The bear hugs Jane

Believing the worst had passed, Jane fearfully opened her eyes. Orsa decided to lay down next to her and was looking downright adorable, sadly she also decided that Jane should accompany her. Before she could even stand up, the bear’s powerful arms caught her on a gentle but firm embrace that dragged her to the ground. Orsa now had her trapped with a literal bear hug.

Jane was now laying sideways on the dirt in front of the pond facing the astonished people from the other side of the glass. She couldn’t move her arms in any meaningful way as Orsa’s paws pinned them at her side and secured themselves firmly over her stomach. Not only that, but the bear’s hind leg rested atop Jane’s calves, making it impossible for her to cross her legs or raise her knees to hide her crotch. Without being able to cover in any way, her whole body was completely at the mercy of the inquisitive eyes of her onlookers. She struggled a little bit at first, trying to free at least an arm to cover her bare chest, but a mighty growl from the bear soon made her cease any movement.

Jane laid there powerless to do anything but turn scarlet and curl her toes in embarrassment as her spectators stared at her. She resigned herself to wait, looking down onto her body so that her cap at least shielded her face. She could still hear the surprise coming from outside, the people watching were at least as confused as she was from the whole situation. From the sound of it, more and more folks were arriving at the scene to see the spectacle that was her predicament.

After what felt like an eternity, the sounds of shock and concern were muffled, as if the crowd outside were no longer preoccupied that she was going to get mauled. She heard someone approach from behind her.

“Jane, are you okay?” asked what sounded like the most senior zookeeper in the zoo.

“You came to get me out of here? What took you so long!? Come on, hurry and do something!”

“Sorry we took about fifteen minutes to respond, but this is a delicate situation and we needed to assess it properly. Also the boss wanted to know why you were naked, so we had to investigate that as well. Don’t worry, we know that it was largely not something you did on purpose, you are mostly in the clear.”

That was nice to know, even if her job security was the last thing on her mind …wait, only fifteen minutes had passed?! It felt like at least an hour to her! Well, it didn’t matter as long as it was about to end. “Ok fine, just get me out of here.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“What?”

“You see how Orsa is hugging you? Well she isn’t that intimate even with her long term handler. She only ever displays that level of affection to her cub.”

“Oh no…” Jane could see where this was going and she didn’t like it.

The zookeeper tried to circle around the bear so that he could have a face to face chat with Jane. But as soon as he took one step forward, Orsa angrily growled at him. He stopped and kept talking from where he was. “You know? That abnormally lanky little cub that got really sick recently and lost most of her hair? Well, she needed medical attention, but Orsa was being real protective of her, so we snatched the little freak while her momma was asleep and sent her to a specialized vet for surgery.”

Jane was really not liking where this was going. The zookeper once again tried to get closer but was met with the same result as before. “This last few days Orsa has been mighty sad, barely eating, spending all her waking hours looking all over for her lil baby, and for some weird reason she seems to think that you are her, Jane. A shame, we just got the cub back, but now if we try to reunite momma and daughter, she’ll think you are an impostor and will probably attack you. Any attempt to separate you two will end in a very angry animal assaulting everyone on sight. Firing a tranq dart to her neck may cause her to sleep, but it usually takes around 45 minutes for it to take effect, and we are afraid that in the meantime she might get angry that we shot her and hurt you. So for now we have to ask you to play along with Orsa, at least until she falls profoundly sleep, then we get you out.”

They expected her to do what!? Just wait it out in front of everyone? She couldn’t do that! Well she technically was already doing it and it’s not like she had much choice in the matter. But still, the least they could do is keep the peanut gallery from staring at her, right? “But what about all the people watching? You can’t leave them like that!”

“Don’t worry, we told them that you wanted to cheer up Orsa by pretending to be her cub, and that you couldn’t wear any clothes cause then she will recognize that you are a human and not her bald baby. It’s for the best, this way you end up looking like the heroic, but reckless, zookeeper that goes above the call to care for her animals.”

She tried to turn around to face him, but all she could see when she twisted her neck was Orsa’s brown fur.“That’s not what I meant, I mean why can’t you keep them away, or close the exhibit?”

“You expect us to cover the whole thing with a curtain of sorts, or have half a dozen guys standing in front of the glass shooing people away for the rest of the day? We don’t have neither the resources nor manpower to do that. The only way to keep them away is closing the zoo, and since we can’t afford to close even for a day and we know that Orsa is gentler than a lamb, we choose keep the place open and lie to the public to make them think you are doing something courageous, instead of telling them the truth of how you lost your clothes as you bumbled around the place and now we can’t get you out because it will make momma bear angry. And to be fair, we did put a sign that warns that this is an exhibit not suitable for minors.”

Jane felt offended at his harsh words, even if they were kind of true, she wanted to punch him and everyone who came up with the idea, but she had to admit that at least this way her reputation didn’t suffer…much. She just resigned herself to let out a sigh of frustration. “Can’t you at least give me something like blanket or a bikini?”