Dinosaur Love (Story Collection #1)

by Black, Natalie

  “No no, not there, over there!” she shouted as she noticed the workers were putting the crates in the wrong place. The floor had been marked with symbols, but apparently these people couldn’t handle even the simplest of tasks. Due to the long hours she worked and the stress of the operation her nerves were already frayed and it didn’t take much to light her short fuse. Sadly, due to her short stature most people didn’t take her warnings seriously, which only served to infuriate her more. The workers glanced at her with glassy eyes and barely gave any sign that they acknowledged her words, then carried on doing what they were doing. Eventually they had brought in everything, and the whole room smelled of sweat and wood and sawdust, but Emma didn’t mind because it smelled authentic.

  One of the workmen, a swarthy man with thick black stubble and a forest of hair sprouting from his open shirt, gave her a piece of paper that she duly signed. They collected their equipment and she heard them slap each other on the back and exchange teasing insults as they walked away. Their voices and footsteps faded in the distance and she was left alone, which suited her perfectly. Suddenly the whole atmosphere seemed to change and she felt much more free and relaxed. The presence of other people often seemed to give her an extra layer of tension, as if a weight was added to her shoulders.

  It had been the same way for most of her life, which is why she was incredibly glad that she had gone into the career she had. During the day she could mostly stay behind the scenes and fill out paperwork or examine the artifacts that were being rotated. Of course there were some occasions when she had to give talks or lead tour groups, but she endured them with a fake smile and a strong resolve.

  Emma began to hum to herself as she checked off some of the artifacts and labeled them with the correct symbol, and the melody she generated echoed around the large chamber. Soon she lost herself in her chorus and found herself using the echo to sing a duet. It was something that she had done on rare occasions, because usually there was someone else around, even if it was only a janitor or a security guard, and she didn’t have enough confidence in her ability to perform in front of an audience. However, the janitors and security guards were seeing to other parts of the museum; since it was closed there wasn’t as much need for them as usual. The security guards were mostly located around the more valuable items, the jewels and such, although they didn’t do much good because Emma had caught them napping on the job more than once.

  So it was that her lungs surged and her song soared up to the far away ceiling, and for a moment she lost herself in her fantasy of standing on a stage in front of thousands of adoring fans as they screamed her name…and then she heard the steady rhythm of footsteps and the harmony she had created with her echo stopped abruptly, although she was embarrassed as the echo rang around and carried on for a few moments after her mouth had clamped shut.

  “I never knew you had it in you. Thinking about embarking on a new career?” Frank asked, the corners of his mouth turned upwards, giving the faintest hint of smile. Emma flushed red and turned back to her clipboard and forms to hide her embarrassment, but it was too late.

  Frank was the curator of the museum, and Emma remembered the first time she had met him. Whenever she heard the title curator she automatically thought of a hunched, absent-minded old man who shuffled along, but Frank couldn’t have been further from that image. He was middle-aged, although he looked younger, and he had Mediterranean blood that gave him his skin an olive glow. Emma glanced down at her own pale skin and silently cursed out of jealousy.

  There had been an instant attraction but nothing had ever come of it for it was curtailed by the shining band of gold that adorned his finger. That moment had been a long time ago, but even now she still became flustered around his presence. It didn’t help that whenever they ran into each other he was always dressed impeccably and she was stuck in some raggedy clothes that were usually covered in a dusty film.

  “I didn’t realize you were around,” she haltingly said.

  “I couldn’t miss this momentous day. How did everything go?”

  “It was fine. I had to save some of the items from being dropped. I swear, the people who work for these companies just don’t understand how fragile and important these things are.”

  “I suppose it’s hard to have the same appreciation for them when you’re not around them every day.”

  “Well they should, there’s never been anything done like it before.”

  Frank chuckled. “I think sometimes you forget that there’s a wider world out there, and this place isn’t everyone’s priority, mores the pity.”

  “It soon will be.”

  “I hope that you’re right! I know that we’re supposed to wait until tomorrow, but shall we do the honors now?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

  Emma was hardly one to stand on ceremony, so she readily agreed. There were a couple of crowbars resting against a nearby wall so they each picked one up and worked at prying open the crates. Straining, they managed to split them open. Frank took the tops of the crates and Emma kept low, and the physical work made them sweat. Emma couldn’t help but be distracted by Frank’s slick sheen, and he looked like an Adonis. She tried to focus on her work and the soft crackling noise that the crates made when she split them apart sounded very satisfying.

  One by one the sides fell to the floor, and the air was filled with dusty particles that created a thin fog, which took a while to dissipate. Emma resisted looking closely at any of the dinosaurs until they had all been uncovered, wanting her first sight of them to be as a group.

  When the last crate fell she took a few steps back and witnessed the prehistoric scene in front of her, and she was speechless. Frank stood beside her.

  “Imagine what this will be like when we have imported all the plants and the wildlife. It’ll be the closest thing to actually being there, it’s just a shame we couldn’t find a way to have them move,” he said.

  “I don’t think it matters, they look incredible,” Emma said, completely awestruck.

  She wasn’t even sorry that the T-Rex hadn’t arrived. The range of dinosaurs was incredible, from an enormous Brontosaurus to a pack of small Gallimimus and a lot in between, Stegosaurus, Iguanadon, Hadrosaurus and many more. Emma stood with her mouth agape.

  “If I didn’t know better I’d have sworn they were alive. Even the eyes, I know they’re only glass but they look so realistic. This is like a dream come true, I can’t believe I’m actually standing in front of dinosaurs. I know it’s safer this way but I wish they were real. Can you imagine what it would be like to see them move and walk around them as they existed? “

  Frank watched her intently as she looked on, entranced.

  “You’re adorable, you know that?” he said, “but look, there’s something I need to talk to you about, come to my office.” He swiveled and moved off.

  She found it odd as she was rarely called to his office. Her mind began to race, did he meant something more when he called her adorable? She wasn’t sure, but she thought she felt some tension between them, and there were some times when he looked at her…but she had just brushed those off as a foolish fantasy. He was married; surely he wouldn’t be interested in her…would he? As she followed him her pulse raced and although she tried to rein in her thoughts they spiraled out of control, and she started thinking about his hands gripping her body, pulling her into him until she felt a hard bulge, and a long hard kiss that would reach deep into her soul…

  Emma shook those thoughts away; it wouldn’t be doing to get lost in those types of fantasies. They would only serve to add to her sexual frustration. So when she reached the office she sat down in a chair and patted down her skirt, making a solemn promise to herself that she would remain composed. The office was neat and tidy, quite a contrast to her office. Papers were stacked neatly in different piles along the desk, and other artifacts and equipment were organized around shelves that spanned the walls around the sides of the room. Frank took a seat opposite
her and pulled up his chair, leaning forward with his elbows leaning on the table.

  “Now, please don’t be shocked when you hear what I have to say. This isn’t something that I ever thought I would say to you, but I think when I tell you’ll know it makes sense. For a long time we’ve had troubles and you’ve been in my thoughts a lot,” he began. Emma looked at him curiously, hardly believing her ears. However, reality came crashing down when he pulled out a document from his drawer and placed it in front of her.

  “This isn’t a reflection on your performance,” he continued, “and I really wish I didn’t have to do this, but you know as well as anyone that the museum is running at a loss and I’ve been ordered to cut costs where I can. Obviously these new exhibitions require a lot of funding and it will be a while until we start to see tangible results, and until that happens we need to make cutbacks. As you can see I’ve managed to get you quite a generous redundancy package and you can be assured that you’ll get a glowing reference, and I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can.”

  Emma stared into his dark, smoky eyes but she felt as though the world was crumbling around her. All she knew was the museum, it had been her life for so long, her passion, and she had poured everything into it.

  “You can’t be serious, this museum…I’ve done so much! You can’t just let me go. What am I going to do?”

  “You’re a smart, talented woman, I’m sure you’ll find something.”

  “But I don’t want to do anything else.”

  “Look, the fact is that I know you’re talented, but the board is concerned about some complaints from tour groups you’ve led. Now, I know the work you do here is important and there are parts of your job that you excel at, but there are other parts that could use a little work.”

  “So let me work on them, I can improve, I can be friendly!”

  “I’m sorry, they’re already diversifying, and they feel that with the new exhibits they will need more…amicable staff who are ready to focus on giving the customers a memorable experience. They can’t feel they can justify paying you for what they think is only half a job.” Emma laughed incredulously.

  “I’m sorry, again, I really am. I tried to convince them but apparently one of them was in a tour group when you rudely shot someone down for talking while you were giving your spiel. They didn’t look too kindly on that, unfortunately.”

  “But you can’t…not when we’re so close to unveiling the new exhibits. Especially the dinosaurs…I can’t leave them now.”

  “You can always come back as a guest.”

  “It won’t be the same, having to walk through the crowd of greasy stinky people,” she made a vomiting gesture.

  “You see the board has a point. That’s one of the reasons I came to you tonight, I thought you deserved to have a few moments with them. I knew you’d like that. So I think it would be best if you took the rest of this evening to gather up your belongings and maybe spend some final moments by yourself in the museum. It’s been an honor to work with you.”

  Frank rose and held out his hand. In a daze, Emma rose too and took hold of his hand limply. She picked up the piece of paper he had given her and then walked out of the office, feeling entirely numb. She wasn’t aware of where she was going but she ended up back in her office. The whole place was a mess and she didn’t know where to begin to collect up her things.

  Unlike Frank’s office there were papers strewn over the desk and the floor, and there was an array of different knick knacks scattered all over the room, even on her chair. One of the reasons it was so messy is that she never thought she would ever have to leave it, in her mind her job was going to last a lifetime, and up until today she had never been given any cause to doubt it.

  Suddenly she collapsed and burst into tears. The hot drops flooded her face and she took heaving breaths, screwing up her eyes and crawling into a ball. The paper crumpled in her fist and she threw it across the room. It hit the door, and lay there, staring at her. She screamed at it, screamed at the whole world. How could they do this to her? She had given so much of herself to the museum. The tiredness and frustration took its toll and the sad tears turned to angry ones. Her face burned read and she rose like a phoenix, eyes blazing with an angry fire that threatened to devour everything that harmed her.

  With a high-pitched roar she violently swept her arms across her desk, sending pieces of paper floating through the air. They ruffled as they flew, and as they came down she smacked them, imagining that they were the board and she was beating them into submission. Then, she turned around and flung her arms towards the shelf. It wobbled. She then kicked the chest that was underneath it, and kicked it again, her foot hurt against the metal but she carried on nevertheless, and loud clangs filled the office. The strength of the impact was so much that it shook the walls, and the shelves that hung overhead wobbled even more, and the items they were holding jiggled forward until they fell and crashed around her, eventually she picked them off herself and threw them to the floor, then collapsed in more tears, the shrapnel surrounding her trembling body.

  Emma stayed there for what seemed like a year, until the tears finally subsided. She sniffed and wiped them away, but her heart was filled with darkness and she wanted to do something that would gain revenge on the board and the museum. She would show them what being unfriendly meant. She walked out of her office and through the empty halls. She had walked through them many times before, and the best feeling in her life was walking through these halls outside of the museum’s opening hours. It made her feel privileged and special, but that was no more.

  She walked through the different exhibits, intending to cause irreparable damage, but when it came to it she couldn’t bring herself to rebel that much. Intentions make rebels of us all, but the thought of consequences turns us into cowards. Forlornly she carried on walking, frustrated at her impotence. She chastised herself for thinking that Frank called her into his office to being an affair. She was and always would be plain Emma, and she would never be the subject of someone’s sexual fantasies.

  Eventually she reached a set of stairs and walked down to the main hall. She sat down at the halfway point and gazed upon the dinosaurs.

  “Oh, how I wish you were real,” she said, but at that moment a star shot through the sky, and the moon shone down through the small window that was built into the top of the high ceiling. Something in the universe happened at that moment that she would never be able to explain, in the vastness of the cosmos a miracle happened on Earth, and as Emma sat with her head in her hands she witnessed a miracle.

  First she heard a snorting, and then heavy footsteps against the ground. She looked up, puzzled, and then her face twisted in a mixture of delight and confusion when she saw that the dinosaurs were alive. She laughed and giggled, not even caring to wonder how it happened, simply enjoying the sight. Since none of them were predators the mighty beasts walked about, not paying each other any mind, and Emma was glad that T-Rex had been delayed. She couldn’t imagine the devastation that would have occurred had the king of the reptiles been present.

  For a long while she sat there and watched them, but eventually she worked up the courage to join them. She was still apprehensive, because they were dinosaurs after all and nobody really knew how they behaved, so part of her was afraid that they would recoil from her and attack, but when she walked into them they gravitated toward her in a way that nothing else ever had. They nuzzled up to her and she patted them all, laughing as their warm breath tickled her. They did something resembling a sneeze as well as her hair got caught in their noses, and that made her laugh even more.

  But then she was humbled as she took stock of the Brontosaurus. Its stocky body was larger than all the other dinosaurs, and its long neck towered up to the ceiling. It reached down, and its neck was almost as long as the main hall itself, and it peered at Emma with curious eyes.

  As it got closer she reached out a hand to caress the strange face, and then the Brontosaurs licked
her cheek tenderly. It was a strange sensation, but she found she enjoyed it, so she let him continue, and in a moment of wild abandon she turned her head and allowed her tongue to touch his. It was strange how good it made her feel, and after everything that happened that day it was an amazing feeling to have these majestic creatures fawning over her as if she was the most desirable thing in the world.

  She walked forward, and the dinosaurs followed her, as if they were completely devoted to her and only her. The fleet-footed Gallimimus hopped around, while the slower ones followed ponderously. She welcomed them all close to her, and in the heat of the moment she desired to feel them against her naked body. After all, she thought, they were in their natural state, why shouldn’t she be? So she stripped away her garments, pulling her top over her head and unzipping her skirt. Emma unclasped her bra and her firm, busty tits poured out. She wriggled as she drew her panties down her leg, and then stepped out of them, picking them and flinging them across the room. She laughed as one of the Gallimimuses ran over and bowed his head, catching them on his nose and sniffing them.

  First, she went up to the Brontosaurus and pressed herself against him. He was surprisingly warm, and she ran her hands over his body. He made a noise somewhat reminiscent of a purr, and she noticed his massive cock stiffen. It was bigger than anything she had ever seen and it was certainly in proportion to the Brontosaurus’ size. Emma had no idea how she was going to pleasure it, but something inside her liked the challenge. She bowed her head and crept underneath its hulking body, and some of the smaller dinosaurs still nipped around her legs.