“Hey.” I jerked, feeling a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Elise behind me. “I was calling out to you. Didn’t you hear me? Is something wrong?”
“Huh? Oh… no, nothing is wrong.”
Elise slithered around and sat on the chair beside me. “I know you well enough to be able to tell when something is off. You’ve been like a robot all afternoon. What’s going on?”
I took a deep breath, wringing my hands together. “It was so simple when we got here. We’d let the CDC study us, and when the zoo animals came, we’d teach them about the outside world and help them find permanent homes.” I looked at Elise. “Now I don’t want that to happen.”
“You don’t want them to leave.”
“I realized it this morning when my girls and I all huddled together. That moment, when I was surrounded by them, I was so happy, and I realized nothing on Earth could make me happier than that. I told Neija that I would help her find a direction in life, find a path that would take her anywhere on Earth. I knew that wherever she ended up, she’d do great. Then Lola asked for the same thing, and all day long, the girls have been coming up to me and asking me to help them find out where they can go. They all want to go out and explore the world.
Part of me had just hoped that some of them would want to stay with me, maybe enough that the CDC would continue letting us live here, and… I don’t know.”
“Come on, you knew this day was coming. You can’t just live in this mansion for the rest of your life with them. I get it, you’re feeling empty nest syndrome.”
“I love them. I don’t want them all to leave me. I don’t want to have to say goodbye.” Before I knew it, my eyes were stinging with tears and my nose was getting stuffed up.
Without warning, Elise slapped me across the face. I looked at her, stunned, to find a warm smile on her face and watering eyes. She placed her hand on my aching cheek. “Do you have any idea how much I adore you? How much I admire you? Only you could talk about going home with a harem of five beautiful animal girls, not to mention your booty-call Betty just a short drive away and have the balls to complain that it’s not enough.” She laughed and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“I love them,” I said again.
“I know you do, and that’s how you know you did it right, that the thought of letting them go hurts you this much. Remember that night when I transformed, when you told me about Penelope? I said that you were the best guy this could have happened to, and it’s truer now than it was even then. Those girls are so lucky to have you looking after them. Those girls are your lovers and like your children. You’ve loved them as a man and now it’s time to love them as a parent, and that means getting them ready to set out on their own. The best thing you can do now is work hard to get them in a position to where they can make their dreams come true.
You’ve done nothing wrong. You have nothing to regret. This is what you’re supposed to feel, and know that wherever they are, they will love you.”
I took a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re right.”
“And for fuck’s sake, you’ll have Momo, Sonja, Chloe, Leah, and Jenny riding you every night after everyone else leaves. Hell, you’ll have to come to my farm at least three times a week to give Betty the playtime she needs. You sure as Hell won’t be lonely. But I suppose if that still isn’t enough for you, I might decide to leave my bedroom door open.” She then grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet. “Come on, let’s get inside. Now is when you should be spending all the time you can with those girls. Besides, these mosquitos are driving me nuts.”
I stood there, holding her hands. “Sure. And Elise? Thank you.”
She smiled and ruffled my hair the way I would with the girls. “You’re a good Master.”
—————————————-
For the next month, Lorraine and I helped our hybrids figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, turning us from camp counselors into guidance counselors. First, we taught everyone how to read and write, then we began researching their hobbies, using TV, books, and the internet. While Lorraine and I worked, Dr. Lawrence and the CDC interviewed possible adoption candidates, people with similar interests who’d give the hybrids homes and help them achieve their goals. After spending their lives in a zoo, surrounded by walls and fences, all the hybrids wanted to journey out into the world, see everything it had to offer, so we were looking at caretakers across the globe, people who would welcome such amazing creatures into their families.
During the days, we would teach them about human social interactions, give them practice in speaking with people. We taught them how to control their feelings and emotions so their animal instincts wouldn’t take over, taught them the value of rules and laws in human society, as well as manners. Beyond simply reading and writing, we also taught them basic math, some world history, explored different religions and cultures, and the customs they would find in whatever country they were going to.
And during the night, I made love to my girls. True, we didn’t have any more humungous sleepovers, mainly because I didn’t think it was good for my health, but each night, half a dozen girls would join me, Momo, and the others, and we would spend half the night playing. In time, they would all go their separate ways, being welcomed into whole new families, finding lovers, and possibly even getting married, but for now, they were here with me, and I used every moment of every day to show them how much I loved them.
Then, the day arrived.
—————————————-
We were all standing outside the mansion on a beautiful summer day, watching a convoy of buses and cars roll up the driveway. All the zoo hybrids were dressed, carrying bags full of possessions they had collected since coming here. One by one, I hugged each the girls, all of us trying to hold back tears. I wanted so badly to ask them to stay, and I knew part of them wished I would, but more than anything, after lifetimes of captivity, they wanted to see what the world had to offer. This mansion, as huge as it was, just wasn’t big enough for them.
“You have your phone?” I kept asking.
All the girls were given phones with my number inside. I told them that if they ever got into trouble, no matter when or where, be it Antarctica in the middle of winter, I would fly and over and help them out. They also had bracelets with GPS trackers in case of emergencies. The CDC had been very thorough in screening adoption candidates, checking references and performing background checks. Just being squeaky clean wasn’t good enough to look after any of my girls, they had to be the best that humanity had to offer, but of course I worried. I would worry about all of them until the day I died.
“Ok, everyone, get together for a picture!” Dr. Lawrence hollered. We all gathered by the mansion entrance, huddled together. There were so many of us that the picture would have to be panoramic. “Everybody say cheese!”
“Cheese!”
He took the picture, and then it was another round of goodbyes, this time with waterworks. Even Lorraine and her men were crying. I’ll admit it, I cried like a little bitch. “This isn’t goodbye forever,” I kept telling the girls, “you have to promise you’ll visit me.” They all promised.
Neija was the last. We held each other extra tight. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered in my ear. “Thank you for turning me. Thank you for giving me this life to live.”
“You’re welcome.” I said it not with my voice, but with a kiss.
Waving goodbye and shedding tears, the zoo hybrids climbed into buses and cars and finally departed. Me, Lorraine, Elise, Dr. Lawrence, the doctors and cooks, Momo, Sonja, Chloe, Betty, Leah, Jenny, Steve, Tobi, Alex, and Peter watched them disappear down the road, and then it was over.
—————————————-
For the next few days, everyone in the house was in a slump. After having over a hundred people living with us, the mansion now felt so big and empty with just… the thirteen of us. Wow, I guess that’s still a lot. But I missed hearing a chorus of happy voices down the halls and in the dining room. We had all grown to love the zoo hybrids. Chloe especially took it hard, having lost her best friend. Whenever I saw her, her ears were drooping all the way down and she was holding her tail.
What was also a bummer was losing the cooks. Now that it was back to our original group, Elise and I were back to preparing dinner.
—————————————-
“So what’s going to happen to this place?” I asked, speaking with Dr. Lawrence in the mansion’s clinic.
“The CDC is thinking of turning it into a shelter for hybrids that don’t have homes. Either that or selling it to a weight-loss company to be turned into a fat camp. All right, in you go.”
He motioned to a large metal box in the middle of the clinic, just slightly larger than a coffin, and standing straight up. It was made of lead and various other metals that blocked radiation. I stepped inside, seeing Geiger counters along the walls and in the corners. They all crackled from the ambient radiation of the room, but as soon as I closed the door behind me, they fell silent. Dr. Lawrence knocked on the door a minute later and I stepped out. He had a long stretch of paper with undulating lines on it, like it had been used for a polygraph.
He gave a sigh of exhaustion. “Nothing. You give off as much radiation as a turkey sandwich.”
Since coming here, everyone in our crazy menagerie had undergone every test known to man, trying to find something to explain this phenomenon. Bupkis. Zilch. Nada. No machine built by man could pick up anything. Lorraine had even suggested we try a Ouija Board. Dr. Lawrence agreed simply out of desperation for a result, but all we found out was that she loved to screw with us. It was disheartening to say the least, to have come all this way and not have an answer. Not since Betty (and possibly Elise, we’re still not sure) had Lorraine and I transformed an animal by accident, but that wasn’t saying much, considering how isolated we were in this mansion.
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