ignore the date thats not part of the story
She's a Menagerie
The stagecoach deposited Raphael Gascoigne by a small dirt road with little more than a weary look and a tip that there’s a small inn not too far. The winter weather left the surrounding trees bare and the sky a constant shade of grey, and without his pocket watch Raphael wouldn’t be able to tell it was twilight. The walk was filled with the conspicuous snap of twigs and ruffling of branches.
The inn itself was a decrepit little place, two stories full of patched walls. A small lamp hung by the door and barely illuminated a sign reading “The Menagerie.” Inside, Raphael didn’t see a soul except behind the bar, a sturdily built older woman in a button-up shirt with her face buried in a book.
“How much for a night’s stay and a glass of whiskey?” Raphael sighed as he sat on an uncomfortable bar stool.
The barkeep placed her book down, Raphael averted his eyes as she moved her arms and revealed evidence she hadn’t anything under her shirt. “6 shillings for most people, but unfortunately for you that’ll be 9 for hunters.” That line sounded well-rehearsed.
“How did you know I was a hunter?” Raphael didn’t feel like denying it, he was too desperate for a bed.
The barkeep leaned forward and rested her head on her hand, her bosom smooshed itself on the countertop, “After a while you like are easy to spot, the large leather coat, the bulge of that hidden knife in your boot, the jingle of metal bolts and glass vials coming from that satchel on your hip.” Raphael felt he was being sized up.
Raphael dug into his pockets for his inflated dues, “How many hunters pass through these parts?”
“Oh quite a few, I think you should be more worried about how many I’ve seen going out.” The barkeep produced a glass and poured what looked to be a healthy concoction of whiskey and tainted well water. “So, what brings you in particular to this place? Vengeance or bounty?”
“Not vengeance I can tell you that,” Raphael sipped the drink and could taste the weeks falling off his life. “There’s been a slow uptick in unique monsters over the years, in some way or another they’re even more unnatural than typical monsters. A few could be traced back to local mad scientists, who all appeared to be swapping cryptic notes and packages with someone named A. Echidna.” Another swig of poison mixed with a different kind of poison. “Hunter’s guild would likely pay a hefty some if it proves fruitful, if you help me out I can offer a cut.”
“No, that name isn’t familiar,” the way she talked made it sound like Raphael was in on some joke, “Oh but these over here should help you out.” The barkeep sauntered over to a corkboard near the entrance and bent over far too much to grab some flyers. Her evident complete lack of undergarments struck Raphael for a couple reasons, the one he was least ashamed of was the cold weather. The barkeep handed over a collection of wanted posters for various regional monsters. Raphael flipped through them and found depictions of a black goat with mechanical limbs, a farm chicken with dinosaurian features, what seemed to be a werebear, among a couple of others.
“Hmmm, yes this’ll help.” Raphael took the flyers upstairs to his room for further study, he could feel the barkeep’s eyes following him as he walked away. The room itself was as decrepit as he expected, a window and a bed barely large enough for one person as far as possible from it, at least the cold was kept out to a reasonable extent. The room also had a small desk, Raphael wedged the chair under the door handle, lit a candle and spread the posters on the workspace.
There wasn’t an obvious connection between the six monsters apart from being seen in the area, none seemed to share an origin, but that itself was a pattern. As far as Raphael could tell each monster was from a different division of mad science; mechanical augmentation, activation of dormant genes, were-creatures, patchworking, careful mutation, and cloning of extinct animals. Another throughline is each was capable of walking on two legs, six unrelated monsters all being at least semi-bipedal and not overlapping and/or double dipping in methods of creation is a statistical impossibility. This posse of creatures was undoubtedly from the same source, a real jack of all trades at that too, each one probably meant to test their skills in each field.
“Oh god damn it,” Raphael buried his face in his hand as something clicked in his mind. He was tracking someone calling themselves Echidna, aka the ancient Greek “mother of all monsters.” Raphael groaned, but at least he knows he’s likely after a woman and has a rough estimate at the size of her ego. The next immediate thought was if there was a Typhon to go along with the Echidna, but what little of the letters Raphael could decipher made Echidna sound like a solo act.
After hitting a wall in the analysis Raphael got into his nightgown and crawled into the bed, the sheets were a bit rough but after this long of a day, they felt heavenly. Didn’t take long for Raphael to fall into an amazing sleep, one comfortable and rejuvenating, he almost wished it lasted longer. Raphael was shaken awake by the chill of night air, and rolled over to see his room’s window was now open. The window was the second most shocking thing he saw, the third was that the chair was still under the door and the first was the barkeep standing nude by the desk. The candle was still lit, by how much it’d melted sense he went to bed he estimated it to be 2 in the morning. The barkeep was studying Raphael’s notes on the posters, and Raphael struggled and failed to not do the same to her. Her body wasn’t saggy like other older folks, it looked cushiony and reminded Raphael of a pear, a broad and very busty pear.
Somehow her speaking made this situation feel less real, “Say, hunter, are you cold?” She turned, the candle was making her green eyes shine, “I can hear you shivering, are those blankets not enough?” Despite the temperature Raphael was sweating through his nightgown, he couldn’t take his eyes off her curves, though his eye could catch a newly revealed tattoo underneath her left elbow, a ring of something he couldn’t make out. He noticed that her body was devoid of hair, save the short grey locks with a bolt of brown on her head. Even where her bush would be as bald, Raphael couldn’t help but wonder if parts he couldn’t see were as smooth.
She chuckled, bringing her hand over her mouth and giving a slightly better look at the tattoo in the candlelight, definitely runes of some sort. Before long Raphael realized she was laughing at the tent he was pitching in his bed sheets and was paralyzed by whether he should even bother being embarrassed by it. Looking back at her Raphael noticed the barkeep's own phallus, limp and tiny in proportion to the rest of her, resting peacefully on her round testis, somehow that was what pushed him over the edge to blush.
“Aww, did I fluster you, oh big bad hunter?” Grinning, the woman began to stride over to the bed, Raphael was practically hypnotized by how much she jiggled when she walked, from her breasts to her thighs to her member. The floorboards creaked beneath her bare feet, so that was some more evidence that she wasn’t an apparition or a figment of Raphael’s imagination. Without much word the naked barkeep began to carefully peel back the blankets, Raphael got goosebumps from the winter breeze, his night clothes doing very little to insulate him. Eventually the barkeep was face to face with Raphael’s erection sticking straight up under his nightgown, a small stain emanating from the peak. Raphael could’ve sworn she licked her lips.
“My my my, you’ve got quite the weapon.” She wasn’t serious, he could tell not just by the tone of her voice but by the fact Raphael was barely five inches. “I-its nothing special.” For some reason that was the first thing Raphael said during this whole ordeal.
“Oh?” The grin never left the barkeep's face, “I beg to differ, perhaps a comparison is in order?” Raphael gulped hard. With ample time for Raphael to protest she climbed into the bed and on his lap. Even though it was just her bare ass on his thighs Raphael’s breath hitched at skin-on-skin contact finally being made. Raphael struggled to comprehend how a human could be so pleasant to touch.
Carefully the woman lifted the nightgown and exposed Raphael’s penis to both her eyes and the cold air, the latter making him clench in reflex and ooze a bit. The barkeep gingerly grabbed her own organ and hoisted her mass forward, pressing their shafts together. Hers was still soft, so so soft, and was less than half the length of Raphael’s. When Raphael felt her cushion-like balls squish against his erection he unconsciously bucked his hips.
“Wow, so impatient, not very predator-like of you.” She was toying with him, had been since he walked in the front door, and at this point Raphael couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed her hips and felt his hands sink into her flesh, slowly he slid himself down, dragging his penis across her scrotum and taint, just as smooth and soft as the rest of her. He poked and prodded until he felt her hole, she was slick and warm and amazing.
Raphael was practically pinned under her but still thrusted like his life depended on it, all the while she just stared down at him making the occasional small grunt. Mesmerizing ripples were sent across her body each time he rammed himself inside, her breasts especially, and Raphael couldn’t help but reach out and touch one of them. Her breast was a heavenly mix of delicate and firm, her organ was still soft but the way it flicked out Cowper’s fluid let Raphael know he was on the right track.
Raphael groped as much of her mammary as his hand could fit, which wasn’t much, so he instead turned his fingers to her teat. A small exploratory pinch caused the barkeep to moan. The moan was the first thing to come out of her mouth that sounded completely genuine, and she quickly covered her mouth like she just let slip a secret.
“Alright fine, you’ve earned a treat.”
She suddenly grabbed Raphael by the shoulders and used him for stability to bounce her hips on his erection. Raphael was quickly lost in the ecstasy, his hands both found their way to her hips, but he was too out of it to actually grab them or thrust himself. In the altered state of mind Raphael’s eyes were somehow drawn to her tattoo. A ring of runes in black wrapping around her arm, the pattern mirroring itself after a small pictogram of a sunrise, or is it a sunset?
He felt himself about to explode and drank in her detail one last time. The shape of her lips, the weight of her breast, the warmth of her insides, the jiggle of her stomach.
Her smooth stomach.
Suddenly Raphael ceased all movement and sat stock still, his mind buzzing too much to orgasm despite the woman’s persistence. He stared at her stomach for a moment and then turned his attention to her face. She bit her lip when their eyes met.
Through her smile she panted out “What’s the matter hunter, something catch your attention?” She doesn’t care that he knows.
“Your navel,” Raphael removed his hands from her body and was carefully reaching one under his pillow, “it’s missing.” There wasn’t even an indent where it would be from a mutation, no sign of scarring over the area that may have made it vanish, not a shred of evidence that an umbilical cord ever connected to it.
“Hehe, you're smarter than most, if they ever notice it’s typically during the afterglow.” With that she finally stopped bouncing, Raphael still deep inside her, she cupped her left breast and played with her teat.
With practiced speed Raphael pulled the knife from under his pillow and held it against the barkeep’s throat, she didn’t flinch, her fingers still worked her nipple. Raphael almost growled out the words “You’re a homunculus, aren’t you?” He was mad both at the deception and himself for believing a human body could be this perfect.
A small chuckle escaped the woman’s throat, “much smarter than most.” She clenched herself around Raphael’s length, almost like a reward.
Raphael tried to keep himself focused despite the opposing signals his brain and his body was giving of the woman on top of him, “One of Echidna’s children I take it, care to tell me about your mother?” Raphael applied barely enough pressure with the knife to draw a papercut’s worth of blood from the homunculus’s neck. The barkeep let out a small gasp and Raphael felt a dripping of something hot and viscous spill on him, he kept his eyes on her.
Raphael felt her relax, “Aww, and you were on such a good streak, just had to guess wrong right when I went over the edge didn’t you?” Raphael was thrown for a small loop, if she’s not working for Echidna then maybe a plant by another rival scientist, but why deny information to a hunter wanting to take her down? Maybe they’re partners, but even then, the drink she poured didn’t seem poisoned, ice cubes floated to the top and Raphael’s trained taste buds didn’t pick up anything. Did the mythological Echidna have any siblings?
She laughed, “I can practically hear the gears grinding in your head, your little thinking face is so cute,” she’s trying to distract him. “So lost in the hypothetical you can’t perceive the physical.” More distractions, but hold on, was she looser? Without thinking Raphael looked down at their groins, her member was the first thing he noticed, it was larger than last he checked, but somehow not any more erect, and now had a small bush surrounding it. And the bed, it was producing a prolonged creak, like more weight was being added at a continuous rate.
She was getting larger, and hairier, Raphael’s mind took an embarrassingly long time to wander back to the werebear on the wanted poster.
In the time it took for Raphael to draw his arm back and aim at the homunculus’s heart she willed her transformation to go from slow and arduous to practically instant, the knife was buried to the hilt, but he knew it didn’t make it halfway past the meat of her breast. The bed collapsed from nearly a thousand pounds of fat and muscle being thrown onto it, Raphael was beyond lucky that his pelvis wasn’t crushed to dust. She stood up despite losing so much advantage, her entire body was on such a different scale now that Raphael exited her with little to no resistance.
From down below Raphael got a decent look at the werebear’s form, she bore a close resemblance to a grizzly bear and needed to crouch slightly due to the room’s height, the knife was still lodged in her bosom. Her build was fairly similar to before but much more muscular, her arms were definitely lankier to allow for quadruped movement, but the most obvious proportional difference was her organ. Her member was now at least a full foot in length with saggy testis the size of apples, a drop of crystal-clear ejaculate fell on Raphael. Somehow the black tattoo was still just as visible on her arm despite being underneath a layer of brown fur.
Raphael bolted upright grabbed his satchel from the nightstand and ran faster than he ever had, still only in a stained nightgown. After nearly falling down the inn’s stairs multiple times Raphael entered the bar, wall-mounted candles were still lit sporadically. During the couple seconds it took Raphael to cross half the bar he heard a couple of loud thuds and then a cacophonous splintering of wood. Taking a quick glance over his shoulder Raphael saw the werebear crouched on the floor and a freshly made hole in the ceiling. The artificial ursine chased Raphael on all fours, knocking over tables and chairs without losing any speed, she was so much faster. Raphael was closer to the door and was able to open and get halfway through it before he felt a hitch on his nightgown and fell to the floor.
Raphael was dragged back into the inn by his leg, he kicked his bare foot at her grizzly paws to no result. She was down on three limbs and grabbing Raphael with her tattooed arm, in a moment that seemed to move in slow motion Raphael kicked the knife still lodged in her chest, it dug up a decent chunk of flesh, and she yelped, dropping Raphael to tend to her wound. Raphael seized the opportunity and ran out and down the dark dirt road, too much adrenaline in his system to be bothered by the cold. Without looking back Raphael heard the front of the inn being crashed through.
“Run, run, little hunter!” the werebear roared, “you can’t hide, not with the stink of your posh and my sex following you!”