Jacob's education
Jacob's Education
By Strega
One day Jacob the wolf went walking in the woods. He had been there a hundred times and knew all the trails, but this time the trees grew dark and thick with streamers of Spanish moss. Jacob had wandered into the Swamp.
Getting into the Swamp is easy. The route out, for people like him, usually led through the digestive tract of some predator.
Luckily for Jacob, he found his way to the lagoon at a busy time. A massive shark had beached itself and was talking (!) to several furs; a dragon was in the process of swallowing a smaller blue dragon whole, and a black-feathered griffon was tearing a screaming wolf limb from limb. Jacob took one look and ducked into the bushes. Just as well, his path would have taken him right past the shark and it suddenly lunged, snapping up one of its admirers in protruding jaws full of far too many serrated teeth.
That was his introduction to the Swamp. Jacob turned on his heel and marched back down the path. On the way he hid as a blue and white furry snake-thing slithered by. Half an hour more on the path and to his astonishment he arrived back at the lagoon. He didn't stop to gawk - a huge wolf was eating a lion-man, and a rather large owl was haranguing people from her perch - but crept through the bushes around the clearing and left via a different path.
Which also, eventually, led back to the lagoon. And the next path, as well. After once again avoiding the furry snake - who now sported a large bulge in its (her?) midsection - Jacob realized that the only food he'd seen so far that didn't talk was the fruit trees around the lagoon. He snuck back in, picked some oranges, and departed as silently.
By the end of the week he was convinced that despite arriving here via a path, there was no trail he could follow that did not eventually return to the lagoon, and no food to be had except for there. He was a civilized wolf: he would not kill something that talked for food. So he subsisted on fruit and berries, and like many others, hovered at the edges of the meadow around the lagoon. Eventually, bored, he began to watch the goings-on there. Eventually he got lonely.
If Jacob had a flaw, then it was that he was too trusting. More than once it'd been a problem; he'd lost money lending it to 'friends', his girlfriends cheated on him. It was frustrating, but it was his nature. He'd grumble and go with his life. That was before he came to the Swamp.
He'd known for days that others hid around the edges of the clearing. They picked fruit and slunk back of of sight. There was the woman with black and pink hair. She hoarded food; she was bold enough to sneak closer to the lagoon and filch things dropped by those who no longer needed them. She had a fair-sized bag she carried around full of her collection. Jacob avoided her. Earlier, a huge, female lion - quadrupedal, not like most creatures here - had announced the departure of such a soul with a satisfied belch. He resolved to never venture into the open like that.
The skunkette was another of the fringe dwellers. The first time he saw her he was saddened. Chemical defense or not, the beautiful timid creature staying well back from the meadow must surely fall victim to one of the savages here.
He saw her again the next day and watched as she applied something to her fluffy tail. She painted it on like nail polish, with a little brush. When the wind shifted he smelled flowers. She didn't see him, but stayed for an hour or so peering through the bushes at the violence below. Eventually she pulled out a little knife and cleaned beneath her claws. Jacob had almost worked himself up to saying hello when she picked up her little handbag and left.
He didn't see her for two days. Perhaps she'd been caught; perhaps some predator had eaten her, and she'd been reduced to a black and white ball of sodden fur to be coughed up. He'd seen it happen: when he saw the pot-bellied bear hack up a ball of blue and red fur he remembered the wolf he'd seen earlier. Blue on top, red underneath, and now just a ball of wet hair.
Then the next day she was back, and he knew he had to talk to her. Without thinking he stepped out of the bushes and was greeted with a bristled-up tail and brandished knife. He worried more about the former than the latter, given the volume of musk a skunk her size could spray,
"It's all right," he said with hands raised. "I just want to talk. I'm hiding like you are, and I, um, I got lonely."
She looked him over, thinking. She was a little thing, barely over five feet tall, though the fluffed-up tail made her look bigger. Unlike some skunks she was black everywhere except the top of her head and double stripes. He couldn't guess her age, but she was curved in the right places and cute, with sky-blue eyes and pink nose. She wore a green sun dress that left her belly exposed.
"Oh," she said as she considered what she saw. A rangy gray wolf, a foot taller than her with strong digitigrade legs and tail that nearly touched the ground. Torn shorts, a worn out T-shirt and sandals. He could see that she was suspicious. He was of a predatory species, and even the non-predatory ones were dangerous here. Finally she lowered the knife, though her tail stayed up.
"I guess that's all right. I'm Suzy. Are you new here?"
He sat down a little ways away, so not to alarm her. "Jacob. Kind of. Maybe a week. I was walking through the woods and they got darker and darker...."
She nodded with a little smile. "That's how it happens. I was out picking mushrooms and I followed a trail I'd not seen before. It was just a little clump of trees, I didn't think I could get lost. The last person I talked to was the same." She looked sad. "Poor Matt. He was a mouse I met. He didn't last a day. I think I was the last person he talked to before they got him. Then there was this human girl, I saw her a few times before...."
She looked ready to cry. Jacob changed the subjected hurriedly. "What is this place? All these monsters, all these people, the trails that lead back on themselves. It's like magic."
She nodded. "It is. They call it 'The Swamp'. No one knows how long it's been here, but from what I've overheard, for at least ten years people have been showing up from their worlds and getting stuck here. Sometimes they go home...maybe. They go down a trail and don't come back. More often they get eaten. And that's not all. Sometimes people get eaten and then come back."
"That's impossible." Jacob had seen plenty of people get eaten in a week. There was no play acting about it. He could actually hear stomachs gurgle as flesh was dissolved, and some people didn't go down in one piece.
"But it's true. It happened to me. I was eaten. I died." She looked over the bushes for a moment as a frenzied roar announced some new contest. Jacob didn't follow her gaze. After a moment she looked back at him. "It was a black weasel thing. Black and white, six legs. It ate me, swallowed me. I must have died, but I woke up again in the forest. I thought I'd gone home, but I am still here." She shrugged. "Maybe it happens a lot. I see others who I know have been eaten."
"You know," Jacob said, and paused. "Some of the ones I see get eaten seem to enjoy it. After a while maybe they get desperate, and just want to die. So they wander closer to the clearing. Eventually something gets them." There was another roar. This time he looked; an enormous raccoon was fighting with a -- giant? Ogre? -- over a cat-girl cowering between them. Jacob resolutely looked away. There was nothing he could do.
He went on. "But they seem to like it. If I knew I could survive, maybe I'd let something eat me. It happens so much around here. I've only been here a few days and I've seen it happen so many times. Maybe it's not so bad."
The skunkette hesitated. "I could do that," she said.
"What? Let yourself be eaten?"
"No. I could eat you."
He laughed. "You? Is that a common power where you come from?"
She looked up, eyes flashing. "It is not. No one can do it. When the weasel ate me, it said it 'Thought I was amusing'. That it was going to change me. Then I woke up and I thought it was a dream. Later I was biting the skin off a grapefruit and something popped in my jaw."
She gripped her chin and pulled down. Jacob watched with horrified fascination as her mouth...unhinged?...Unfolded?...somehow. When her chin hit her breast, he could have stuck his head in her enormous maw.
She saw him tense, and let her chin go. In a moment her muzzle resumed its shape, and she made little chewing motions. To get all the joints back into place? Then she spoke. "I got too close to the lagoon one day. A lioness jumped on me. Without thinking I bit her head, and she was so surprised she didn't resist as I..." She made a motion down from her breasts to her navel with both hands.
Jacob grimaced. "That's horrible."
"She was trying to eat me! My tail was pinned under her leg, it was all I could do!"
"And you digested her, I suppose."
"Most of her. I, um, coughed up this big ball of fur and some half-dissolved bones later. No, I couldn't digest bones before, either."
Jacob stood up. "Thanks but no thanks. I said I wanted to survive the experience, not be food."
She teared up. "I didn't say that! I was just trying to be nice. I'd throw you back up before anything happened."
It was hard to stay angry at her, but... "I'm sorry. I do want to try it, but it'd have to be safe. What if you changed your mind? I know I crave meat. I don't want to be a fur-and-bones ball."
She sighed. "It's all right. I wouldn't trust you if you said you'd eat me and then let me go, either." Then she tilted her head. "What if you had a knife?"
She got out the little folding knife again, the one she'd cleaned her claws with. She opened it to show him, and he reached out to test the edge. It was very sharp, with a three inch blade.
She it shut again. "You could hold it, and if something bad happened you could cut your way out."
There was something so desperate about her. "You would die. Why do you want this so badly?"
"I just want someone to talk to. You're the first one in so long. It's something we could do together, to be friends."
"Well," he said, and realized he was considering it. "And you promise to cough me back up."
She nodded. "And if I don't I want you to cut your way out. I don't want to be like them." She pointed toward the lagoon.
Jacob reached out for the knife, and she smiled. Only now did he see how far back along her cheeks her lips ran. Almost like a snake, he thought.
She closed his fingers around the folded blade. "I think you should take your shirt off. It might get torn if a tooth catches, and clothes are hard to get here."
He did, and after a moment's thought he took off his sandals. "You can take off your shorts too, I won't mind." Jacob hesitated, then did. He didn't want to look down. It'd been a week since he was close to a woman, and he was afraid it showed.
Suzy licked his cheek, them his forehead. As her tongue made its way around his face he realized she was slicking him down with drool to make him easier to swallow. Somehow the thought didn't bother him. She was kissing him as she climbed into his lap. He really was aroused now, and she wasn't wearing anything under her dress. The shy little skunkette wasn't so shy after all; he entered her as she wrapped her knees around his hips. She was wet, slippery, and willing. And then the kiss broadened, and his muzzle was in her mouth.
Her hand stayed around his, and around the knife, as she worked her jaws over his face. The strange loose joints in her mouth let it stretch open downward and expand to the sides as well. For a moment his chin was on her tongue, then she tilted her nose downward. Her cheeks expanded over his own, her slick flesh against his fur, and his muzzle was in her throat.
They were moving together as she ate him. His head slipped into her gullet smoothly, easily, his ears pressed back against his neck. He was fully unsheathed and in her at the same time, one hand raking her rump as she moved up and down. The little skunkette had no trouble taking it all, even as her jaws took in his shoulders.
With a series of odd creaks and pops her torso expanded to let him in. It made sense that her ribs could expand like a snake's. Such a meal would otherwise be impossible. He wasn't sure what to focus on, the unique sensations of being swallowed whole or the tight, wet pressure around his cock.
She was licking him as she swallowed, wetting down his pelt so it wouldn't stick to her gullet. What she didn't lick was matted down and moistened by the saliva coating her throat. She tilted her head as she fed so the broadest part of him went in with one shoulder against her palate and one against her tongue. Maybe he wouldn't have fit in cross ways. As it was, she had already swallowed him to the elbows. Her ribcage was tight around his shoulders.
The sex grew awkward. Though she twisted and bent herself, she could only swallow so much before they were bent in a heart shape. When they stuck in place, unable either to mate or continue with her meal, she reluctantly dismounted. It was not so bad; she crouched over him as he sat, working her jaws down his torso, and reached past her lips to rub him. When her hands hooked beneath his rump and urged him forward, he tilted himself into her maw without resistance. It helped that his cock slipped into her mouth as he did.
Her tongue left off slicking him down for swallowing and went to work on his shaft. It was unlike any sex he'd ever had; he was half-swallowed and thrusting into her willing mouth, and each thrust helped ease him a fraction farther into her gullet. Suzy began to gulp, and her amazingly powerful throat sucked him in. Ripples of muscular action rolled over him, carrying him inward. She was lying down, her fingers dug into into his rump, pushing herself forward even as he pushed himself in. Her throat was gripping his cock now, kneading it.
He came with his knot on the back of her tongue and his shaft trapped between his belly and her slippery throat. Grunting, snarling, he pushed himself deeper as he spurted wolf cum into her gullet. It mixed in with the thick layer of saliva lubricating his fur and, if only a little, helped her swallow him down.
His face was in her stomach already. By all rights even that should hardly have fit, but he'd seen enough people eaten here to have an appreciation for the elasticity of local predator's bellies. His neck arrived, then his shoulders; she gathered herself and gulped in his rump and the root of his tail. With so much of him in either her stomach or slippery throat he slid in more and more easily. What had seemed an impossible meal, looking at her from the outside, was now simple, an inevitability, easily accomplished. His thighs were drawn in, and she gripped his hand a last time to make sure he still held the knife.
His thighs and hands were in her throat now. Then his knees were gone. She found something to press his feet against - it felt like bark against his paw pads - and walked forward on hands and knees. He curled smoothly up in her belly as his legs were forced in. He was panting, knot still swollen. Still excited. She fit his paws into her little skunkette mouth, stretched out her nose, and swallowed him down. Her throat gripped and and pulled a last time, and his feet slid in to join him.
In the wet, slippery dark of her stomach Jacob heard her heartbeat. She was vastly swollen, her belly protruding out from the rest of her like a pregnancy in its fourth of fifth year. Thinly stretched yet strong belly-walls surrounded him, and he found the most natural thing to do was to curl up.
"That was great," he mumbled. She probably couldn't hear him. He gripped his cock and tugged; the last semen squirted out. When the shivering stopped, he began to explore her insides. He could feel her hips and ribs, but the bulge he made was so huge that he lay curled up next to her almost more than he did inside her. Only a thin layer of muscle and fur were between him and daylight. Thin though it was, it was still the walls of a stomach, though, and that layer of slime on the walls stung his nose and lips. It was worse on the tender skin of his cock, but luckily, without the pressure of a female around it his knot had shrunk down and he was largely back in the sheath.
He found the valve where he'd come in, a knot of muscle like...well, like an asshole, he supposed. It opened momentarily as she let out a long, satiated belch, then again as she swallowed some air to replace it. This repeated; she burped, then swallowed more air, making sure he didn't suffocate.
He could tell from her heartbeat that she was still aroused. The stomach shifted as she moved, trying to reach down and finger herself. The enormous bulge in her middle got in the way. After a minute of frustrated squirming he felt her flip her tail up against her belly. That she could reach, and the skunkette around him squirmed and moaned as she ground herself against her tail.
It did not take long. The stomach twitched as the skunkette churred her pleasure. Eventually she relaxed, and Jacob decided it was time to go. The stomach fluids were present in greater volume now, and the itch of acid was spreading across his body. With enough time the little skunk could digest him, and he wanted no part of that. They'd had their fun, it was time to get out.
He slapped the fleshy wall and said exactly that. Nothing happened.
"Suzy?" He slapped with the back of his hand again. This time there was a response: she belched, and giggled.
"OK, it's time to let me out." He was pretty sure she could hear him at his near-shout. He squirmed to make sure she wasn't falling asleep on him.
She wasn't. She giggled again, and he felt her hands stroking the bulge he made. The flesh was stretched so thin he could feel her paw pads, the tracks her little claws made.
The stomach was sloshing with digestive juices now. It was starting to get painful. "Suzy!"
She didn't react to the shout, and he punched the wall with all his might. That was not much; it was hard to get any leverage all balled up, while surrounded by almost frictionless slimy walls.
She didn't giggle this time. Her hands pressed in, and she let out another long, satisfied burp. This time she didn't swallow any air to replace it. Without air to displace it the acids spread even further over him. The upper portions of him were tingling now, the lower parts were burning as his skin began to soften.
"If you don't throw me up I'm cutting my way out!" He fumbled with the knife. The blade, where was the blade?
Her hands pressed in, squeezing with surprising strength, and the cute little skunkette burped up almost all the remaining air. Jacob's eyes went wide in the dark; the acid was the lesser threat now. Suddenly suffocation was one exhalation away. Where was the blade? He could feel the slot it lay in, but not the notch for his claw to pull it out. He'd seen her open it. He'd seen the blade! Why couldn't he open it?
In the gurgling darkness of the belly, more and more surrounded by the skunkette's digestive juices the wolf struggled. He should never have trusted her, but she was so cute.
*****
Suzy burped, and giggled once more. Her stomach was churning as it released acid; the wolf was bathed in it now. He gave a last kick and succumbed to the lack of air. It was suffocation that got most of them in the end. Oh, she could have swallowed air, but that wouldn't be a kindness. The acids would still flow, and the suffering would be prolonged.
"Nice to meet you, Jacob," she said, and felt through the grass. She found the blade right where she'd hidden it, close enough to find, far enough they hadn't rolled over onto it during the sex. The pin that held the blade in the knife body was nowhere to be found. She shrugged, she'd been planning to have it fixed anyway. The question now was whether the knife body would reappear when she retched up the wolf's fur, or if it would leave her body via a different route.
"I wouldn't have thought a broken knife would get me a meal. You just never know," said the little skunkette as she gathered up her few belongings. The handbag with her bottles of perfume, for one: if she had the time to apply the poisoned perfume to her tail today, she wouldn't have needed to talk the wolf down her throat. The weakening effect of the perfume would have taken hold and down he'd go, as others had gone. She poked at Jacob's clothes and tried on his sandals; those were too big. In the end she left it all where he had dropped it. He didn't need them any more, after all.
The elastic bands of her sun dress dug into her belly. The opening over her navel had expanded, allowing her to down her meal without tearing her clothes. It'd be easier to go naked, but then she wouldn't look so innocent. When you weren't strong enough to stalk and overpower prey, you fell back on guile. Jacob's bit of bad luck was not realizing that the physical, aggressive predators weren't the only threats here. Others had trusted Suzy, and many of them now fertilized the swamp.
With some effort the little skunkette rose on all fours and waddled out of the clearing, her belly dragging. Digesting a meal the size of Jacob would take several days, and it was best to find a quiet place to hole up as her stomach did its work.
A few eyes watched her go. Others, some experienced, some as new as Jacob, now knew the danger of the innocent-looking honey trap. If nothing else, his fate served to educate a few people. Perhaps they would live longer in the Swamp as a result.