Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 16:21:46 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: Pet Shop Pals

			       PET SHOP PALS
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

               The old vaudeville-players had a saying, "If you want to be
a top banana, you got to start at the bottom of the bunch." The
entertainment industry (ignoring those exceptions which usually involves
someone ambitious sleeping with someone rich or powerful) is the last
bastion of the true apprenticeship. You study, and then you go to work and
learn some more on the job, learning when and as you can, all the while
doing the worst possible jobs. That was me as I arrived at the studio and
showed my brand-new pass and walked onto the set of "Pet Shop Pals," a
kid's early-morning show currently in production.
     "Hello." I said to the man sitting in the director's chair as I
arrived for work on the stage. "I'm Trevor, the P.A. the agency sent over."
     Mr. Miller, the director (nobody else would dare sit there!) turned
around and I knew right away he was a flaming queen, and that was before he
even spoke. "Whoo! Scrumptious!" were his first words to me as he looked
blatantly up and down my twenty-year-old body. Then to the stagehand who
had been talking to him. "Didn't I tell you the agency has all the cutest
guys on their index cards?"
     "Thank you." I said, smiling.
     "Yoohoo! Everybody!" he waved a hand effeminately in the air.
Mr. Miller was willow-thin, blond-haired, about fifty years old, and
probably knew all the words to every Broadway show ever performed. "Gather
'round, children!"
     The staff obediently did so (the producer is God, but the director is
Pope, and anyone foolish enough to argue with either of them ends up in
Hell) and Mr. Miller said, "Everybody, this is our new personal assistant
here on Pet Shop Pals." A personal assistant, or "P.A." is a
step-and-fetch-it, I would bring him items, carry messages to people, pick
up his dry-cleaning, wash his car, rub his feet and have to put up with it
if he decided he wanted to grope me every now and then. That's the
Hollywood game all over, and even a children's show is not immune to it.
     "He'll mostly be taking care of me and Farimore, but I want everyone
to feel free to make use of him whenever you need to." Mr. Miller went on.
Then he cast a lewd glance sideways at me. "Make use of him. I could think
of a thing or two I could use him for, can't you?"
     Everyone laughed, including me. If the director had the hots for me,
that was an advantage, and I'd take any advantage I could get. The infamous
back door to fame was still there and if you think I wouldn't ball the guy
for a chance to use that door, you haven't been in show business, that's
all I can say. My only claim to virtue is that I'd get his signature on the
dotted line of a contract before I parted my legs. Broken promises are the
flip side of the back door entrance.
     I heard a sniff of disdain from the main star of the show. Lawrence
Farimore is better known as Uncle Bob, the owner of the Pet Shop which is
the backdrop for the show. On screen, he came across as a white-haired,
plump, benevolent, loving man who doted on children and other small, cuddly
living things. In person...well, let's just say that there's more fake
about television shows than the stage sets.
     "Another blasted faggot!" he harumphed. I looked at Mr. Miller,
startled, expecting him to, if not ream him out (not the star!), at least
take him on. "How many does that make on this show now? Aren't there any
straight men left in television anymore?"
     "Why don't you go back to your trailer and rest and pray about it a
while." Mr. Miller said soothingly. "Uncle Bob" was big in the ratings
game, and Lawrence Farimore WAS Uncle Bob. "Say, for another hour or so
until we're ready for the next scene with you? Meanwhile, our new P.A. can
go around and introduce himself and make himself useful. And while you're
doing it, hon, fetch me another one of those scrumptious, chocolate-glazed
doughnuts and a cup of coffee. I have a teensy bit of my stomach that's
still growling."
     "Yes, sir." I said.
     As I walked to the caterer's counter, I saw the second half of the
show's main cast walk in with a medium-sized boa constrictor around his
neck, dressed in light green khakis that clung to his thoroughly masculine
form. Jungle Jack was half-actor and half-zookeeper, he ran a constant
stream of the more exotic pets a person could own or think of owning in and
out of the show. In the half-hour show, he got about seven minutes of air
time, and it seemed to me that the amount was slowly increasing with each
new show.
     Jungle Jack was one reason why I knew this show as more than a
not-looked-at spot in the TV Guide, he was six foot five, with tousled
brown hair, a sun-bronzed body that talked of clean living mixed with real
he-man adventure, this was the body that climbs rocks without a
ropes-piton-and-hammer, the body that hacks with a machete through dense
jungle growth to find the Lost Jewel of Kismet, the body that lies under
the stars at night, alone but unafraid. Just like he was totally unafraid
of the yellow-and-brown snake that grasped his waist and looped across his
back to arc over one shoulder and make two loops of his arm to the head
that he held firmly in place.
     "Why, hello." he said to me, smiling. "You're new here, aren't you?"
     I modestly introduced myself, trying not to stare either at the boa
which rustled restlessly across his shoulder or at the way the snake's
wriggling had pulled the top of the shirt apart, the top two buttons undone
and gaping wide apart, showing the broad cleft between his breasts and the
speckled forest of hairs there....
     "Well, then." he said. "First thing you can do is help me take off
Matilda here."
     "Matilda?"
     "She's a beautiful boa, isn't she?" he said, pointing the snake's head
at me and I saw its eyes were a solid, light blue, its tongue a brief
flicker of bright red string too quick to see as anything more than a
whip-like blink-blink. "She's up to five feet long now and she weighs about
twenty-five pounds. I got over here with her all right, but I need to get
her off me now."
     "Uh, sure." I said. "What do I do?"
     "Just hold out your arm and place your hand underneath her head." he
instructed.
     I did as he said, and he let go of the head and the snake promptly
dove up my hand and under and into my shirt through the hole beneath the
cuff. "Yeowp!" I said.
     "Easy, fellow, she's not going to hurt you. Matilda's a calm, friendly
sort of snake. She's just wanting to hide. Your shirt's tucked in, she'll
end up wrapped around your waist, likely as not."
     That was the damnedest feeling. A snake is neither hot nor cold, just
exactly room temperature or maybe a little warmer. They also aren't the
least bit slimy, and those myriad scales on her body weren't the least bit
prickly. Matilda wrapped her body around mine and clung by squeezing
gently, but no more than she needed to in order to hold on. Sure enough,
after a while she was wrapped around my waist about three times, giving me
a tire-like ring at my midriff, and Mr. Miller called out, "Trevor!
Darling, my breaky-poo, please!"
     "Oh, jeez, I forgot!" I moaned. "I'm supposed to be getting the
director a doughnut."
     "Don't worry about it." Jungle Jack assured me. "I'll get him his
coffee and doughnut, you get Matilda over to my scene and put her in that
aquarium I have sitting there."
     "Yes, sir." I said and staggered over. I had no idea how I'd convince
Matilda to let go of my warm body and into that cold aquarium, but a
P.A. doesn't earn points by having to be shown how to do things, he
improvises and does it without being told. Helpful-plus, that was a P.A.'s
life.
     So I got over and reached in at my shirt and found only solid
coils. Her head must be somewhere other than my front. I felt around her as
gingerly as I could and Jungle Jack came over just as I had located the
head, hard to find, resting partly inside another coil near the middle of
my back.
     "Ready to unload the little darling now?"
     "You bet." I agreed. Now that Matilda was settled in, she seemed to be
having a dream or something, one that involved her crushing some helpless
small animal, no doubt. She was pressing on me tight now, not killing, but
it was uncomfortable as hell.
     "Just let's take off the shirt." Jungle Jack said and I did, he helped
me with the buttons at the bottom. When done, I shrugged it over my
shoulders and down and Matilda, disturbed, began to travel again.
     Jungle Jack grabbed her head and guided her up his arm. As she got up
it, he put his other hand on his arm like a tree branch, and Matilda took
it. The elbow of this arm he extended over the tank and when Matilda got
her head hovering over the tank, he gave a jiggle and her head went down
into the tank, contacted, and she began to crawl off him and onto the dead
branch he had stuffed into the huge glass tank.
     I sighed with relief when the last coil left my body. "Whew, thanks!"
I heaved.
     "Not bad for your first day on the job, is it?" he knelt down to look
at her through the glass.
     "Not at all." I agreed, looking at the snake, because I could do that
and see him, too, inside his shirt, and I could almost smell his husky
sweat from labor in the early morning, wrangling snakes, feeding tigers and
such at the zoo.
     "Hey, P.A.!" came a shout. "Come help us set up!"
     "Gotta go!" I said and ran off to help them maneuver in the pet shop's
"back room" from its folded state when not in use to its full extension.
     I'll spare you the many details of that first day, other to say that
it was a long, hard day and only the first of what would be many. While a
show's in production, you work six days a week, usually fourteen hours a
day. When the last show of the season is in the can, you have a raucous
party where you usually end up sleeping with someone you didn't intend to,
then have a long rest before doing it all over again. If you're lucky.
     I fetched the director lunch, then dinner, then a late snack. About
ten-thirty at night, utterly exhausted, the set only consisted of the
director and some stagehands discussing something, I sat down only
intending to rest a while, put my head on my arms on the table...and was
out like a light.
     A loud sound woke me up, the hollow sound of an empty stage and the
stage door closing down. I sat up, looked around. Shit, I was alone
here. What time was it? I looked at my watch, nearly midnight. Shit, and I
had to be here at seven a.m.! I had to get home and get a few hours of
sleep.
     "Hey, Trevor." came the sound.
     I turned, startled. "Oh, hey, Jun--, sir." I said.
     He smiled. "Going to call me Jungle Jack?"
     "Yes." I blushed.
     "Seen the show before?"
     "Yeah." I admitted. "Just now and then, you know how it is, you're
flipping channels and you see something and you watch a while. What should
I call you?" I asked, suddenly curious.
     "How about just Jack?" He suggested. "That is my name, you know."
     I didn't, because the show didn't give his name or anyone else's, only
Lawrence Farimore's. "All right...Jack."
     "You about ready to turn in?"
     "Yeah, I'm beat." I yawned.
     "Do one thing for me before you go?"
     "Sure." I said, dead tired but trying to sound eager.
     "Help me find Matilda? She wandered off an hour or so ago. I didn't
tell anyone she was missing, I didn't want them scaring her any more than
she already is."
     That's an animal lover, all right. A five-foot boa is loose in the
studio, and he's worried about what the snake is feeling! "Sure, I'll help
you look." I said. "Do you think she crawled outside?"
     "No, she was looking to hide, not crawl out into an empty lot
somewhere. And with the night getting things cooled down, she'll settle in
where she is and wait for daybreak and a chance to warm up again.."
     "So all we got to do is find where she decided to take a nap."
     "She's five feet long and masses as much as a two-year-old child."
Jack pointed out. "She can't be in that many places."
     I began to help him look, pawing around the lights and cameras. Snakes
would try to find something warm, I realized, and machinery is warm. So I
looked at things, feeling when I couldn't see inside (even I knew boas
didn't have poison, worst I could get was a nasty bite from her, and that
was unlikely if she was torpid from lack of external heat--I had listened
to Jungle Jack when they shot his scene).
     What would we have on the set that would be warm? I looked
around...and saw the box of puppets the show used, various animals that
inhabited the pet shop and which came to life to talk to dear old bigoted
Uncle Bob, probably about white superiority and the best way to beat up gay
men in dark alleys. Those puppets had been under the lights all day long,
and the lights are hot. They're mostly felt and other soft, warm material.
     If I were a snake, I'd find them irresistible.
     The box was over four feet tall and long and three feet wide, a big,
deep mother. Someone had written (inaccurately) the designation "Pupets" on
the outside, showing that this box was reserved for puppets.
     "She wouldn't be able to get inside there." Jack said.
     I looked inside and.... "Then what's she doing inside?"
     "You found her? Good man!" Jack said, coming over from the pile of
boxes he'd been carefully sifting.
     I began to try to figure out the tangle. Puppets come in all shapes
and sizes, and so does how they're put together. It was a real Chinese
puzzle of interlocking pieces and little clue as to how they all came
apart. All I had to go on was a length of snake body, nothing to tell me
which way was the head and which the tail.
     Jack came over and stood next to me while I pawed through the puppets,
lifting them out. He leaned over to see Matilda, and his thigh brushed
against my buttocks. "That's the way, just lift everything out a little at
a time until we find her head." he said. "Don't be surprised if she stirs
and crawls up your arm; she's just trying to get warm. He moved and (no
doubt about it) his crotch brushed across my buttocks. And stayed
there. "Just keep handing out those puppets one at a time." He would take
the puppet from my hand and lift it out and set it aside on the
ground...and each move would send his groin brushing over my buttocks.
     God, that felt good! I began to do my own "accidental" wriggling back
to him.
     "Snakes love to feel warm." he said. "They like to find a warm rock
and just wriggle up onto it and maybe find a crevice in it that's all nice
and warm and comfortable."
     "And just burrow into it?" I said and gave him a little extra buck to
my hips.
     "Yeah." he said and stopped his pretense of not knowing his trouser
snake was doing its own wriggling. His dong had become nicely filled out
with his gyrations, now he grabbed me by my thighs and he hunched against
me.
     I had Matilda half dug out, and she was crawling to burrow down into
the deeper parts of the box, her length slithering down, trying to keep
what little warmth she had. She wasn't going anywhere; the box was big as
any aquarium. And I didn't want to find her, not now.
     Instead I tried to give Jungle Jack a clear signal that his grinding
against my ass was exactly what I wanted him to do, and I did that by
making some hungry grunts of appreciation.
     "Yeah, that's the way." Jack said as he thrust his cock against me,
making it slide back and forth along my butt, his dick feeling warm even
through the layers of cloth that separated our bodies.
     "Mmm...that's one snake that doesn't need warming up." I murmured. "It
feels nice and hot right now."
     "Time for it to find a warm place for the night." Jack said as I felt
his hands reach under me and find my pants fastenings.
     "I got a place it can have." I sighed as my pants were peeled down. "I
think it'll fit in there perfectly."
     "I bet it will." I heard the light jingle of his belt being undone,
then the rip of a zipper and then... "Ooh, yeah!" Now there was nothing
separating that hot pud from snaffling its way back and forth over my
butt-crack. "Yeah, God, that's hot!" I said. "Ooh, oh, yeah!"
     "Yeah, get that snake nice and hot." Jack said. "Then we'll bed it
down right."
     "Oh, yeah!" was my unoriginal but heartfelt reply. "Uh, uh, uh!"
     "Got the materials we need right here." Jack said. I looked over my
shoulder to see him taking out a condom in a bright red wrap and ripping it
open with his teeth. Lubricant oozed out as he did so, and it was like he
was tearing at a piece of bloody flesh with his teeth, the ultimate male
animal. His body was half-shadowed by the dim lights of the darkened
studio, only a few maintenance lights remained. He was like a dream-figure
that comes in your fantasies, when you're jerking off in the dark, the
totally male figure that slips into the bed and without a word he takes
you, without explanation and without awkwardness, and in that smooth
unreality brought on by the way his body was a series of crescents on one
side and a dark outline on the other, he slid the condom onto his body and
used the greased rubber to let him press his dong to my anus without any
further preparation. It was the kind with heavy lubricant, meant for these
embraces away from the comforts of your apartment, and his cockhead pressed
its rubber-covered way in and....
     "Oh, God, it's so big!" I gasped out. I hadn't seen his prick, only
felt it as a hot line on my buttocks, now I was getting the sheer size of
this heavy prong, it was filling me to the bursting point. "Oh, oh, God!"
     "Want me to stop?" was his kind response.
     "Oh, hell, no!" I said. "I'm loving it, shit, oh, yeah! Come on, get
that mother in me, come on, shove it all in, all the fucking way, oh,
yeah!"
     He grabbed my hips tightly and gave me what I wanted, that huge
schlong was driven into me, and I gave out a groan I didn't know I had in
me, it was long and fluttering, it welled up from deep in my body, like
this thick dick was pressing my diaphragm upwards,
"U-u-u-u-u-u-u-a-a-a-a-a-a-ahhhhh! Uh, uh!" God, he'd gotten it into
me. "God, that's great!" I enthused. "How big is that sucker?"
     "Ten inches." Jack said. "And you got all of it."
     "And I want all of it." I assured him. "God, man, fuck me, fuck me
now, stud, really drive it in me."
     "Damn, but you're hot." Jack said. "You are damned hot. God, I love
fucking a horny groupie."
     "I'm no groupie." I said. "Except that I saw you on TV and I wanted
your body. I didn't really care who the fuck you were, I was too busy
trying to look down your shirt or up your shorts."
     Jack laughed, not at all offended. "Well, you got me, P.A." he
said. "Consider this one of your duties from now on."
     "Shut up and fuck the hell out of me." I said.
     With long, hard, rapid strokes, Jungle Jack, adored by the kiddies,
began to ram his dong in and out of me. This was what I'd wanted, why I'd
snatched up the P.A. job when it came along (not that it wasn't desirable
by any actor wanting his break...but I'd been extra-hungry and the agency
manager recognized that, my enthusiasm and knowledge of the show had gotten
me the job), I'd wanted the chance to be backstage, meet this man, talk to
him. I'd envisioned a slow seduction, and to have his cock in my butt the
first night was better than anything I'd imagined could happen.
     "Slap-slap-slap" was the hit of his thighs on my buttocks as he humped
my butt, I was being slammed into, just like I'd asked him to, just fuck
the hell out of me, that was what I'd asked. His dong was a heavy meaty
shaft of hot male meat that burned its way into my body, I was filled and
more than filled, I was going to burst wide open from this pounding rod
that roared into me with white-hot heat and then stopped all the way in,
gave a sort of sniff, a feeling rather than a sound, and then it was
pulling back, the foreskin wrinkling over the head to shroud it on its
retreat, moving out like a massive caterpillar that had shuffled its way
in, then the cockhead burst out of the folds and led the way back into my
body, wham! An extra hard hit from Jack, and I shifted and lost the hold of
one side of the box and my hand went down into the box.
     And landed right next to Matilda's head. I felt her tongue reach out
and taste me, and then she began to slither up my shaking body. She
probably thought she was on a sun-warmed branch in a slow breeze. Up my
arm, circling it slightly so she could hold on, she made it up to my
shoulder and raised her head.
     "Hello, old girl!" Jack panted. "Good to see you." he got out while he
kept pounding my butt.
     Matilda dropped her head and went onto my back, I felt her slipping
over my back and for a moment, I wondered if she'd dive for the warmth that
was Jack's cock pumping into my butt. Jack hadn't slowed down at all, he
was still fucking me good and hard.
     Matilda moved more, and Jack said, "Ah, that's my girl." I managed a
look over my shoulder and saw that she was rising up his huge chest and
over his shoulder, arced down to dive out his other armpit and her tail
reached my shoulder at this time and she ended up staying like that,
hanging onto both of us at once.
     "She wants to join in." I gasped out as her coils completed the circle
about my waist.
     "Let her have her little ride." Jack crooned. "I don't mind if you
don't."
     "Not at all." I said. "Come on, fuck me some more." Not that he
wasn't, but he had slowed down, he renewed his assault on my buttocks and
when I gasped out in renewed joy, he grasped my waist and pulled us both
backwards.
     We fell into the pile of plush puppets, not the hardest of
landings. Now I was seated on Jack's lap, his long pole still impaling me,
and Matilda keeping us wrapped up tight. She gave a tug and I was pulled
back to Jack's strong chest and Matilda, satisfied now that she had us both
where she wanted us, commenced to try to bind us together. I felt her head
reach down and her tongue touched my cock...and I creamed, all at once. It
was like Jack's cock had come to life and was licking at my own dick, and I
did, I gave out a long groan as the tongue flicked on my shaft and I
exploded right up into the air.
     Jack laughed as I sprayed myself with my come, and Matilda shifted in
annoyance as some landed on her, I was still gasping with the strength of
that orgasm when she decided to try to make her bed elsewhere after all.
     "Not so fast, old girl." Jack said, grasping her by her head. She
continued to uncoil from me and Jack aided it this time by grabbing her
tail and unwinding her from both of us and he ended up with both hands
filled with snake.
     "You got her!" I gasped out, for he was holding her right in front of
me.
     "Take hold of her for me." He ordered and I did, grasping her body
right below his hands on each side, still trying to catch my breath and
when my trembling hands had a good hold on her, Jack again rolled us both,
this time ending up with me lying face-down and Matilda resting on the
puppets all in disarray, and Jack began to hump my butt again, lying on top
of me now. His big hands came up and grasped both my breasts one in each
palm and he fucked me now with small quivering strokes that only wriggled
the thick dong that had impaled me so firmly that it couldn't be dislodged
despite our tumbles. I felt captive to him, joined to him forever, we would
have to walk around like this, Jack behind me, us pinioned like a sexual
pair of Siamese twins, I would live with his pud imbedded in me.
     Jack's breath was turning into a roar in my ears, his body was slicked
with sweat from his exertions, he was exuding the most amazing range of
masculine odors from his sweat, from his breath, from his groin. I felt
surrounded by maleness in concentrated form, I was being dotted with drops
of male essence, I was...my God, I was getting hard again!
     Matilda had wriggled away from me somehow, I don't remember when, just
she was gone and I fumbled, trying to find her again in the pile of plush
puppets, I was trying to move but I was pinioned beneath a humping
behemoth, I groaned and hunched at the velvety cloth beneath me, oh, man, I
was going to come again, just from this wonderful, long-lasting fuck! Good
old Matilda had distracted Jack just long enough, I was going to get a
"twofer" out of this! "Ah, ah, ah!" I gasped.
     "Yeah, oh, yeah! Uh!" Jack said huskily, his voice almost
broken-sounding, it didn't resonate like it had before, this was the
gasping sounds of a man worn out, losing control of himself. He couldn't
manage his voice or his body, it was beyond his power now, and I had taken
it from him, I had brought him to this by wringing his body until passion
dripped from every pore, as it was, as it did, "Oh, God! I'm coming again!"
I groaned as my second climax, bearing a load of pain along with the
pleasure, rose within me, like the torn sail of a storm-battered boat
catching the wind, damaged but unbowed. I felt the virile slickness of the
man on top of me, I felt his fiery spear in my vitals, I felt my body
quivering like an earthquake was about to strike, and it did, it did, I was
washed over by the tidal wave that struck me unaware, I was submerged in my
desire, wrecked by my ecstasy, I could only groan and writhe beneath this
grunting, heaving, passion-wracked beast on top of me who rutted, hunched,
moving now without finesse, only in the urgent motions of need without
thought, and he gave a long, choked-off grunt, and then released it, and as
he did, his seed boiled into me, I was fucked now, fucked by Jungle Jim,
fucked irrevocably, he couldn't take it back no matter what he did, he'd
done it to me, done it to me! And so as Jack contorted in his first climax,
I reveled in my second, less after the initial burst, I controlled it,
savored its joys like a fine wine, clutched it to me rather than being
clutched, and then Jack fell onto me like a man struck by a bullet, only
his heaving chest speaking of the life that still burned within him, that
and the breath that husked out of his lips and warmed my shoulder.
     Matilda returned, drawn by the heat of our sweating bodies no doubt,
she wriggled up next to me and alongside, making as if to lie at full
length with us, gaining the heat of my side, and I drowsily petted her
soft, sleek head. "Good girl." I said quietly.
     "Yeah." Jack said. "Damned good, you were, all right."
     He must have missed my almost-whispered second word, but I took it as
the compliment it was and said, "Thanks, Jack. That was a hell of a great
fuck."
     "Let's get Matilda before she takes off again." I gently turned my
body onto her to hold her in place while Jack got to his feet and caught
hold of her. Then I rolled over and sat up and looked at Jack, naked,
bronzed-skin all over his sun-loving body, holding the snake like some
primitive snake-worshiper, and then he smiled and let her crawl up his arm,
trusting her not to try to constrict on him as snakes will sometimes, I
knew, he knew her that well, and I smiled and when she came down his other
arm, I reached out and put my hand on his arm like I'd seen him do at the
aquarium, and Matilda circled around it, tying us together once again, our
arms lashed together by five feet of loving constrictor snake.
     "What I want to know." Jack said to the questing head, "Is how you got
into that box of puppets? It's nearly as high up as you are long, and there
was nothing for you to hold onto."
     Jack was right, I realized. That box was slick-sided, wax of some
sort. How had she gotten into that box? "We'll have to figure it out
later." Jack continued. "Let's get this lady home to her nice, warm cage at
my house."
     "Sounds good to me." I agreed. He smiled, and I ended up staying the
night and coming in to work with him the next day.
     We arrived to a bit of a ruckus. Something had happened to dear old
Uncle Bob. "Bit me!" he moaned, and then he saw us and he raged. "You! Your
damned snake is in that box and it bit me!" He held out his hand.
     "Hold on, honey." Mr. Miller soothed him. "We're fetching the first
aid kit, and an ambulance to take you to the hospital."
     "Let me see that bite." Jack urged.
     "It was your damned snake!" Farimore groused, holding his hand
tenderly. "I told you time and again if you brought those dangerous things
here something would happen, and now look. I've been bitten. They'll have
to pump the poison out!"
     "Huh?" I said dumbly. Boas had no poison. They could put a nasty bite
on you but....
     Then Farimore showed me his injured hand. Two puncture wounds, neat as
anything. And not another mark on him.
     "Very interesting." Jack said, as he looked at the bite. "Very
interesting indeed, wouldn't you say so, Trevor."
     "Absolutely." I agreed.
     "I was just reaching in to pull out Harvey Hippo and...what's going on
here?" He saw the look on our faces.
     "Matilda's not in that box, Larry." Jack was the only one who called
him "Larry" and he hated it. "Trevor and I took her home last night, after
we found where you'd put her. We weren't supposed to find her in that box,
were we?"
     "What are you saying?" Farirmore said. "Then it was some other snake
that bit me."
     "But you said you saw the boa in the box." the director was now as
suspicious as the rest of us. "Farimore, you've not been very happy about
the time you're losing to Jungle Jack's segment. You wouldn't be trying
some sort of sabotage here, would you?"
     Farimore blustered, but then one of the make-up men identified the
bites as part from a make-up kit (glued-on and decorated bits of rubber can
do some amazing effects) and he was busted.
     "You louse." I said when I realized what Farimore had tried to do. A
scandal to get Jungle Jack kicked off the show. "Faking a snakebite."
     "He's not faking." Mr. Miller said.
     "But he...."
     "No, that's a real snake bite if ever I saw it. When that ambulance
comes in, Larry darling, you'd better go get checked out real thoroughly.
I'll call the writers and we'll come up with a way to finish this week's
show without you. In fact, take another week to recuperate. I'll call all
the papers about your unfortunate incident, you'll get just scads and scads
of sympathy cards."
     Farimore blustered, but Mr. Miller outranked him, so he lost his
airtime for those two weeks.
     The two shows with just Jungle Jim and his sidekick, Jungle Buddy (me,
folks!) turned out to be very popular. Next season, Uncle Bob and his Pet
Shop Pals got booted from its prime-time kiddie slot of 7:30am all the way
back to 5:30am, when only a few die-hard fans would be watching...if
any. There it could die a peaceful death.
     Taking its place was "Jungle Jack's Animal Shack." A full hour of fun
and games with the amazing animals of nature. And I had my first regular
acting job.
     And you know, Jack and I make a hell of a good team. They're even
talking syndication for the next season's shows.

				  THE END
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