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The rarest of lions (alternative ending)

by Strega

It was the fourth time Kate and Ben had been to Kenya, that land of dry grass and umbrella trees, of ferocious and interesting wildlife. They always booked at the same camp, a wonderful series of tree houses and catwalks - with safety rails and netting below, naturally - where the wildlife could walk right underneath their cabin. They had seen rhinos mate from not a hundred feet away the last time, and a pride of a dozen lions came and went over the week they spent there each time. The big cats valued the shade of the camp enough to entirely ignore the chattering tourists and clicking cameras thirty feet over their heads.

They could afford to visit only once but a year the memories of the remarkable place were so strong that it seemed like coming home. On this latest visit they even managed to beg a beaten-up Land Rover from one of the staff. He told them to stay on the main (dirt) road and never to go more than five miles out. Even that, it turned out, was too far to be safe.

They'd spent an hour in the partial shade of an acacia tree, watching a big male lion whose evening seemed to consist mostly of dozing and occasionally rising to sniff at the surrounding trees. Such a large and healthy male by rights should be at the head of a pride, but if he was it was not the pride that hung out beneath the treehouses. No, they would have remembered this big black-maned cat.

"Maybe he's some sort of perimeter guard," Kate speculated. "The guide said some prides have two or even three males, and they sometimes spread out to watch for intruders."

The lion's head swiveled suddenly to look at them, as it had several times before, though never with such alacrity. This time the amber eyes stayed fixed on them, and as though hypnotized they stared back.

"What a magnificent creature," Ben breathed. "I'm glad there is still room in the world for things like this." Then they smelled the smoke.

"Ben! There's steam coming out from under the hood!"

But it wasn't steam, as the smell of burning engine soon informed them. The smoke went from white to black and tongues of flame appeared from the cracks around the sides of the hood. Ben reached for the door handle to get out and perhaps fight the fire, and jerked his hand back when he saw the lion's face not two week away through the side window. "Jesus!"

There was hot smoke coming in through the vents now. Ben grabbed Kate and shrank away from both the vents and the lion, only to have the huge cat, who was apparently not at all afraid of fire, walk around the front of the Land Rover and wait at the door they were now pressed against.

"Back up, into the back seat! Maybe the fire will die down."

But it didn't, and the smoke got worse, and it was soon so hot at the front of the Rover that they were forced into the very back. The back window, which rolled down in a strange Land Rover-ish manner, was open a crack, and they sat in the growing heat and smoke and looked at the lion sitting five feet away. When the first tongue of flame appeared at the front of the cab it spoke.

Ben and Kate boggled at the big cat as carefully enunciated, though growly, words came out of its mouth. It even had a British accent.

"You know," growled the lion. "When you think about it, being digested and being consumed by fire are much the same thing. I expect the former is much less painful than the latter, though."

There was a lengthy pause as the two struggled to believe what they heard, and then Ben said, "What are you talking about?"

"I mean," said the lion, and never had the great sweep of mane around a big cat's face made him look more imposing, "That if you come out here and let me eat you it will be much less painful than being burned alive. I've heard the screams of humans burning up in these people-carriers, and they are horrid."

Ben and Kate shared a look, then looked at the flames now entering the driver's compartment. Only the fact that much of the smoke was exiting the side windows, also open a crack, allowed them to breathe at all, and the heat was driving them ever further into the back of the Rover...and closer to the lion.

"Being torn apart by a lion doesn't sound much better than burning," Kate said.

"Well, it's a good thing I was planning to swallow you up whole," growled the lion. "Come out here, take off your clothes and I will gulp you down alive. I wouldn't want to leave any bits that let other humans know what happened, would I?"

In a less terrifying situation Ben would have laughed. As it was a harsh chuckle escaped him. "Yeah, right. Lions don't swallow people. You're not a snake."

"Aren't I?" Growled the lion, and worked his jaws in a most disturbing way. Only now did they notice how very far back along the sides of his face his lips extended, and how wide the back of his muzzle was. With a creak he opened his maw a fraction, and they stared past fangs and tongue into a slick pink chute as wide as a man's head. The walls of the tube rippled as the cat swallowed, and both shuddered. Suddenly they were all too sure that they each would fit down that throat, or perhaps even both of them at once.

The lion closed his mouth, an elaborate procedure of popping joints, and looked at them again. After a moment he spoke.

"The last person to tell me I couldn't swallow him was a hyena. I coughed up a ball of his fur the next day. It'll be easier for everyone if you take your clothes off."

Kate gave Ben a look of sheer terror and he looked to the front of the Rover.

"If we go out both side doors," he whispered. "One on each side, he can only get one of us. I'll go first, he'll chase me..."

Behind them the lion, ears a-prick, spoke up. "I can strike you with a paw once, then turn and catch the other. I will have you both regardless."

It was right. They could not outrun it. Nevertheless Ben could not bring himself to open the back and step out to what would be a short trip down a lion's throat. If only they'd accepted the pistol the guide offered! Their cameras weren't going to accomplish anything other than give the big cat indigestion.

As the flames and heat grew more intense - the middle seats were beginning to char and reaching the side doors would be a painful experience now - the lion watched with his head tilted slightly to the side. A minute later he spoke again.

"If you stay and burn, when the fire dies I will have you anyway. You two are going to be in my stomach before dawn, cooked or raw. Raw will be less painful."

"Wait a minute," Kate said, suddenly seeing the lie. "Eventually the smoke is going to draw attention, or the smell of cooking meat. If you wait until we are burnt up more humans will come, or more lions, or hyenas, and you may not get to eat us at all."

The lion grimaced, caught out in his bluff. "Fine, you are right. You still have a choice between burning or being digested, don't you?"

"I will make you a deal," Ben said, and rushed on as Kate put her hand on his arm. "I will come out to be eaten, but only if you don't eat my wife."

The lion looked at the increasing amount of smoke billowing from the burning engine and seemed to make an inner calculation. If it weren't nearly dark someone from the camp might have seen the smoke already, and it was still not impossible that help could arrive. Probably not before the humans died, but perhaps quickly enough to deny him his meal. He made a decision.

"Take off your clothes and come out," he growled. "You have a deal."

Kate sobbed as he undressed, but Ben had made up his mind. The only way either of out of the cab, but he knew we was about to go somewhere just as inhospitable as the flames.

He wasn't paying attention to his wife in his haste and it wasn't until he reached for the door latch that he glanced at her. It wasn't until the rear door swung open that he glanced at her.

Kate was naked, too. Ben's eyes went wide as she gave him a shove with both hands, sending him out of the Rover and onto his back. Kate slid out after and landed straddling him as the lion watched with a quizzical expression from ten feet away.

Ben tried to sit up in the dusty dirt and finally managed it, only to find Kate's legs wrapped around his waist. This was neither the time nor the place but the familiar pressure of her breasts against his chest had the same effect on him it always did. Kate reached down and manipulated him and suddenly he was in her.

"Kate, what are you doing," he began, but his wife interrupted him.

"I swore I'd follow you anywhere, dear," Kate said, and as she looked past him she gave a little nod.

"Anywhere," she repeated, and there was a brush of whiskers as the lion's maw yawned wide above them. Droplets of hot drool hit his skin as the purple tunnel of gullet drew closer.

"No!" Ben tried to thrust her away but Kate clung tight as things went dark and moist. The big cat thrust its muzzle downward and his face was pressed against his wife's as first fangs and sandpapery tongue scraped over their scalps, then a slimy tube of muscle expanded over the crowns of their heads. The snakiness of the lion's jaws was proven as both their heads, and then their necks, were engulfed by the wet muscular chute of its throat.

It might not be too late. Ben struggled to push Kate away so that only he might be swallowed, but she clung too tight. The lion, too, had accepted that his deal was not to be. A powerful foreleg reached out, padded forepaw wrapped across Kate's back so the tips of its toes and their nearly retracted claws just brushed his naked side. The lion held them tight against its shaggy mane as it worked its head from side to side, pressing its jaws against their shoulders. There had been a wet pop when it swallowed their heads and now two more sounded. Somehow its jaws disjointed, stretching impossibly wide, and the wet slippery throatflesh slipped down over their upper arms. With Ben's rump pressed firmly into the dirt and the lion's unhinged jaws in front and behind the only possibly way out of the dilemma was to wriggle to the left or right. Maybe he could push Kate free that way. But his wife and the lion knew that too, and her grip and the press of the lion's foreleg kept him from moving her more than an inch. With a long slow thrust of its snakey jaws the lion engulfed them all the way to Kate's hips, and Ben had to at last accept that he could not save her.

"Why?" He whispered as the lion slipped its paw beneath his rump. "You could have lived."

"Not without you, dear." There was no light in the slick clinging confines of the lion's gullet, but he didn't need it to see her smile. He well knew her every expression just from her voice and knew that now was the time to kiss her. And to do more than kiss her.

They began to move together as the lion lifted them with a paw. The jaws enclosing them from above and below gave them something to press against, and he was thrusting into his wife as with a toss of its muzzle the lion worked its jaws past Kate's hips. She was forced to straighten her legs, and with a second toss of its head Ben's hips slipped in after. Wrapped to the buttocks in the slimy heat of the lion's throat Ben moved against his wife, and the two lets of interlocked legs hanging from its lips moved in unison as they began to slip out of sight.

The lion did not let it show, but the slow synchronized wriggling of prey in his gullet strained his throat to the limit. He had never swallowed two humans together before and had barely gotten his jaws over that double set of shoulders. Even now the man's broad shoulders pressed uncomfortably against his innards. It was completely impossible to breathe, and not because of his full throat. There were gaps between the two bodies. No, it was because his ribcage was stuffed full of prey and the space they occupied was that which his lungs normally used to expand. He only had a few moments before his vision would begin to darken and had to decided whether to heave them back up, the easier choice, or swallow them down.

After this much work and faced with a never before seen opportunity to have a double meal of human his pride left him only one option. His eyes narrowed and he swallowed with all his might. For a moment he felt real fear as the bulky mass of bodies in his gullet failed to move, but at last there was the least twitch of downward motion. The lion tossed his head upward. Even he strained to lift his great head and the weight of two whole humans, but finally the great lump of meal began to slip downward.

There was no time to waste, much as he might wish to linger over his meal. A great contraction of his throat muscles helped ease the two humans even deeper and at last there was an easing of the pressure as their heads and the beginnings of their shoulders began to enter his stomach.

There was finally an opportunity to suck in a sip of air. Two sets of knees, calves and feet still hung from his jaws, but he paused to rest for a few seconds. Panting, but recovered enough to continue, the lion lifted his muzzle and gulped once more.

Half enclosed in the inhospitable heat of the lion's stomach and with nowhere to go but further in, the couple clung to each other. Even now they thrust against each other, and as fangs scraped their way down toward their feet a shuddering passion overtook them both. They were both bound for a gurgling digestive end but they each had a last moment of love and pleasure before the lion's jaws closed over their feet.

After what seemed ages but was only a minute or two the lion finally managed to shut his jaws. The four feet in his mouth kicked a couple of times, the toes bumping into his front fangs, before his tongue pushed back against the man's heels. With a last straining gulp the cat swallowed down his meal. It was with a great sense of relief that he felt the bulge in his mane move downward one final time. The worst was over for him and the legs slipped down his throat with relative ease. There had been a moment of worry but as his stomach filled with the last of the humans he knew he had succeeded. He swallowed again, not so much to help the humans on their way but to enjoy the sensation of a throat not stretched tight.

That job was his belly's now, and he rose to all fours and stretched. The great drooping bulge swelled as the human feet joined the rest in his stomach, and rarely before had the pelt of his abdomen been stretched so tight. Not since he had stunned a smaller rival male with a strike to the head and swallowed him whole had so much meat occupied his stomach.

The first belch that bubbled up out of him blew out his lips and sent droplets of drool flying. The second was quieter, but went on and on as the slow contractions of his belly forced the air trapped between the humans out. They were still moving, the humans. Maybe they were comforting each other or enjoying a last moment of pleasure. The third burp was a small one, perhaps from the air that was departing their lungs as they succumbed.

That little burp was still hanging in the air as the lioness appeared from the tall grass. She look one look at the bulge in his middle, and another at the burning Rover, though that look was hardly necessary. So tightly stretched was the hide of his belly that she could instantly make out that not one but two entire humans were curled up together in his stomach.

"That was greedy," she purred. "Even for you."

The lion glanced past his shoulder at the still vaguely twitching bulge. He looked back at the lioness, unimpressed.

"If it had been you who met them, I would have emerged from the grass to find two sets of feet hanging from your jaws," he growled. "And you would hurry to swallow them down before I could get a taste."

The lioness had the good grace to look a bit embarrassed, for he was right. She could no more resist the challenge of swallowing two humans together than he had. She was smaller than he and she wondered if she could manage it. One human, yes; she had swallowed down a tall native herdsman just a few weeks back. But two?

"You could retch one up," she purred. "And share."

The lion stepped forward and rubbed his cheek against hers. He was not annoyed, for she was his favorite mate, but he still denied her.

"I made a deal with the male to spare his wife," he growled, "But she clung to him and showed me with her eyes that I was to swallow them together. They mated as they were eaten. I cannot separate them, even in death." The weak struggle in his belly had ended; there were just the slow, intermittent gurgles of digestion as husband and wife were consumed together.

"Hmf," grunted the lioness, unimpressed. "And if you had swallowed him and then I had appeared?"

"I gave my word," her mate growled. "I keep my word."

And she had to settle for that, much as she would have liked a meal of human for herself. They sniffed around the vehicle for a few minutes, then departed together. There was nothing but the burning vehicle, a few lion tracks, and even fewer tracks of naked human feet.

When the manager of the camp arrived the next morning, accompanied by two armed beaters, there was much scratching of heads. A storm had arrived in the night and the few half obliterated traces left much doubt as to what had happened to the couple. A search of the surrounding area did not add any information. Tourists did sometimes disappear in the veldt. Maybe bandits had kidnapped them and would ask for ransom.

It was not seriously considered that they might have been eaten by lions, despite the tracks. You would be hard pressed to find an acre of land here without lion prints. As far as they knew, though, lion meals were messy affairs. There would be some trace. A second search yielded no more information and the foreman began to accept the grim possibility that they might never know what had happened. It was as though the two had vanished into thin air.

Several miles away the lion dozed, surrounded by his several mates and cubs, his belly still swollen with half-digested human. Ben and Kate had met the rarest breed of lions. Not just because he could swallow his meals whole, for that was not an uncommon ability. No, the rarity here was his sense of honor. He really would have let Kate live. Instead she had gone down his throat with her husband, bound by love and marriage. He had respected that and would remember them, though his stomach treated them no more lightly than it did any other meal. Meat is meat to a lion, after all, and no amount of mutual respect will save you when you end up inside one.