Just My Type(58)

What if Dax is going to set sharks loose in this pool? Sharks can smell arousal. Or is it just blood? Whatever. They’re both bodily fluids, one of which I am currently producing as Baker glances down at my lips, and I remember that thing he did where he sucked my tongue into his mouth. This pool is where I will die… without experiencing a Baker orgasm.

“Just stand there and let them get used to you!” Dax suddenly shouts, my eyes moving away from Baker’s to see Dax poking his head out of the black door. “When they start crawling all over you, they’re used to you.”

The door slams shut and his head disappears again.

Do sharks crawl? Oh, Jesus, there are so many things that could be about to crawl all over me, none of which are making me feel good right now. Spiders crawl. Rats crawl. Motherfucking snakes crawl!

“Should I be afraid right now?” I ask Baker, turning back to look at him with my arms still out in front of me. My muscles shake with how tightly I’m squeezing them to hold as still as possible so as not to spook whatever animal is about to crawl all over me and eat my face. “I don’t exactly have a good track record lately with animals liking me.”

Baker looks over my shoulder, and a smile breaks across his face as he nods in that direction.

“You definitely have nothing to be afraid of.”

All of a sudden, I hear the clickety-clack of a bunch of nails against the concrete floor, followed by a chorus of what can only be described as a sort of squeaky honking.

“Oh my God!” I scream in excitement, my head turning just in time to see no less than ten little brown otters scrambling across the concrete floor, tripping over each other as they race toward the pool.

A few stop long enough to grab rubber toys in their mouths before every single one of them gracefully dive into the water and disappear underneath, their bodies undulating as they zip through the pool, like little, brown, furry dolphins. It doesn’t take long for a few of them to swim right up to Baker and me, climbing right onto our hands and crawling up our arms.

“They’re like puppies!” I laugh when one scrambles right up my arm, and I hold it against me as it squeak-honks, sniffing every inch of my face and sticking it’s little wet, cold nose in my ear.

I can’t stop giggling and smiling as the otters take turns climbing up into our arms before jumping off of us to dive back under the water. After we’re sure they all like us and they’re okay with us being in the water with them, we move away from the wall, watching a few of them flip onto their backs, their little webbed back feet and tails moving them around in circles as they float.

We spend the next two hours watching the otters swim, letting them climb all over us, and laughing hysterically when Baker challenged me to race him in a lap. Two otters wouldn’t get off his back the entire time he tried to swim, and I had to keep stopping when several of them kept swimming in front of me, blocking my path. They really were like puppies, and they loved to play fetch with the rubber pool toys. Which then started a competition between Baker and me to see if we could get to the toys faster than one of the otters. Baker underestimated my throwing and my swimming skills, and I beat him by three.

“All right, my babies, it’s time to dry off and get to bed,” I hear Dax announce, right before my I suck in a deep breath and my head disappears below the water.

Baker was in midthrow of tossing me across the pool when Dax came out, trying to prove to me for the last fifteen minutes that he was still a man, since I kicked his ass in ball-retrieving, and Ember-tossing was a great way to show off his masculinity.

Which backfired, since every time he’d get in position and squat down until his shoulders were under the water, all ten of the otters would climb him like a tree. They’d be on his arms, his shoulders, his back, and two would even squeeze on top of his head. Which would make both of us laugh as I stood with my back to him. He’d grab my hips and try to launch me into the deep end. The laughter and the otter tails hanging down in front of Baker’s eyes made it impossible for him to throw me more than a few feet each time.

Just like every other time Baker has tossed me, as soon as I go under, I turn and open my eyes, bubbles floating out of my nose when I laugh, watching all the otters dive off of Baker and swim toward me under the water, lit up with the spotlights. I push off the bottom of the pool, swimming up to the surface, breaking free with loud laughter when I come up with three otters clinging to me.

“Let’s go! Time for bed!” Dax says a little louder this time.

The adorable, well-trained animals all start swimming over to the edge of the pool toward Dax, climbing out and squeak-honking like crazy as they sniff his legs and try to climb up them. He bends over and gives each of them head scratches before pointing over to the black door that I see is now propped open.

“Bed.”

Baker and I swim over to the edge of the pool where Dax is standing, resting our elbows on the ledge as we watch our new little friends scamper away, their nails clicking against the concrete as they clamor all over each other to get inside the open door.

“This was the best night of my life,” I tell Dax. “You get to do this every day? Frolic, and laugh, and play with the most adorable animals on the planet?”

He nods.

“I do. Best job in the world.”

“Are you single?” I ask, watching out of the corner of my eye as Baker’s head slowly turns to look at my profile, and I bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself from smiling. “Because this guy is kind of a dud. No real redeeming qualities.”