“Can I have the last sip?” Aubrey asked, looking up at me with her big blue eyes and a smile that could have convinced me to do anything. Treason, murder, convert to Scientology, literally anything.
“Of course,” I said, handing her the blue slushie we’d been sharing. She took it and wrapped her lips around the straw to suck out the last few slurps of sugary blue deliciousness. That alone shouldn’t have been enough to rile me up, but I knew what her mouth could do and a majority of our relationship thus far had been sexual in nature so my mind wandered to dirty places. A toucan cawed at us. Aubrey cawed back.
“Zoos are weird,” she said, dodging a swarm of kids plodding toward us.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like, we put a bunch of creatures that don’t belong here in cages so we can learn about them. We have the internet. And cameras. What can I learn at a zoo that I can’t learn anywhere else?”
I pondered that for a moment. “The smells?”
She laughed. “Well, I’m glad I know what toucans smell like. I don’t know how I could live with myself otherwise.”
We exited the aviary and made our way toward the gorilla enclosure. A small cave bridged the two together and as we rounded a corner she quickly flipped up the back of her skirt to show me her booty and the thong it had for lunch. She loved to tease. Every chance she got, she’d send my mind into the gutter. Innuendos, quick flashes, exploratory touches, anything to make my blood pump down south. It was like a hobby for her, like she wanted to find out how much I could handle before I gave in to my manly urges.
I loved it.
Her skirt fell back into place just as an elderly couple came into view. She glanced at me over her shoulder and gave me a wide-eyed smile that said ‘that was a close one’. Her lips and teeth were blue from the slushie. “Did you blow a Smurf?” I laughed. The elderly woman scoffed as she passed us.
“Would you be jealous if I did?” Aubrey asked, wiggling her tongue to show off the blue.
“Only a lot.”
“Papa Smurf really knows how to treat a lady, what can I say?”
“Ew, he’s old.”
“He aged like wine,” she said with a wink and a click of her tongue. We both laughed.
A mighty Silverback gorilla peered out at us from behind a pane of thick, finger-smudged glass. It looked bored, but majestic.
According to the placard next to the window, his name was George. I read the information underneath George’s bio.
“It says here that my man George gets to mate with several females at a time. They just kinda hang out as part of his harem and take care of his babies.” I reached out and put my fist on the glass, as if for a fist-bump. “Atta boy.”
“If George can handle that many women, he must be a real stallion. Most of the guys I’ve met can barely handle me.”
“You’re a lot to handle.”
Aubrey turned to me with a disgusted scowl on her face. “Did you just call me fat?”
“What? No, of course not. I was just… I meant that-”
Her scowl turned into a laugh. She punked me. “Okay, ha ha, good one,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would work that well.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, I was worried is all.”
She stepped forward and cupped my face with both hands. “I know, you’re just too cute when you’re uncomfortable. I can’t help it.”
I looked into her eyes, and my embarrassment faded. She gave me a kiss as an olive branch. This woman played me like a piano to whatever tune she saw fit. I was in so far over my head with her; I considered myself lucky that she found me so entertaining. I’d never met such an amazing woman in all my life.
We meandered through the primate section, reading placards and playing with the chimps that interacted with us. Aubrey showed one of them a video of a guy doing a magic trick on her phone, and the chimp actually reacted to it. It jumped up and down, did a quick circle around the enclosure and came back to watch the video again. She played it again, and the chimp hooted once again in excitement. It was fascinating. Many of the other primates kept to themselves in a stoic, almost forlorn kind of way. I wondered if they were shy or depressed or what. Eventually, we walked by a cave with a warning sign that read: CAUTION: EXHIBIT CONTAINS SEXUAL PRACTICE THAT MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN.
“Sounds saucy. Let’s look,” Aubrey said, charging forward. Inside the cave was a cage filled with bonobos, a type of chimp that looked like every other chimp as far as I could tell. What made these chimps stand out was that over half of them were engaging in some kind of overt sexual practice. “Are they on ecstasy or something?” I asked. Aubrey stood next to a wall placard and read aloud.
“Bonobos are unique in the animal kingdom for their sociosexual behavior. Anything from greetings to conflict resolution and boredom are valid reasons in bonobo society to engage in some sexual practice. Bonobos do not discriminate between age or gender and are the only non-human animal that engages in the act of ‘French’ kissing. They also engage in manual stimulation, oral stimulation, and genital on genital stimulation in addition to oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse.”
“You’re telling me Bob the bonobo walks up to Frank the bonobo and says ‘Howdy Frank, how’s the missus?’ and then jerks him off?”
“Thanks for the handy ‘ol chum. Mind if I pop in for a spot of tea and to give the missus a finga’?” Aubrey said in a horrible British accent.
“Why are they Cockney all of a sudden?” I laughed.
“’Ow should I bloody know, they’re the ones talkin’!” she said, laughing.
“I do believe you still owe me a few quid, ‘ol boy. We can either settle this with fisticuffs or a snog and some anal, your pick!” I joined in, and we both laughed so hard tears came to our eyes. A couple pushing a stroller meandered into the bonobo cave and gave us bewildered looks as we excused ourselves. From then on we gave each animal we encountered a new accent and conversed for them. The hippos sounded like hillbillies, the Giraffes like valley girls, and the meerkats like New Yorkers. People around us either chuckled and shook their heads or thought we were crazy and went off in a different direction.
Eventually, we had explored everything we wanted to explore, apart from the small aquarium at the back of the zoo, so we made our way over. Aubrey was excited to see the jellyfish, so we decided they would be our grand finale as we left for the day. Benches made of shells and fountains that looked like fish spitting water decorated the otherwise austere building. Inside was dark and quiet. We withheld our color commentary to be respectful. Not that there were many people to offend, it was more or less empty. Several of the exhibits were under renovation and we were a week late to watch the octopus babies hatch, so there wasn’t much to look at.
Many of the tanks were in rough shape, the once colorful coral had turned sad and muted. Even the water was cloudy, which made it difficult to look at any of the tank’s inhabitants in any detail. Overall, we were disappointed we saved it for last. So very underwhelming. To the zoo’s credit, they had work in progress signs all over and some areas were even roped off because of heavy construction. “Oh, no!” Aubrey said, walking over to a roped-off area.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look,” she said, pointing at a sign above a hallway that read ‘Jellyfish Cove’. The hallway was roped off, and a sign told us the area was under renovation. Our grand finale for the evening was a bust.
“Aw, shoot. I’m sorry,” I said. She folded her arms and stuck out her lip in an exaggerated pout.
“Hmph!” she grunted, stomping one foot in disapproval. The dimples in her cheeks tightened as she held back a smile.
“You’re so damn cute sometimes I can barely stand it.”
“I waaanted to seee the jellieees!” she whined, leaning on me like a tired toddler.
“I know pumpkin, but they’re getting a new home so we’ll just have to come back and drink blue slushies again sometime,” I said in a fatherly tone, patting her head.
“Fuck it, I’m going in,” she said. Without hesitation, she ducked under the velvet rope and went down the hall to Jellyfish Cove.
“Aubrey? Aubrey!” I whispered. I checked to make sure no one was watching us, then checked all the corners for cameras. “Aubrey, we can’t!” I hissed as she rounded a corner and left my sight. I ducked under the rope and hustled after her. Never a dull moment when she was around. That’s one of my favorite things about her, the extra spice she brings to life. She pushes me out of my comfort zone and usually I come out the other side having grown a little, one way or another. Getting banned from our local zoo didn’t seem like it would be one of those times. I rounded the corner and chased after her.
What I found took my breath away.
The remodel on Jellyfish Cove was almost complete. Glass encased the room in every direction. Even the floor and ceiling were glass. Beyond the glass was crystal clear water and a menagerie of brightly colored fluorescent fish, flora and, of course, jellies. Aubrey stood in the center of the room, gawking at the magnificent display around us. All manner of colors, bright as a neon sign, floated and swam around us. Everything glowed, illuminated by black lights spaced around the area.
Aubrey smiled at me and her teeth shone bright white, brighter than anything else in the room. Her bra and thong glowed pink underneath her clothes, the fabric of which was too sheer to block them entirely. It almost made it look like she was wearing a bikini, and I wasn’t complaining one bit about that. “Your teeth are so white!” she said as I walked up to her. “Eyes too.”
“Yours as well,” I replied. “I’m glad to see you wore matching underwear.”
She looked down. “Well, will ya look at that,” she laughed.
I smiled down at her and she took both of my hands into hers, pulling us close and lifting up on her tiptoes to bring her face to mine for a kiss. She made me go the last inch. Our lips touched, delicate and affectionate. As they parted, she stared up at me with a new hunger in her eyes, a look made even more intense because of the effect of the black light. She took my hands around her waist and set them on her round, firm booty, then lifted her hands to the back of my neck to pull me down for another kiss.