The Return of Momzilla

The coffee was getting a little cool, so I just took a sip and returned the cup to my desk. The voice on the other end of the phone had my full attention. What it was proposing should work out beautifully for both zoos.

"Yeah, Mike, that sounds good. I'll run it past Doctors Walker and Klein this morning. I'm pretty sure they'll approve it. Then I'll call you back to set up the time. Okay?...... Alright. Sounds good to me. Say hi to Andrea for me. Talk to you soon. Bye."

Returning the phone to its cradle, I got up and walked across the office to the coffee pot. My cup definitely needed a warm-up.

As I returned to my desk, Clint Walker, Doctor Walker, gave me a smirk of a smile and asked, "Okay, what are you up to now? That sounded like some good ol'-fashioned horse-trading. You and St Louis got something going?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "Mike Sanchez says they need one of our Mojaves. He's got a male Bushmaster to replace Bam-Bam." Yeah, that was his name. Bushmasters have very heavily pebbled scales, so when we originally got our mated pair, they were named Pebbles and Bam-Bam. Don't blame me. That was before my time. Bam-Bam was almost twenty years old when he died. I've only been with the zoo about twelve.

"Is it a Muta or Stenophrys?"

"He's a Muta. I don't really want a Steno. Do you?"

Clint shook his head. Any Bushmaster could be dangerous, extremely dangerous, but the Mutas were generally very docile unless threatened. Stenophrys, what I called Stenos, were meaner than hell. Neither of us wanted to deal with them if we didn't need to.

"No. Mutas are a lot better looking. Don't want to risk a crossbreed, either. How big?"

"Just over ten. He says the big fella weighs eight pounds. Good eater and very calm."

Clint nodded, apparently satisfied with the trade. We didn't want to have to buy a Bushie. They were pricey, and shipping usually added substantially to the cost. Shipping venomous snakes involved special handling and liability insurance.

"Okay. I'll clear it with Doctor Klein. When do they want to ship him?"

I chuckled. A devious plan had been forming in my mind and it was time to spring it on Clint. "Well, if you'll give me a week, I'll drive up there at my own expense. That'll save the cost of shipping."

Clint's expression made it clear that he was suddenly very suspicious of my offer. "What are you up to this time? Why a week?"

"Two days up, two days back and three days in St Lou."

"It's only five hours from here to there. Why so much time?"

I started to chuckle, a slightly evil sounding snicker. That got an uplifted eyebrow. "Well," I explained, "that would give me a motel stay on the way up, three nights there, and a motel stay on the way down."

I heard the sigh and saw the boss's eyes close. He looked at me with that cynical half-smile of his. "Why didn't you just say you want to shack up with Carla for a week?"

"I would never be so indelicate as to suggest such a thing," I protested.

"The hell you wouldn't," Clint retorted. "You've got all the couth of a Marine Corps drill instructor." He stopped, shaking his head at me and smirking again. "Oh, hell, why not? Just let me know when you plan to do this. I'll call and warn Carla."

"No, you won't. I'm gonna have a hard enough time convincing her to ride to Missouri and back with hot herps in the back seat."

- - - - - - - - - -

When I got home, I found a note from Carla saying she had gone shopping with a couple friends and that I should call her if I needed anything. I sat down on the sofa and opened my book on South American pit vipers, again reading a favorite article on the Bushmaster. It was only about an hour later that the door opened and Carla walked in.

She smiled at me, setting a couple shopping bags down and walking to the counter separating the dining area from the kitchen. She had the mail in her hand and was starting to sort envelopes when her phone rang. I watched as she answered and started chatting with one of her friends, apparently one who had been on the shopping trip with her.

Carla was wearing one of my favorite blouses, a form-fitting satin number in a soft olive green. It was sexy as hell. I watched her for just a few minutes before standing up and quietly crossing the room to slide behind her.

My hands came up to her hips, slowly stroking up her sides with the fingertips. A soft moan escaped her, followed by an embarrassed giggle. The voice on the other end of the phone asked, "Something going on that I should know about?"

"Glen's being a butthead again," she chuckled. She pushed her arms backward, knocking my arms from her sides.

Not to be put off, I stroked down the back of her arms, leaning forward to softly kiss the side of her neck just forward of her hair. The kiss turned into a soft nip.

"Glen!" she yelped, then giggled. "I'm on the phone. Stop that!"

Her friend laughed. "I'll call you back tomorrow. Have fun!"

Carla turned around after setting her phone down. "Well? You happy?"

"Not yet," I grinned. Reaching out, I picked her up from the floor. Her repeated giggles told me she knew exactly where we were going.

Two hours later, we slipped into the shower together. Soaping and then rinsing each other, we took our time, enjoying the aftermath of the afternoon's unscheduled activities. The sensation of holding her still slender and well-toned body to mine was more emotionally fulfilling than physically arousing at the moment. I lifted her chin, lowering my head to taste her lips. The kiss lingered, gentle and satisfying. Her lips were still enchanting; delicious and incredibly soft. I think this may have been why we never really drifted apart. Our relationship was based as much or more on a tremendous emotional bond as on the strong physical attraction. It was a complete connection, not a one-dimensional infatuation. We were genuinely and deeply in love.

I wouldn't let her cook that evening and she didn't want to go back out. Neither of us really wanted to get dressed again, so we ended up just lounging in our robes. We ordered a pizza and settled in to watch a movie on the TV, using our DVD player.

She was surprised but happy with the idea of a short vacation in St Louis. There were several things there that we wanted to see, including the Gateway Arch, Six Flags Over Middle America, and maybe even Busch Stadium. That would depend on the Cardinals being in town. Neither of us were big sports fans, so we didn't really know.

She was a little uncomfortable with transporting the snakes. We reached a compromise by choosing to drive directly to the St Louis zoo on the first day, spending the entire week there. It was easier than trying to explain to a motel host or hostess that we would have a deadly snake in the room with us. So, Carla kind of won that decision. Didn't matter to me and it was better for the snakes.

Mike suggested the following week and we agreed. Thus, we made the drive up and turned over the Mojave Rattlesnake. Andrea was there and our wives shared a friendly hug as Mike and I set up the pickup for the return trip. We took the rattler to the holding room so that he could take a look at him and put him into isolation. He was more than happy with the critter, so he took me to look at the Bushmaster.

The Bushie was beautiful. I smiled, nodding my satisfaction. He told me he'd have him packed up and ready to go the next week. We signed the transfer paperwork on the Mojave then went back to join the women. Mike offered to show us through the St Louis reptile house. Carla was a little reluctant but went along with it because of my enthusiasm.

Mike chuckled several times when he saw my jealousy over their incredible collection. I was especially fascinated by Goliath. He was huge, an eighteen-foot king cobra. He even put on a little display for us, lifting his forebody to stare at us eye-to-eye through the enclosure's glass.

It took almost four hours. We spent most of our time looking at and discussing the snakes, but they also had a superb group of lizards. Didn't pay much attention to the turtles. They did have a huge tortoise that we started a deep discussion on.

Mike took us around to the back, where we entered the enclosure and spent some quality time with the big fella, up close and personal. There were a number of visitors to the zoo who stood at the glass and stared at the huge critter and the four humans kneeling alongside him.

By the time we finished, Carla was exhausted but I couldn't have been happier. Mike told me I had a lifetime pass anytime I wanted to visit again.

I took Carla to dinner before we headed for the hotel. They were happy to extend my reservation. The room I'd reserved had a two-person hot tub, so we settled in to relax in the massaging jets of hot water. That pretty much ended that first day. We rolled into each other's arms on the bed and the evening dissolved into nothingness.

- - - - - -

The next morning, we started laying out our plans for the week. The Cardinals were in town but, when we saw the price of tickets, that idea went down the tubes. We didn't care that much about baseball and there were better ways to spend that money.

We both enjoyed museums and St Louis had several. We visited both the fine arts museum and the national history museum. Both were excellent. That made it easy to fill the time.

Six Flags was an all-day event. Neither of us was a rollercoaster enthusiast but there were a lot of other things to do there. All kinds of rides, plenty of games and some pretty decent shows. We bought two-day tickets to give us enough time to really see the place.

The park had a monster Ferris wheel and that was where I really got lucky. We had just reached the top when the wheel lurched and then stopped. It was just a short time later that the little PA speaker on the side wall squawked. "We're sorry folks, but we've had a burnout of one of the circuits that control the wheel. It will take us about an hour to fix it. While you're up there, take a good look at the Park. There's a lot to see and you'll probably spot some other rides or attractions you'll want to visit. We'll have you down as soon as we can."

I looked at Carla and shrugged. She shook her head. "What are we supposed to do up here for an hour?" she asked.

She looked down as my hand rested on the knee of her slacks and slowly started to slide up the inside of her thigh. "Oh, God," she chuckled, "I should have known."

By the time they got us down we were both sweat-soaked, and it wasn't from the heat of the sun. Of course, the attendants didn't know that. They apologized to us as we stepped out of the car. We just smiled and thanked them. "It was a lot of fun up there," I offered. Carla gave me a dirty look, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away.

- - - - - - - - - -

Glen was very happy with the Bushmaster. We put him into isolation and advised the public information office that we had another male Bushie. It was their job to name the animals, and they were very imaginative with their names. Accordingly, our new critter was dubbed 'Bam-Bam II'. Sheesh.

After we returned to the office and grabbed a cup of coffee, Glen walked to my desk and handed me a folder. "Here's that earnings profile you said you and Carla needed. What's this for?"

Taking a long sip, I opened the folder and looked at the form inside it. I was pretty sure it would do what we needed. "Carla wants a baby, so we're in the process of applying to adopt. We have to prove to the agency that we can support a kid before they'll even let us start looking at pictures."

Clint nodded, lifting her own coffee to hip lips. "Isn't her being a teacher gonna interfere. I mean, eight months of the year, neither of you is going to be home during the day."

"That was a concern to the agency, but Carla headed it off at the pass. She has initial approval to transfer into the Curriculum Development Department whenever she wants. That's a work from home job. The agency was cool with that."

"So, you don't know what child you're looking for at this point?"

"Not really. All we can say is we want an infant, eight months or younger. They say that's possible but it might take a bit of time."

Clint grimaced. "Why so young? You really wanna be dealing with diapers for two or three years?"

I chuckled at that. It was a good point but it was a very short-sighted concern. Clint was a career bachelor and he didn't have any children of his own, so he was speaking largely from inexperience.

"No, we don't. But we also don't want to inherit anybody else's problems. We want the child to know us as its parents from the very start."

"So, you haven't been able to tell the agency anything yet?"

"We said we'd prefer a girl. They said that wouldn't be a problem. Apparently, there are a lot more girls put up for adoption than boys."

Clint shook his head, then shrugged. "Well, good luck. In the meantime, let's get back to work."

There was a lot of paperwork to be done, taking up what was left of the morning. It was cleaning day so, after lunch, Jeff and I got to supervise a small staff of herp assistants in cleaning, sanitizing, and changing the enclosures for the non-venomous snakes. The venomous snakes would be taken care of tomorrow.

Most of the non-venomous snakes are easy to work with. You just shoo them into the half of the enclosure you're not working in, then bring them back across to let you get the other half. A few of them can be pretty feisty, but they're kept in divisible enclosures, with sliding panels to cut them off from the working side.

A few of the non-venomous species need more careful handling, requiring both me and Jeff to get them into an area of their cage that can be isolated. Most of the pythons are pretty mellow, but that bastard of a rock python, the reticulated pythons and the anacondas are unpredictable in the extreme. Because of their size, it can take a lot of time and work to get them into one or the other half of their enclosures, allowing the dividing panels to be dropped. They take more time and more work than all of the other NVs combined. That work is necessary. A bite from one of the big ones can turn into a wrestling match. Even two of us would have trouble with a three-hundred pound or larger constrictor. It's not fun.

By the end of the day, the cages had been cleaned and were good for another week. All of us were tired and a lot of us were good and sore. Still, no one had been bitten or otherwise injured, so it was a good day.

- - - - -

By the time I got home, I'd had it. The couch looked most inviting so I plopped onto it unceremoniously.

Carla came to me with a beer in her hand. She handed it to me with a concerned smile. "You okay, babe?"

I looked at her and nodded. "Long day, kitten. Had to bring that Bushie out of isolation and into his enclosure in the morning, and the afternoon was cleaning cages. I'm beat."

She walked behind the couch, bent over, and kissed my cheek. Her fingers slipped through my hair, trying to straighten that unruly mop a bit. I groaned and sighed. My hands came up to hold her arms and pull her down on top of me. I just slid my hands around her upper back, pulling her breasts against the back of my head. She giggled but let me just hold her.

After a minute or so she pulled back. "I have some stew in the crock pot. It will be good for a couple days in there. Would you rather have something else? "

I thought about that for a minute, then sighed. "You've got to be as tired as I am. You want to go out to eat?"

"Sure, if you want to. What kind of food do you want?"

It took a bit for me to think that one out. Carla liked a number of different kinds of food. We'd been to a seafood restaurant and an Italian restaurant in the past month. I didn't want to take her somewhere she'd been recently. "How about that Mexican restaurant on Porter that you like?"

"El Nopal? Yeah! I haven't had a good quesadilla in a long time."

"Good. They make great enchiladas verdes. That'll do for me."

We climbed back into my car and headed for the restaurant. I hadn't opened the beer Carla had given me, so I drove. Carla didn't drink. That was good because I wanted a Dos Equis or three or four. I mentioned that and she just grinned at me.

Dinner was excellent. We even had dessert, which was very unusual for us. The folder Clint had given me went into Carla's hands. She was very happy with it, saying that she would get it to the agency on her lunch hour tomorrow. That was fine by me. Saved the hassle of going to the Post Office.

"Glen, I'm going to have to go to court on Friday."

That was a bit of a surprise. The evening had been very light-hearted until she dropped that on me. "What on Earth for?" I asked.

She sighed, exhaling a long, unhappy breath. "Mom got herself arrested again. Apparently, she didn't bother to show up for her community service."

The irritation built up fast but I fought it down. There was no point in barking at Carla because her mother was an imbecile.

"Why do you need to be there?"

"Mom's attorney had me subpoenaed as a character witness."

I chuckled. "Wonder why they didn't subpoena me."

"Don't tempt fate. The prosecutor still has two days to do it in."

"The prosecutor? Why, Carla, why would you think so poorly of me?"

She smirked at me. "Yeah, you'd be a great witness for Mom's defense. Just eat your ice cream."

- - - - - -

So, we ended up back in court with Mom. Once more, the judge was very understanding. He just extended the amount of time that she had in which to do the community service. However, he warned her that if she didn't fulfill this community service order, he would order her jailed for ninety days.

When the hearing ended, the judge asked me and Carla to meet with him in his chambers. He was very straightforward with us.

"I am very concerned that further incarceration is not going to have any effect on your mother. Has this kind of behavior been normal for her?"

Carla looked down to her feet. It looked like she didn't want to reply.

"Mrs. Morris," the judge insisted, "please answer me. This is important."

She grimaced. In a low, unhappy voice she said, "For as long as I can remember, Your Honor."

He turned to me. "Mr Morris, can you add anything to this?"

"I don't' know, Your Honor," I answered. "Her behavior strikes me as rather strange. She treats Carla like she's still a five-year-old, and she acts like the entire world should obey everything and anything she says. It's kind of irrational."

The judge sighed, sitting back in his chair. "That's what I'm trying to determine. If she does appear in front of me again, should I order her into the Adult Detention Center or into the Psychiatric Ward at Baptist?"

I heard Carla's breath catch and she turned to me in shock. I could only shrug and lift my eyebrows. This was going to be Carla's call.

She sat quietly for two or three minutes, then looked back to me. Her eyes were troubled and she released a long sigh. She turned to look at the judge. "Baptist, Your Honor."

Again, he looked at me. I just nodded.

"That's what I suspected," he admitted, "but I wanted to get your opinions. If it should happen now, it won't be a shock to either of you." He stopped, reaching for the water bottle on his desk. "Well, maybe she'll pay attention this time and show up for her service dates."

With that, he thanked us and stood up. We both rose and stood quietly as he left his chambers. The assigned deputy showed us out courteously.

"Well," Carla repeated as we walked to the car, "maybe she will pay attention this time."

"Maybe," I said supportively. I think we both knew better.

- - - - - -

The next week, we moved Nagaroina into isolation and sedated her, allowing the veterinary team to look her over. She'd been very lethargic and she looked somehow different. Sunny had just moved to a far corner and watched as we lifted her into a large carrier and moved her out of the enclosure. Now, I was sitting at my desk watching as Clint talked on the phone. He had an odd smile on his face while he scribbled notes on his calendar. In just a few minutes, he placed the receiver back in its cradle.