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The cheetah woman had her legs wrapped around his waist when it happened.

"No," Jerry said firmly.

"Aw," Callie moped. Still, she closed her mouth and went back to bouncing on his cock.

For just a moment he'd seen past the strings of saliva and sharp feline fangs into the purple depths of her cheetah gullet. She was sleek and athletic and great fun to have in his lap, but she was also stronger than he was. The way her hands gripped his upper arms when she yawned left no doubt. If he hadn't said no, she would have swallowed his face, pinned his arms to his sides with her hands, and worked her jaws over him.

Once her jaws were past his shoulders there would be no stopping her. All Jerry wanted was the sex so he stopped her before they got that far.

When they finished she dismounted and pulled her bikini bottom back on. Jerry slipped the condom off his dick and put in a ziplock bag he carried for that purpose.

"I was sort of hoping you'd spend the night inside me," the cheetah woman purred, and gave his bare shoulder a raspy lick.

"I'd be happy to," Jerry replied. "But in your pussy, not your stomach."

"Oh well," she purred with a smile. "Plenty of fish in the sea."

Before he was even out from under the pier, she was chatting up an athletic Black girl he'd seen playing beach volleyball earlier. Her next lover, her next meal, or both.

Before Jerry came to the Friendly Beach, he made sure he knew the Rules and went through the forums on the web page looking for pointers. There were several threads about Callie. She really liked to eat people and if you didn't want to end up as a bulge in her spotty middle you were well advised to pay attention to her actions, even during the sex.

Especially during the sex. She was the sort of predator who took lack of resistance as a "yes" and if you got too distracted, you'd end up exploring her digestive tract like it or not. She was eerily similar in that way to another, less anthropomorphic cat he'd read about. Except that with the Tame Camp one you only got one trip through her bowels. There were no do-overs there. Here at least, if a superficially trustworthy lover wolfed you down you survived to yell at them later.

Jerry spent a pleasant half hour browsing the shops on the pier. He bought a beer and stopped by the EVERY CONDOM YOU NEED kiosk. He was just about out and he bought some condoms.

Most of the animal ones they sold were much the same sort of thing, just different sizes. Some of the animals around here were so well hung he couldn't imagine their cocks fitting into a human but if someone wasn't buying the giant condoms they wouldn't sell them.

Posters on the fold out front of the booth showed how to put them on various animals. Most of that was pedestrian enough. An otter or a sea lion has a reasonably normal looking dick. At least it is basically a cylinder. The weird ones were the S-shaped dolphin and orca dicks. For those you needed bespoke condoms.

They also had O shaped silicone widgets which he gathered were to keep an enthusiastic and overly well-hung animal lover from spitting you like a roast. You put one or two of them over the beast's dick so only the correct amount was left to slide into you.

"I'm surprised you don't sell animal themed dildos," Jerry observed.

"Two booths down," the vendor said. "Made a deal with the guy so we don't compete with each other. He sells the sex toys and I sell the condoms. They have werewolf ones there now, modelled after the cop werewolves."

"How did they get models of cop werewolf dicks," Jerry thought but did not say. He didn't really want to know the answer.

Sitting at a table nearby was a visibly pregnant blond woman. She was chatting with Beachcomber the otter, another of the beach's three anthros. Beachcomber was a first-generation otter-human hybrid and less humanoid than Callie, with a long ottery body and short legs.

There in front of him were two of the reasons Jerry always used condoms here at the beach. From what he heard, the woman with the otter didn't sleep with men, just the hybrids and various beach animals. As a result, she not only didn't know who the father of her child was, she didn't know what species he was. It might be Beachcomber or one of the many beasts she'd fucked. They said the odds of an animal knocking up a human or vice versa were one in a million, but if you fuck enough sea mammals, it could happen. Beachcomber and the woman were living proof.

A sea lion or she-otter wasn't going to ask for child support payments so he wasn't in the woman's position, but Jerry wasn't taking any chances. And this way he always had one if it was Callie or some human beach bunny visiting with him under the pier.

"We could try again," the woman said to Beachcomber.

"It didn't work the last two times," the otter purred. "If digesting you could fix your little problem it would have already."

Jerry shook his head. Some people. He got up and headed back under the pier before he said something stupid.

It wasn't a surprise to find Callie sitting in the shadows when he got back in among the rocks. The surprise was the massive bulge in the cheetah's middle.

"Hello again," she purred, and stroked the lumpy bulge that could only be a curled-up human. There was a sudden violent twitch beneath the fur and her hands gripped down with the skill of much practice. Whoever it was, and Jerry was pretty sure it was a woman from the size, suddenly decided they weren't okay with being stuck in a cheetah's stomach.

Callie on the other hand was quite okay with it. She gripped her swollen belly to quiet the struggle and the pressure forced out a big bubble of air. Callie belched smugly and watched as the struggle weakened.

"You could cough her up," Jerry observed.

"You know the Rules," Callie purred. A raspy tongue made a circuit of her chops. "She got herself into this, she'll have to find her own way out."

"You're a horrible person," Jerry thought but did not say. If he hadn't told her no half an hour ago he'd be the one in there. The woman in her stomach must have agreed to it...briefly. it was too late for a change of heart to save her from a trip through the cheetah's bowels.

"Why aren't you fat," he said. Still rude, but not accusatory. "You eat people all the time."

"Give me a hand and I'll show you," she purred. He took her padded hand and helped her stand. The grotesque bulge in her middle made her unsteady on her feet. It drooped it almost to her knees and the slowly digesting woman kicked weakly beneath the fur.

Jerry helped her waddle over to the rocks. Something stirred as they moved into the deeper shadows and what he thought was a hummock of sand opened its eyes.

It was a seal of some sort, a fat torpedo of a beast at least ten feet long from whiskery muzzle to hind flippers. It lifted its streamlined head and blinked at them.

Callie grunted at it and the seal grunted back. She must know enough seal language to communicate in a basic way without one of the translation methods available hereabouts.

"It's the Callie Diet Plan," she purred, and sat down on the sand in front of the seal.

"See?" she purred, and it was the last thing she said, for the seal took her up on the unspoken offer. Jerry took a step back as the seal's jaws opened and took in her head.

Sat down in front of it, she was an easy meal. She couldn't run even if she wanted to. The seal simply pushed its maw over her, engulfing her head and shoulders in one easy slide. It only slowed when it reached the bulge of swallowed woman.

"Ugh." Jerry took another step back as the seal began to twist its muzzle from side to side. Maintaining a constant downward pressure it gradually ratcheted its jaws wider. Inch by inch the bulge of swallowed woman was engulfed, the cheetah's furry belly disappearing spot by spot.

With her butt pressed against the sand there was no way for Callie to escape. She didn't even try. Instead she planted her hands on her knees and managed to stand up on her knees. This forced even more of her into the seal's maw. Very soon now its distended jaws would reach the widest part of her swollen belly and once that happened it was all over. The natural tendency of its jaws to want to close would engulf the lower part of the bulge and swallowing the rest of her would be easy.

Callie didn't mind. In the few moments she had before she was swallowed she pulled her bikini bottom down and pointed her furry butt at Jerry.

Help push me in, was the unspoken offer. Have a quickie before the maw takes me. She wriggled her butt at him, but Jerry couldn't get past the fact that a seal's jaws were halfway over her. The swelling in its cheeks made its eyes bulge and it would stare at him the whole time. He didn't even like to pee with someone in an adjacent urinal, much less fuck someone with a seal looking at his dick.

The opportunity was brief and then it was gone. The seal's distended jaws crested the bulge of Callie's swollen belly and with a smooth slide the rest was taken in. A great bulge stood out of its already thick neck as the swallowed woman slipped into its gullet. All that was left of Callie was a set of spotty legs and a gently waving tail. Her butt was sucked in as the bulge moved into the seal's throat and the the seal lifted its muzzle, tensing for the final gulp.

Jerry watched with morbid curiosity as it happened. The seal swallowed with all its might and muscles moved beneath its furry hide as its gullet took hold of Callie. The bulge of swallowed woman inside the cheetah was easy for the swallowing muscles to grip and Callie's legs were sucked into the beast's maw as the bulge slipped down into its torpedo body.

"Damn," Jerry muttered. Once the bulge was in the seal's throat, the rest of Callie slipped into its jaws as easily as a letter slides into a mailbox. The thing's long body must be mostly stomach because the cheetah ended up stretched out beneath its blubbery hide. The bulge of swallowed woman showed in the seal's middle but above and below it was more cheetah.

"Ort," grunted the seal. It yawned to reset its jaws and rolled over on the sand.

Until now he couldn't tell the thing's gender. One seal looks much like another to him and he didn't even know what species it was. The seal turned out to be female and it spread its hind flippers, exposing the slit between them.

Jerry wasn't sure how he felt about all this but his penis had its own opinion and soon his shorts were on the sand and he was on top of the well fed seal. It wrapped its foreflippers around him as he thrust and undulated its lower body, pushing into the sex. Seal flippers have claws and he'd have some dynamite love scratches to show off later.

Inside the thing he felt the shape of Callie move. He was draped half over the bulge of swallowed woman, who had changed her mind once she was in a cheetah's stomach. Callie didn't change hers and from her movements he was sure she was fingering herself in the seal's stomach.

That didn't last long. His weight squeezed the seal's belly tight around her and the seal let out a long, relieved-sounding belch. Callie's air departed the seal's belly and by the time Jerry groaned and came the long bulge beneath him was still.

The seal was smart. It had him hugged tightly to its long body but it loosened its grip so he could move. Only then did it bend its whiskery muzzle down toward him and yawn.

"No," Jerry said firmly as for the second time in one morning he saw fangs part to expose a thick pink tongue and the waiting chute of gullet behind it. It had swallowed Callie easily even with a curled up woman inside the cheetah. With a bend of its thick neck and a slide of its jaws it could swallow him too. The bulge in its long body would swell wider and three people, himself, the cheetah and the cheetah's meal would explore its digestive tract together.

It could have trapped him against its long body with its foreflippers and eaten him. Instead it let him choose and as soon as the word was out of his mouth it closed its maw and lay its head back on the sand.

"Good girl," Jerry said, and patted the bulge of swallowed Callie as he pulled his shorts back up.

These two weren't even the most aggressive preds he'd run into. He'd been lucky to wriggle free more than once. He reported the animal in question and Callie or one of the others would give it a stern talking-to.

He'd heard that if things got too out of control the other animals would chase the offender away or even eat it. Jeff the sea lion lifeguard once ate a small dolphin that was causing trouble, or so he claimed. Unlike humans, animals didn't reform here. A problem animal stopped being a problem pretty fast once swallowed.

With another filled condom in the plastic bag he headed back up onto the pier. He needed some time to recharge so he bought another beer and mingled.

He'd only been there half an hour when Callie showed up, hand in hand with the athletic black lady. Jerry guessed this was the cheetah's meal from earlier, reformed along with the cat who ate her.

"The Callie diet," he said as they went by, and lifted his beer in salute.

"It works," the spotty cat purred. She gripped a modest roll of fat above her hips. "Even one person a month takes a lot of volleyball to work off. If I digested everyone I ate I'd be enormous!"

Jerry grinned, happy to not be on her waistline.

Just then he saw Beachcomber waddle onto the pier and settle into a basket chair. The otter was twice Callie's size but the lumpy bulge of swallowed woman was still substantial. The otter curled up in the chair, rested his muzzle on the bulge and promptly fell asleep.

"I guess they tried again," the Black woman said to Callie.

"It won't work," the cheetah purred. "You show up the same as when you die in a belly. She's proof that it includes even pregnancy."

"He was just talking to her," Jerry said. "And now she's a bulge." Callie grinned.

"Let me know if you want to try it out," she purred. She licked her chops. "You taste good."

That was still a 'no' as far as Jerry was concerned. He finished his beer and headed to the vendor kiosks.

Besides the bars, the EVERY CONDOM YOU NEED booth and the dildo hut, they sold beach clothing here. Some was "nature friendly" which included Callie's line of digestible beachwear. Then there was the lube with Beachcomber's whiskery face on the label. And the digestible bondage gear. They really sold everything here.

He never paid much attention to the booths that rented things. He wasn't exactly poor but he didn't spent money on frivolous things. He wasn't going to rent a jet ski or small boat, or ride the water powered jet pack.

He'd never rented one of the rebreather masks they had here, but he'd also never fucked anything in the water. At most he had fun with dolphins in the tide pools. He also hadn't talked to the animals, not even with the cell phone translation apps. He considered the state of his wallet and decided to change that.

"Two hour battery life," the vendor said. He watched as Jerry turned the mask around in his hands. "Air pressure holds the faceplate rigid. The drawback is that it's only good down to thirty, forty feet. Below that the water pressure will push it against your face."

"Why not a rigid mask," Jerry asked.

"This way it's flexible," the vendor said. He took it back and wadded it up in his hands. It sprang back into shape when he released it. "If someone gets eaten wearing one it can get coughed back up or go all the way through the pred."

He showed Jerry another mask with visibly corroded metal fittings and rubber parts discolored red. "This one's been through half a dozen preds. Couple of dolphins, two sea lions, an otter and an orca."

"An orca?!"

"One of the easier swallows," the vendor said. "There are a couple of female ones around here who can suck a whole human into their pussy. One digests people that way, with the other it's safe as long as you have a mask. Best to ask if you're not sure which one it is you're talking to."

Everyone was just so darn casual about it. Sure, some preds were hungry, some were even a bit aggressive, but they all took "no" for an answer. Most were the nicest man-eating monsters you could hope to meet. And so that day, having filled out the "female" side of the beach bingo card and looking for a new thing to try, Jerry made a fateful decision.

"Okay, I'll rent one," he said. The vendor nodded and passed the mask over. "Fins too."

The vendor spent a few minutes explaining the mask functions. They were really a marvel of modern science. Besides letting you breathe underwater and talk to various wildlife, they had a built-in head-up display that told you what direction you faced, how far from the beach you were, and relevantly, how far you were from the "reformation limit". This was marked by buoys with both strobes above the water and pings beneath, so both you and the animals knew where the limit lay.

The Friendly Beach worked because the animals knew that killing people for good would spoil the excellent deal they got. Animals who couldn't fight for a mate, or whose females weren't interested due to being out of season, could come here and enjoy frequent and enthusiastic sex with humans. Plus they scored two-legged meals with no worry of running out or having angry people coming after them with harpoons and guns - as long as they took "no" for an answer.

When Jerry finally decided to offer himself as a meal he knew he'd have no shortage of takers. He didn't want it to be Callie or one of the other anthros, or creatures they routinely fucked. The second the cheetah heard about it she'd want his head in her mouth. He had enough trouble avoiding a trip through her guts without her knowing he might, just maybe, say "yes".

So it had to happen away from the pier, and that meant in the water. Thus, the mask and fins. Jerry paid the vendor, dropped off his wallet in the code-locked locker where he left his keys, and even scrounged a set of shorts from the CLOTHING bin next to the reformation spot so he could put his own in the locker. The set he grabbed looked like it'd already been through a digestive tract so another trip through a sea beast wouldn't do them any harm.

Jerry took a deep breath. Did he really want to do this? He thought about Callie, sometimes a pred and sometimes prey, and the very willing meals he'd seen her and other predators take. He'd do it once, and see if he liked it.

Jerry pulled on the mask, waded into the surf and put the fins on while bobbing in the cool water. No sooner did he take a breath than the HUD came on. Compass along the top, with icons. Those the vendor hadn't mentioned. He looked around and saw the pier icon, a distant lighthouse, two icons for places to eat (presumably advertisements paid for by the restaurants) and what must be the chain of reformation limit buoys the better part of a mile out to sea. A bottle icon was full and blue. He remembered the vendor saying it would slowly drain and turn red when he had fifteen minutes of air left.

As he swam out to the end of the pier he marveled how little he could see. Despite beams of sunlight slanting through the water it was mostly just murky blue. He only knew he was near the pier by the mussel-covered pilings.

He couldn't see much, but the same couldn't be said for the local wildlife. He wasn't even to the end of the pier before the first dolphin showed up.

"Oh hey," it chittered, and he was pleased to find that the translation properties of the rebreather mask worked as advertised. "Haven't seen you before."

"I stay on the beach mostly," Jerry said, and the perfectly streamlined sea beast nodded by bobbing in the water. "I've visited with dolphins in tide pools though."

"Oh good," chittered the dolphin. "Wanna fuck then?"

"Well, maybe - no," Jerry said, for the dolphin's weird s-shaped cock popped out as it spoke. As usual he hadn't known the gender of the thing just looking at it. Even if he were into male animals, the base of the thing was thicker than his ankle and there's no way it wouldn't jackhammer the whole thing in. He'd seen people fuck male dolphins and it was a marvel they survived.

"Aw," chittered the dolphin. "You could use your hand?"

"No thanks," said Jerry, hearing it translated to a chitter for the dolphin's benefit. He fended off the dolphin's belly as it curled toward him, doing his best not to touch the pink bendy wang. The thing twisted and twitched, trying to curl around his wrist. "Sorry. Don't like men."

"Stick it in my butt then," the dolphin chittered helpfully. "Right below my thingie."

"No," Jerry said, and tried his best to push the randy dolphin away. Luckily something else caught its attention.

"Oh hey," the dolphin chittered, and swam off into the salty gloom. It must have spotted something with its keen senses that he couldn't perceive.

"Great," muttered Jerry, who hadn't thought to offer himself as a meal. That was the whole point of swimming out here. There was plenty of sex to be had under the pier.

Actually, though, he was just as happy he hadn't. He could just imagine the horny dolphin humping itself off against the bulge his face made. That wasn't something he wanted to remember for the rest of his life.

Two dim shapes materialized out of the gloom and he saw it was two more dolphins. "Hello," chirped the smaller in what translated to a distinctly feminine voice.

"I'm Feather-Chaser," she chittered. "Side-Stripe," said the other. "Was Notch-Fin bothering you?"

"He was horny, is all," said Jerry. He considered the blue bottle icon at the top right corner of his mask. It was less than a quarter drained.

"Well so are we," chittered Feather-Chaser, and rolled in the water to show him her slit. Unlike Notch-Fin's, this one didn't have a bendy cock sticking out, and also unlike the male's, this one had a slit on either side. He reached out and rubbed, and the dolphin thrust herself against his hand.

It wasn't why he swam out here, but when the dolphin slid her belly up against him he wasn't going to turn her down. He managed to put a condom on as she waited impatiently, with Side-Stripe poking him in the shoulder with her beak, and then he was fucking a dolphin underwater.

It was better than in the tide pool. Here she could thrash her tail, thrusting back against him, and he was momentarily trapped between two horny dolphins. He did his best to finger Side-Stripe off as he humped Feather-Chaser and both seemed happy with his efforts.

When he was done and the used condom floated away despite his best effort to capture it, they talked.

"A big doggo came to the beach a while back," Feather chittered. "He was a good fucker. Had to be careful with humans, but us he could fuck just fine."

"Big doggo? What, a wolf?"

"Were-Wolf," Side-Stripe chittered. "Like the movies. Good fuck. Big cock."

"He was as big as us," Feather chittered. "Not like you."

"Must be one of the police werewolves," Jerry thought. They were what, nine feet tall? These dolphins were easily that long. He wondered if the wolf used a condom. The beach was exciting enough without were-dolphins.

"I actually came out here to try something else," he said.

"But you did come out here," Feather chittered. "So did I."

Jerry grimaced. Dolphins weren't above bad puns when you could talk to them. Not a surprise, really.

"You eat people, right?"

"Oh yes," chittered Feather. "I've eaten this one man six times. Or is it seven now?"

"Twice for him, for me," chittered Side-Stripe. "He does like dolphins."

"Being inside us that is," chittered Feather "Both ways."

"Well I've been thinking," said Jerry. "I sort of wanted to -"

"Say no more," chittered Feather, and curved toward him in the water

"- try," Jerry said as the sea before him was suddenly replaced with a gaping dolphin maw. Dolphins, he knew, had dozens of peg teeth suited not to tear flesh but simply to hold prey as it was swallowed whole. He got a good close look at them as Feather's jaws creaked wide.

It was a good thing she hadn't misinterpreted him, because before the word "Stop" could leave his lips her jaws were around his shoulders. Pink flesh stretched at the corners of her beak as she stretched her jaws wide and with one thrust of her maw she was over him to the elbows.

Dolphin teeth hurt, he discovered. They scraped and scratched as her beak closed. She'd turned as she moved to eat him and the upper jaw of her beak went over his right shoulder, the lower jaw over his left. Before he could react to the pain she thrashed her tail, thrusting herself forward, and everything went dark as pink dolphin gullet slithered over his head and shoulders.

With a wriggle of her beak she was over him to the hips, his hands out of the corners of her maw and gripping at nothing as the peg teeth dug into his skin. A great contraction of her gullet rolled over him, easing him deeper, and Feather-Chaser set about swallowing him alive.

There was no backing out now. The dolphin had him half swallowed and she would have her meal like it or not. With a lurch of her jaws he was gone to the knees and she only paused so Side-Stripe could pull the swim fins off his feet with her beak.

A muscular valve expanded over his face, admitting him to her stomach. A moment later he discovered that dolphins have at least two of those, because as she wriggled her beak over his feet his face slithered through the fleshy folds of her gut only for another valve to open before him. This new space wasn't a simple tube like her gullet so it had to be a second stomach.

Feather-Chaser closed her beak around his now naked feet, tensed, and swallowed. With a short smooth slide it was over. She had her meal and he lay stretched out, wrapped in flesh that pressed in from all directions and barely able to move.

Almost immediately Jerry realized there was a problem. A very, very big problem. The HUD on his mask helpfully showed that he was facing back toward the pier but only very gradually approaching it. Feather-Chaser was in no hurry and would laze through the water as she digested her meal of human.

And therein lay the problem. The mask was still operating. In the near black of her second stomach he saw the folds of flesh pressing against the mask and the faintly phosphorescent stomach juices moving through the folds. From the elbows up he was stretched out in her stomachs, stung by her digestive juices. The pain was immediate and growing and he had no way to shut the mask off.

"Fuck," Jerry said, and tried to reach up and take it off. "Fuck!" His arms were pinned to his sides by the inward squeeze of her gullet and the stretched upper sphincter of her first stomach trapped them still more tightly against him. That first stomach squeezed and kneaded him, trying to break him up for easier digestion, but whether it succeeded or not her two bellies were full of acid that would do the trick.

He'd expected a long belly like the seal lion that swallowed Callie had. She'd stretched out in it and casually fingered herself as she waited to suffocate. He'd signed up for that sort of quick end and even considered a last wank before passing on and, eventually, being passed. Apparently, dolphins aren't built like that internally.

Feather-Chaser's body gurgled and groaned around him as the acids began their work. He was not her first human meal and even with half of him still in her gullet her bellies knew what to do. The sting of acid grew worse by the moment and he he could feel his skin already softening. There was a slimy feel to it where one part of him touched another. Her stomach acids ate away at him and she didn't even notice when he started to squirm and struggle. The dolphin's heart thumped peacefully a few inches away even as her stomach acids began to consume him.

He couldn't reach the mask to turn it off. All he could do was lie there are the acids ate into him. Moment by moment the pain got worse as her stomach juices found his pores and used those openings to dissolve him all the faster.

A dolphin's digestive system is powerful and quick. Jerry found that out first-hand as he lay screaming, staring at the air bottle symbol and hoping it'd hurry its way to empty. It didn't. He lasted the whole ninety minutes, the last few deep in shock but still alive even as Feather's gastric juices dissolved her meal.

He woke up screaming on the beach, blinded by sudden shocking light and scaring a woman on the boardwalk badly. He was curled in a fetal ball when the alarm she raised brought someone to see what was happening.

"Hey dude," purred a gentle voice, and Jerry threw himself to the side as he realized Beachcomber, belly soft and sloshing with partially digested woman, was next to him. The laid-back otter was suddenly terrifying. Jerry now knew what it was like to be digested alive.

"Dude," Beachcomber purred, and held up has webby hands unthreateningly. "I'm not gonna hurt you. What happened?"

Bit by bit the beach bum otter pried it out of him. Beachcomber sat on a rock and thought about it. "Well, that's a bummer, man. It happens here sometimes though. I had to help this guy who got swallowed feet first by a little pred. His head was still in her throat so he could breathe. And then just recently someone had the same thing as happened to you, happen. Swallowed headfirst, couldn't turn the mask off."

"Why the fuck don't you do something about it, then?"

Beachcomber spread his webby hands placatingly. "It's okay, man. You kinda sign up for this sorta thing when you decide you want to do the big slide. Most of time time, it works out. You just got unlucky."

"Really fucking unlucky!" It didn't seem to bother Beachcomber at all to be screamed at or to have a finger poked into his muscular chest. He could have grabbed Jerry and added him to the sloshing contents of his belly but he just stood there and took it.

"Look man, okay," he purred. "Let's get the others together and talk about it."

That is how he found himself sitting on a rock with the off-duty lifeguard Jeff, half sea lion, the half otter Beachcomber and the more humanoid Callie. Sat with them was a human beach patrol officer.

"So not long ago a woman reported seeing a man's feet in a dolphin's mouth, alive, as she visited with the phin," Callie purred. "It was probably the same thing that happened to Jerry here."

"And about this time last year a guy let Tiny eat him feet first. His face wouldn't fit in her stomach and he was digesting alive. I got Tiny to hold her breath and he suffocated, but if I hadn't happened by..." that was Beachcomber.

Jeff the half-sea-lion shrugged. "I haven't heard about anything like that, but it sounds like a problem. What can we do about it?"

Jerry flinched away from the nearby tide pool as a fin approached. A sort of canal connected it to the tideline and a dolphin's beak popped out of the water. It spat a rebreather mask onto the sand and chittered.

"She says thanks for the meal and here's your mask, it just came out," translated Beachcomber. The beach patrol man, looking at his phone, nodded.

Jerry winced and tried not to look. The dolphin chittered in a conversational way and disappeared back down the canal. No sign of his swim fins. Maybe they'd already turned them in to the vendor somehow.

After another half hour of discussion, the following conclusions were reached.

1: There needed to be a way to turn off the mask without the use of one's hands. Beachcomber, who spent more time in the surf than Callie and who ate more people wearing the things than Jeff, was sure this could be managed with some sort of software update. A verbal shut off command should be easy to put in.

1. The several times repeated incident of someone being eaten and digesting to death suggested that a new Rule was probably needed.

And that is how Jerry became something of a local celebrity. Hardly a day went by without someone saying "Are you that Jerry?" This was because of the new Rule.

RULE 15: Don't be like Jerry. Have a plan BEFORE you're swallowed for what is going to happen AFTER.