Panthera Spelaea
Even Out Here

My cat woke as the first rays of dawn came over the lake. Both girls had made themselves more comfortable overnight. Anna was sleeping on top of me with her head snuggled into the mane on my shoulder. Svetlana had turned around, with her firm breasts pressed against my chest and her head resting where my leg met the shoulder. I had my body curled around them, my legs holding Svetlana tight to me.

The girls stirred when my cat raised his head and sniffed.

They got up when he licked their faces. “Aww, geeze!” Anna slid off my side and rolled off Svetlana to the unused portion of the bed we’d made.

“I guess it’s our wakeup time,” Svetlana replied. She rolled onto her back as I started to move, then sat up as I did. “How did you sleep?”

Anna stood up and stretched, her curves on full display. “Like a baby,” she said. “He’s so damn warm and soft and snuggly!”

I wanted to snort, but my lion wouldn’t do it. Instead, my cat got up and nosed at the tent entrance. “I got it,” Anna said as she unzipped the netting and the nylon outer shell, holding them aside. “Go on! And don’t ruin our tent!”

I could hear the girls dressing as my cat patrolled the perimeter of our campsite and renewed the scent markers. He checked out the whole island over the next half-hour or so, mostly staying within the cover of the trees. Satisfied there were no threats to the girls, he made his way back to the campsite. The smell of food cooking only made him move faster.

The girls had the fire going again, and Svetlana was making pancakes and sausage. Anna was first to spot me, coming over to scratch my ears. I rubbed my head against her clothing, saturating her in my scent before I walked back to the fire. Svetlana got the same rubbing treatment as she scratched my chest. My cat was pleased with the attention and hungry for the food.

The girls had two plates and a bowl out as my cat laid on his stomach nearby. Anna took her plate and ate first, then took over cooking for Svetlana so she could eat. The girls could only make a few sausage links and pancakes at a time. Once in a while, they’d flip a pancake or sausage into the bowl where my cat would wait for it to cool down before snarfing it in a single bite.

Once Svetlana finished eating herself, she took over hand-feeding duties. My cat liked being hand-fed more than eating out of the bowl, daintily picking the food from her fingers before gobbling it down. The girls made a lot of pancakes, and I ate them all. When the large milk container used to mix the batter was empty, Anna told me breakfast was over.

I could feel the lion’s satisfaction as he watched the girls clean up. He followed Anna down to the lake with the dirty dishes. She was carrying two metal pails and a bag. Once she cleaned the plates and utensils off in the lake, she piled them in one bucket and filled it most of the way with water. The other she filled with water.

Back at the campsite, both buckets were set over the fire and brought to a boil. The dishes were removed and laid out to dry in the sun, while the other bucket of water would get poured through a charcoal filter and used for drinking water. “It’s past eight,” Anna said as they finished up. “What should we do today?”

“It’s going to get hot this afternoon, so why don’t we explore the island this morning and swim this afternoon?” I liked that idea, and I had a better one. I hoped my lion figured it out because he growled softly at the girls when they started walking to the woods. “What,” Svetlana asked.

He crawled forward on his stomach as Anna came closer. When she was by his head, he nudged her towards his shoulders. What a good boy! When Anna didn’t get on, he put his nose between her legs and tried to lift one onto his back. “Do you want me to ride you?” YES! I pictured his head nodding, and the lion did that. Anna threw a leg over, grabbing onto my fur and pretending I was a horse. I got up slowly as she held on, then walked over to Svetlana with one girl riding my back. “This is SO COOL!”

My lion nuzzled Svetlana’s hip, and she scrambled on to sit behind Anna. The lion barely noticed the added weight on his back. I could tell how happy he was to be close to them. It wasn’t an insignificant amount, as the girls had said they weighed a hundred and ten kilos together, but the lion was over four hundred kilograms and heavily muscled. He started walking as the girls figured out the best way to balance without a saddle. Anna moved until her knees were just behind my shoulders, and she had a good grip of my short mane. Svetlana moved behind her like she was on a motorcycle, holding her around the waist with her legs bend and thighs gripping my body.

The lion wasn’t interested in the beach just yet. My lion was surefooted along the forest ground, big paws digging into the soft dirt no matter the hill’s steepness. Once the girls were comfortable, he started moving faster. “This is the coolest thing EVER,” Anna said as we reached the far end of the island.

My lion heard something he didn’t like. It was a boat, and it was coming closer. Freezing at the edge of the woods, he growled and started sniffing the air. The girls figured out something was wrong and hopped off. “It’s a boat, and it’s coming this way,” Svetlana said as she spotted it near the horizon.

“What could it be?”

“I don’t know, but it can’t be seeing a big fucking LION in the middle of the lake,” she said. “John. You need to change back and change back NOW.”

My lion was getting uncomfortable as the boat drew closer. My lion didn’t like how the girls were getting nervous, but he didn’t want to leave them. I tried to push across to his mind that he needed to let me take control, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he growled and moved deeper into the forest, leaving the girls to walk down to the narrow beach.

We hid in the shadows as the boat approached. Why would someone be taking a boat out to a small island in the middle of a national park unless it was for me? Naturally, I could see two uniformed officers of the Russian National Police. The male was in his twenties and carrying an AK-74 rifle, while the female was in her thirties and had a hand on her sidearm. They’d spotted the girls and were heading straight for them.

I continued trying to take control as the boat got closer, but my cat was worried about protecting them and didn’t change. The motorboat scraped against the sand, and both officers jumped out. The conversation that followed was in Russian, so I could only follow parts of it. My name came up, and Anna pointed while saying the Russian word лагерь which means ‘campsite.’

They were after me, and they better find me as a human. I pushed images of the campsite across as the officers ordered the girls into the boat. As soon as they pulled away, my lion got up and ran. It didn’t take much time to get through the woods before I burst into the clearing. I could hear the boat motor change as they got ready to land on the beach below.

I pleaded with my cat to let me take over when he reached the blanket, and this time he listened. I felt him recede in my mind, and soon I was lying naked on the fabric. I practically dove into the tent as I heard the group coming up the trail from the lake. How could I make this all seem normal? I had an idea.

“John?” It was Svetlana’s voice.

“Coming,” I said. I unzipped the tent and stepped out, naked and half-erect. “Ready for more fun?”

That was when the group entered the clearing. The officers froze at the sight of a naked man. The woman recovered first. “Put some clothes on, John. We need to talk.” She said something to her partner in Russian, and he moved to make sure the tent was empty before I ducked back in. He watched me get dressed, then started poking around the rest of our campsite. I went out to face the woman. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you,” she said to me.

“I’m not smart enough. You must have been tracking our car.”

She smiled but didn’t confirm anything. “No matter where you go or what you do, we’ll be watching you. When you fuck up, and you will, we’ll be there to put you in jail.”

I shook my head. “I’m sure the fish and the birds appreciate your dedication to keeping them safe from me, miles from anyone in a fucking NATIONAL PARK.”

“Viktor says hello, and to enjoy your vacation while you can.”

With that, the two of them left and headed back to the boat. None of us said anything until the motorboat was out of sight.

“Check everything for bugs and trackers,” I told the girls. “They didn’t come all this way just to fuck with us.”

And they hadn’t. Luckily, the officers didn’t explore beyond the campsite, or they would have seen the big lion prints in the soft ground.

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