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Norbert By Strega

Norbert was ten-plus feet long nose to flippers, an awkward blubbery hulk out of water. Clumsy and heavy, you'd never know his true grace until you saw him in the water. There he was a torpedo, smooth and strong and fast. He was eleven hundred pounds of whiskery, friendly Steller's Sea Lion, the darling of the staff at the aquarium and a favorite of the crowds who turned up to watch him perform for snacks.

Paul had seen him swim and play dozens of times now. He was a regular at the sea life center, with his second yearly admission pass in a row, and so far the staff didn't realize he came to the daily shows to case the place out for nightly visits. Paul liked marine mammals a bit more than was proper and so far he'd snuck into the river otter display and the dolphin display (twice), all without getting caught.

The otters hadn't been as friendly as he had hoped and he'd been lucky to escape with only scratches but the dolphins had been great. Swimming with them was the high point of his life and now he was watching Norbert through the floor to ceiling glass and planning a visit with the sea lion, too.

Paul knew the layout of the aquarium better than most of the staff did and had struck up a friendship with several of the maintenance men, who liked to talk during their breaks as much as the next crew. They never guessed that the man they complained to about break-ins and fence repairs was responsible for most of them and planning his next visit based on weaknesses he learned during these idle over-coffee chats.

Just past midnight on a Tuesday Paul left his car parked outside an apartment building two blocks from the aquarium and went for a jog. He wore only shorts, but shirtless joggers are common and even shoeless ones aren't unheard-of. He was able to stay on the grass except when crossing one street and as he jogged into the shadows in front of the sea life center he paused to catch his breath.

There was no one in sight as he swiftly climbed the chain link and slipped through a gap between the staff building and the tide pool exhibit. He knew to the second how long it took the solitary security guard to do his rounds and after waiting for the man to amble by it was another quick climb into Norbert's enclosure.

And he was in. Paul paused to look around but even with only moonlight you couldn't miss the thousand-pound sea lion snoozing on his side next to the water.

He couldn't help himself. He knew the risks his urges brought, but he still crept closer to the smooth furry torpedo. Norbert woke with a confused grunt as Paul rubbed his tail. He bent like a caterpillar to look past his front flippers at the strange human kneading fingers into his thick, fat-lined hide.

Paul grinned as the sea lion blinked owlishly at him. The otters had been small enough to push around, if sharp-clawed and fanged, but like the dolphins Norbert was big enough to be dangerous if he reacted badly. Fortunately he'd been right about the sea lion and Norbert just pushed half-heartedly at Paul with his tail flippers and otherwise ignored him.

At least, he did until Paul kneaded his way further up his body. Paul liked marine mammals more than was really proper and Norbert's sleepy eyes went wide open when Paul began to rub the long ridge that led upward from his vent.

"Shh, it's all right," Paul whispered, and thought he felt the least stiffening beneath Norbert's thick hide. The dolphins hadn't minded treatment like this at all and had even swum up to let him get at them, but Norbert grunted and rolled over onto his belly. There was no getting at his genitals now and Paul was reduced to kneading the sea lion's back again. Even that was exciting and if the sea lion wasn't interested in any fun, he still was.

He was grinding his erection against Norbert's soft back through his shorts when the sea lion lost patience. Norbert rolled away from Paul and with hardly a ripple was gone into the water.

"Spoilsport," Paul mocked, but he wasn't going to accept defeat so easily. If nothing else he could swim with the sea lion. The moon was bright enough to make out Norbert's smooth passage through the water. When the sea lion was at the other end of the aquarium he slid in, making rather more of a splash than the streamlined mammal.

Paul was used to salt water and swam with his eyes open, approaching Norbert only for the huge sea lion to flick effortlessly out of reach. A human can't compete with a real swimmer but Paul kept at it, surfacing to breathe then swimming underwater toward Norbert once more.

The big sea lion moved through the water with marvelous smoothness, staying out of reach as Paul swam after. Each time Norbert swam away he moved a little faster and Paul was amazed at his underwater grace despite seeing it through the glass more than once. Norbert doubled back suddenly and passed so close Paul almost managed to touch him. Just that quickly the sea lion was at the other end of the pool and swinging around once more.

The increasingly rapid movement was making Paul slightly nervous and when Norbert came torpedoing back toward him he held up his hands, coming to a stop in the water. Paul's eyes went wide as the rapidly approaching sea lion's jaws suddenly snapped open.

He only had time for a glimpse of pink tongue, palate and fangs, plus the dark opening at the back before the sea lion's maw slammed into him. Norbert had gaped so wide that Paul disappeared headfirst into his jaws, the sudden impact pushing his arms down against his sides as the sea lion engulfed him to the armpits.

Paul kicked the water in alarm and confusion, his face pressed against the warm slippery flesh of Norbert's gullet. His head had somehow gotten stuck in the sea lion's mouth and something was pressing his arms down against his sides so he couldn't pull himself back out.

He was perfectly aware of how and what sea lions ate, having watched Norbert fed on many occasions and seen videos and still photos of impressively large meals. A sea lion this size could swallow a salmon whole and he'd seen pictures of a shark at least two feet long disappearing into the maw of such a beast. It still never occured to him that Norbert was trying to eat him until, rather than spitting him back out, the sea lion lunged forward. The thick rubbery muscle and fat of Norbert's neck expanded as another foot of him was pushed in and Paul's eyes went wide with fear for the first time as powerful swallowing muscles gripped at him.

He felt the ponderous bulge he made in Norbert's neck as the sea lion darted forward once more, and with that second gulp he was down the thing's throat all the way to the hips. Paul only had one lungful of air to sustain him but he kicked and wriggled for all he was worth, trying to get the big sea lion to spit him out so he could get back to the surface and out of the aquarium.

But patient and calm as Norbert was under normal circumstances a series of such overly forward nocturnal visitors had worn his patience for such people thin indeed. Several of his unwanted guests had learned what Paul was now learning: Norbert could open his jaws and throat very wide indeed. With a wriggle of his streamlined snout he gobbled up the man's rump and muscles worked in his throat as he began to convert his visitor from an annoyance to a meal.

Paul could only wriggle frantically as the thick muscular walls wrapped around him squeezed, a powerful ripple making its way down the sea lion's throat and easing him deeper. Another gulp pushed his face past a tight constriction into what must be Norbert's stomach and Paul gasped in a bare lungful of fish-scented air. He was swallowed almost to the knees and there was simply no way to stop Norbert now.

The bulge in Norbert's neck shrank as he swallowed, moving down into his thicker body, and even a sea lion his size showed a substantial swelling in the midsection as he stretched out his jaws to take in Paul's calves. Powerful and well practiced throat muscles grabbed the man's knees and forced them down the throat. Other sea lions would gag at such a large meal but Paul was not the first human to disappear down Norbert's gullet. Only Paul's feet remained in the water and Norbert tensed for the gulp that would finally rid him of his irritation.

Surrounded by thick layers of muscle and fat and with most of his body already stretched out in Norbert's lengthy stomach, Paul felt the scrape of fangs across his heels and knew the last of him was about to be swallowed. He would never have believed it. Even killer whales supposedly had a throat too narrow to swallow a man whole and he was one gulp from being a sea lion's late-night snack. A broad muscular tongue pressed against his insteps as Paul slipped his hands into his swim trunks.

Despite the horror of the situation the press of slippery throat and stomach wall against his groin had stroked him nearly to orgasm even as he was eaten. Paul really did like sea mammals more than he should and as Norbert's throat gripped down around the last of him his hand jerked once, twice, three times. Aroused and desperate and short of air that was all it took.

"Same number of calories inside me as out..." Paul mumbled as he came, for his love of sea life had led him to be a meal for his latest favorite. Norbert swallowed, his throat squeezing Paul's legs down his throat after the rest, and in the trembling bliss of orgasm Paul felt the long bulge he made in the sea lion's torpedo body. There was a full foot of meat and fat between him and the water now, the inward pressure of so much muscle keeping him from so much as kicking in protest even as the stomach walls kneaded warm, stinging fluids into his every nook and cranny. The process of digestion had already begun and he was powerless to keep Norbert from having his meal.

All he could do was relax and take some small consolation that his death was not entirely in vain. The animal he appreciated so much would be fueled by his body.

The big sea lion twisted and turned in the water, getting his meal stretched out in his stomach as he liked to do when he swallowed humans. It was more comfortable and would make digestion easier and quicker, though it would still be several days before he was hungry again. His meal had been taken underwater and no air had been swallowed with it, so it was only a brief bubble of air from Paul's lungs that he burped up before clambering back onto the concrete shore. The long bulge beneath his blubber made lying on his belly less pleasant so he stretched out on his side, blinking sleepily. It was rest time anyway, and digesting a whole man was a lot of effort even for an eleven-hundred pound sea lion's stomach. At least this one had been slender and muscular, much easier to swallow than the plump man who had strained his jaws to their limits before finally vanishing down his gullet. Norbert lay his head down to resume his rudely interrupted nap, lulled to sleep by the slow gurgles emerging from his midsection.

His performances weren't until past midday and the training session before that wasn't until eleven, so almost half a day went by before anyone took a close look at Norbert. His stomach had worked hard on his meal those long hours and in fact the bulge was not noticed at first. It was not until his keeper Karen was rubbing his flank as a reward for a good training session that she felt it, a squishy lump with firmness underneath that. She stepped back and looked him over, and only then saw that his perfectly streamlined shape now had a long but subtle bulge in the midsection.

"Oh dear," she said, for this was not the first time it'd happened. The next thing she did was call the veterinarian and entice Norbert up onto the examining table with treats of raw squid. The vet felt over the bulge, nodded, and soon enough they were looking at a fresh set of X-rays.

"Well, here we are again," the vet said, and Karen and Bob, Norbert's other keeper, looked glumly at the white shadows on the screen. Some were nearly transparent, the smaller bones already partly dissolved, but the skull and spine and hips were impossible to miss. There was a half digested man in Norbert's stomach.

"Who did you eat this time, Norbert?" Karen said, and the seal lion blinked quizzically back at her with ink-dark eyes.

"No one's missing," Bob said, but they already knew that. Norbert was big and playful and harmless - usually - but he was also a natural predator and the "No swimming with Norbert" signs were obeyed. Safety policies were followed with care and if someone failed to show up for work or check out at the end of a shift it was investigated at once. If one of the staff ended up inside the sea lion they'd know about it before the last belch percolated its way up.

"I'll get my dive gear," Bob said. With Norbert in a side tank - they put him there when they were cleaning the big one - Bob spent an hour underwater looking for clues.

"No clothes," he reported as he returned to the surface to strip off his gear. "Some feathers, but those could be from a seagull shedding or from one Norbert ate. I can get my metal detector in case anything got dropped."

And so he did, and again turned up nothing. Everything Paul brought with him was in the sea lion's stomach with him and his leather wallet had already dissolved. He'd left his keys and phone hidden in his car and until Norbert finally expelled his nylon shorts, a few stained bills and a half digested credit card or two there was simply nothing to find.

They gathered at the side of the main tank as Norbert slid back into the water and exchanged looks.

"I could give him something to make him throw up," the vet said, "But you saw the X-ray. Whoever he swallowed has been in there since last night at least. There'll be no fingerprints or face left and the state the skull is in, most of the teeth will have fallen out and dissolved. There may be enough undigested bone marrow to do a DNA test, but I doubt it."

Norbert surfaced in front of them and barked, which at the best of times sounded like a burp, and Karen shrugged. "No, let him have his meal. Someone must have snuck in after hours and looked too much like a fish. It's happened before."

Bob and the vet nodded. No matter how carefully they fenced in the aquariums people found their way in, and it was the third - that they knew of - person to be swallowed whole and most likely alive by this largest of their sea lions. You wouldn't think he could yawn that wide, but a complete (if dissolving) human skeleton in his belly argued otherwise. Karen had never heard of a sea lion eating a human, much less swallowing them whole, until they noticed the first odd bulge in Norbert a few years back. It was one reason no one swam with the sea lion no matter how tame he appeared.

The last time it'd happened they had found a neatly folded pile of clothes by the water, along with a wallet and a phone. This time, nothing. They might never know who the meal was. Whoever it was had already been digested to the point that they couldn't even be sure of the gender from the x-ray. If Karen hadn't noticed the bulge they would never have known anything untoward had happened, though the vet might have wondered at Norbert's next weighing why he'd suddenly put on fifty or so pounds of fat.

"I'll write the report," Karen said. "And have maintenance check the fence again."

Norbert burped again and disappeared beneath the water, and the three returned to their duties. There was nothing to be done now but let him digest his meal and hope it was the last person to think it was a good idea to swim with the sea lion.

But it probably wouldn't be. There was a mysterious appeal to big, sleek sea mammals that led people to sneak in to swim with them. Normally that resulted in a permanent ban from the center and maybe legal charges, as when they caught a woman in with the dolphins last month. With Norbert, well, she couldn't say how many people had swum with him but at least three of those visits had ended with a belch.