Flippy is bored with his life as a zoo animal, wishing he could just eat until the break of dawn. Derek is similarly distressed by his zoo's sinking popularity. When he allows Flippy to eat as much fish as he wants, Flippy goes overboard, creating unforeseen benefits for the both of them.

Just to clarify, the ferals in this story are more cartoon feral than real-life feral, and anything outside the exhibits is assumed to be a regular furry.

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Flippy lived, with two other small otters, in an exhibit so large it looked more fit for hippos. At its center was a stone stairway that climbed to a vast, circular platform, fitted with a giant pond and plenty of open space. The rest of the it was littered with grass, bushes, and trees, designed to imitate the habitat of a riverside. For all its grandness, not a square foot could entertain the gloomy otter.

As he drooped his flipper over a large rock, Flippy eyed his roommates with jealousy. Sammy lied on her back and juggled rocks with her paws while Jack made backstrokes in the large pond. Judging by their excited squeals and lazy smiles, they were having a lot more fun than he was. He wished he could join them, but such mundane acts couldn’t keep him entertained for more than a minute.

Scoffing, Flippy got up and waddled past the pond to the very end of the exhibit. The feeding station composed of two parts: a red button, hidden a few inches deep in the floor to hide it from visitors, and a green pipe that grossly stuck out from the rock wall. He pressed the button with a flipper, causing a single trout to pop out of the pipe. As he nibbled it, the bleak expression on his face brightened. He increased his pace to large bites, savoring every chunk of the delectable fish.

Food seemed to be the only thing that could satisfy Flippy, yet it could only do so much. Due to the machine’s strict restrictions, it could only sputter out a fish every ten minutes, and his peers frequently swung by to snag a fish or two. The thought made Flippy groan, but another bite of the fish returned him to a euphoric state; he almost hated how vulnerable he was to these simple trouts.

Behind the exhibit was a tall, reserved building. Inside it, two individuals sweated and panted as they sat against a wall. One of them was Derek, a sturdy bull who was the keeper of the zoo. He had a fairly productive morning, which began with him snagging a stellar deal at his local merchant. For only three hundred dollars, he drove back to the zoo with a whole truck-load of fish. A minute ago, he finished emptying his truck into the giant, three-story tank tucked behind the otter’s pen with help from his friend, Jack, who was also the co-owner of his zoo.

“We did good, Jack,” Derek said between light breaths. “The tank’s crammed packed with fish. I don’t think we can fit another one in there if we tried.”

The hippo, who was significantly more exhausted than his buff friend, nodded as he chucked his third empty water bottle across the room and uncapped his forth. “Yeah. Those critters eat through fish like they’re starved, though this should definitely last them several months. Just… Next time...” He paused to take a long swig from his bottle, tossing it towards the growing pile of bottles. “Get one of your employees to do the heavy work. I didn’t exactly sign up to this to do hard labor...”

Derek chuckled. “And next time don’t be the first thing I see when I’m looking for help.” He patted Jack on the back. “Come on, let’s take this upstairs.” Jack took a few seconds to stand himself on his aching knees before following his friend.

Upstairs, they slumped on two cheaply-made chairs. Stretched across the wide room was an entire wall of one-way glass, allowing them to survey the visitors undetected. While Jack appreciated the view, it almost made their zoo’s flaws too apparent. He frowned as he looked from the desolate walkways to the plain exhibits.

His eyes locked onto a family passing by. They zoomed past the polar bears – they were usually asleep at this hour, and every hour – but lingered at the otters. The children smiled and pointed, but the parents frowned and muttered to one another. Jack tapped his foot nervously as he wondered what they were gossiping about, but he didn’t have to think for long. The adults shook their heads upon seeing the otters feed themselves and ushered the kids to the next exhibit. What worried Jack more than the family’s disapproval was Derek’s obliviousness to it all; the bull looked ahead with the same cheerful look as always.

Jack sighed. “Derek, isn’t it obvious why our zoo’s popularity is dropping?”

Derek perked his ears. “How so?”

Jack tapped his fingers on the arm rest before giving his friend the hard truth. “Look around. We have the exact same animals as every other zoo, and we don’t even have flashy decorations to make up for it. There’s barely any trainer and animal interactions either – heck, the animals feed themselves! Nothing about us stands out, and the visitors are catching on.”

Derek’s smile waned. “Our zoo isn’t supposed to be high-end,” he said defensively. “We’re like the fast food of zoos. Unattractive, sure, but cheap and fulfilling.”

Jack shook his head. “Obviously, our visitors don’t find our zoo ‘fulfilling’, else they’ll come back more often. Our profits are plummeting, and if we don’t start making drastic changes, we’ll have to make some serious cuts.”

Derek had enough. He stood up and dug his hands in his pockets. “We’ll talk about this later. I’m not in the mood for this,” he mumbled. He stomped downstairs, leaving his friend to look over their struggling zoo in solitude.

Hours later, when the sun was half set, Derek slowly closed the zoo’s front gates. He strolled past the exhibits with a frown as he gleaned on his friend’s words. No matter how much he tried to brush it off, he had to accept his zoo was performing at an all time low. Looking inside each exhibit, he realized they were even worse than Jack made them out to be. He tried to main an objective, positive outlook, but his despair worsened as he counted his zoo’s faults.

At the sound of a squeaky chirp, Derek stopped in his path. He looked over to find the otters playing in their pen, which brought a smile to his dreary face. Snagging his keys from his pants, he unlocked the exhibit’s gate and walked inside. He tip-toed over scattered sticks and toys before sitting cross-legged next to one of the otters. Flippy perked his head at the sound of footsteps, smiling when he saw the zookeeper. Getting up, he strode towards the bull and curled inside his lap.

Derek’s mind calmed as he caressed Flippy’s soft fur. The creature, with a prince-smug expression, purred at the delicate touch, which widened Derek’s smile. The zookeeper always had a soft spot for animals. They were non-judgmental, honest and innocent. They were the reason he started a zoo in the first place, after all.

Derek stared at the feeding station a few feet away. When he looked down and saw the resting otter’s adorable face, he was convinced he needed to do something special for the aquatic critter. He slid the otter off his lap before standing up and walking towards the red button. Flippy cocked his head in confusion as he saw the bull hunch over and tinker with various wires. Once done, Derek stood up and brushed dirt off his jeans, turning to smile at the lying otter.

“There you go, Flippy,” Derek said in a comforting tone. “Now you and your buddies can eat as much fish as you like.” Flippy, unable to comprehend English, merely rolled around on the ground. Derek chuckled, giving the otter one last pat before walking down the stones. As he locked the gate behind him, he was certain there was no harm in loosening the machine’s restrictions. At worst, the otters would overindulge and end up with a stomach ache in the morning. At best, they’ll be even more energetic than before. He strode to his car with a confident smile, determined to get some serious work done tonight.

The otters crowded around the feeding station, wondering what the zookeeper did to it. Sammy was the first to step forward, cautiously lowering her flipper on the red button. A flood of fish spewed out the pipe, and they all leaped back to avoid it. She poked at the pile, hardly able to believe five of them shot out at once. Taking an experimental bite, she was pleased to find them as tasty as always. She stepped onto the pile, her lips smacking as she took large bites out of the fish.

Curious, Jon gave the button a second press. Another load of fish shot out of the pipe, covering Sammy from head to toe in wet meat. She poked her head out and snarled at the careless otter, who sheepishly scratched the back of his head. They resumed their attention to the fish, moaning as they dug into the feast.

Flippy stared in disbelief at the pipe in front of him. With no more wait times, he could finally have the chance to eat as much fish as he desired. He imagined a lax approach to consumption: wrapping his mouth around the pipe, holding his flipper on the button, and relaxing as fish swarmed into his mouth. Flippy salivated at the thought, so lost in his daydreams he didn’t notice the other otters have long forgotten about their discovery, returning to their standard activities. He rolled his eyes; his room mates didn’t know a good thing when it was right in front of their eyes.

Shivering with excitement, Flippy scuttled to the pipe and initiated his plan. He secured the pipe in his mouth, the thick object stretching his lips comically wide. He flopped his flipper behind him until he found the button. After double checking to make sure everything was secure, he slammed his flipper down.

Fish flowed out of the pipe at a frantic pace. Five shot down his throat within seconds, giving him no chance to chew. Flippy’s first instinct was to pull out, but after giving it a few seconds, he was floored by its saltine flavor. He moaned briefly, but was soon met with an unfamiliar sensation from below.

Looking down, he was startled to see his stomach bulge a few inches, rounding into a small ball. The sight should have been enough to encourage Flippy to stop, but it only made him more ecstatic. He took his enlarging figure as an accomplishment, as if it proclaimed the sheer quantity of fish he could devour. Whipping his head around, he noticed his butt was also rounding with flesh. Giving it a few wiggles, he blushed at its wide, circular movement. He refused to withdraw from the hose, desiring to become even more wobbly and gigantic.

Sammy and Jon held horrified expressions as they watched Flippy expand. They saw his stomach brush the ground, lifting his fattened flippers in the air seconds later. They swore they heard the bloated otter moan, and when he reaffirmed his bite on the pipe, they realized he truly did enjoy gaining weight. With each second that passed, Flippy took up more of the platform, coming closer to tearing apart the home they lived contently in for so long.

Flippy swayed his bloated tail as he felt his flippers spread apart. Flicking them about, he found they were numb and heavy. His immobility should have horrified him, but it only extenuated how much his lard consumed him, a sensation he was quickly coming to cherish. Initially, all he wanted was to taste the trout’s sublime flavor forever, but even that became bland compared to expansion’s flavorful palette. He fell in love with the notion of feeling his own bulk spread across the land as fish flowed down him by the gallon. Closing his eyes lustfully, all he could focus on was devouring as much fish as otterly possible.

Sammy and Jon frowned as they stared at Flippy, whose back was wide enough to be a queen sized bed. Wanting desperately to keep their perfect home, they rushed to the bloated otter and attempted to pull at his flab. Their attempts were in vain, as the otter already weighed quite a number of tons. Stepping back, they were terrified to find Flippy has already grown to a 12 foot diameter. If they didn’t escape soon, they would meet the same fate as the rocks surrounding the massive blob.

Sprinting around the tank, the mobile otters scratched at the walls and bit the metal gates, but didn’t come any closer to finding an exit. After a minute of unsuccessful escaping, they found Flippy had grown an extra eight feet wider, his stomach splashing into the pond as his ass spilled down the stone stairway. They doubled their efforts, sweating with panic as they scurried along the exhibit walls. A minute later, Jon yelped excessively and pointed at a hole in the floor. Relieved, the two slid through it, popping out at the grass outside their exhibit.

Flippy’s flab covered up their escape route moments after they fled. He was immensely lardy, covering up three quarters of the exhibit. His gargantuan stomach took up the back half of the exhibit while his wide rear advanced towards the viewing glass at the exhibit’s front. The rest of his body – from his tail to his flippers – barely poked out of his blubber as small stubs. Flippy’s once long neck blended with the surrounding fat, and his large nose was miniscule in comparison to his bloated cheeks.

Even as Flippy continued to fatten, a giddy smile lounged between his cheeks. His expansive flab made him feel he was in multiple places at once. Combined with his destruction of the nearby decoration, he felt a tremendous surge of pride and power, even when he was objectively at his weakest. When he wasn’t moaning over his expanding flesh, he embraced the delectable feast of fish, the pillow softness of his bulk, and the pleasant wobbling of his body. He never thought he would be flooded with so much pleasure at once, and the bloated otter wished this could go on forever.

Flippy’s eyes opened when the flow of fish halted. Wiggling the pipe with his mouth, he was saddened to find the tank was empty. As soon as he felt his butt press against the exhibit glass, he forgot why he was ever sad. The otter, with his flab filling every nook and cranny of the fifty by fifty foot exhibit, felt incredibly massive. He loved jiggling his body around, knowing that all this lard was created by the thousands of fish he crammed down his greedy throat. With a warm smile, he turned his head to the sky and watched the citrus sunset give way to a vibrant display of stars.

~

Derek whistled as he unlocked the zoo’s front gate. He woke up a few hours late this morning, but he was so chipper he didn’t mind. All through last night, he conjured up a full college ruled sheet of ideas to rebound his zoo. He ended up crossing half of them, and another half were likely too unrealistic or costly, but it was a great start. The bull was particularly enthusiastic about one of them, and he ironed out enough kinks and technicalities that he was sure this was the one he was looking for; he just needed to know where he could get an elephant that could handstand while balancing a pyramid of penguins on its back...

While doing his daily errands, his eyes were drawn to a large blanket of brown a few exhibits down. Puzzled, he ignored the sharks he was feeding and climbed down the ladder attached to their tank. He started down the sidewalk with a slow walk, but when he got a closer look, he shook his head in disbelief and hurried his pace to a run. His feet skidded in front of the otter’s exhibit, his mouth gaping as he stared inside.

Two gigantic, brown mounds of fat pressed against the glass in large circles. Derek had to blink a couple times to fully convince himself he was looking at a ginormous otter ass. He had to back up to the grass to see the rest of the blob, though he couldn’t see much. All he could identify was a thick arc of fat, which he presumed was the otter’s stomach, and a small, spherical bump perched in the middle, which he presumed was the otter’s head. In midst of his observation, he heard scuffling from across the sidewalk. Looking towards the noise, he saw two otters playfully wrestling in the bushes, which he identified as Sammy and Jon. He shook his head; of course Flippy was the gargantuan blob in the tank, that overly curious fellow.

Fearing the worst, he raced around to the back of the exhibit. Once there, his suspicions were proven correct: the entire food tank was devoid of fish, all apparently crammed inside the bloated otter. Sweat dripped down the bull’s forehead as he began to panic. He never thought, of all things, one of his otters would become fat enough the fill an entire exhibit from such a simple, impromptu action. Was this something he was supposed to anticipate, and therefore have accounted for? Derek wasn’t sure anymore, and the more he pondered it, the more he became convinced this happened because of his faults as a zookeeper.

Checking his phone, he discovered he only had an hour before the zoo opened, which meant he had to think fast. Hastily scanning the room, he saw a roll of yellow caution tape resting on a counter. He grabbed it and hurried to the ends of the sidewalk, restricting entrance to the surrounding exhibits by taping it across two trees on both sides. With that solved, he became significantly less stressed. Another quick check of the phone told him he had thirty minutes until the zoo opened. He figured he would use his free time to make sure the bloated otter was alright.

Both entrances of the exhibit were blocked by Flippy’s fat, forcing Derek to be creative. He climbed to the second story, went inside the bathroom, and opened up a window. He threw both feet over its ledge and jumped down a few feet below. Flippy’s flab wobbled from where Derek made contact, and the springy flesh absorbed most of the pain he would have felt.

Flippy soon caught eye of the bull, and he chirped with sparkling eyes as he rocked his body around in glee. Derek’s balance stumbled as he struggled to secure his feet on the quaking floor, but it wasn’t enough to make him fall. Once the rumbling subsided to light waves, he took large steps across the otter’s stomach, occasionally looking down to witness the lardy footprints he created in his fat.

When he reached the otter’s head, he sat on his belly. As his hands sank into the otter’s flab, he was surprised by how soft and comfy it was. Looking around, he noticed the entire floor was composed of brown lard. He couldn’t see a trace of the decorations that rested a couple dozen feet below him just yesterday, or even the otter’s own limbs.

The otter didn’t seem dismayed by it. He opened his mouth wide, yelping to draw attention to himself. Derek shook his head. “I don’t have any food, buddy,” he said apologetically. “I bet you’re really hungry, with you being so large and all, but you’ll have to wait a while.” It took a few seconds for Flipper to register the bull’s refusal to feed him. He closed his mouth, but kept his wide smile.

A loud gong rang through the air, signifying the opening of the zoo, but Derek paid no attention to it. “I’m glad you aren’t that hungry,” he continued in a peppier voice. “Heck, I forget you ate a whole tank’s worth of fish. Why should you be hungry?” Derek brushed the otter’s blobby head, curving his hand over cheeks that were larger than beach balls, causing Flippy to purr. “You’re a gluttonous critter, aren’t you?” he teased. “Elephants have nothing against you. In fact, I bet you can eat five elephants and still be hungry for more.”

He moved his hand to Flippy’s stomach, grabbing large chunks of it and tending it between his fingers. “I’m surprised you’re so happy after all of this,” he said with genuine surprise. “I mean, I would be terrified if I was encased by this much fat, unable to move about or work or have fun, but you look like you couldn’t be happier.” To stress his point, the otter yelped with a cheerful smile and bounced his body up and down. Derek chuckled as saw Flippy’s flesh rise and fall in lardy waves; maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

His smile faded as soon as he looked to the sidewalk. A group of furs crowded around the striped tape, craning their heads to see more of the exhibit-consuming blob. Their bodies pushed the tape out, stretching it until it snapped in half. As if forgetting there was ever a boundary, they swarmed around the tank, quickly filling up the small stretch of sidewalk that stood outside the exhibit.

Derek’s mouth gaped as hundreds of visitors dotted the walkway, all eager for a look at the unbelievably large animal. He sweated nervously, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Should he yell at them to back up? Should he call security? He couldn’t just let them crowd around the tank. They’ll boo at him, or criticize him for letting his otter get so huge, or…

“Hey!” a teenaged rabbit called out. “What kind of species of otter is that? How much does it need to eat to stay alive?” Similar questions began to pop up among the crowd.

Derek realized that what the crowd wanted, overwhelmingly, was to learn everything they could about the humungous otter, from his diet to his daily routine. Derek also realized he knew squat about otters, or most of the animals at his own zoo for that matter. What he was familiar with, however, was Flippy’s unique and colorful personality, and he hoped that would be enough to entertain them.

He gave the crowd a big grin. “First of all,” he began confidently, “this particular otter has shown signs of irregular eating habits as young as three months old...”

~

For nine hours, Derek talked endlessly about his bloated otter, and the crowd responded by gaping in amazement and snapping pictures of the rare creature. He began with Flippy’s life story, then transitioned to cute, funny stories of the otter, only starting over when enough new visitors arrived. At the infrequent times his talking bored them, they were marveled by Flippy’s eccentric, wavy movement and loud gurgling. Even when the otter slept, his body would rise up and down in extravagance with every snore.

Popularity and positive response was at an all time high. Casual zoo-goers were intrigued by the
zookeeper’s lecturing, photographers were thrilled to take pictures of the one-of-a-kind otter, and the press were relieved to have something interesting to show for their slow Tuesday. It escalated to the point where he had to call up his employees to form a line and restrict viewing time to a few minutes, but even still the sidewalk was packed.

When six o’clock struck, the buzzing crowd was ushered out of the zoo. Derek, walking back to the open window, bounced off the otter’s flesh and clasped his hands on the windowsill. After climbing in, he slid on a plastic chair and shakily dialed his friend’s number, excited to share with him the good news. “Jack!” he yelled when it picked up. “I think I have the next big thing!”

As Derek rambled on, Flippy adjusted his fat around, grinding his rear against the glass and rubbing his stomach across the stone walls until he was comfortable. He loved every second of the day, from the furs admiring his enormous form to the zookeeper massaging his flab and boasting about his gluttony, all while he did nothing but laze around in his humungous lard. Now that it was over, he was free to lean his head an inch back and stare at the clouds above as his waving flab comforted him. Maybe he was no better than his peers for enjoying such mundane things, but he was finally content, and that was enough for the enormous otter.