Lemonheart
By Angelina Vansen (angelina@gunmetaldark.com)

RATING: NC-17 for sex and the usual dark stuff
CODES: J/C
SUMMARY: The prehensile plant tells the story of Janeway's homecoming. Written for the Queens of Smut Truly Twisted competition, and dedicated to Tammy, for writing what is probably the most perfect Prehensile Plant story in existence. I could never have bettered it, so I went in another direction entirely.


It's been years. A long time to wait, even for a plant. There were times when I wondered if the Psydon had made a mistake. But no, he didn't. That doesn't happen. I suppose there have always been signs, and I should have been patient. Had faith.

I just have to admit that there were times when I really wasn't sure.

For two years, I sat in her bedroom aboard the starship. She watered me, gave me plant food when she thought about it. I grabbed her a lot, by the hair and clothing. Getting a taste for her skin and her sweat.

Two years I watched her, became intimate with her. Fell in love with her, in the way that those of my species are supposed to do. Fantasised about the way she smelled and the feel of her skin. Knowing one day, these were for me.

While I was alone, I sent out my creepers along the surfaces of her rooms, lapping up the dust she had left. Most of it was parts of her. Most of it tasted just like she did. I was supposed to do this. Intoxicate myself, tease myself. Imprint the taste of her on me. Then when the day came ....

I learned her during those first two dormant years. It was almost like sleeping, and dreaming while you were sleeping. Her habits, her privacy, her secrecy, all of them were mine. I loved to watch her as she bathed, dressed and brushed her hair each morning. Leaving flakes of her skin around. Touching things with her moist hot breath. I shivered in pleasure. I loved to watch her when she came home at night, tired and dirty once again with exhaustion. Swallowing her food hungrily, large chunks of meat that filled her. I even loved to watch her as she sat reading. She looked so wonderfully lonely. So close.

I watched her faithfully. Looking for the signs. The things that bothered her, the things that would remove her purpose, destroy the drive I saw behind her eyes. I already sensed she wasn't quite the woman that she used to be.

I watched her with people, when she let them in. The dark one, the blonde one, the little child. I saw her with them, each time a different woman. The woman with duties, the responsible woman, the woman who smiled. The woman who would secretly like a child. All of these were clues.

Then there was the man she dined with. The man who looked at her with aching eyes sometimes, who sometimes looked at her with contempt and pity. This was deep, complex. It intrigued me.

They drank together, intoxicants. Copulated once a week, on average, sometimes in the bed, where I could watch. Catch the scent of pheromones raging. Hear them whispering in their odd and songlike language. Watch their feelings played out with skin and eyes and voices. He never stayed with her.

Nights after he left, she would sleep naked with the scent of him on her, wrapped around pillows. The smell of her would drive me wild. The smell of two humans, pores open, pressed together and exerting themselves, the smell of their lubricant. The smell of their orgasms. All of these were wonderful to me.

After she left the next morning, showered and fresh, then the sheets would be mine. I rolled my fronds in them, bathing in it. Already I knew, I think. This was it. This was how it would end. When she was mine, she would smell this way.

After two years, things changed. She stopped living on the ship, and everything was different. I saw sunlight once again, every day as it streamed in through the bright long windows of her bedroom. I felt fresh air and summer and life.

I was closer to her, too. She slept right beside me, sometimes rolling over in her sleep so I could smell her hair, feel the warmth of her breath as she muttered in her sleep.

She was closer to me in other ways, too. Here, I felt it begin, itching under both our skins as the days grew longer and less and less people called or came here. She played more sports here, spent more time in holosuites, spent less time living in her own silence. Now she played music constantly, or drummed her fingernails on surfaces. She fiddled with her hair. She talked to herself. She cried alone and then admonished herself for doing so.

But she couldn't hide it, least of all from me. I was beginning to grow strong.

Oh, and she was almost irresistible when she masturbated. On the bed, so close to me I could taste her. Back at home she was more energetic, more experimental, less worried about disturbing her neighbours with her cries of pleasure. She thought nothing of leaving her damp, musky sex toys and pairs of panties soaked with excitement lying around. Maybe she knew I wanted them. Maybe she knew her fate.

Maybe she just was untidy.

The man she shared dinner with started coming back too, but he was different with her now. They shared a bed, but she was never happy afterwards. Sometimes she stayed up all night, and she showered religiously to get the smell of him off of her.

Yes, sometimes it was like she fought her fate, too.

I wondered if the man loved her like I did. They began to shout at each other a lot. Sometimes she would be cold with him, and other times she'd cling to him and try to recreate the way they used to speak. I understood nothing of their language, but I knew her.

She was being swallowed. She stopped reading alone now with that smile on her face. She didn't really bother so much about her hair and clothes before she left the house. She was barely hungry. She looked out of the windows alone, all day, every day. Now she wasn't even playing music.

It was coming. I grew strong with the possibility. When she watered me, I caressed her. I like to think she understood.

One night he came late, to make her unhappy. Showed her a hologram of a tiny blonde baby human. I saw her, she looked at it with numb eyes. Her pain shot through me like a thrill.

I was rapt. I had never felt so alive. I felt the warmth beginning in my roots, shooting all over. Preparing me. The Psydon had not been wrong with this woman, I knew. I felt silly for doubting him. My stalks grew thick and juicy, throbbing with anticipation. I was focussed, watching, never watching so intently.

He stroked her under the chin, trying to lift his eyes to hers. This was it. Her pain was like a living creature, feeding me. His was there, too, huge and irrelevant. I knew the smell of shattered people, and things had changed for them.

He took her to bed for a final act of copulation. Holding her limp hand as he brought her towards me, almost like a sacrifice. Leading her like an animal, his penis bulging in front of him, throbbing with wanting. Oh, I knew how that felt. My tendrils were huge and gloriously full, spreading out across the floor. Neither of them noticed me.

He pushed her backwards, pulling at her clothes. Groaning and weeping to her. She spread around him like a flower and he cupped her and pushed inside her, dragging a pillow beneath her hips.

Close like this, I could see what he did to her. He lapped at her skin and worshipped her hair, tangling his fingers in it, close to her scalp. Pulling it. Covered her with the slime from his tongue and bit at her repeatedly. She cried and writhed.

Her head went back, her mouth open, her eyes falling sightlessly on me. I quivered. She was looking at me. He was crying on her breasts, clinging to her, and she was looking at me. Seeing how big I was getting, and not saying a word. Slowly, I reached for her with one of my vines and lapped at her skin, giving her a little comfort. She tasted of him and her, of sweat and saliva.

She was looking at me. I stroked her again, prickling her a little. She gasped as I stung her, then bucked upwards, mouth and eyes wide. Understanding. Instinct took over. I curled around her throat, lacing her with thorns. She moaned as I withdrew, but knew my promise.

Later. Later ....

I grew. Curled around the bed, steadied its shaking as he arched up with a face of agony and held her arms by the wrists. Not seeing me. Not even feeling me. He was making sounds that might have been words in their language, but were probably just sounds.

I watched her face. Her face was mine. Two eyes black and lost, skin red with the sex and the venom. She needed release. I spread more, across the floor and ceiling now, rustling with joy. Two years ....

He exploded, crying loudly like a beast. Hammering her. I saw her thoughts, she was thinking of the baby. The little blonde baby from the hologram. The blonde woman from her quarters, the blonde little girl she had always smiled at. Her child, and the man chewing at her breast.

He left her spread and staring at the space of sky through the open, night-filled windows. Spoke soothing words which she didn't respond to. Touched her leg.

Then left, and left me thumping with her pain.

Yes, she thought, in her language.

I beat, like that organ she wanted to stop. Over and over again in the same rhythm, right with her. She heard it, thought of her child. Thought of the child. I spread around her, cradled her. Caressed the sheets that smelled of him and her. Drew the essence of them in. It swelled me more.

I grew close to her flesh and she arched up, knowing me as I knew her now. Knowing what I was for. She lifted her hands to me and I coiled around the wrists and pulled her close. Closer.

She was murmuring something, out loud, even though I knew what she was thinking. Quickly, she wanted it. I held her. Everyone needs comfort. It's my duty.

I took her whole weight and cradled her close to where I had grown warm. The illusion of another being, you see. Everyone needs that. I curled part of me round her neck, and she panicked. Not like that. Not even broken. Too violent. I filled her with my poison again and moved on.

She was loose now, eyes fluttering and sleepy. Trusting. I pressed at her lips and she opened to suck.

This, then. This pleasurable sleephood. I played with her tongue and let the barbs spring out. She started a little as she tasted her blood, but she was very far under. It wouldn't be long.

I felt her thoughts as it ran down her throat. It was bitter, she spluttered, she swallowed, she fought.

I held her tightly, ankles and wrists. She struggled, so I crushed her until some of her blood burst up thorough her skin. It was over. I drank from her and swallowed her skin. She was salty and warm and washed me with what was inside her.

I drank it, became it. Replete at long last.

THE END

Mail

J/C

Main

Lemonheart