Nobody ever really visits the City Zoo in the dead of Winter, especially not when there's still a good two inches of white "partly cloudy" on the ground from the past weekend's mis-forecast snowstorm. As usual, though, the groundskeepers had dutifully cleaned off all the roads and pathways and the sun had finally decided to poke its shiny head through the gloom. In fact, if not for the snowdrifts and the occasional twenty degree breeze, it might almost be mistaken for a Spring afternoon. To my way of thinking, this was the best time to visit the Zoo. No crowds, no school tours, no smelly summer heat. Just a nice place for a leisurely walk and quiet contemplation.
Most of the animals tended to stay in their caves or buildings or what have you but every once in awhile you'd catch one or two adventurous ones braving the Winter chill. I particularly loved the big cats so I was intrigued to find a male white tiger circling a female orange tiger in what appeared to be an out of season mating ritual. As I leaned on the rock formation that ringed the tiger pit, I watched in fascination as the sturdy male mounted the female from behind and she growled in...what was it? Pain? Pleasure? Suddenly, my concentration was broken when I realized there was a young woman wearing glasses standing right next to me, equally entranced.
"Oh, hi," I said surprised.
"Hello, " she answered without looking up at me. She was about a head shorter than me and looked like a teenager. She was wearing a white knit cap with dyed blonde hair poking out around the edges and a ragged looking pinkish cloth coat that probably used to be red.
"It's uhhh...interesting to watch, isn't it?"
"Yep."
"I feel like a bit of a voyeur, though." I laughed.
She kept her eyes glued to the cats but said, "It's a natural thing. Humans could take a lesson from animals. When they want to have sex, they just have sex. No angst. No jealousy. No soul-searching. They just fuck. Sex is the one constant that drives all creatures."
I was a bit surprised to hear the "F" word. I was even more surprised to find just the sound of it stirring me a little. She still hadn't looked in my direction but now I took a good look at her face. If you were to look up the word "cute" in Webster's, it would undoubtedly show her picture. There's no other way to describe her. I couldn't help laughing out loud a bit at her philosophy, though.
"What?" she asked, sounding somewhat indignant.
"It's just that...well, sex isn't everything. I mean...you make it sound like it's the only thing that really counts. What are you, sixteen? What do you know about sex anyway?"
"Wanna fuck?"
"What did you just say, young lady?"
"Look, I'm twenty-one, not sixteen. Fuck me and I'll show you what I know about sex." It sounded like a challenge.
"Oh, come on! I am old enough to be your...well...father."
"I've had older!"
During all of this we both kept watching the tigers consummate their act, ending with the female growling what seemed to be a most painful final growl. "Look, we don't even know each other's names." No response. "Mine's Roger Clark."
"Names have power, you know." She said softly after a long silence.
"What?"
"If someone knows your real name, it gives them power over you. It's like they're in your space. They can hurt you."
She finally turned to look at me but I felt as though she were sizing me up, trying to decide if I was worthy of knowing her name. This was a little too much for me and I turned and started to walk away. "Excuse me. I wish I could say it's been nice talking to you but..."
She suddenly burst out with "Hey! Don't walk away from me, asshole!"
"Now you look here, if you're a working girl, I'm not interested. If you're just another run-of-the- mill lunatic..."
"I am not a whore! And besides, the world needs more lunatics! Keeps life sane, oddly enough, y'know?"
"I'm out of here. Bye!"
"Tiger!" she yelled out.
I stopped and turned around. "Hmmmm?"
"My name...One of my names... is 'Tiger'."
Surprisingly, she smiled a sweet, innocent smile and her face seemed to start glowing. I smiled back. "What a coincidence," I said, nodding toward the tigers in the pit. The big white cat had pulled away and both animals sat next to each other grooming themselves. Then the female arose and walked away from her consort into a cave in the formation without even looking back. "Why do you call yourself that?"
She giggled that little girl giggle that young women sometimes still have. "I'm freezing. Buy me lunch in some place with heat and I'll tell you...well, maybe."
Although my first instinct was to get the hell away as quickly as possible, I surprised myself and, I think her by calmly saying, "Deal!" I was nearly fifty and four years without any woman in my life at all. Now here I was agreeing to a meal with a very strange, very aggravating, very young lady. Her smile had won me over but I had never met anyone that set off so many warning bells in my life. As we walked down the hill toward the zoo restaurant, she unexpectedly put her arm in mine and I could feel an erection coming on.
"Who's buying?" she asked.
"I am," I answered. Affecting a haughty stance, I continued, "A true gentleman always pays for a lady."
"I love it!" she laughed. "That is SO old fashioned! I guess I've never met any 'true gentlemen' then 'cause it was always Dutch, y'know? "'Cept when my guys would just stick me with the bill all together!"
The restaurant was empty when we got there. At first it seemed as if it were closed, in fact, but finally someone heard the creaking door and came and seated us off in a secluded corner. My companion took off her hat and coat and lay them on the seat next to her in the booth, then fluffed her short, bouncy hair.
"Aaaah, warmth!" she sighed, rubbing her hands together.
"So...if you're not a working girl, what DO you do?"
This time, she did the haughty voice. "I? I am...between engagements!" We both laughed.
"Translation being you're unemployed?"
"Yeah. Up until last month I was workin' at a shoe store out at the Mall but the bosses were all fucked up. I believe in saying what I mean and telling the truth as I see it, y'know? They couldn't stand that kind of honesty."
"Something happen?"
"Weeellll...This rich bitch was trying on a hundred dollar pair of shoes and she asked my opinion of 'em. What was I supposed to do? Lie to her? I told her they were el cheapo crap that we jacked up the price on and she could probably get the same stuff at ValueBarn for 20 bucks but it didn't really matter 'cause they were ugly as shit and didn't do a damn thing to disguise the fact that her legs were even uglier!"
We both laughed uproariously for a full minute before I asked, "How long before you were...?"
"'Bout five minutes after that. There was screaming and yelling and I think the bitch slugged my boss with her purse. I went home and cried for an hour 'cause I can't be any other way but honest."
"So where is home?"
"Right now, wherever I'm at any given time."
"So...you're homeless?"
"I get by."
"How could you afford to come to the zoo?"
"Don't be silly!" she admonished with another bright smile. "There's a good-sized hole over on the Crest Street fence toward the back parking lot. Been there for years but most people don't see it 'cause it's hidden by a big ol' bush."
"Let me get this straight. You...broke into the Zoo?"
"Hell, yeah! Hey, it's better than a giraffe breakin' out and taking a bus downtown, ain't it?"
I shook my head and she grinned from ear to ear. The waitress came by and took our orders. She asked what she could get for me and my "daughter." Tiger only ordered a salad and some fries.
"Vegetarian?" I asked.
"Not really. I eat what I can get. It just seems kind of disrespectful to eat any kind of animal product in a zoo."
"So...why 'Tiger'?"
She looked around furtively, then, assured that no one was looking, she stood up, turned her back to me and pulled her shirt up to her neck. I didn't even have time to be amazed at this unexpected action because the sight of her back instantly overwhelmed me. Stripes! She had about a dozen or so big black stripes tattooed across her back! Tiger stripes, complete with a light orange haze around the edges of most of them. "Wh...what in the w...world...?" I stammered.
"The first guy I ever made out with was a tattoo artist and I asked him to give me a tattoo to commemorate the event. He wasn't very good, though, so he tattooed that little stripe toward the middle. I got so mad at him that I was gone the next day. Next time I had sex, though, I still wanted a souvenir so I decided I would get a stripe for every man I fucked. Then I could be 'Tiger' like the cats I loved all my life. I fuck when I want to, then I'm gone without looking back."
I was stunned to say the very least. "Say something, "she said as she pulled down her shirt and sat back down in the booth.
"I'm trying hard to think of something that won't make me sound like an old fart, here." About that time, our food arrived and we ate in silence for long minutes. I couldn't take my eyes off of this lovely young thing but I kept counting those stripes in my mind. Finally I said, "Look, you already seem to have...well, more stripes than you probably should at your age and you're gonna have those the rest of your life! I mean..."
"Like I said, souvenirs. Each one represents someone who was very intimate with me for a certain amount of time."
"Yeah, about an hour, maybe. I'm sorry but intimacy has nothing...and I mean NOTHING...to do with physical contact! Young lady, I..." Suddenly, I froze. She stared quietly. "Jeez, I did it," I said eventually with a little snicker.
"What are you talking about."
"At some point in this conversation, in spite of my best efforts, I became my father."
Tiger laughed and so did I.
"I am so sorry. It's not my place to be judgmental on somebody I don't even know and it's not like me, either. It's just that it comes across as sad."
"Not to me. It's my body and I do what I want with it, then decorate it any way I want. I hope to someday have stripes tattooed all around my arms and legs, too."
"Jeez...How do you afford these tattoos?"
"Sometimes, I ask the guys to pay, other times I can get a tat artist to do one for a BJ."
"Then, who pays for his stripe?"
"Don't be silly, you don't get a stripe for just a BJ. Only for real sex. Nobody counts blowjobs or handjobs."
"It's oral sex, correct? Oral SEX? If the word sex comes after it, I would consider that as a legitimate form of, oh, I don't know...sex! What about anal? "
"Hell, no. Anal sex is NOT sex and does not get a stripe! I've only done it a couple times when the guy didn't have a condom and we were too far gone to stop but it's not sex. Sex is supposed to feel good. Anal sex hurts like fire! Damn! I don't even like to think about it!"
"I see. You've got bodily penetration and, I assume he climaxed?"
"Right up the 'old dirt road.'"
"But you don't count that?"
"Look, these are MY rules, okay? My definitions! Sex is when a guy holds me and kisses me and makes me all wet and gooey down there, then slides his cock into my pussy until he comes. End of definition." Silence returned for a few minutes as we continued eating.
"So..." she eventually said between bites, "You gonna fuck me?"
"Will you stop that? I can't just do things like that. You don't know a single thing about me."
"Okay, what's your favorite color?"
