Nina

Posted by PK on August 23, 2007 at 17:48:01:

"Wimp," was Nina's opinion.

Alice looked up from her book, guiltily. She had been perusing pages depicting women being
swallowed alive by snakes. Her wicked stepmother had peered over her shoulder before
delivering this pithy comment. Interrupting her innocent joys. Grown ups were such a pain. She
should never have left the bedroom door open so Nina could creep up and spy on her like that.

She slammed the book shut. "I don't know what you mean," she tried to snarl. She didn't do it
very well.

"You call that being eaten? Slipped down the throat of a Disneyfied serpent? Silly child. What will
we do with you?"

"Oh, like you've got a better idea right?" Alice huffed.

"Yes, you'll understand when you're older."

Bait, irresistible to a teenager. Nina knew it.

"I want to know now." Alice knew perfectly well she was taking the bait, but she couldn't let Nina
get away with bluffing her.

"I'd want to be torn apart," Nina said. "Bloodily. I'd want to have my sweet, soft belly ripped open
and my steaming entrails devoured before my eyes. I'd want to have my juicy breasts torn off by
sharp, slavering teeth and gulped down with lots of wet, slurpy guzzling noises. I'd want to have
big, meaty bites taken out of my lean, lithe inner thighs. I'd want to hear my ribs and the bones in
my feet crackle as they're being crunched up. THAT's being eaten."

"Oh, wow," Alice said, awed despite herself, not to mention slightly shocked. "I mean, yuck..."

"Just the real world, child," Nina said in that infuriatingly superior way she had.

"I am NOT a child," Alice retorted indignantly. "I'm of legal age..."

Her stepmother was only ten years older than she was but, somehow, she felt about ten years old
when she talked to her, which she did as rarely as possible.

"My error," Nina said without a hint of apology in her voice, "It must have been the powder blue
pyjamas with the pink bunnies on that fooled me."

There was no point trying to engage her Evil Stepmother in a battle of wits, Alice accepted. She
could never win. She opted for honesty, the last refuge of the hopelessly outclassed.

"I just don't think getting crunched sounds all that sexy," she admitted. "If I were getting eaten I'd
like it slow and sensual."

"Ah," Nina said, "but if you were licked all over first....?"

"Licked?" Alice wondered, "Licked where? By what?"

"A tiger?" Nina suggested. She ruffled Alice's curly blonde hair and murmured seductively into
her ear, hands on her slender shouders. "A big, bold, male tiger who just wants to...."

"What?" Alice said, trembling.

"Why, give you a good time, of course," Nina said briskly. She gave Alice's ear a fleeting kiss.
"Sweet dreams," she said and departed.

The conversation left Alice feeling discomfited, as conversations with Nina usually did. She had
almost given up asking herself again and again why Father had married her after her own mother
had been eaten by a crocodile on one of Father's Amazonian expeditions, or so he said. It was
blatantly obvious. Nina was a Femme Fatale, with a capital sex. She was Linda Fiorentino in The
Last Seduction, wearing a black basque borrowed from Diana Rigg. Morgan La Fey, the Queen
of Air and Darkness. The Big Bad Wolf. The three bears.

"And I'm bloody Goldilocks," she muttered pettishly. Eventually she went to sleep. She dreamed
fitfully of bears, wolves and tigers. There was the odd White Rabbit in there, screaming "It's too
late", and she tried to ignore it. She woke with moisture between her legs and a fading memory of
somebody whispering in her ear.

"Bacon and eggs okay?" Nina asked as Alice came down for breakfast. The Black Queen was
wearing a disturbingly normal bathrobe of some satin material that covered her quite decently
except when she moved. Every motion of her body made the innocent garment reveal her
curvature. It must have been designed to do that, Alice decided. She leans down just a bit and
her breasts sway forward just enough that you can see the waves in the fabric...

And if I were a man I suppose I'd want to tear it off and fuck her on the table.

"Bacon and eggs sounds good," Alice mumbled.

"Toast and marmalade?"

Alice accepted as gracefully as she could. Was it only her imagination that suggested tiger
stripes on the chunky orange marmalade spread on slightly overdone toast?

"Darjeeling?" Nina offered negligently.

Alice glanced at her suspiciously. Couldn't she have offered Lapsang Souchong or the Earl
Grey? Nina's brown, gold-flecked eyes were inscrutable, superficially innocent, but in the depths
was there something more? Was that a hint of a smile? She looks as if she'd like to have ME for
breakfast, Alice thought. "Fine," she mumbled.

"Still dreaming of tigers?"

"I was NOT!" Alice protested angrily.

"How about a trip to the zoo?"

"Tony's Tigers?" Alice said incredulously. "You've got to be kidding." She couldn't believe she'd
let Nina talk her into this.

"Not at all," Nina said. "This is where you go for oral sex with a carnivore. Unless, of course, you'd
prefer Andy's Anteaters."

"You just made that up," Alice accused.

Nina smiled. "You have no idea what an anteater can do with its tongue."

Alice shook her head in exasperation. "Okay, how is this supposed to work?"

"You buy a ticket and get in a booth. They let the tiger in and it licks you. Very nicely, they've
been well trained. They can do foreplay too, starting at the toes."

"And it's safe? They won't....." Alice blushed and broke off.

"Devour you?" Nina's smile widened. "No. Well, not usually." She paused, observing Alice's
expression and savouring it for a moment. "It does happen sometimes."

"How often?"

"About once a month." Nina's smile took on a teasing edge.

"You're kidding," Alice accused, horrified.

"Not at all," Nina said.

"Give," Alice demanded.

Nina shrugged, gracefully, of course, and gave, paying out the line. "Are you sitting comfortably?
Then we'll begin." The reference to 'Listen with Mother' was wasted on Alice, who was standing
anyway, but Nina proceeded.

"There was an incident when the place was first set up. One of the tigers was sent in to a client
when he was imperfectly trained and hadn't been fed. Not to put too fine a point on it, he ate her.
Of course, she'd signed the liability waiver so her family had no legal grounds to sue, but Tony
knew that word would get out and feared that the business would suffer. The employee
responsible was fired but he was facing ruin. Tigers don't come cheap."

"So? What did he do?"

"Nothing much. Just made a public apology with a statement that 'These things happen
sometimes' and that 'Everything will be done to make sure it doesn't recur.'"

"And?"

"Business boomed. Come on, nobody with two brain cells to rub together believes that accidents
will 'never recur'. They always do, eventually, even if they need a little help."

"You don't mean..."

"Yes. The idea that you just might get eaten adds spice to the experience. Why else would
anyone want oral sex with a tiger, anyway? Because it feels dangerous. The same reason people
get a thrill out of jumping out of aeroplanes or swimming with sharks. The accident just made the
danger real."

Alice was a little naive - young for her age would have been Nina's assessment - but she wasn't
entirely stupid. "So the 'accidents' once a month...."

Nina nodded approvingly. "Exactly. Want to try it?"

Alice shook her head uncertainly. The implications of Nina's admission were still sinking in. So,
they contrived the occasional 'accidents' just to spice things up? "How do they decide who...?"

Nina shrugged. "How would I know? Maybe it's a randomised computer program. Every customer
gets a one in something chance of being picked. Call it 'x'. Taking into account the number of
customers, any mathematician could calculate a value for 'x' that produces an average expected
result of one incident per month."

"Sounds a bit complicated for a kinky sex operation."

"Not really. All you need is a basic computer - the same one any business uses for doing
accounts - and the services of any moderately competent programmer for an hour or two. I could
do it myself."

Alice thought it out. "So it's like a fruit machine? You pull the handle and you just might hit the
jackpot?"

Another approving nod. "A fair comparison. Or, of course, they might just decide it's about time
they had another one and Tony tells the handlers to pick somebody."

Alice's imagination picked that up and ran with it. She imagined the men watching it all on those
banks of security monitors she'd seen on any number of films, deciding. "So then they just say,
'Hey, let's do the chick in booth eight, send in the hungry tiger' and she gets munched?"

Nina shrugged. "Maybe. I don't run the place."

That seemed more sinister still to Alice. If she was in there - not she ever would be, of course -
she'd be thinking about those men watching her and deciding whether or not her vulnerable,
naked body would make good cat food. She shuddered.

"Shall we go in?" Nina invited. "I'll pay, of course."

Alice shook her head vehemently. "No, I couldn't possibly..."

"Just to watch," Nina reassured her.

"You can watch?"

"Of course," Nina said. "It's an additional source of revenue."

"And the...uh..." Alice was about to say 'victims' but caught herself, "The ladies in the booths
don't mind?"

"Probably part of the thrill, for most of them. You can go private, but it costs more."

Alice caught on. "Because then they can't get money from people watching?"

"Very good." Another one of Nina's approving nods. "Coming?"

For a moment Alice started to deny it indignantly and then flushed, realising her mistake. Nina's
expression remained politely inquiring, declining to take advantage, for which she was absurdly
grateful. "All right, I suppose," she muttered grudgingly. In fact, she was burning with curiosity,
but she wasn't going to admit that. She followed Nina to the ticket window.

"Private viewing room for two," she ordered and to Alice: "I don't suppose you want to be seen
watching?"

"No," Alice said. Except by you, she thought uneasily. Oh well, it couldn't be helped. She followed
Nina again down a corridor and up some stairs, along another corridor and into a small viewing
room. There were a couple of rudimentary seats, a large monitor on the wall and a remote control.
The monitor showed a view of a bare, whitewashed room with some straw on the floor from a high
point of view angled down. There were some faded stains on the wall. The top left of the screen
displayed a number three.

"Nothing doing," Nina said and fiddled with the remote. The number on screen changed to a '4'.
"That's more like it."

Alice jumped. The room looked the same but there was a naked blonde woman on the floor
apparently being eaten by a huge, stripy beast. A tiger! Her heart pounded. No, she realised, the
woman wasn't really being eaten at all, the tiger was just licking her and she was writhing around
shamelessly, legs spread, fondling her breasts and occasionally thrusting her pelvis upward. She
looked as if she was offering herself up as a meal. Alice flushed. The sight was embarrassingly
intimate, disturbing and fascinating. She glanced guiltily at her stepmother.

"Go on, big boy, eat her!" Nina urged, leaning forward avidly. "You know she wants it!" Alice
glared at her, but Nina ignored that and continued urging the tiger on. "Go on, take a bite!"

Fortunately for the blonde, the tiger didn't seem to be listening to her. 'Probably can't hear her for
the noise you're making,' Alice muttered at the woman on the screen. She could hardly bear to
watch, but she couldn't bear not to. The woman continued to writhe and pant in ecstasy and Alice
found herself squirming in her seat in sympathy.

"Maybe he's just being a gentleman and waiting until she comes before he gets his," Nina
suggested hopefully.

Eventually, the woman bucked and shrieked as she climaxed and then lay there panting for a
while. The tiger gave her a few more desultory licks and then lay down next to her.

"I don't think he's hungry," Alice said. She was trembling slightly.

"'Fraid not," Nina said. "Oh well...."

The woman got up and looked straight into the camera, grinning broadly. She made a rude
gesture and said "Better luck next time!"

Alice started, but Nina laughed and clapped her hands. "Bravo! Oh, I like her!"

"I thought you wanted her to get eaten," Alice grumbled.

"I did, and I will if I see her again. I always do. Everybody who watches this wants to see
somebody get eaten. She knew that, of course, that's why she said it. I'm sure everybody who's
seen me in there felt exactly the same way. I bet they were all saying 'Go on, eat her!' just like I
did and hoping he would. It's all part of the thrill."

"Knowing that somebody would enjoy watching you get munched?"

"Absolutely."

"You've really done that?" Nina nodded. "How often?"

"Lots of times. Let's see what else is on." Nina switched channels. On number eight she found a
pale, slim girl with dark hair lying still while having her body licked. Her legs were close together.
"Oh, boring," Nina said.

"What's she doing?" Alice wondered.

"Playing dead," Nina explained. "She's fantasising that she's already been killed and the tiger is
eating her defenseless corpse. I imagine she'd liven up a bit if he actually did, that would be
funny, but the odds are against it, I'm afraid. I'll try another."

The next one showed showed a buxom woman fondling herself beween the legs while a tiger
licked her breasts. The meaty mammaries swayed and wobbled with each stroke of the tongue.
Nina leaned forward again as he actually brushed one with his teeth.

"He's thinking about having a nibble," Nina said, hopeful again.

"He's just playing," Alice opined. "Maybe they train them to do that. Maybe sometimes they
pretend to nip you, like they're going to take a bite, then they don't."

"Very good," Nina approved. "I can see you've given this some thought." Alice flushed. Nina
channel hopped for a bit and then settled on one. "Oh, this is good."

A very attractive black girl writhed on the ground as her tiger nuzzled, licked and gently nipped
her belly. She was panting "Yes! Yes! Do it! Eat me!"

"Well, you heard her," Nina exhorted. "What are you waiting for? Go for it!"

Unfortunately for her, it didn't happen. Instead, the girl worked herself into a frenzy, climaxed, and
then sat up with her legs apart and ruffled the fur on the tiger's head. "Same time next week?"
she said cheerfully. "Maybe I can tempt you then."

The screen blanked and a red light came on. "Time's up," Nina said.

On the way out, Alice held her peace for a while and then said, "Disappointed?"

"Not really, you?" Nina said. "I did have hopes, of course, but you can't expect to see the real
thing every time. It was still a pretty good show. The blonde and Nicole were especially good
value."

"Nicole?"

"The last one."

"You know her?"

"We've met. She's nice."

"And you wanted her to get eaten, just like the others?"

"Probably rather more," Nina said, with an odd smile.

"That's awful!" Alice said indignantly.

"Why? She'd do the same for me."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do, she told me. We met in a bar. She introduced herself as a fellow tiger fan and said
she'd really enjoyed my last performance and, I quote, 'I really hoped he'd eat you.' I liked her
immediately."

"A kindred spirit," Alice said sourly.

"Exactly. We had a few drinks together then went back to her place and fucked."

"You're gay?" Alice exclaimed. "But..." She was married to her father!

"Bisexual. Don't worry, your father has no cause for complaint, when he's here, which he isn't.
Don't pretend you're shocked or that you didn't suspect. Oh, here she comes. Hi, Nicole."

"Hi, Nina." Nicole, now dressed, came towards them and gave Nina a brief hug and kiss. "Who's
your friend? She's cute."

"Alice, my stepdaughter."

"Hello, Alice," Nicole said, extending a hand.

She looked so normal, dressed in a nice leather jacket and jeans. Alice shook her hand. "You
look different with your clothes on," she said lamely. She half expected Nicole to be offended.

Nicole laughed. "No doubt you'd look different with yours off," she said. "I'd love to see that. I'm
sure you enjoyed watching me."

Alice flushed again. She had. "Your 'friend' Nina hoped the tiger would have you for lunch," she
said bitchily.

"I don't doubt it," Nicole said. "What could be more exquisite than watching someone you've
made love to being eaten alive?"

"Only if I was watching, of course," Nina explained to Alice. "Otherwise, it's a waste of a good lay."

Nicole arched an ironic eyebrow. "I was just good?"

"Superb," Nina said. "Let's do it again."

"Tonight?"

"Why not?"

"You're on. Is the cutie coming? Sorry, Alice."

"I could get a babysitter.."

Alice glared at Nina.

"Oh, stop teasing her," Nicole said good-humouredly. "Fancy a bit of lunch?"

Alice expected another one of Nina's sexual innuendos, but Nina just said. "Why not?"

Lunch was a surprisingly normal affair at a nearby cafe with outside tables. Alice had quiche.
Nina and Nicole chatted amicably and they, Nicole in particular, did their best to include Alice in
the conversation. There was no more talk of tigers. The events of this morning might as well not
have happened. This struck Alice as surreal; she felt as if she'd dreamed the whole thing. If she
hadn't, then Nicole, who seemed like a thoroughly pleasant person and quite sane apart from her
tiger fetish, might have been nothing but a pile of chewed bones by now.

At the end of the meal, Nicole said she had to leave. "Work to do," she explained.

"See you later," Nina replied.

"I'll look forward to it. Will you be joining us?"

Alice realised she was being addressed. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. You're very attractive, you know."

Alice flushed, flattered despite herself. "Thank you," she said, "But no. You'd probably both have
me for supper."

Nicole laughed. "What a delightful thought. Oh well, if you ever change your mind..." she blew a
kiss and departed. Alice watched her go.

"You like her, don't you?" Nina teased.

"She's okay, for a nutcase," Alice said grudgingly. "But if you're thinking about dragging me into
bed with you and her..."

"Nobody's dragging you anywhere," Nina said reasonably. "You were cordially invited."

"To sleep with my lunatic stepmother and her equally mad friend?"

"Stepmother means we're not actually related by blood," Nina pointed out. "Besides, don't you
think the incest taboo is a bit Old Testament? Not to mention redundant between females."

Alice had to give her that point. "I'm not a lesbian," she said instead. "I like boys, not girls."

"Which would be why you were watching Nicole's lovely rump as she walked away and practically
drooling?"

"I was not!"

"Yes, you were. I've seen you watching me as well. Don't think I didn't notice. Admit it, you're at
least a little bit bisexual. It's not uncommon and it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Even if I were, that doesn't mean I have to jump into bed with you and Nicole."

"No, it doesn't," Nina agreed equably. "It's up to you, as I said before, nobody's forcing you, so
what are you arguing about? Come on, let's go shopping."

And that is exactly what they did. Nina chatted about perfectly ordinary things as they went along,
like isn't that a nice dress or do you fancy lamb chops for dinner and Alice responded as politely
as possible, not wishing to seem surly or ungracious. "Lamb chops sounds fine," she said, half
expecting Nina to say that she would taste even better or something else suggestive, but she
didn't. There was no more mention of tigers at all, and not the slightest attempt to talk her into
sleeping with Nina and Nicole. This, of course, gave Alice all the more time to think about it
herself. Maybe that was the plan, she thought one time suspiciously, but she was fair minded
enough to admit that she could hardly be vexed with Nina for teasing her and then complain
when she didn't.

After dinner, which Nina cooked perfectly, as usual, she couldn't contain herself any longer.

"I was thinking about the tiger thing," she said tentatively.

"Thought you might be," Nina replied blandly.

Was that a tease? "Not like that," Alice said, not quite ingenuously, "I mean, it's murder, isn't it?
Letting those 'accidents' happen, or making them happen...."

Nina nodded. "That's an interesting point," she allowed. "Legally, yes. It would be either criminal
negligence and reckless endangerment, or actual murder. Depends how it's done. Difficult to
prove, of course, and the authorities don't seem particularly interested in the risks thrill-seekers
take any more. That old 'nanny state' health and safety obsession ran its course a while ago,
thank God. Who cares if a few crazy people a year get eaten? Ethically, it's a moot point. The
proprietors never claimed it was entirely safe, that's why they had the disclaimers in place before
the first genuine accident, but people did it anyway. Now it's common knowledge that the
'accidents' keep happening, and they still do it. Most people probably suspect that they're
deliberate too, but it doesn't stop them, so what difference does it make whether they're
accidental or planned?"

It seemed different to Alice, but she couldn't honestly say why. "What you're saying is that if you
get in a cage with a tiger that you know might eat you, you can't complain if does," she said.

"Exactly, well put." Nina said, "And all the more so if that's why you did it in the first place."

That wasn't what was really bothering Alice and both of them knew it. Might as well get it out,
then. "Did you really want Nicole to...?"

"Yes, while I was watching, and, to anticipate your next question, no, I'm not sorry now that she's
still alive. I like her a lot. It's like when you're in there with the tiger. You're afraid it might happen
but at the same time, part of you wants it to. That's what makes it exciting. Afterwards, you're
glad you're still alive. Well, I suppose some people might not be, but it's a very unreliable way of
committing suicide. I can't explain how it feels, you'd have to try it yourself."

"Oh, yeah, I suppose you'd really love to watch me getting eaten," Alice said. She'd meant to say
it bitterly but it didn't quite come out that way.

"Yes, I would," Nina said. "I'd miss you afterwards, of course, but it would be amazing to watch.
You're delicious. I'd quite like to see one just licking you all over. I'd be wishing I could be the
tiger either way."

Alice flushed at the innuendo, but tried to cover it. "You'd miss me? Pull the other one, it's got
bells on it. You don't even like me."

Nina looked surprised and even a little hurt. "Where did you get that impression? I do like you, I
always have. Why do you think I spend so much time with you? I'm a hedonist, I don't waste time
hanging about with people I don't like. Life's too short."

"Yours will be if you keep hanging about with tigers," Alice shot back.

Nina laughed and clapped her hands. "Touche," she said, "A palpable hit."

Alice wondered if Nina was patronising her.

"But you do realise that the probability is that it won't happen? One client a month, that's thirty
days, several every day, say sixteen, in each of the twelve booths? Please don't tell me that
you've neglected your mathematics. The chance that you'll get rid of me that way is, what?"

That was more like it. Alice was trying to do the numbers. At least a thousand and then some.
"Not good? I don't mean 'good' as in..."

"At a rough estimate, the chance of being eaten in any given session is about one in six
thousand, and please don't give me the old saw about the odds 'catching up with me'. The next
time I do it, the odds will be exactly the same as they were the first time. I could do it every week
for the next ten years and the odds are I'd survive."

Alice had never really grasped probability theory. "So why the clapping hands thing?"

Nina gave her a sharp look. "Because you're showing some spirit. I like that. You're not afraid to
talk back to me any more."

"And the whole spiel about liking me? You weren't just trying to get me into bed?"

"I do like you and that's one of the reasons why I'd like to get you into bed. I don't fuck people I
don't like, and I wasn't lying. I've never really lied to you. You exasperate me sometimes, but you
can't help that. You're a teenager, it comes with the territory. You have a built in drive to
exasperate your elders. Cup of tea?"

"Yes, thanks. I'll take it upstairs."

Upstairs, Alice got out her calculator and checked the numbers. She hadn't given much thought
to calculating odds before, but she did have the basic idea. She worked it through carefully
several times and came to the conclusion that Nina's estimate was about right. She hadn't lied
about that. Maybe she hadn't lied about anything. Thoughtfully, she changed into her favourite
powder blue pyjamas with the pink bunnies and lay back on her bed, hands behind her head.
She had a lot to think about. The images in her mind from that morning wouldn't go away. Nina
cheering the tigers on as they licked those women as if they were just getting their flavour before
dining on them. Were they waiting for someone to ring a bell that said 'dinner time'? And then
there was Nicole panting out "Yes! Yes! Do it! Eat me!" as she writhed about naked under the
beast and then having lunch with them looking perfectly normal and acting as if nothing unusual
had happened. She glanced at the bookshelf. Bloody white rabbits. Why had her father called
her Alice anyway? Because Lewis Carrol was one of his favourite authors. And now she was
down the rabbit hole with a vengeance. Of course, it could have been worse, he could have been
a Wagner fan and called her Brunhilde. It wouldn't have suited her, she didn't have the build for a
Valkyrie. She'd have been teased mercilessly at school. Oh, sod it, she thought, and flipped the
TV on.

Might have known. A BBC2 nature feature about lions eating antelopes. Why was it always lions?
You never saw documentaries about tigers eating anything. The lions were ripping the antelope
apart and devouring it with apparent relish. They didn't even wait until it stopped kicking before
they pulled its guts out and ate them. Alice had heard that prey animals stopped feeling pain
after a while and went numb with shock, resigned to death. How would anybody know? If a good
looking lion caught a cute little female antelope, a doe, would she be thinking "Oh, yes, you
handsome brute, eat me"?

Nina's hand tapped her bedroom door and Alice guiltily flipped off the TV and slipped her hand
out of her pyjama bottoms. What had it been doing there? "Yes?"

"Just to tell you I'm going over to Nicole's for a couple of drinks and to fuck her. Don't wait up and
try not to burn the house down, okay?"

"Okay," Alice said.

"Want to come?"

Alice couldn't pretend to herself that the idea had no appeal at all, but she just said, "Not tonight,
thanks, I'm washing my hair," as nonchalantly as possible. She heard Nina chuckle. "Have fun,"
she added generously.

"We will," Nina said. "You too." She left.

Great, now she'd have to add imaginary pictures of what Nina and Nicole would be doing to each
other to what she'd actually seen. Did they take turns playing tiger when they were lapping each
others' naughty bits? She daydreamed for a while, fantasising about it. It was all too easy to
imagine Nicole lapping her instead. Discomfited, she got up off the bed. With Nina out for the
night, she was free to roam the house in her comfy pyjamas.

Wandering into the lounge, she couldn't fail to notice the video disc on the coffee table. This was
because it was tied up with a big pink ribbon. There was a note attached to it. Alice read it. It said
"If you really want to know..." and then there was a winking smiley icon and Nina's signature
followed by a kiss X.

She should just walk away, Alice thought, but she knew she couldn't. If she didn't watch whatever
was on the disc, she'd just spend the whole night thinking about it. "All right, Nina, bring it on,"
she decided and put the disc in the player.

The big TV screen flickered. Alice heard Nina's voice muttering "no good fucking thing" and the
screen went dark. It lightened again and she saw Nina's face. "..just clipped this bit, hope it
works.." Pause. "Hi, Alice, 'scuse me, not adept at editing. If you're watching this, which you
obviously are or you....oh, never mind. You are probably wondering (for some reason she had
adopted a comic faux French accent) why I am here in a little room being sexually molested by a
large furry predator..."

In fact, the background was part of the house.

"No, that bit comes next," Nina explained. "If you don't want to see it, switch off now."

Alice reached for the switch but didn't touch it.

It was exactly like the scenes she had viewed that morning, except that the woman with the tiger
was Nina, naked. Alice had never seen Nina naked except when she'd walked in on her in the
bath once accidentally and backed out again in embarrassment, though Nina hadn't seemed to
mind. The tiger seemed to be enjoying her and Alice couldn't blame him. Unclothed, her
stepmother's voluptuous body looked ripe and delicious. Alice felt her hands flexing as if they
were claws and her lips drawing back from her teeth. "Yes," she hissed under her breath, "Eat
her.."

The screen blanked. Nina's face came back. "Now tell me," she said, "What were you thinking?"

Alice started guiltily, feeling her face flush.

"Oh, It's all right," Nina said. "I can't really hear you." She grinned mischievously and the view
flipped back to the booth where she continued to writhe voluptuously as the tiger tasted every
inch of her skin.

'This guy really knows how to do foreplay,' Alice muttered, surprising herself. Then, Nina was
twisting around, offering her crotch to the beast's mouth and panting "There! Take me there!" The
tiger, ever the gentleman, obliged her. Unless, of course, she'd actually wanted him to bite. "Well,
you heard her," Alice muttered defiantly, recalling Nina's exhortation to the tiger lapping Nicole.

Nina started to pant and thrust her pelvis, obviously coming to a climax. Alice squirmed on her
seat in sympathy, caught herself, looked away, embarrassed, and then glanced back at the
screen again, grimacing, with her eyes squinted half shut. It was a relief when it was all over. She
felt uncomfortably hot and excited.

Nina's face came back on the screen, looking perfectly composed, of course. "I hope you enjoyed
the show," she said. "Did you want the tiger to eat me? Bet you did. You can keep the disc, it's
for you. I'm sure you'll want to see it again. And again..." She grinned and the picture cut out.

"It was just a recording," Alice muttered at the blank screen. "I knew nothing would happen to
you because you're still here, obviously." But could she say that to Nina's face when she saw her
tomorrow? Probably she shouldn't mention it at all. Maybe she should just wrap the disc up again
and pretend she hadn't even seen it. Of course, then Nina would guess that she had and not say
anything, just give her a knowing look, and she'd blush and Nina would know that she was
pretending and that would be worse. Damn the woman! Alice felt somehow tricked, but she'd
couldn't actually say how. She hadn't been forced to watch the damned thing.

Disgruntled, she switched the TV to a public channel and spent an hour or so half watching
nothing she could remember later while her mind drifted. Eventually she got up and poured
herself a glass of wine and channel-hopped looking for something worth watching. Oh, yes, this
was good. They were showing 'Lair of the White Worm' by Ken Russell, the one where Catherine
Oxenberg almost gets sacrificed to the Serpent God by the evil snake priestess played by
Amanda Donahoe. Almost, because she gets rescued by the interfering hero and the priestess
gets it instead. As a child, Alice had had mixed feelings about it. Of course she had virtuously
wanted the heroine victim to be rescued, hadn't she? But hadn't part of her secretly, wickedly,
wanted her to get eaten? But deeper than that, hadn't part of her wanted to BE the victim?
Maybe that was why she'd wanted it. She watched it all again. It brought back memories of her
original feelings, the confused and confusing fascination she'd felt about the beautiful victim
hanging over the pit, waiting for something monstrous to come up from the darkness and devour
her. By the time it was finished, she'd had a couple more glasses of wine and was decidedly
tipsy. She went to bed and fell asleep.

"Marmalade?" Nina asked at breakfast.

"Yes, thanks." Alice was feeling a bit fuzzy-headed. Whether it was the aftereffects of the wine or
the dreams, she wasn't entirely sure. Her wicked stepmother, of course, looked fresh as a daisy
despite her night of presumed debauchery.

"What you need is some scrambled eggs," Nina pronounced. "On wholemeal toast, with creamed
mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, crispy bacon and hash browns."

"I'm okay with orange juice," Alice said. "And another cup of tea."

"Oh, rubbish," Nina said breezily, "Get some food into your stomach, you'll feel better."

Feeding me up before she puts me in the oven, Alice thought. Still, the smell of frying bacon will
awaken anyone's appetite and when Nina put the plate in front of her, she surprised herself by
eating it all.

"Feeling better?" Nina asked as she passed Alice another cup of tea.

"Yes," Alice admitted. She was.

"Classic mistake of the uninitiated," Nina said. "Thinking you don't want to eat when you're hung
over. Oh, don't worry, I just saw the bottle. Bit more than you're used to right?"

Alice sighed. "Maybe a little."

"Not to worry. I had a few myself. Still, a really good fuck does tend to work it off a bit. You should
try it."

"Good night, then?" Alice flashed back to a jumble of images from real memory and dream.
Nicole and Nina with tigers, with each other.....a snake priestess who looked a bit like Nina
feeding her to the White Worm...

"Brilliant. Nicky insisted on watching The Lair of the White Worm before we went to bed. It was
on the box last night, BBC5, did you see it?"

"I caught a bit of it."

"Isn't Donahoe brilliant in that? Didn't you just want her to win?"

Alice gave Nina a suspicious glance. "She's evil," she said stuffily and immediately regretted it.

"Oh pooh. The politically correct term is differently motivated," Nina said with a teasing smile.

She's not going to say anything about the disc, Alice realised. She knows I saw it. She's just
waiting for me to mention it first. Okay then, do it. "I saw you getting off with the tiger," she said,
"As you probably know."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"It was interesting, in a tacky sort of way."

"Tacky? You wound me." Nina ruffled Alice's hair and kissed her on the forehead. "Got to go,
sorry, things to do."

It was infuriating, Alice thought. She had been crassly rude and Nina had refused to take offence,
making her the bad guy. Why couldn't the evil stepmother just be nasty to her so she could hate
her properly without feeling guilty about it? It wasn't fair.

At dinner that evening, she decided to reclaim the moral high ground by apologising. "Sorry
about the 'tacky' thing," she gruffed. "I didn't mean to be rude."

"Yes you did, and we both know why," Nina said, "But I'll accept the apology anyway."

"It was a bit, you know, full on," Alice tried to explain. "The video..."

"I know. I just thought you might be curious."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Alice heard herself say.

Nina laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, not mocking at all. "I'm sure you are."

"About a lot of things," Alice said. Since she'd given up pretending, she might as well get some
answers to the questions she'd been pondering.

"Ask away," Nina offered. "Nothing about quantum physics or average rainfall statistics, I hope."

Alice let that pass. "Have you actually seen anybody get eaten?"

"By a tiger? No. The odds are..."

"Against it, right?"

Nina nodded, approving like a good teacher encouraging a promising student. "I'm sure you've
worked at least most of it out. One a month on average. You'd have to spend a huge amount of
time watching in the viewing rooms, hours a day, even to have a fair chance of being there when
it happens. I've never been that lucky."

Lucky? Alice let that pass for the moment. "But you go anyway."

"Alice, people buy lottery tickets when they don't have a chance in fourteen million of winning and
they get nothing out of it at all, unless your idea of fun is watching balls rolling down a chute while
some overpaid jackanapes of a TV presenter blathers on about nothing. I'd rather watch women
getting licked by tigers, how about you? It's still a good show, even if I don't 'win'."

"And winning is watching the woman get eaten."

"Yes, but I don't expect it. I don't expect to win the lottery either."

"But you still play it?"

"Good grief, no. That's for morons. Let me explain the concept of 'negative expectation of gain' to
you one day. Gambling for money is absurd. The best description I've heard of a national lottery
is a tax on stupidity. Go to horse races if you like watching horses run, bet a couple of quid if you
can afford to lose it, but don't expect to get rich on it."

There was a brief pause.

"What really happened to my mother?" Alice demanded at last. I know what Dad said, but..." it
was just too absurd.

Nina hardly even blinked at the sudden change in subject, she'd probably seen it coming.

"Your mother did get eaten by a crocodile. I was there, but I didn't see much. For one thing,
when a crocodile takes a person there's not much to see. For the other, I was in the water with
her. It might just as easily have taken me instead. No doubt you'd rather it had."

"I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone," Alice said defensively.

"Neither would I," Nina agreed surprisingly. "Ugly beasts, I've always thought. I'd rather be eaten
by something beautiful and preferably mammalian. Besides, as I said, there's nothing much to
see. A sudden commotion in the water and then you just disappear. Totally unaesthetic."

Alice took a deep breath. She was probably going to regret this. "What really happened? What
were you and my mother doing swimming together in crocodile infested waters anyway? Did a
boat capsize or something?"

"No, it was just what you said. We were swimming in crocodile infested waters. Naked.
Deliberately."

"But I thought you said you didn't want....." Alice's brain caught up with itself. "My mother did that
on purpose?"

"Yes, she got a kick out of it. Crocodiles fascinated her. No accounting for tastes, I suppose. She
liked to take chances with them. I was only doing it that time because she dared me to and I was
silly enough to take the bait. I was scared to death the whole time."

It was hard to imagine Nina being scared, but even harder picturing her mother as the sort of
person who would do something like that. "You're making this up," she accused.

Nina gave her an odd look and a slight, sad shake of the head. "No, I'm not." She started to
leave.

Alice felt ashamed of herself. "Wait, no, I'm....I'm sorry!" she blurted. "It's just..."

"A lot to take in. Yes, I suppose it is." Nina settled down again.

"Well, look at it from my side. Dad and Mum go away on one of their bloody expeditions. Dad
comes back six weeks later without her and says something about an accident and a crocodile
and you're with him and suddenly he marries you....." Alice shrugged.

"It wasn't quite that sudden," Nina said carefully. "We were lovers already."

"You and my Dad?" Alice was aghast. "But...did Mum know?"

"She could hardly have missed it as she was there in bed with us," Nina said. "When I said we
were lovers I meant 'we' as in three all of us. How else do you think your mother could goad me
into swimming with those ghastly reptiles?"

"Nobody told me," Alice said in a small voice.

"I'm sorry," Nina said. "Your father thought you were too young at the time."

"Maybe I was," Alice admitted. "How did it happen? I mean, you and my parents....?"

"As I heard it afterwards, it was like this. I was having a quiet drink in a bar. Well, okay, I was
looking to get off, who doesn't? Then a good looking couple came in and I wrote them off
because they were obviously together but they noticed me. Your mother spotted your Dad
fancying me and mentioned it. He owned up. She said she fancied me too. She told him
something like 'Okay, you can fuck her if you like but only if I can too'. Anyway, they came over
and talked to me and then the subject of a threesome came up after we'd all sniffed each others'
tails and got the idea that it wasn't off the cards..." Nina shrugged. "The usual social dance when
people want to fuck each other and have to bring up the subject politely."

"Always difficult," Alice said sympathetically, as if she knew. It was rather nice being spoken to as
an adult.

"Then they looked at each other and did that nonverbal communication thing that couples do and
Susan - your mother - asked me if I'd like to come back to their place for a cup of coffee. I do like
a woman with a sense of humour. I told her I hated coffee but if they wanted to fuck me I was up
for it. The rest, as they say, is history."

"I suppose you enjoyed the sex?" That was a no-brainer.

"Does the Pope shit in the woods? Best lay I'd had in months, maybe more. Maybe ever. Your
Dad's really good but your mother - she's an animal. Well, she was. Totally wasted on a bloody
crocodile. I tried to tell her but she had this thing, and you know how it is when people have
things..."

Like you and tigers, Alice thought. "I suppose you'd rather have seen her being eaten by a tiger,"
she said.

"I'd rather she'd been the tiger and eaten me," Nina said. "You have no idea what she was like.
She was magnificent. If she'd gone into the cage with Tony's tigers they'd have rolled over and
licked her feet."

For a moment, Nina seemed lost in memory. Alice saw her brushing it off and smiling too
brightly. "And a fucking stupid crocodile ate her." She looked about to cry.

It was odd seeing Nina vulnerable. Alice should have enjoyed it but somehow she didn't feel the
triumph she should have. "You really liked her then?"

Nina shrugged, composing herself like a cat. "I generally do like my lovers, as I said, or I wouldn't
have slept with them in the first place. But, yes, I liked her a lot. She was a bit special, even if she
was more than a little crazy. Yes, I know what you're thinking, that's rich coming from me, but I
take calculated risks. Swimming with crocodiles is just..."

"Crazy?"

Nina sighed. "Let's say foolhardy."

She was being polite, Alice noted. "You're saying she was madder than you."

"I don't mean to speak ill of your mother," Nina said. "But..." she spread her hands.

Once upon a time, Alice might have been shocked by the idea that Nina and her mother had
been lovers. Now it simply made sense. What was shocking was that her mother really had been
nuttier than Nina. "That's okay," she said.

"Thank you. You're right, of course. I really would rather have seen her being eaten by a tiger. I'd
still have missed her, but it would have been amazing to watch."

"You just think she was wasted on a 'bloody crocodile'."

"Right." Nina smiled.

"Each to their own, I suppose," Alice suggested. "Like me and my 'Disneyfied serpents'?" She
gave Nina a wry grin.

Nina laughed. "Touche! Of course, if you ever get sacrificed to a Snake God by a sexy Evil
Priestess, be sure to invite me to watch."

"If that ever happens, you'll probably BE the Evil Priestess." Come to think of it, Nina did look a
bit like the younger Amanda Donahoe, but with bigger tits.

"Are you saying I'm sexy?" Nina arched an eyebrow.

Alice gave her an arch look of mock offense. "Watch it. Don't forget what happened to the Evil
Priestess in the film."

"I know. She got eaten by the Worm. Such a pity. I liked her."

"You'd rather the Worm had eaten Catherine Oxenberg, right."

"I'd rather I'D eaten Catherine Oxenberg. Wouldn't you? Didn't she look delicious dangling over
the Pit in her underwear?"

Indeed she had. "Wasted on the sock puppet Serpent?" Alice grinned.

Nina nodded. "It was a pretty crap effect," she admitted. "No CGI in those days. Still a bloody
good film, wasn't it? Even if they couldn't get Oxenberg to take her undies off. That would have
been spectacular."

Alice couldn't argue with that. In fact, the conversation rambled on quite amicably for a while and
when Nina left for the night to fuck Nicole it took a while for her to realise what had happened and
what she had learned. She hadn't really known her mother and she was starting to like Nina.

Both of these realisations were a bit unsettling. She had never really talked to her mother the way
she had just talked to Nina because, well, because her mother was her mother. She was a few
years short of the age when you're supposed to grow up and realise that your parents are actually
people. Besides, her parents hadn't given her much chance to find out. They were away half the
time. Now her mother was crocodile food, presumably her residue had been excreted into the
Amazon years ago.

Nina was here, when she wasn't playing Russian Roulette with tigers or fucking Nicole or
whatever else she did. It was confusing. There was only one thing for it. She'd have to get herself
a real boyfriend, preferably someone unsuitable that Nina could properly disapprove of as a
stepmother should. A punk with greasy hair, bad clothes, no job, no manners and no prospects.
Or a girlfriend. A really dirty one. Nicole? No, she was clean and neat and out of her class and
she was Nina's fuck buddy. But, yummy....stop that....

Alice couldn't think of anybody suitable for the job. Of course, she could think of lots of people
who were unsuitable. She just didn't want to have anything to do with them. She wasn't any good
at this teenage rebellion shit. Too fastidious.

"Masturbation," she told herself, "It's the only answer." There had to be another bottle of wine
somewhere, or maybe there was something left in the last one. She went looking.

Half an hour later she was drinking a mug of a rather sharp German white wine, watching an old
video of a Troma film called 'Sergeant Kabukiman, NYPD". It had leapt off the shelf and
ambushed her, or that's how it seemed after half a bottle of whatever it was. Alice couldn't quite
follow the plot, if there was one, but there was a scene near the end where a young, tarty looking
woman gets eaten alive by a tiger. It was brilliant. Actually, it was probably total crap if you were
sober, but....mmmm....slurpy...crunchy...was she screaming in pain or ecstasy when the tiger
gobbled her guts? You couldn't really see much and she wasn't naked, she had on one of those
short skirt, boots and shiny red top outfits you associate with American hookers, but it was
somehow quite effective. After a brief cutaway to some incomprehensible action, the view cut
back to the tiger chewing on bloody scraps and red bones that included a human rib cage. The
rest of the sexy girl, no longer screaming of course, was presumably inside the tiger. She went
back and watched that bit again, twice. The first time she decided that the hot girl really had been
screaming in pain and fear and didn't really want to be eaten, but the way it had been presented
made it obvious that the audience was supposed to enjoy watching it. Maybe they'd added a hint
of 'she wants it really' somewhere along the line. She watched it again, and this time she saw the
whole thing differently. It was hard to distinguish the shots of the girl's screaming face from those
of a woman in ecstasy seen from the male point of view, given the camera angle, apart from the
spray of blood on it produced by the tiger gobbling her up. Maybe the audience was supposed to
identify with the tiger. Not that he'd had many lines to establish his character, but he had a lot of
screen presence.....

Alice decided enough was enough. She staggered off to bed wondering what it would look like if
it happened in real life. She was almost sure that Nina would be able to tell her. Or maybe Nicole.
As she tossed and turned trying to fall asleep she remembered herself saying primly "I'm not a
lesbian, I like boys, not girls," and Nina saying "Which would be why you were watching Nicole's
lovely rump as she walked away and practically drooling?" What a prig she must have seemed.
She had fancied Nicole, Nina knew it, why hadn't she just said so in the first place?

She masturbated, images of the girl being eaten in her mind. She couldn't decided whether she
wanted to be the lady or the tiger. It all got muddled up when she was coming.

"Sergeant Kabukiman, eh?" Nina commented at breakfast.

Alice started guiltily, then relaxed. What the hell. "Yes," she admitted, remembering that she'd
probably forgotten to put it back. "Sorry, I didn't think you'd mind..."

"I don't," Nina said equably. "Just curious." She gave Alice a sideways smile.

"I suppose you and Nicole watched something suitably gruesome."

"Depends whether you believe the critics. Personally, I quite like Pirates of the Caribbean."

Alice couldn't remember anybody getting eaten in that one. "Bit tame for you, isn't it?"

"Oh, come on, we don't watch mayhem and carnage every night. 'Pirates' is good, harmless fun.
Besides, it's sexy. Nicky and I had the usual debate about who we'd rather fuck, Johnny Depp or
Kiera Knightley."

"Not Orlando Bloom?"

Nina snorted.

"Who won? Or which one?"

"We agreed that it was a pointless argument and decided we'd have both of them and take turns.
Or maybe have an orgy. It's just a fantasy, you can do what you like with it. I was going for
Johnny and Nicole went for Kiera, but then she put on 'King Arthur' where she's fighting half
naked and I had to see her point. I showed her 'From Hell' where Johnny gets all broody and
romantically gaunt and doomed and she saw mine. We both won. Debates don't have to be a
zero sum game."

"And then to bed....?"

"Oh, yes." Nina smiled like the cat that had got both the canary and the cream.

Alice was waiting for Nina to bring up the tiger bit but she didn't, so she did it herself. "You know
the bit in Kabukiman where the woman gets, um..."

"Devoured?"

"You like that word, don't you?"

"Love it. Devoured," Nina repeated salaciously, savouring the sound of it. "Nearly rhymes with
deflowered. Assonance? Whatever. It's evocative, don't you think? Yes, that was pretty good."

"You thought so?"

"Well, given the usual shoestring Troma budget, yes. Short of having an actress actually do it for
real. I don't suppose they'd get too many volunteers."

"They could play on the hope of a posthumous Oscar for best 'woman being devoured' scene,"
Alice suggested mischievously. "Everybody wants to be famous."

"What a delightfully wicked idea," Nina approved with a grin. " I can just picture it. 'Cut.Take two,
that scream wasn't quite right, bring on the next starlet'..."

"They'd need extra tigers too," Alice pointed out. "There are only so many starlets a tiger can eat
before he's full up."

"A very good point," Nina conceded. "One starlet, one tiger. Maybe the successful tiger could get
an award too. Best 'predator devouring a woman' scene. Interviews, acceptance speeches. I owe
it all to the director and the woman I ate. She put in an excellent performance as my dinner. Yes,
I love starlets but I couldn't eat a whole one. The crew had the leftovers for lunch. Better than
snacking on takeaway pizza..."

Alice was giggling. This was fun. It was all just pretend, wasn't it? But it wasn't. "I don't suppose
it's that much fun if it really happens," she said more soberly.

"Hard to say," Nina said. "I've never been eaten."

Alice dragged the coversation back to the point. "Is that anything like what it really looks like? I
know you said you'd never seen it live and I believe you, but I bet when it happens they get it
recorded and..."

"Yes," Nina said. "I wondered when you'd work that out. You want to see it? Really?"

"You have got a recording, haven't you?"

"Yes," Nina admitted. "In fact, I have a recording of the one Nicole saw."

"Nicole saw it? Really? What did she think of it?"

"She said it was the most terrible and yet fascinatingly beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She was
horrified and exalted at the same time. She'd still love to see it again."

"Even...." Alice paused. "Even if it's you? Or especially if it's you?"

"You already know the answer to that. She'd love every second of it, of course, and then she'd
probably miss me and feel sad. And yes, you can watch it if you like. There's only one way to
know what something like that really looks like; nothing I could say would do it justice."

Now Alice wasn't sure that she wanted to. It was one thing to watch it happen in a silly horror film,
another thing entirely to watch it for real. Lots of people watched horror films and, yes, probably
enjoyed seeing women being menaced or even eaten by various creatures but everybody knew
that the actresses didn't really die, they just washed off the fake gore and walked away. Whoever
starred in this recording wouldn't be getting up again, she really would die. Had already died, in
fact. Did that make a difference? "I'm not sure," she said.

Nina nodded understandingly. "I'll leave the disc out for you and you can make up your own
mind," she said, "It's strong stuff." She gave Alice a shrewd look. "Classic dilemma, isn't it?"

Alice looked a question.

"Two paths. You can't know unless you look, but if you do you can't go back. Oh, don't look so
alarmed. I don't mean you're on the slippery slope to becoming tiger food. You'll still have
choices. You just can't unsee what you've seen. Human memory isn't like a computer file or
words on a piece of paper, you can't erase it."

Alice nodded. That was exactly the point. Nina always saw the point. "I know," she said. "It's a bit
like watching a snuff film, isn't it?"

Nina flipped her hand back and forth. "Yes and no," she said. "Those so-called snuff films
supposedly involved murdering an innocent unsuspecting actress in a porno flick. The whole
thing was just an urban myth that started out as a publicity stunt. The American FBI investigated
it for years and never found a real one."

"But if they were real..."

"Then you'd be watching someone being murdered, yes. But watching someone gambling with a
tiger and losing? Is that the same?"

"Unless the whole thing is fixed, like we talked about before," Alice pointed out.

"They still put themselves in harm's way, as I said before," Nina countered. "But that's not the real
point, is it? If you were sure the gamble was fair or even if the 'accidents' really were accidents,
would you feel any differently about it? Would it not still bother you?"

Once again, Nina had nailed it. "I'd still be choosing to watch someone being killed, however it
happened." Alice conceded. "Yes, that's what bothers me."

"And you'd always wonder whether you did it out of pure scientific curiosity or just for kicks," Nina
added.

Right again. Alice wasn't stupid, of course, and not quite as naive as she had been. "And you
know all this, of course, because you can read my mind? Or because you've been there?"

"No telepathy involved," Nina agreed. "Just a logical extrapolation from my own experiences."

"Any useful tips, Ms Spock?"

"Yes. Be honest with yourself and, when you make your own choices, take responsibility for them
and accept the consequences."

"What did you watch it for? Scientific curiosity or just for kicks?"

"Both, of course."

An answer for everything. Why the hell did my father marry you? Alice wondered. Oh, duh, no-
brainer. She's hot and he's a guy. "Why did you marry my father?" was what she asked. "For his
money or his cock?"

Nina laughed. "Both, of course," she said. "I wanted to be a kept woman. Kept in the manner to
which I'd like to become accustomed. And he's good in bed when he's here and I like him. I don't
see a downside, do you?"

"Only me," Alice said. It sounded petty the moment she said it.

"Actually, no, as it turned out," Nina said, unperturbed. "Your mother asked me to look after you if
anything happened to her. Foolishly, I said that I would. It was quite a relief when I found out that
I quite liked you. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck with an obnoxious brat. As far as I'm
concerned, teenagers should be sent to boot camp to do national service or something until they
turn into human beings. Babies disgust me. Wailing little bundles of mindless greed and shit. I'd
feed them to crocodiles any day."

"Not going for the mother of the year award then?"

"Not any time soon."

Alice grinned. This was more like the evil stepmother she'd always wanted or imagined Nina to
be. "I suppose if Hansel and Gretel came to your cottage in the woods you'd have no trouble
putting them in the oven."

"Not the slightest," Nina said. "Why let the Three Bears have all the fun?"

"Goldilocks got away," Alice teased.

"In the bowdlerised version released to the public," Nina riposted. "It was a travesty. She nicks
their porridge and gets away with it? Where's the justice?"

"And Red Riding Hood?" Alice smiled.

NIna did a good impression of the Big Bad Wolf rubbing his tummy and licking his lips. Alice
giggled. "You do realise," Nina said, "That Red Riding Hood did get eaten in the original story?"

Alice had read that somewhere, she vaguely recalled.

"The Victorians - wonderful people, don't get me wrong, greatest engineers in the world - decided
that it should have a happy ending. The deus-ex-machina woodcutter comes along and rescues
the fair maiden. Didn't that ever strike you as a tacked on ending? I blame Prince Albert myself."

Alice looked nonplussed.

"German, Christian, intellectual and terribly moral," Nina explained. "Practically invented
Christmas before the Yanks hijacked it. Lovely bloke, really, but he has a lot to answer for. The
Christmas card industry and fairy lights..." she shuddered theatrically.

"But..." Alice paused. Now she remembered seeing a documentary about this on BBC2. "Didn't
he restore public confidence in the monarchy and stop us ending up like Russia or something?"

"Yes, he did," Nina said, "When Anubis weighed his soul, that was on the good side."

"You're a monarchist?"

"Of course. I'm not an idiot. God save King William, I say. Ever watch the news?"

"Once in a while," Alice said.

"Name one country that's better off after leaving the Commonwealth."

"Um..." Alice couldn't think of one.

"Uganda? Zimbabwe?" Nina shook her head. "It was interesting when Mugabe reduced his
country to cannibalism through mass starvation but I don't suppose it was fun if you lived there. I
was quite glad when they finally shot him. But I digress. The trouble is, somewhere along the
line, the Victorians decided that folk tales - 'fairy tales', so called - should be morally uplifting and,
God spare me, nice."

"Whereas, you prefer them gruesome."

"I prefer them real, but gruesome is always a bonus. If kids wander off into the deep dark woods
that have wolves and bears in them, they should get eaten. You might feel some sympathy for
them if they've been abandoned by their parents but if they were just being stupid they had it
coming. Don't tell them that a woodcutter will come and rescue them, it's not going to happen.
He'll just wait until the wolf has gobbled up the girl and gone to sleep before he cuts his head off
and gets a new wolfskin coat."

"You're wicked," Alice said, smiling.

"I do try," Nina said, smiling back.

This was all very well, but it didn't help Alice decide whether to watch the recording. Maybe it
would have been easier if Nina had tied her to a chair, propped her eyelids open with matchsticks
and forced her to. "You're not going to even try to make me watch it, are you?" she said aloud.

Nina raised her eyebrows. "When have I ever made you do anything?"

"You could try to be a little more evil," Alice suggested, half seriously.

"Oh, I'm all evilled out for this morning," Nina said casually. "Got some shopping to do. We're
nearly out of toilet paper, cheese and Marmite."

"Oh, go on, say something evil," Alice cajoled.

Nina leaned forward and adopted a comically lecherous expression, licking her lips and her teeth.
"Say 'what big teeth you have'," she said.

"What big teeth you have," Alice said.

"All the better to EAT you with, my dear," Nina said. There was a throaty undertone to it that
made it quite convincing. Alice's toes curled and a tingle started between her legs. She clamped
them firmly together. "And you do look so...mmmm....edible...in those fluffy bunny pyjamas..."

"Okay, that's evil enough," Alice said hastily, resolving to change into jeans and a sweatshirt as
soon as possible.

"Righto then, off to market," Nina said briskly.

Alice went to her room and changed into a pair of Levi cutoff shorts that showed off her
attractively coltish legs and a sleeveless white singlet. Barefoot, she padded down to the lounge
and looked for the disc that Nina had left for her. There it was, lurking on a coffee table like a
cobra waiting to strike. No, it wasn't, Alice thought, cursing her overly florid imagination. It was
just a standard laser disc with a crudely lettered label. Probably a pirated copy, she noted. Was
there no end to Nina's depravity?

She put it into the player and turned it on.

It was just like being in the viewing room. The same view of a bare, whitewashed room with some
straw on the floor from a high point of view angled down. A woman entered. She was quite good
looking and perfectly normal, a woman of maybe thirty with light brown skin or possibly a tan.
Maybe Anglo-asian. Dark hair in a bell-shaped cut. Good breasts that swung just a bit as she
moved, not the tight little tits of a girl. Her belly had faint stretchmarks; she had either borne
children or gained and lost weight. She had a mole on her back. She was about to die and she
didn't know it. Alice was holding her breath.

The tiger came in and the woman knelt down on the floor, presenting her rump like a she-cat
waiting to be fucked. The tiger licked it for some time with tantalising patience. Alice clenched her
fists. The woman was mumbling to herself, Alice couldn't make out the words, and gasping
occasionally, shifting her posture as the animal tasted the backs of her thighs and occasionally
slipped its tongue between her legs. 'Get on with it, you sadistic bastard,' she hissed. Ridiculous,
of course, she realised, the tiger couldn't see her watching on tenterhooks...

That was when the tiger, without any warning, bit into the woman's right buttock as casually as
she would bite into a peach she was having for lunch. The woman screamed, a high, shrill
sound.

Alice fumbled for the remote and hit the 'off' button in a panic. Her eyes were averted from the
screen but she couldn't shut her ears. She ran upstairs, her heart pounding, and threw herself
onto her bed. The image wouldn't go away and neither would the scream. After her heartbeat
settled down a bit, she turned the music system on and selected 'The Rotters Club' by Hatfield
and the North. Nina had given her that for her last birthday and she loved it. The intricate rhythms
and the clever lyrics had always intrigued and somehow soothed her when she was disturbed,
but now she couldn't let herself drift into it and she remained edgy and restless. Downstairs, the
woman called Anji was waiting to be devoured.

"Tadpoles keep screaming in my ears," she muttered and turned to her computer. After a few
minutes googling with keywords like 'women eaten by tigers' and 'anji', she found a discussion
board. There's one on everything. Narrowing it down takes time and the work calmed her. She
found what she was looking for, reviews of the thing she had been watching. The comments were
varied in content and style.

"Did yu c the way it just gbbled hr up>? Fgeexz fnamtagt. Fntstic!" Grlgbbler

"Holy sheet, ID have ate her." Pito

Lots of stuff about "Wish I'd been the tiger" and "What a babe" and a few churlish comments on
the defects in the woman's figure which were usually flamed as disrespectful. A few comments in
languages she didn't understand.

Some of the contributors were women, Alice guessed. Some of them envied the woman who'd
been eaten.

"I wonder what it feels like, you know?" one person contributed. "Between the moment when you
realise it's going to happen and when you die. Do you relax and think okay that's it I'm food now
and thta's OK? See how she looks when she knows it's all over. I mean wacth it again. Sorry,
typos. INa rush. BRB. Got to feed the dogs LOL." Annette

And there was no way Alice could answer that unless she actually finished watching the
recording. Downstairs, the digital ghost of Anji was waiting for her. She got up and walked
downstairs again, resolved to see it through.

The image of Anji was frozen on the screen; she must have hit 'pause'. She examined it closely.
There was some motion blur, but the tiger was clearly caught in the act of ripping a chunk of flesh
from the woman's right buttock. Her mouth was caught open in the middle of a scream. This was
real.

"I'm sorry," Alice said. "But you're dead. I can't hurt you any more. Sorry, but I have to see." She
hit 'play'.

Anji resumed the scream halfway through and twisted away, kicking out awkwardly with her left
foot at the tiger's head. The tiger barely noticed, but gave her a casual swipe with one massive
paw.

Naughty dinner, stay still and be eaten politely, Alice thought. She was nothing to him, just a
mouse to a hungry cat

Now Anji was sprawled on her back, her left knee cocked up. She was whimpering and panting,
her chest heaving. "Please..." she said.

No dice. The tiger snuffled her, looking for the next bit of her he wanted to eat. A gourmet, Alice
wondered, or trained to eat women in a certain way?

"Oh God," Anji said breathlessly. "Please don't.." Alice could see tears on her face.

The tiger tore her left breast off and swallowed it, gulping and snorting.

Anji wailed pitifully. It was painful to hear and Alice realised that tears were running down her own
cheeks. For a few seconds, she couldn't see at all.

Then Anji was just lying there, still panting a bit, but devoid of resistance. The tiger casually tore
her belly open and started to eat her insides and all she said was 'oh'. Her legs were sprawled
loosely, wantonly apart. She knew she was beyond hope of rescue, she had minutes or seconds
to live, there was nothing left for her to do. Was the look on her face peace or indifference? She
twitched occasionally as the tiger rooted around inside her looking for his favourite bits and then
she died. Alice watched carefully to make sure she was really dead before she allowed herself to
blink.

"Poor Anji," Alice said softly at last, switching the player off while the tiger continued to feast on
the woman's dead body. She was crying silently. Nina had been right about one thing, she
thought. That was really being eaten. It was horrible, but....

She shook her head. It was horrible, that was all.

For the rest of the day she did everything she could to forget about it. She couldn't quite manage
that, but she did distract herself with housework, exercise and some actual study. She even
tidied her room. Watching television was out, that just reminded her of ....it.

"I saw it," Alice said at dinner. Nina had baked potatoes in the oven and served them with
crumbled Wensleydale cheese, butter, salt and pepper, crispy bacon and a small salad of rocket.

"What did you think?" Nina asked.

"It was horrible," Alice said. "That poor woman..."

"Anji," Nina interpolated.

"Died....you remember her name, do you?"

"Should do, I wrote the label. Besides, I remember the name of everybody I've fucked or seen
being eaten by a tiger," Nina said wryly. "How was your meal? I thought I'd go for something
simple...."

"Delicious," Alice said. It had been. "Everything you cook is delicious. The potatoes...how did
you..?"

"It's just not the same if you do them in the microwave," Nina said. "You need that crispy burnt
taste in the skins that you only get when you bake them with external heat. Microwaves cook
them from the inside. It works, but it's got no character to it. Ideally, you should roast them in the
coals of a dying bonfire."

"She died, Nina," Alice said. "I saw her die."

"Yes, as you knew before you saw it. And the problem is..?" Nina arched an eyebrow.

"She probably just wanted to have some fun. Now she's dead. You don't see any problem with
that?"

"You want a one word answer?"

"Yes."

"No."

Alice had got what she'd asked for and expected. Of course, it wasn't enough. "Try a few more
words?"

"Little grasshopper, people climb mountains. People fall off mountains."

"Cut the Zen master crap."

"Can't. I'm a Zen master. Okay, Alice, why do people climb mountains?"

"To get to the top?"

"Which gets them where, exactly? Down to the bottom again. It's an exercise in futility, so why do
it?"

"It's a challenge," Alice said.

"Yes," Nina said. "It is. So is filling in a crossword puzzle or learning French in a week or doing
something actually useful like, oh, growing your own vegetables or building a spaceship out of
leftover washing machine parts in your garden shed. Whatever. How many people die every year
climbing mountains?"

"I don't know. A few, I suppose. Okay, how many?"

"No idea," Nina said. "Think about this when you're washing the dishes. It's your turn."

And that, Alice realised as she reached for the washing up liquid, had taken her mind off seeing
Anji's gutted body for half an hour or so. Why did people climb mountains instead of just fixing
the roof tiles or something? Well, it gets them out in the fresh air. See new places, spend a week
or two huddled in a tent breathing your own farts and trying not to freeze to death.

"Because they're nutcases," she said when she had accomplished her task.

"Most mountain climbers are men," Nina pointed out helpfully. "Would you care to guess the
average gender of people who get licked by tigers? How many of them are men?"

That was a no-brainer. Alice hadn't seen any men in the booths. "Not many?" she guessed.

"Not many," Nina confirmed. "There are a few, of course. Mostly gays, but they keep a female
tiger for the straight ones. And some women climb mountains, but not many."

"Where is this going, exactly?" Alice wondered.

"Into your tiny little teenaged brain, hopefully. Where it will ferment and bring forth fruit. Or not.
What I tell you three times you will, of course, ignore."

"Thanks a lot, Yoda."

"You're welcome, little grasshopper."

And that was it. Alice was left fuming slightly. Why the fuck DID men climb mountains? Or drive
stupidly fast in cars? Dicing with death. Oh, right. Yeah, great revelation Nina. So what?

But women do it differently. Or some of them do....

Lying in bed that night, Alice tried to masturbate while fantasising about being swallowed by a
'Disneyfied serpent'. It just didn't do it for her, not any more. She kept seeing Anji having her guts
torn out and that....

That excited her, she had to admit it. She imagined being licked by the same tiger that had eaten
Anji and played with the idea that it was making up its mind whether to eat her too. She didn't
know whether the tigers made up their own minds or were simply signalled to do so by the
proprietors. It didn't much matter, she decided, this was HER fantasy. Another idea occurred to
her, a deliciously perverse one. Maybe, when the time came to have another 'accident', the
proprietors based the decision on the audience reaction. Maybe they chose the potential victim
with the most people watching her and encouraging the tiger to finish her off. Of course, if she
were in one of the booths, Nina would be watching and Alice knew what her vote would be. She
turned over in bed, kneeling with her rump high, presenting herself as Anji had. She imagined
the tiger behind her, licking the backs of her thighs, its tongue sometimes lapping between her
legs, licking her pussy and lower belly, tasting her. Simultaneously, she pictured Nina, watching
avidly and urging "Go on, do it, eat her," while a naked Nicole, watching too, licked her ear, a
catlike smile on her face, sensuous and amoral. The imaginary Nicole was a catwoman with
green eyes. Maybe she was about to bite Nina's ear off. "Yess," she hissed. "Do it!"

"Yess," Alice said aloud, spreading her knees further apart, "Go on, do it, EAT ME!"

The tiger did. Alice rolled about in the bed, masturbating furiously while he bit into her rump, tore
off her breasts and ripped open her belly. She came with almost unbearable intensity while he
was pulling her guts out and gobbling them up. Finally, she collapsed, exhausted and satisfied.
That had been the best orgasm she'd had in ages, maybe the best ever.

As the afterglow faded, it also filled her with a vague and uneasy sense of shame. Her whole
fantasy had been inspired by watching a real woman being violently killed. Did she really feel
guilty about that, or did she just feel that she ought to feel guilty? After all, as Nina said, Anji
must have known what she was getting into. She knew the risks but she gambled with her life
and lost. She must have known she might be watched, too, so what did she, Alice, have to feel
guilty about? That made sense but was still somehow unsatisfactory. "Oh, sod it," Alice muttered,
sleepily. She was too tired to think about it any more so she went to sleep.

She slept well but, in the morning, she was still pensive as she came down to breakfast.

"Waffles?" Nina offered from the vicinity of the stove.

"Fine," Alice responded absently.

"Baked beans on them?" Nina asked, "Or scrambled brains? Yours, that is."

"That sounds nice," Alice muttered. Then, "What?"

"Scrambled eggs on crispy potato waffles," Nina decided. "I was just wondering what's weighing
on your mind. Feel free to unburden yourself."

"Oh, nothing," Alice said. "Well...." She considered. She could talk to Nina about it. After all, she
knew all Nina's darkest secrets, it's not as if she'd be shocked. Somehow, though, she wasn't
quite ready to broach this one yet. Still, she felt she should say something and there were other
things on her mind. "Do you love my father or did you really just marry him for his money?"

"And his cock," Nina corrected her.

"And that," Alice conceded. "I'm not getting at you or anything like that, it's okay, I just
wondered."

Nina nodded and frowned thoughtfully. "Money and cock, yes, but in love? I don't think I'd go that
far. I like him, though, and he's good in bed. I probably came closer to loving Susan, your
mother. She was an amazing woman."

"'And a fucking stupid crocodile ate her'," Alice remembered Nina saying, tears in her eyes.

"Exactly," Nina said, stirring the eggs and milk.

"Why didn't you try to stop her?" Alice wondered.

"Leaving aside the fact that it wasn't my place, how could I have done that? Wrestled her to the
ground and held her down?"

Alice shrugged. "I suppose. If you had to."

"I couldn't have done that."

"Why not?" Alice persisted.

Nina shook her head. "Dear child, Susan was stronger than I am. That, and she'd been tramping
round some of the world's more unsavoury spots with your father for years. She could handle
herself in a bar full of drunken sailors. I wouldn't have stood a chance; she could have thrown ME
to the crocodiles if she'd wanted to. Here, eat hearty." She served breakfast.

"Thanks," Alice said and began to eat, still pensive. She'd never thought of her mother as some
kind of female Indiana Jones. There was so much she didn't know. So much she hadn't bothered
to ask about before. She hadn't known that her mother had enjoyed dicing with death either until
Nina had told her, she'd simply assumed it had been an accident. Was that where she'd
inherited her own tendency to fantasise about being gobbled up by animals or was that just
something all women did? She certainly hadn't inherited the liking for crocodiles. Ugly things.
Sneaky too. Like Nina, she'd rather be eaten by a tiger. Not, of course, that she really wanted to
be eaten at all, not in real life. On the other hand...

"I have to face the tiger," Alice said at last. It was obvious when she thought about it.

Nina raised her eyebrows. "You're going to do it? Really? Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," Alice said. "I'd have thought you'd be delighted."

"Only if I can watch," Nina said, with a mischievous smile. "Seriously, I hope you're not doing this
just to impress me."

Alice shook her head. "No, nothing like that." Well, not quite.

"Well, may I watch? You can go private if you'd prefer."

"No," Alice said, "You can watch." It was only fair, Nina hadn't minded letting her see her.
Besides, it was part of the whole experience, as she'd fantasised it. "Bring Nicole too, if you like.
I'm sure she'll enjoy it."

"I'm sure she would," Nina agreed. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"You've made it all pretty clear. A one in six thousand chance I'll end up as cat food, right?"

"One in five thousand seven hundred and sixty," Nina said pedantically, "Assuming the figures I
used to estimate it were correct. But that won't be much comfort while the tiger's eating you, if it
does."

"I know," Alice said. It hadn't been much comfort to poor Anji. "Why are you trying to talk me out
of it? Isn't this what you've wanted all along?"

"I'm not trying to talk you out of it," Nina said. "But I don't want your father blaming me if you're
gone when he comes back."

"I'll write him a letter saying it was entirely my decision and you're not to blame if anything
happens to me," Alice said. "Of course, my mother won't be reading it." Nina winced and Alice
felt ashamed of herself. "Sorry.."

Nina shook her head. "It's not just that. If you get eaten, I really will miss you."

"That's the chance you take," Alice said, thinking of Nicole, "But thank you." She forked the last
bit of scrambled egg and waffle into her mouth. "That was a really good breakfast."

"You're welcome," Nina said.

Alice took off her clothes and folded them neatly, carefully and deliberately, neither hurrying nor
dragging her feet. It was important to stay steady, not to panic. She couldn't avoid the thought
that she might not be putting them on again, so she simply reminded herself that there was only
one chance in five thousand seven hundred and sixty of that, and let it pass. The last hour or so
flashed through her mind. She'd gone with Nina to Tony's Tigers and they'd met Nicole there as
arranged on the phone. Nicole had greeted her warmly, with a hug and a not at all Platonic kiss.
As her tongue had slipped just slightly into Alice's mouth, Alice had been acutely aware that she
didn't have any underwear on under her short skirt. If only more boys smelled as nice as Nicole
did. In real life, she wasn't a catwoman and her eyes were a perfectly normal brown. She was
wearing jeans and the same smart leather jacket she'd worn the last time and looked as good as
Alice remembered.

"Scared?" Nicole had asked sympathetically.

"Just a bit." Alice was stiff with fright.

"Don't blame you. I was bloody terrified the first time I did it. Not at this point so much, just pretty
scared, but it's a real jolt when the tiger comes in. They look bigger than you think, close up. My
heart nearly went through my ribs."

"Thanks a lot."

"But that's the worst of it. You'll want to run or curl up into a ball and hide your head, but take my
advice, don't. Face him. Walk towards him slowly and let him sniff you. Then it gets easier. You'll
know deep down inside that, if he's going to eat you, there's nothing you can do about it. So you
start to relax. Then it's fun. More than fun, it's incredible. I can't describe it."

"Fun. Unless he bites."

Nicole shrugged slightly and smiled. "Maybe that's fun too, I wouldn't know, would I? Not
knowing, that's part of the thrill. Thanks very much for inviting me."

"That's all right. I hope you enjoy it."

"Oh, I will. Whatever happens." Nicole grinned. "You're probably thinking I'll be cheering the tiger
on, hoping he'll eat you." Alice nodded. "Well, I will. That would be really spectacular. But I won't
be disappointed if he doesn't. It's not very likely, anyway, you do know that, don't you?" Alice
nodded again. "Coming for lunch with us after?"

"If the tiger doesn't have me for lunch first, yes."

"That's the spirit."

"You don't have to do this," Nina said unexpectedly. Nicole gave her a quizzically raised eyebrow.

"I think I do," Alice said.

"Well...." Nina paused as if lost for words. "Good luck."

"Thank you," Alice said. Then she turned and left.

"Okay, I admit it," she muttered aloud. "I may be bisexual. Only one way to find out. Assuming I
survive." The clothes-folding ritual was over. She'd changed into a short skirt and blouse without
underwear before leaving the house so it would be easier to undress if her hands were shaking
and quicker to dress again if she got the chance. It wasn't a long walk from the changing room to
booth 9. There was a door and she went through it and closed the door. She was in a cell that
looked exactly like the ones she'd seen before on the monitor. The cell was bare, whitewashed
brick and concrete with straw on the floor, easier to clean the blood and guts off, she guessed.
Suddenly, she wished she'd told Nicole and Nina "Let's call this off, go somewhere and fuck."

Or maybe the man who'd taken their money. He'd about thirty-something and wasn't bad looking
at all. He'd looked at her with some interest when Nina had said "Two to watch and one for the
tigers." Was he wondering what she'd be like in bed or what she'd look like being torn apart by a
ravenous carnivore? Or maybe he'd like to fuck her and THEN feed her to the tigers. She shook
her head. He'd doubtless seen any number of women pass through here and for all she knew he
was just waiting for his lunch break. Or maybe he was gay and was only admiring her blouse.
Maybe he was even hoping the tiger would eat her so he could have it.

This was ridiculous. All he'd done was give her directions to the changing room and the booths
and said "Booth nine." Alice pulled herself back to the present and looked around. The most
obvious feature was an iron-bound wooden door, about four feet high, in the opposite wall,
mounted on vertical iron rails. No prizes for guessing what that was. She looked up and saw the
camera set into the wall above head height. She looked straight into it and waved. What was
taking so long? She jumped as a buzzer sounded and a red light she hadn't noticed blinked on
the wall above the heavy door and the door began to rise. Her heart pounded and she started to
pant.

The tiger came in unhurriedly. Nicole had been right, it looked huge. Not just in physical size but
in presence. It was awesome. HE was awesome, Alice corrected herself. There was something
very masculine about it. Him. He exuded sheer, effortless power. Nicole's words came back to
her. 'You'll know deep down inside that, if he's going to eat you, there's nothing you can do about
it'. Alice certainly knew it now. "Hello," she said, walking forward, "I'm Alice. Your date or your
dinner, whatever you like. I'm going to call you Trevor, I hope you don't mind." It was an effort to
keep her voice steady but she managed it and she was rather proud of that.

Trevor made no objection. He regarded her calmly, with no expression she could discern. So far,
so good, but there had been nothing unusual or hostile about the tiger that had eaten Anji until it
had taken a bite out of her rump. Could this be the same one? It occurred to Alice that it might
be the same tiger that got all the women. After all, wouldn't it be easier to train just one to do that
and behave normally the rest of the time? Or maybe it didn't behave normally the rest of the time.
Maybe they had one woman-eating tiger they only brought out for special occasions. If so, and if
this was the one, the dietary supplement of a woman a month obviously hadn't done him any
harm. Although Alice was no expert, Trevor looked to be in good condition. Nothing for the
RSPCA to worry about. That was nice to know. Suddenly, he yawned and Alice started. Trevor's
teeth were huge and quite businesslike, nothing wrong with them either. She could see right
down his throat, too. Where I might be going soon, in pieces, she mused. The thought didn't
frighten her particularly. It's not that I'm not afraid, she realised. It's just that it's irrelevant. There's
nothing irrational about being afraid of a tiger. It was simply that fear was pointless. She was
stuck in a room with one and she would either leave it through the door or inside the tiger and it
wasn't up to her to decide which it would be.

"I hope you're not expecting me to say 'What big teeth you have'," she said. "I know very well
what they're for." Gobbling up little girls like me, she thought.

Trevor came forward and sniffed her belly. Alice tingled at the sensation. "Nothing of interest in
there," she said with forced lightness. The fear was turning into excitement. "Just some half-
digested scrambled eggs. Not much of an appetiser. Oh, and my guts. I forgot, you quite like
those, don't you?"

Trevor neither confirmed nor denied this, but he did look up at Alice and Alice got the fleeting
impression that, just for a moment, he actually saw her. It was a shock, but Alice dismissed it as
her imagination. She wasn't a person to him, surely, she was just an edible animal, potential
prey. She reached out and stroked his head and he flicked one of his ears and made a kind of
rumbling noise. This close, the smell of big cat was quite strong, something she recognised from
long ago visits to the zoo.

"You're really beautiful, you know," Alice said, "But you're probably thinking we should get on with
this and you're right." She bent her knees and got down on her backside, then leaned back, face
up, with her feet towards the tiger, her knees up and apart. The concrete floor was cool against
her bare back and the straw prickled. "Come on, then." It struck her that she was offering herself
to him as his dinner. It was a submissive pose, like the ones wolves used to submit to the pack
leader, throat and belly exposed. She wouldn't blame Trevor at all if he ate her. She wondered
whether Nina and Nicole were enjoying this, and all the others. How many of them were watching
her now and begging him to do it? Could she blame them? Whatever happened, they'd certainly
get to see her naked. Alice had never been an exhibitionist yet, all the way here, it had never
occurred to her to worry about that. Of course, she'd had more important concerns on her mind.

Trevor came forward and all the musings fled her mind. His tongue lapped her inner thighs and
then her belly, lightly brushing her pussy on the way in. Alice convulsed in sexual excitement,
gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. She could feel a need building in her, something so
strong that she didn't care if it killed her. Fun, Nicole had said. More than fun, it's indescribable.

Trevor continued to lick and nuzzle her, his tongue rasping across her erect nipples and Alice
only hoped she tasted nice. She wanted him to like her, wanted him to enjoy her, even if that
meant he had to eat her. After all, that's what tigers did. It all made sense to her now.

"Yes," Alice said aloud, spreading her knees further apart and raising her pelvis, ""Oh, yes, you
beautiful beast, eat me. Go on, do it, EAT ME!"