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Texas Eat'em - Part 1

It was with great relief that he finally clambered out of the car; for the entire journey, the taxi driver had been giving him strange backward-glances in the mirror. Mark had tried making conversation, but the driver's responses were entirely monosyllabic, so after discovering at length that he made this journey often, knew some of the locals and wanted paying in advance for the return trip, Mark gave up all attempts at communication and focussed on staring at the pleasant suburban houses drifting past the window. But now he had arrived, and so, balancing a crate of beer under one arm and clutching a scrawled address in the other hand, Mark tentatively approached the house.

When he got to the door, he didn't knock. Not at first. He was hopping nervously from foot to foot, and he wanted it to settle down before he made his presence known. He absolutely detested being a stereotype.

Frogs were very sensitive to that sort of thing.

Fortunately, after half a minute, the hopping subsided, and he scrunched the note into a fist and knocked politely on the door. It opened almost immediately, and Mark looked up to greet his host. It was with some surprise that he saw nothing at all there. He frowned for a moment at the ceiling, before allowing his gaze to drift downwards and meet the child who had sullenly answered the door. It was very unusual for Mark, who measured in at exactly 4ft, to come across someone shorter than he was, but this young, white furred boy surprisingly small, even for a mouse.

The child stared at him silently for a moment, in a manner that reminded Mark uncomfortably of the taxi driver.

"Erm... I'm here for Kira's poker game?" Mark said. Then, as if to provide evidence for his story, he rattled the crate of beer he was carrying.

The mouse rolled its eyes and stepped aside, gesturing down the corridor. Mark grinned meekly, and entered the house. That was when he finally heard a familiar voice, and felt himself visibly relax.

"... and when they opened the Betcheman file, there it was, right where I'd said it would be all along."

Hearing his boss speaking comforted him, and the deep, rumbling chuckle that followed made it clear that the other guests were relaxed too. Good. He hadn't stumbled into the wrong place. The night would be alright after all. With that thought firmly in mind, Mark rounded the corner, putting on his best smile and wielding his beer cans like a shield.

Sat at the far end of the poker table, Kira looked up from her conversation and grinned. It had been hard for Mark when he first joined her company; he came from a family of extremely nervous frogs who still held deep-rooted suspicions of predators, and when he first told them he would be working for a komodo dragon more than twice his size, many of them had seen it as a death sentence. Yet despite the fears of his now-estranged relatives, Kira had never been anything but professional to him. She had providing him with a desk and chair more suited to his stature, complimented his choice of ties (even when they dangled comically low to the ground), and though she often licked her lips when she talked to him, she assured him it was a purely involuntary muscular reflex.

"You found the place okay then?" she asked, in her elusive but just-too-well-spoken-to-be-native accent.

Mark opened his mouth, but a dog sitting with her back to him snorted.

"Of course he did, Ki. Otherwise he wouldn't be here, would he?"

Kira smirked and shook her head. As she did, the light glanced off of her scales, accentuating the broad ridges over her dark eyes. She always kept her scales immaculately clean, which was something Mark realised was rather strange for him to have noticed.

"This is Liz," said his boss, pointing a long finger in the Rottweiler's direction, "she's hosting for tonight."

Mark smiled forcedly at Liz, and nodded graciously when she gestured to an empty chair next to Kira. As he walked around the table, Mark was able to take in his host more fully. He decided that there was only one word that could properly describe her: Enormous. She filled her chair with an enormous body. She nodded to Kira's question with an enormous head. She used an enormous paw to pick up an enormous glass so she could drink with her enormous muzzle. She was quite simply... well... enormous.

The same could not be said of the wiry sparrow sitting next to her. In a baby blue t-shirt and cream shorts, the bird was the most dressed-down of the group (even Liz's heavy jeans seemed more appropriate for the occasion), but he appeared to have a far more nervous disposition than his casual clothing suggested. He sat with spindly, bouncing legs and tapped the edge of the table with the tips of his brown wings. His eyes jumped around the room constantly, as if he were expecting ninjas to burst from the shadows at any moment.

Liz saw Mark looking at the bird.

"Tom," she said, by way of explanation.

"What?" the bird squawked, seemingly shocked to hear his own name being uttered out loud. Liz ignored him, and sparked up a conversation with Kira about some trip the two had taken in the past. Mark extended a hand to the paranoid bird.

"Nice to meet you Tom," he said, "I'm Mark. I work at Kira's company."

Tom glanced at Mark's hand, then at Mark. For a moment, it felt as if the bird was trying to bore a hole right through Mark with the intensity of his stare.

"Okay," the sparrow muttered, before returning to his tapping and wild staring. He had made no effort to meet Mark's handshake, which the frog now had to bashfully retract, but Mark supposed the table was quite wide and both of them were quite short - at least compared to Liz and Kira - so perhaps Tom simply couldn't reach.

Mark sat back and contended himself with looking around the room. Beyond the poker table, it was quite bare. The wallpaper was plain, with no pictures or paintings hung along the wall. A much smaller table was tucked away in the corner under a few magazines, and a lamp stood next to the door, but that was all the furnishing that Mark could see. He did notice, however, that two chairs remained empty. Perhaps the game would begin when two more guests arrived, or one more if the mouse was joining them (though thinking about it, Mark hadn't seen the young boy since entering the house.)

When Mark focussed his attention back on the table, Kira and Liz were in mid-story, grinning at one another as they recalled anecdotes that Tom and Mark played utterly no part in.

"... and then when the waiter came over -"

"Oh yes! The snooty one, the porcupine! What did Alexia call him?"

"Hah! Prickupine?"

"That was it! God, and then he had the gall to say -"

"Wasn't that what you ordered?!" they both finished, howling a laugh. Kira subsided into a chuckle and stroked a long finger along her chin, while Liz took a deep swig of her drink, before slamming it, somehow without making much noise, back onto the table.

"So..." Mark prompted, trying to find some way to join in the conversation, "how do you and Tom know each other?"

Liz shrugged.

"I hired him to keep the garden in order," she explained, "I've not got what you'd call 'green fingers', so I thought I'd bring in some help. Of course, I didn't anticipate that help spending his time hiding in my Crotonifolia bushes taking pictures of the neighbours in the shower."

Mark blinked as the sparrow began to shift uncomfortably on his seat, looking absolutely anywhere except in Liz or Mark's direction.

"I... sorry," Mark stammered, "did you just say..."

"Oh yes," Liz nodded, clapping Tom hard on the back, "Our friend here is a dirty little peeper."

Mark opened his mouth and closed it a few times. He was wondering whether to suggest to his host that calling the police may be a more appropriate response to such allegations, rather than playing a few rounds of poker with the guy, but Kira caught his eye and smirked humourlessly.

"Don't worry, Mark," she said, "he's not here to have fun. This is Liz's way of punishing him." Then she addressed Tom directly. "After all, he's never going to perv on unsuspecting women again, is he?"

Tom didn't so much as open his beak, but his head shook glumly from side to side.

With that, the women went back to their stories, reeling off anecdotes that Mark barely comprehended. Tom was avoiding eye-contact, but Mark found staring at the bird (even being in the same room as him, truth be told) quite awkward now that he knew why he was here, and so busied himself in trying to look interested in the strangers that Kira was mentioning, hoping talk would eventually turn to work and he could take part in the conversation. Eventually, Mark found himself pleasantly surprised to have a glass, already filled with one of his beers, shoved under his nose. The young mouse, it seemed, had been sneaking around for the entire time getting drinks and taking away coats. Mark would have thanked him if the boy hadn't already vanished back into the kitchen.

Then his attention was brought back to the table.

"Now where is that damn bovine?" Liz snapped, "Does he realise how late he is?"

Across the table, Kira shrugged two slender shoulders.

"You know him," she said, "he probably went out for a meal, and now he can't leave until the place is empty."

Their Rottweiler host seemed about to respond, but then her ears pricked up, and she smirked to herself.

"Ah, why didn't I think of that Kira? Mentioning food summons him..."

Sure enough, a flash of white showed the small mouse rushing to the door, and it opened before anyone had even had a chance to knock. With that, the mouse quickly made his way back into the kitchen, leaving Mark to stare at the door with some curiosity.

The frog heard the new guest before he saw him; heavy creaks emitted from protesting floor boards as the enormous bull lumbered into view, ducking under a doorway that would have been far too low for him even without his horns. He was stocky, and walked with a clear confidence that was on display as he surveyed the room, with his eyes lingering a noticeable fraction longer on Mark and the nervous sparrow in the corner. He evidently liked what he saw, because he smirked along one corner of his mouth, and tapped his fingers on his sizeable belly. His stomach was currently hidden (though not very well) under a tight brown shirt that had, at some point, been tucked into black leather trousers and topped off with a gleaming belt buckle emblazoned with the word TEXAS. As well as this, the bull was sporting a black waistcoat that hung open (for there was little other option considering its wearer), and the biggest pair of boots that Mark had ever seen - the bull's hooves must easily have been the size of his head, and carried an intimidating weight behind them. For an individual that visually screamed "Don't tread on me", Mark only hoped the feeling was mutual.

It was only after taking this all in that Mark noticed someone else enter the room closely behind the bull. When there was finally enough room to see who it was, Mark leapt out of his seat, sending his drink crashing to the floor. He caught a sudden movement in the corner of his eye that suggested the sparrow had reacted likewise, because the short and skinny fox trailing behind the bull was wearing nothing at all, except for tight leather underwear, black cushioned hand restraints and a muzzle; what was more, the muzzle appeared to be attached to a leash, the other end of which was held in an iron grip in one of the bull's hands.

"Woah," said Mark, raising his hands reflexively, "I don't - you didn't tell me it would be that kind of - I don't do all of... that!"

The sparrow seemed equally alarmed, and was shuffling his way towards escape via the kitchen when Liz grabbed him and he was pulled back into his chair with a squawk. Kira, who had barely batted an eyelid when the fox hobbled into the room, waved a lazy hand in Mark's direction.

"Relax," she said, calmly, "it's not that kind of party."

As if to confirm this, Liz, turned to face the newcomers with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't be naughty, Texas. You know boyfriends aren't allowed."

The bull known as Texas snorted, and gave the leash a sharp tug, forcing the fox to stumble forwards uncomfortably.

"He ain't my boyfriend no more," grumbled a deep, American voice, "Got bored of 'im. Foxes wear out so fast these days, I can barely keep up."

Liz and Kira exchanged a glance, and Liz asked, "What do you think? Can we allow Exes?"

"Hm," Kira stroked her chin in seeming deep thought, "I'm not sure, myself. But this is your place, so house rules."

There was a moment of silence, but in the end Liz relented, nodding and gesturing to a chair.

"Okay," she said, "ex-boyfriends are fine. But don't push your luck."

"Yeah, yeah," huffed Texas, looking around the table. After a moment he added, "Where are the snacks?"

"We've been over this Texas," said Kira patiently, "If you're not able to wait then you really should eat before you come."

At this, Texas laughed, and slapped his belly proudly.

"I did eat," he grinned, "Five-course meal. Seven if you count each dessert separate! But now I'm hungry again, so where are the snacks?"

Liz sighed, and clicked at the small mouse who had, without Mark even noticing, been dutifully wiping up the drink he had spilled upon Texas' arrival. Without comment, the mouse moved to Liz's side, and, when told to fetch snacks for the table, nodded and vanished into the kitchen. Texas watched the young boy go with an air of disappointment, and it appeared Mark wasn't the only one to notice this, because Liz turned to the bull and let out a firm, "No". Texas grumbled to himself and pulled out a chair, setting himself down and, to Mark's surprise, not immediately crashing to the floor on a flat pile of kindling.

The fox remained standing, avoiding everyone's eyes and appearing to try melting into the wall and out of sight. Texas made no attempt to introduce his ex, or explain the kinky get-up, and Mark felt more comfortable trying to ignore the nearly-naked guest entirely, which seemed to work out nicely for everyone - the fox included.

It wasn't long before the mouse returned with an enormous bowl of bright orange balls that Mark recognised as Cheezorbs, a tangy snack that always proved to be a big hit at children's parties. Indeed, it seemed that the young mouse had helped himself to a few in the process, because his paws were coated in cheesy dust. As he pushed the bowl onto the table under the nose of the enormous bull, Texas lashed out a hand and grabbed the boy's wrists. The mouse let out a barely audible squeak.

Kira raised a ridged eyebrow, and Liz turned with a stern "Texas..."

Texas met her gaze with a confident smile, and then turned to the mouse, who cowered slightly. Then, without warning, the bull lunged forward and...

Licked the cheese dust off of the mouse's fingers.

When he was finished, he let go, and the boy pulled back his now clean (but very wet) hand and made a hasty retreat from the room. Texas shrugged.

"Can't let good flavouring go to waste," he explained, before shovelling a mighty handful of Cheezorbs into his mouth and crunching them into oblivion.

"Right," announced Liz, sweeping up the deck of cards and shuffling them with surprising dexterity for a dog her size, "it seems like everyone's here. Shall we get started?" Kira nodded, and Texas grunted into the almost-empty bowl he had lifted to his mouth, so Liz flicked cards across the table as she reeled off a string of poker rules that Mark lost track of very quickly. Kira peeled up the corner of her cards to glance at the faces, while Liz held hers close to her chest and Texas slammed an enormous hand down, rattling the entire table, and stared at his cards as if it were a bomb-defusal manual and he had three seconds left on the timer. That was when Mark noticed something.

"Erm..." he said, timidly, "I don't have any cards..."

His employer turned and patted him gently on the knee.

"Don't fret, Mark, you're not in the game yet. Give it time."

And with that, the three began to play. Mark supposed he took some comfort from the fact that the sparrow, Tom, and the yet-to-be-named fox also weren't taking part in the game. He guessed that it might be some type of tag-poker, like those team wrestling matches that were always on TV when it was too late at night for anything good to be on.

Twenty minutes later and Mark started to wish he was watching wrestling. He had never been a big fan of card games, and now he understood why. So much time was spent waiting to see if someone tapped on a table or threw some chips slightly further from the other piles of chips that now littered the table. He only hoped, if he was tagged in at some point, that the rules would be explained to him, because so far it had played out in near-silence, broken by the occasional call of "raise" or "fold", or by a nasal snort from Texas.

It was only into the second hour that the game turned interesting. By now, Mark was counting the ridges on the edges of the poker chips, Tom was staring into space thinking some (Mark could only presume) very impure thoughts, and Texas was onto his fifth bowl of Cheezorbs. Kira had taken one glace at her cards and folded, and when it came to Liz's turn, the Rottweiler locked eyes with her bull guest.

The silence stretched.

"Come on, we ain't got all day," Texas huffed, shifting in his seat - although whether it was from nerves, discomfort or hunger, Mark couldn't tell. Liz waited just a moment longer, took a final look at her cards and placed them face down. Then she smiled.

"I meet your starting bet," she said, "and I raise you Tom."

Mark blinked. Tom snapped back to reality and stared at his host with wide, beady eyes, starting and stopping a response several times. Texas only chuckled.

"About damn time," he said, "let's start the real game. I check."

After this, he tipped the remainder of the Cheezorbs bowl down his vast throat and thrust it, without looking, at the mouse, who had taken to hovering near Texas just in case. Liz began to flip a set of cards, while Tom looked like he had seen a ghost and Kira sat back and casually laced her fingers together. Only Mark appeared to notice the twang and thump of the nearly-naked fox sneaking away, forgetting the leash and tumbling back towards Texas.

Mark leant in towards Kira, and lowered his voice conspiratorially; for reasons he couldn't explain, he desperately didn't want to interrupt the situation developing in front of him, or perhaps didn't want to remind them that he was also present.

"Kira... what is... what's..." as he stuttered thought his thoughts, the komodo dragon glanced down at him, and Mark gulped, "what did she mean she bets Tom? Is that... it that a poker thing?"

Kira patted his thin knee with a slender, reptilian hand.

"You'll see, just watch," she cooed.

With this, Mark was determined to focus and work out what was happening. He looked to the cards in the centre of the table. There were four of them now: a two and seven of clubs, a three of hearts and a five of diamonds. Trying to work out who was happier about this collection was all but impossible for Mark, because Texas seemed to be grinning at everything (perhaps simply to show off the bright orange coating to his Cheezorb-stained teeth) and Liz was stonily silent, unmoving except for a few small flicks of the eyes.

"Alrighty," the bull announced, throwing in a handful of chips, "I'll check. Let's get that River."

Slowly, slower than anything else Mark had seen her do, Liz turned over and gently placed a fifth card in the centre of the table.

A nine of clubs.

For the briefest moment, the ghost of a smile played along Liz's muzzle. It vanished almost as soon as it arrived, but Mark saw it. And so did Texas. For the first time, the bull seemed to hesitate. His own grin fell, and he frowned slightly and leant back, taking in Liz as if he'd never seen her before. She met his gaze and pushed two great towers of chips into the growing central pile.

"I raise," she said tonelessly, "hundred fifty."

A silence stretched.

"No," Texas breathed slowly, "no, no, ain't no way you're winnin' this. You're bluffin'. You ain't... no."

Liz looked him in the eye, but said nothing.

Texas took another look at his cards, then at Liz, then at his cards, then at the table. Finally, for the first time, he turned in his chair and looked at the fox, who cowered slightly. After huffing to no one in particular, Texas threw down his cards and folded his arms (at the back of his mind, Mark was surprised they could reach across that gargantuan stomach), staring sullenly out of the room and practically snarling.

"You have to say it, darling," said Kira, clearly enjoying the show. Texas grumbled something in response, and clenched a diminishing pile of chips in his spade-like paw. Another pause, another huff, and the bull sat back up.

"Alright," he spat determinedly, "I'm in. Yeah, that's right, I'm in, I check. One fifty, let's go."

He threw in a pile of chips and picked his cards back up, leaning into the table so that it raised up slightly on Tom's end. Liz looked utterly unfazed, and gestured to her friend.

"Ladies first," she said.

"Two pair," announced the bull bitterly, throwing his cards into the centre of the table, "An' whad'a you got?"

Liz smirked, and shook her head. She showed her cards to the group.

"Jack high," she said with a shrug. After stretching over to check, Texas roared a laugh.

"I knew it! I just knew it!" he lied loudly, and slammed down a heavy arm to sweep up his winnings. On the other side of the room, Tom looked like he'd just seen his life flash before his eyes.

"A bluff?" the sparrow spluttered, "You bet me on a bluff?"

"Sorry, Tom," said Liz, standing, "I really thought he'd buy it."

With that, she grasped the bird by both shoulders and hauled him onto the table, where he knelt among the cards and the poker chips looking utterly overwhelmed. Texas stood and towered over the small creature, rubbing his hands together and smiling widely, bright orange crumbs still coating his mouth. Tom turned desperately to Liz.

"I thought you were joking about this part!" he squawked with increasing urgency, "You were, right? This is a joke! Right?"

Whatever the joke apparently was, Texas had no time for it, because he reached over and grasped Tom's shirt in a single, giant hand and tugged. The shirt came clean off, leaving the sparrow to gasp and cover his naked torso with his wings. Mark began to stand, but he felt Kira's hand on his shoulder, and weakly felt himself forced back into his chair to watch the wild-eyed bird's fate. Texas' other hand reached out, and a meaty finger hooked itself into Tom's sand-coloured shorts. Then came something that Mark never thought he'd see.

The bull opened his mouth wide, and Tom froze in place, staring down the bull's throat in pure horror. Then Texas leant down and engulfed the poor bird up to his waist; Tom's whole upper body disappeared from view into Texas' gaping maw, and muffled shouts could be heard from within. Not wasting a moment, the bull reared back, lifting the sparrow clean into the air. With a twist of his hand, he practically inhaled the squirming bird, and the next thing Mark knew, a pair of empty beige shorts were hanging limp from Texas' finger, and the bull was smacking his lips happily and rubbing his now slightly-larger stomach. Mark only tore his gaze away when he thought he saw the stomach move, and decided to pretend the faint noises were coming from outside.

"Well, that's me done," Texas announced proudly, "so if you don't mind, ah' mo head off, maybe catch the evenin' special down at CluckDonald's."

"You're just leaving because you know I'd beat you," said Kira, for all the world as if she hadn't just seen a fellow creature get consumed alive. The bull smirked that lopsided smirk again, and leant in, resting his wiggling belly against the table and making it creak ominously.

"Well maybe I just couldn't stand to see you git your ass whooped by Liz," Texas crooned, before turning to the Rottweiler, "Sorry I knocked y'out Liz, but you can take mine if you like, 'cause I sure as Hell won't be needin' him back."

"Oh," said Liz, visibly shocked. Turned to the fox who was pressed against the wall, and looked him up and down, "Sure, I'd appreciate that. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Right, best dash now. Y'all have a good'un."

Pausing only to scoop the last remaining Cheezorbs and guzzle them down, Texas shuffled to the door and lumbered away with his prize.

---

End of part 1