as though they had been together for years.  One of them would often sneak up behind the other to plant a kiss, give a loving hug, or, mostly on Bernie's end, a playful grope.  Things often escalated from there.  She had not only brought his fantasies to life, and he hers, but they had discovered new ones together.  He had a very dirty mind, hidden behind his shyness only needing an acceptable outlet, and she meanwhile had an endless taste for experimentation so long as it caused no harm and wasn't too much.  They'd found one another's limits through long, snuggling talks at night, and they had lots of new passions and ways to play.

Eddie could not remember a happier time in his life, nor a more physically exhausting one, but as his allotted spare time away from home and work was coming to an end, he couldn't help but become a little depressed.  Bernie noticed and tried to cheer him up, but even she knew that this had to eventually end.  They sometimes just spent hours holding one another, staring out across the Bayou from her porch or living room.  One such evening, the morning after which he had to truly start getting back on the road home to Canada, they were curled up in a padded patio chair together, neither wearing anything and a shawl draped over their bodies.

He sniffed.  Bernie noticed immediately, arms tightening around him.  "I don't want ya to leave either," she muttered.  He nodded.  "I'd come with ya if I could," she growled.  He nodded again, burying his face in her scaly chest.  She sighed hard and crushed him to her harder.  She had discovered that he was much more resilient than she had given him credit for at first.  She really had given it a lot of thought.  "It's cold up there in Canada...isn't it?" she asked.

"It gets like that easily, yeah," he breathed against her collarbone.

She grimaced.  "I ain't a fan o' the cold..." she sighed.  "Get too lethargic and slow.  Plus, I know nobody there..."

"And I don't know anybody but you down here.  The heat is so...much too."

She nodded.  "It takes it out of ya, if ya ain't used to it."  She kissed the top of his head.  She felt horribly selfish as she asked, "But...you could get used to it...eventually?"

He stiffened a bit and he looked up at her.  His eyes were uncertain.  "You mean...move down here?" he asked.  "With you?"

She rolled her eyes, stroking his naked back with her paw.  "Chor with me, who else ya planning on bedding with?  Tell me dere name, I'll eat em."  They chuckled together.  He actually seemed to think about it, but a thought came to her then, dispelling the joy of his actual deliberation.  "But...all yer family is up North.  I couldn't ask ya to leave em all just for me."

He looked into her eyes.  He became sad and distant.  "There's...still so much I have to do..." he admitted.  "My job, even if it isn't great...and yeah, my family.  They wouldn't understand if I just decided to move down here permanently.  I also wanna be there for Hazel, be her Uncle."  He paused, then spoke up with an excited, "We could..." but he immediately seemed to lose his confidence even as he spoke.

She nudged him with her nose.  "Could what, mon amour?"

"We could...make a habit of visiting each other?" he asked, a spark of hope lighting his eyes back up.  "Talk online, maybe play games?"

She pondered that idea.  "I'm...not saying that I don't like it," she spoke slowly.  "But...I'd get lonely without ya being around.  It'd need to be so often that...neither of us could afford it."

He nodded.  He sank his head back down against her chest and they settled into a sad, almost nostalgic silence.  Her paw kept him pressed against her and his hands rubbed up and down her flank.  "Just...don't forget about me?" he asked, voice sounding tight, emotional, and quavering with the threat of tears.

She clutched him harder to her.  "Eddie, I could never forget ya..."  She assured him.  She kissed his hair again.  "We will make it work."  She looked out across the water as he sighed sleepily against her.  "We will make it work..." she breathed.

***

The tugboat's whistle gave a test pull as Captain checked all of his instruments one more time.  "Chor'nuff," he rasped.  "Ready ta go."  He looked down from his nest at the top of the boat.  Eddie waved from the docks, acknowledging the old Lynx.

"Be ready in a second," he shouted back, and Captain nodded patiently.  He turned to look back up at Bernie.  She had insisted on driving him back herself on her monster jetski and standing next to him the whole while.  She had an actual coat on over her bulky shoulders, wearing a belly-length sleeveless shirt with a heavy metal band logo on it, and cut-off pants.  She still had not put on shoes, her leathery soles not needing them apparently.  He met her eyes, smiling through his budding tears.  "You have my contact info?" he asked for the seventh time that day.

She nodded, face downcast.  "Oui," was all she would say.  Her paw reached up and stroked his cheek.  Onlookers who actually knew of her were surprised, to say the least.  Joe and Martha were there as well, having come down from the diner and been talking to Captain earlier.  They watched the emotional exchange between the Croc and Human with wide, marveling eyes.  "You gonn' text me and email as much as possible, yeah?"

"As much and as often as I possibly can," he promised.  He hoisted the pack on his shoulder up higher, making the multiple comics in it jostle slightly.  He looked imploringly into her eyes once more.  "Bernie...I..."

She put a finger over his lips, kneeling down so their faces were on the same level.  "Ya don't need to say goodbye, Eddie," she growled softly.  "Cuz' this ain't dat.  I'll see ya again, sooner than you think."  She smiled, showing all of her teeth.  "So don't you go off and start usin' those moves I taught ya on any Canada gals."

He chuckled, wiping at his own eye to stymie a tear that threatened to leak out.  "Promise.  I'm yours."  He leaned his forehead against hers, shuddering as he felt her return the pressure.

"Mine," she snarled under her breath.  She kissed his forehead once then.  "Go on, then.  Before I ruin my reputation as a Bayou Queen and start bawlin'."

He kissed hers in return and she stood back up to her full height.  He turned and walked over the docks and onto the barge.  He turned around once more and waved, which she returned.  "Hail to the Queen!" he yelled.

She bit her bottom lip.  As the Tugboat's whistle blasted once more and Captain Duke slowly pulled it out of the Bonaparte harbor, quickly becoming lost in the thick, ever-present fog, Bernadette, the terror of the swampland, let a shiver go down her spine.  "I'll see ya soon...mon amour, my Northern King."

A warm presence came to her then and she didn't need to look to know that Martha Drifter was standing at her side.  The matronly woman hugged her around the shoulder, having to reach up to do so.  "You and he are really serious, aren't you?" she asked softly.  Bernie nodded.  The Collie mother met her eyes and she grinned.  "When were those tickets good for again?"

The Croc grinned, dispelling her worries and sadness.  She had always loved Martha and Joe.  She saw the Mastiff giant nod at her solemnly in approval.  "Two weeks," she muttered.  She patted her coat pocket.

"And you're really moving up there?" Martha asked.  She sounded emotional too.  Bernie didn't need to answer.  Her intention was obvious from the grim but determined line of her jaw.  "What'll you do about your house?"

"Selling it," she responded.  "It's a house.  Home just left on dat barge.  I'll find it again."

"And all your stuff?"

"Putting it into storage.  Or selling it.  The stuff I want to keep most I'll find a way to take with me or have shipped.  Canada's supposed to be great."

Martha and Joe traded a look.  "You always were a sweet girl," the Collie chuckled emotionally.  "Just let us know how we can help.  My advice, though, on something this big?  Don't make it a surprise."  She winked.

Bernie nodded.  Two weeks.  She only had to wait two weeks.  This specific trip was just for a visit, but she had made up her mind.  Home was where the heart was, and her heart was on his way back to Canada.  She lived alone, she had no close family, just an inheritance she had spent thus far on frivolous things, and she had plenty left in savings.  She would find a new home.  What was a little cold when her nights had been warmer lately than they had ever been?

Her phone buzzed with a message and she opened it up.  It was from Eddie.

"I miss you already."

She smiled.  'Not for long you won't,' she thought.

Two weeks.

THE END