Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Vaginal vore, unbirth, etc. All goes here.
Forum rules
1) Try to upload related material to the correct subform please. They are Soft vore, Hardvore, Unbirth, Analvore, Cockvore, Mawshot, Other/combination, Extra soft and Photo edit.

2) Acceptable files: Drawing, stories, video clips (Flash, Gif or other movie format), roleplaying logs, vore games.

3) Please do not upload material that are specified "Do not Distribute ".

4) Any photo with real life human requires full permission from the subject in question, and posted in Photo edit forum only. All individual must be 18+ only. We do not allow photograph of anyone who are not unquestionably 18+ of age anywhere on this domain. All uploaded files must comply with United States law.

5) Label your material. If it have sexual, scat, gore, or other possibly offensive content, please give warning!

6) Any non-sexual fantasy vore illustration involving questionable age of fantasy character, must be placed in the Underage (Fictional character) forum. To access the underage forum, please follow these instructions. No photograph are allowed, period. Drawing and fantasy character only. Material supporting child abuse is prohibited regardless of media format or other content. Sexual illustrations involving questionable age characters are not allowed anywhere.

Read the rules in detail here

48: The Sphinx, Part 1

Postby dreamweevil » Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:50 am

Daisy:

The Sphinx' voice boomed in my ears even though, as always, she was eminently quiet and graceful. "I'm sorry to interrupt your explorations, Daisy. An event is about to occur in the outer world which I'm afraid needs your attention. Several of your friends are, I'm afraid, in danger."

Stacy, true to her word, had never travelled far from me despite all the temptations, was right next to me and I could feel her concern instantly.

"The wasp-women have committed to an attack on the lamia colony," the Sphinx informed me. Her clue came from faint radio emissions from the ones I called bee-girls, though I suppose wasp-women was, in some ways, more accurate.

I'm sorry. I've lost you. Let me rewind the story a bit and catch you up.

. . .

I was keenly aware that Stacy was jealous. Laurie was puzzled at my request to share this experience with her, essentially allow a voyeur into what Laurie considered the most intimate act she'd personally ever engaged in: sex with another creature. But, deep down, we all understood that everything about this situation was necessary. I had to complete my long-delayed promised to Rob McLeane, a promise that had been nearly fulfilled once before, a year and a half ago. Stacy needed to remain at my side because she was my partner, my lover, and right now an essential protector. Essential because I had only the vaguest idea who I was, and was about to put myself into the coils of a woman who could easily poison and swallow me if she so chose. Truly, if Laurie had opened her sexual passage to its full extent and bid me to climb inside, I probably would have. If a bee-girl appeared and said that the throne was awaiting me and I needed to return to The Hive, I would have. If Stacy told me that I needed to disappear within her depths, I would have welcomed that too.

I know I'm messed up. I need Stacy by my side as much as I need my own arms but now, for the best of reasons, I'm mating with a beautiful snake-woman and, as Laurie considers it, about to impregnate her with my first child.

When she says that, her words immediately come true for me, and Stacy is aware of the new confusion. A moment ago I was here merely to deliver an egg: a passenger that I've carried within me for far too long who needs -- who is desperate -- to be set free. To become her own person with her own substance and free will that nobody else, not even me, can control. She is keenly aware that I've taken great pains to keep her isolated, to avoid injecting myself, my values, my thoughts, into her. Now Laurie, the beautiful lamia who looks at me now with long fluttering eyelashes and absolute desire, will take my "daughter" Francesca on the remainder of her journey back from the land of one woman's thoughts into the real world.

The real world. What a concept.

My ovipositor is deep within Laurie's body as her eyes gaze into mine. A lamia's vagina is infinitely deep: a long passage that runs almost the entire length of her tail, with some complexities near the upper end that Laurie gently guides me into such that my egg, when it comes, will emerge near her own.

Stacy gets nervous as Laurie coils herself around me. This is a move that a naga would use to gain control of a human before swallowing her, and though Stacy initially insisted that Laurie refrain from wrapping me in her coils, I have to say I do enjoy it, the pressure, as though each contraction of her tail seeks to squeeze us together, squeeze Francesca's egg from my body. Stacy tries to remind Laurie that she'd agreed not to trap me within herself this way but I shoo Stacy away: I want this. I need to get off, sexually, for this to work, and right now I'll take whatever stimulation Laurie can provide. I've virtually forgotten to have sex.

Have I ever had sex? I can't remember.

I look to the side. Stacy. Oh, yes. I sneak one arm from inside Laurie's welcoming coils and try to touch my avian girlfriend between her legs, where I know her parts are, but she shoos me away. I just wanted her to enjoy this, like I'm doing, as Laurie continues her rhythmic squeezes and I my involuntary wriggling.

The tip of my ovipositor seems to reach the exact right place, touches nerve endings that feel pink and soft and flowery and insanely intense.

"I'm ready," Laurie whispers into the night. I can feel the orgasm building through her entire body.

"Me too," I answer.

The egg moves inside me, a little further away, and then in a huge explosion it's gone.

I feel empty. Horribly, devastatingly empty. The being who I've carried all this time, who rescued me from a fate of becoming something that I thought I wanted to be, is no longer inside me. I try to speak with Rob, with Francesca, and there is no reply. No voice comes back.

"It's done," I whisper.

I leave my ovipositor where it is, to Stacy's dismay. Unlike a human male's penis, it remains under my control, isn't dictated by nature to shrivel and disengage with my mate. I dip my tongue into Laurie's mouth. I want to tell her I love her, but that would crush Stacy and at the moment would only complicate things. The orgasm is still echoing through the two of us and Stacy is already anxious-- though she doesn't say it, she needs me out of here and is very impatient with me.

She's right to be. The sun will be up in less than an hour. The lamia's beautiful grassy meadow, where by tradition we are making love under the stars, is just outside the territory of The Hive, and if this morning's patrol is anywhere in this area, I have the danger of being spotted from the air by a Scout, and I still look very much like myself and would be in immediate peril. I'd either be killed or recruited back into the hive and I'd be forced to watch my lover Stacy be converted to a bee-girl and, as I've already agreed, all would be lost.

I slowly withdraw myself from Laurie's body, holding myself tight to her as a consolation as she conceives Francesca, who is to be her own person and also our daughter, a lamia.

Good luck, Francesca. I've shared everything I know of you, and I pray to return soon, hopefully after I've figured myself out and no longer look like a stingerless bee-girl.

Thank you, Laurie. She cries as she releases me, and I do too. But she swallows and smiles at me. She does have a task, now. She is no longer alone, not that she ever really was with all these friends and sisters and cousins and seven other daughters already: now she will gain the pleasure, and intrigue, of meeting Francesca and all the people she used to be.

Stacy is quiet but I know her thoughts well. She's thankful to be out of there, back into the air while it's still dark, continuing on our way, away from bee-girl territory and any thought of the hive and what's still going on there.

She hands me the phone she's got in her under-wing pouch, careful with the mid-air transfer, and I, as promised, call my sister, Belle. "It's done. We're safe."

"Your business with the lamia, whatever it was?"

"Yes. I fulfilled a promise to a dear friend."

"Thank goodness," Belle said. "Are you coming home?"

"Not for a while, probably. Stacy says we're to visit the Sphinx next."

"She'd mentioned that to me, while you were still in the hospital. I think that's a good idea, Daisy. You're almost certain to gain an audience with her, given who you are, and if anybody can help you sort things out for yourself... well, she's got quite a reputation for it already."

"I'm likely to be gone for quite a while."

"Yes. I'm aware of that. But Stacy will be with you. I'll miss you dreadfully."

"Please give Mom, and Clarisse, and Alicia my love."

"I absolutely will. Good luck, Daisy. I'm very interested to see who you become."

"I just want to be myself, whoever that is."

"You'll figure it out soon enough."

I had tears again as I handed the phone back to Stacy, who promised to take good care of me; I think she had some tears too. We flew on for a while in silence as the sun rose, bird and bee together again.

I don't like the bee wings anymore. Stacy's avian form is so much more sleek, elegant; even though I'm missing my bee tail, in my current mash-up of a form I have to wear clothes. At least, unlike Stacy, I can shower, as long as I'm careful about the wings.

"A lot happened while you were away," Stacy finally said.

"I didn't even miss it," I answered. "The hive has no television, no network, no technology. I had no idea what was going on outside our territory, outside our own experience."

"I guess that makes sense," Stacy said. "I suppose unplugging for a while might be nice, but... they have to keep themselves isolated. You would have found that we were looking for you."

"I'm so sorry about that."

"Don't be. You didn't have a choice."

"There must be so many different body plans by now."

Stacy agreed with that. "We're probably close to a hundred, if not over it. It's still a lot of work to pioneer a new form. You and I are on our way to meet one of the largest yet in existence."

"So I've heard."

Stacy looked at her watch. "How are you holding up? We've got about four hours to go."

"I'm fine."

"We've got some time to kill. Would you like to hear a few of the other stories?"

"Sure," I said. I was more tired than I was letting on, but the scenery below was getting a bit monotonous and I appreciated that Stacy wanted to entertain me.

Stacy pulled her phone out again. "There's a whole bunch of them," she said, flipping through a list of channels. My blog channel, this one, is just one of many. "Here's one of my favorites."

"Great," I said. Despite the fact that I somehow can't show it right now, I love hearing Stacy's voice.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

49: Entering Puppyhood

Postby dreamweevil » Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:54 am

Well-deserved credit to Groblek for this terrific addition to the universe. Original (and many other great stories) here: https://aryion.com/g4/view/401243

--dw


- - -

Joe: I frowned as the GPS led us off the paved road and onto a dirt track that zig-zagged among grassy hills full of sheep. I kept driving, but asked my wife: “Are you sure you put in the right address, Wendy?”

“Yes, I’m sure," Wendy answered. "Nora told me that she had to go way out in the boonies to find Jane’s ranch, but that the dogs are well worth the trip. She has quite a reputation among dog breeders.”

“She certainly acts like it, with all the paperwork she made us send over before agreeing to show us the dogs.”

Wendy put a hand on my leg and spoke soothingly. “That’s one of the things I liked about her. She puts in the work to make sure her babies go to good homes. And we’re going to give them a great one, won’t we?”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the winding country road. “That we will, love. You’ll be the best doggie mamma ever.”

. . .

I kept driving until the road finally ended at a large ranch house. Behind the main house were several outbuildings, and the sound of barking dogs greeted us as soon as I opened the car door.

“It certainly sounds like we’re in the right place.” Wendy said as she got out of the car. She strode quickly towards the front door of the ranch house. I followed behind, enjoying Wendy’s excitement. I liked dogs well enough, but Wendy was the one truly passionate about them.

Wendy stopped, and I could see her staring at a note stuck to the door.

“The note says to meet Jane in the red barn out back.” Wendy said, looking off in the distance at one of the larger outbuildings. “I think that’s what she means, it’s the only red building here. I wonder why she keeps the dogs so far from the house?”

“Why don’t we go find out?” I said. I took Wendy’s hand, and we set off across the field.

On the way, I noticed a set of enormous paw prints in the dirt next to the path. “I hope you aren’t planning to get a dog that big!” I said, stopping and pointing them out to Wendy. “We’ve got a small house, after all.”

Wendy stared at the prints in surprise. “The dog that made these must be the size of a horse! Maybe bigger. Nora didn’t mention anything like that!”

I shrugged. “Well, she did get hers a couple of years ago, before everything changed. We’ve got people now altering themselves in all sorts of ways, maybe this woman has started using the technology on her dogs.”

Wendy frowned, looking thoughtful. “Hmm. I’m not sure how to feel about that. But Jane’s got a good reputation, I’m sure she’s just using it to help the animals. Many modern breeds have a lot of genetic diseases, and it would be good to fix some of those.” She nodded. “That must be it. Come on, let’s go.”

The tracks continued all the way to the barn door, making me hesitate. Wendy finally reached around me to the large knocker and used it to pound on the door.

A chorus of barking noises came from the barn, followed immediately by a loud female voice hushing them. “Just a minute, let me get my girls away from the door.” The voice called, and I heard canine footsteps approach.

After a moment, the door opened, and I was struck speechless. From the waist up, I saw a very tall human woman, but from the waist down she was a creature the likes of which I had never imagined. She had a long black coat of fur that started at her waist, and two canine paws where her legs should be. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought that the canine body extended back behind her, like some sort of dog-centaur. This must be the creature whose tracks we'd seen on the way in. Large dogs of several breeds stood off to the side, watching us.

Wendy’s face lit up with excitement as she stared up at the woman we had come to meet. “That’s amazing! You used a Newfoundland as your base form, didn’t you?”

The woman in front of us smiled, and turned sideways, giving me a good look at her lower body. She really was a canine centaur, with four paws, a full canine body, and a tail that was wagging back and forth, like that of an excited dog. She was far larger than any dog, however, towering above my own six feet of height. The closest size reference I could come up with was a Clydesdale horse, and I suspected that this woman was even larger than those.

“Well spotted. Yes, I did.” She said, nodding at Wendy. “Newfoundlands are my favorite breed, and when I heard about the centaur herd growing out west, I knew just what I wanted to do with my own body. What do you think?”

I was still in shock. We'd heard about these extreme body modifications of course, the ones they called “Human 6.0”, but we'd never met anyone with one before. I wasn’t exactly sure what to think, but I certainly didn’t want to insult the woman Wendy hoped to get a dog from.

Wendy noticed my silence and filled in for me. “I think you’re beautiful. Are you going to publish the specs for this? What was it like to go through the change? Joe and I have talked about maybe getting some upgrades eventually, but I’d never imagined something like this.”

I was a bit taken aback by my wife’s flurry of questions, but the woman just smiled. “Publish? Maybe someday, when I’ve tested it a bit more and am sure I’ve worked out the bugs. Right now, I’m going to keep this one to myself. Well, myself and my future puppies, anyway.” The woman said, and her side bulged as something wiggled inside her canine body.

I blinked. “Puppies? Are… Are you transforming people in there?” I was suddenly wary, remembering the news reports of the bee-girl colonies that had replaced entire towns in some places.

The woman nodded. “Of course I am. I’m the first of my species, and I’m not planning to be a one-off. Since mating with an unmodified human would be difficult, that leaves transformation. Does that bother you?” She asked, eyebrow raised.

“Maybe a little,” I answered. “You’re not kidnapping people like those bee-girls, are you?”

“Joe! Don’t be insulting!” Wendy hissed sharply, elbowing me in the ribs.

The woman just grinned. “I’m not insulted, it’s a reasonable question. But don’t worry, all my puppies gave themselves to me willingly. I’m very selective with this particular breeding program, and only want those who will appreciate what I have to offer.”

I looked again at the bulges in her side, and was startled to realize that there was clearly more than one individual in there. “Puppies, plural? I’m still having trouble with the idea that one person would choose to go back to the womb to be transformed, much less multiples.”

Jane’s smile grew wider. “You’d be surprised. Trust me, the transformation is a lot more pleasant to go through inside a womb than outside. I had to do it the hard way. And since dogs are built for litters, I figured I’d set myself up the same way. I’d much rather do this in batches than make people wait for months to take their turn.” She stopped and gestured for us to enter the barn. “But I’m a terrible hostess, making you stand on my doorstep and chat. I’m Jane, if you haven’t figured that out already. You must be Wendy and Joe. Come on in and have a seat, I’ll be glad to continue this inside.”

Wendy stepped through the doorway, and I followed, still a bit wary. To my surprise, the interior of the barn was clean and well lit, had a linoleum floor, and was partitioned into rooms. She led us into an office that had been scaled to her dimensions.

My wife seemed to admire the setup too. “This is quite a place you have here. The house is just for show, isn’t it? This is where you really live?”

Jane nodded. “That house served me well as a human, but I just don’t fit anymore. So I moved everything important over here when I got started on this transformation.”

I looked around the room, taking it all in. There was a large desk at one end, with three human-sized chairs on one side and a computer monitor and keyboard set up on the other side of the desk. Scattered around the room were several large mattresses, most of which had at least two or three dogs seated on them. The place smelled overwhelmingly of dog, mixed with an unfamiliar scent that somehow made it all smell good, even relaxing. Despite myself, I felt my nerves easing.

“Go on, sit down. The girls here are well trained, and I’ll introduce you to the family properly in a little bit. We just have a few last things to take care of first.” Jane said.

As we moved towards the chairs, a few of the dogs got up and began to bark at us. Jane barked at them in response, and they settled back down immediately. That was almost as startling as everything else.

“You can talk to dogs?” I asked, sinking into one of the chairs. The unusual scent was even stronger here, and as I took a deep breath to steady myself, a strange sort of calm washed over me. Wendy sat in the chair next to me, and I could tell that she was having a similar reaction.

Jane trotted over to the other side of the desk and settled her body down on a mattress. Sitting, she was only slightly taller than I was, which helped put me at ease still more. The scent grew stronger, and I realized that Jane was the source of it.

“Enough to make them listen better than I ever could using human language, anyway. I can’t exactly carry on a conversation with my girls, but we do communicate far better than before.” Jane said.

Wendy looked amazed, and I couldn’t blame her. That was quite a breakthrough. “I don’t suppose that’s something you can teach us regular humans, is it?” She asked, and looked disappointed when Jane shook her head.

“Sorry, but no. Your vocal cords just aren’t built for it. Until you join my litter of puppies, that is. Then it will come naturally.”

Jane sounded like she was joking at the end, but something in her expression made me pause. I started to get up, to say something, but Jane caught my gaze and held it, studying me. She shifted positions, and the scent around her grew stronger, changing slightly. “Oh my, I do think you’re almost ready to meet the family. Breathe deep and relax, you’re safe here. Momma Jane takes good care of all her girls.”

I lost my train of thought. I’d been about to say something, but couldn't remember what. After one more breath, it didn’t seem important anymore.

Next to me, Wendy seemed affected even more strongly by the scent, staring in rapt fascination at Jane as the dog-woman took off her shirt, revealing her torso. The fur ended at her belly button, from there up, Jane appeared to be a normal human woman of athletic build. Her small breasts were mesmerizing, and despite the fact that my wife was right next to me, I found it hard to look away.

“My, that was faster than I expected. You two are an even better fit than I thought,” Jane remarked as she stood up again. She came around to stand behind the chairs we were sitting in. “I usually have to stall for an hour before my scent really takes hold of people.” We turned to face her, and she smiled mischievously down at us.

I tried to figure out what she was talking about. Alarm bells were going off in my head as I realized that Jane had cut us off from the exit. But that worry faded as I inhaled her scent again.

“You’re probably wondering what’s going on.” Jane continued. “Unlike dogs, humans underrate the usefulness of scent, and the chemical signals that come with it. Mine is specially tailored to give me a direct line to the emotions of the right sort of people. People who love dogs, and who could come to appreciate being like me. It makes you calm, and very suggestible,” She said. “Let’s see just how ready you are. Wendy, Joe, it’s awfully warm in here, isn’t it? You don’t need to wear those clothes inside where it’s just us, do you?”

“You’re right, Jane. Give me a moment to get undressed.” Wendy said, sounding dazed. I watched in growing surprise as my wife started to undress. Then the surprise faded: it really did feel warm. A moment later we were both standing in front of Jane, completely naked yet somehow unashamed of it.

“That’s much better, isn’t it?” Jane said. I found myself nodding, even though a small part of me was still screaming to run away.

Jane stepped forward, and pulled Wendy and me close to her body. Her scent surrounded us now, clinging to our bodies as she rubbed her furred legs against them. I couldn’t help relaxing even more, resting my head against Jane’s belly. It felt nice, comfortable, and Wendy sighed in pleasure. We stayed like this for several minutes, and I found myself lulled into a light sleep by the sound of Jane’s heartbeat. I awoke when she shifted and stepped back from them once more.

“Now you’re ready to see one more little secret about my body plan,” Jane said as she spread her forepaws apart. The fur where they joined shifted, revealing a slit exactly where Jane’s human pussy would have been, though one substantially larger than any human woman’s. Her hands reached down and pulled apart the labia, revealing a moist pink opening. Jane’s scent grew stronger still, and I realized that this was the source.

“I always thought that it was silly of nature to entangle our reproductive system with where we get rid of our waste, so I kept those bits here in front when I changed the rest of my lower body. Doesn’t it look inviting? You just want to dive on in and join my litter, don’t you? I’ve got plenty of room, don’t you worry.”

I fought back against the sudden urge to do exactly as Jane said. Wendy had no such hesitation, and I watched as my wife put her hands together as though preparing for a dive, then plunged them into Jane’s body. The dog-woman moaned in pleasure, and pushed herself forward against Wendy, grabbing Wendy’s shoulders and plunging her deeper still. Sooner than I would have believed possible, all that remained of my wife were a pair of feet wiggling outside Jane’s pussy. Jane cupped the bottom of Wendy’s feet and pushed them up into herself.

Just like that, my wife was gone.

Jane looked at me lustfully. “Well? Aren’t you going to go join her?”

From somewhere deep inside, I found the strength to speak. “I thought you said that you didn’t kidnap anyone!”

Jane grinned. “No, I said that all my puppies gave themselves to me willingly. I never promised not to cheat at persuading them to do it.” She patted the bulge Wendy made as Jane’s reproductive system pushed her deeper into the woman’s canine belly. “Though I don’t think I needed to cheat with Wendy here. She didn’t resist at all.”

I stared, still conflicted as Jane spread her labia again.

Tentatively, I took a step forward. I could see Jane's enormous body moving as it withdrew my wife ever further into itself. For an instant I still had visions of running, ducking around Jane and bolting for the exit, getting fresh air and finding some way to rescue Wendy.

Perhaps that's the problem with this new world, why I've successfully resisted joining it until now. I'm not sure why, but I'd always seen myself as a holdout, destined to be one of a dying breed: the human male. I knew I couldn't stop anyone else from falling for the sort of temptation that Jane now offered, but I had visions of Jane and I growing old together, something that seems rare these days. I'd be the kindly gentleman that my lovely wife would show off, that even my genetically-modified grandchildren would be amazed to see. The perpetually-young, wildly varied "critters" living in my neighborhood would look at in awe: "Look: An actual man! Here's what life on Earth used to be about!"

I never thought that anything in this world would cause me to change my mind about it. In those talks that she'd referred to earlier, I thought it was a bit of clever social misdirection: We'd talked about these "upgrades", but only in the sense that I was perfectly happy to remain as I was. Jane accepted that. That's one of the many reasons that I love her so dearly. She was female 1.0, real, unmodified, as appreciative of what nature had given her as I was.

I looked at the opening where my wife had gone. I noticed that, just by looking, my resistance to taking that plunge myself faded. I looked away, dragging my eyes from the details of Jane's femininity, and tried to remind myself: I'm married. I replaced, in my head, the image of Jane's waiting entrance with the very conventional one that belongs to my wife. I was never supposed to, never going to, touch any other woman.

God, I love her.

“Go on, get in. Otherwise Wendy’s going to miss you, and I won’t be part of breaking up a couple.”

I looked at Jane again, feeling this gentemanly need to acknowledge a lady when she speaks to you. That opening was still there, inviting. Of course it was. It was designed to be. I'm male, I'm programmed to be drawn this way, programmed to seek this very moment, this opportunity, to take it when it arrives.

No wonder men are disappearing so fast. Who... can resist this temptation that's been engineered first by nature and now by women themselves?

Jane's human life was over: that was clear. I could still summon the willpower to make a break for it, but my wife, the love of my life, would emerge eventually as a puppy of some sort, and I'd be human. Forever. Our relationship, our marriage, would be... over. Or least I had to fairly assume it would be. She would never forgive me for abandoning her in this moment.

Okay, new world. You win. I have to be with Wendy. I need to be with her, no matter what form that leads to.

I don't know how Jane noticed my decision, but she grabbed my head and pushed it against her slick folds. Her powerful muscles immediately grabbed my shoulders and pulled me deep inside. Still under Jane’s influence, I didn’t struggle as her body slurped mine up like a spaghetti noodle, and soon I felt her labia close over my feet. The rhythm of her contractions shifted from pulling to pushing as her body propelled me deeper until I felt I was pressed up against another and could go no further.

A hand reached out to take mine, and I instantly recognized the touch as Wendy's, the two of us strung like peas in a pod within this horn of Jane’s altered uterus. Time passed, and something tingled against my belly as an umbilical connected me to my new mother. I tried to stay awake, but sleep came quickly as my body gave up control to Jane.

I woke some time later, now thoroughly entangled in Jane’s reproductive system. I still felt Wendy’s hand holding mine, but a thin membrane now separated the two of us into our own little worlds. The world shook around me, and I realized that someone new was being pressed up against my body, another puppy-to-be joining our litter. The newcomer struggled for a while, then finally settled down enough for me to fall back to sleep.

Sealed away from the outside world, I quickly lost track of time. The rhythms of my mother’s body were the closest thing I had to a clock, and for a while I tried to count the days based on her sleep cycle. But I lost track of it quickly. The longer I remained inside her, the less important time seemed.

Wendy’s presence continued to comfort me, and Jane’s body pressed us closer and closer together as time went on and new people were added to the litter. While my body still felt human, I grew certain that Jane was shrinking us all somehow, as each newly unbirthed humans seemed to be larger than the last. And at the back of my mind, I began to sense something changing inside myself, a connection growing between myself and my litter-mates.

I awoke one day to voices in my head, a confused murmur of thoughts and feelings that should have been terrifying, but somehow wasn’t. As I tried to collect myself, I was able to clearly pick out one voice in particular from the sea of them.

“Joe! Joe, can you hear me, love?” Wendy’s voice sounded in my head, cutting through the background noise.

“Wendy? What’s going on?” I thought back, and I suddenly felt Wendy’s body press against me more closely. “How are we talking? And who are these others?”

“I don’t know, but I think… I think they’re the other people in here with us.” Wendy answered.

Just then, a new voice joined the conversation, cutting through all the babble and demanding our full attention. It was Jane, and her mental voice seemed to penetrate to the core of my being.

“Good morning, my lovely puppies,” Jane said. I felt myself calming down immediately, reacting as an infant does to its mother’s soothing voice. “I can tell that you’re all confused right now, so I wanted to explain a little of what’s going on. Until now, you haven’t changed much, other than shrinking enough for me to pack a full litter inside myself. But now that Linda has filled out our family, it’s time for my puppies to get your new bodies!”

“What if we like our current bodies just fine?” came an unfamiliar voice, and I felt my surroundings shake as someone struggled inside their mother’s body.

“Do you? Do you really?” Jane answered. “Is that puny, fragile body really the one you want? Here, let me show you what I will make of you.”

Suddenly, I found myself running across an open field at the head of a pack of lovely dogs, my four legs propelling me faster than any human. The world was full of amazing scents, each one telling me things that I’d never dreamed of before, and my tail wagged in delight. I stopped, and stared in wonder, unconsciously running my hands through the thick fur of my lower body.

The vision disappeared, and I felt a pang of disappointment. I shifted within my amniotic sac, trying to reconnect with my real body, but my mind seemed still caught in the vision. My arms and hands were fine, but everything below them felt off. How could I run properly with these two spindly things? And where was my tail?

“What did you do to us?!” I burst out. “Why does my body feel wrong?”

I felt calm satisfaction radiate from Jane through the mental link. “Because it is wrong for you. While you slept and developed inside me, I shared my own body image with each of you, letting you learn what this new form is like.”

“What? That’s not possible!” exclaimed another voice.

“Isn’t it? I’ll make you a deal, any of you who want to keep your old bodies can. All you have to do is tell me that you’d honestly prefer to stay human than to have the body you just tried on.” She paused, and there was a long silence. “Well?”

The silence stretched on for a long while, before Wendy’s voice finally broke in. “Not me! I’m excited to become like you, Mom!”

I focused my thoughts on Wendy. "What? You can’t mean that!"

"Sure I do, Joe. Remember how excited I was to meet her? She didn’t really need the pheromones to convince me to go through with this. If we’d gone home that day, I’d have dragged you back in a month or two to beg her for this transformation, and that was before I got to feel what it will be like. I want this, Joe, almost more than anything. And I want you to join me."

I could feel Wendy’s sincerity through their connection, but I reeled in surprise. I’d never suspected she wanted something this extreme. As I struggled for a response, Jane’s mental voice resumed speaking.

“Thank you, Wendy, I knew you’d make a good daughter. Who else is excited? Don’t be shy, we’re all family now.”

To my surprise, there was a chorus of affirmative responses. I counted eight distinct mental voices besides Wendy’s, and wondered just how many people were in here.

“Very good. Don’t worry, the rest of you will come around.” Jane said, her mental voice sounding smug in my head.

“I think you’ve convinced me, but what if we change our minds later?” one of the other women asked.

“Then you can change back, of course.” Jane said matter-of-factly. “I’m no monster to lock you into a form you don’t like, not like some of the creators out there. You’ll have the full 6.0 genome, just like I do, complete with the ability to change forms.” Her voice was smug again. “But I’m betting that none of you will want to do that anytime soon. You might want to experiment with different dog breeds or sizes, though. That should be an easy enough change to make without being unbirthed again.”

There was a long pause before the woman spoke again. “That’s fair. Count me in.”

“Oh, I already do. You’re lucky thirteen, Linda. OK everyone, last chance to back out.” Jane said, her mental voice teasing, almost daring them to try and take her up on the offer.

That almost goaded me to speak up, just to be contrary, but Wendy’s hand tightened on mine, and I felt my love for her. There was no way I could leave her behind or be separated from her-- not ever. I stayed silent.

“Well then, I’ve got my baker’s dozen of puppies all tucked away in my oven. Now it’s time to get you all truly cooking. Don’t worry, I’ll let you all sleep through the uncomfortable parts,” Jane’s voice said.

I felt my entire body beginning to tingle as a sudden wave of tiredness washed over me. I remember wondering what I'd find when I awoke.

My dreams were reruns of the scene Jane had shared with us, and as I ran in the dreams, I became more and more comfortable with this new body. I awoke occasionally into the darkness of the womb, but most of my time was spent in this dreamscape. After a while, I began to see other dog-humans like myself and Jane in the distance, growing closer each time he returned to the dream.

Eventually, I found myself next to one, a beautiful red-furred woman with flowing red hair that looked very familiar. She turned, and I recognized Wendy. We stopped running and stared at each other. “Joe? Is that you?” Wendy asked.

“Wendy? You... You’re beautiful,” I answered, staring at her body. I felt a stirring of arousal as I looked over Wendy’s sleek form, but even that was different in this body. My arousal was focused between my forelegs, but it had more of an inward focus.

Before I could consider this further, Wendy stepped closer, pulling me into a passionate kiss. My arousal deepened as she rubbed herself against me, and I had trouble gathering my thoughts when she let go and stepped back again.

“You’re looking awfully good yourself, lover.” Wendy said with a grin. “Jane must have tweaked our sexuality to fit these bodies, since girls never did anything for me before, but you’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Wait, what?” I blinked, looking down at my body and really seeing it for the first time. There on my chest were two small but clearly female breasts, and I reached towards my crotch with trepidation. My fingers touched slick folds and slid inward, and I pulled them back in shock. “I’m a girl? Why didn’t I notice before now?”

“The same reason these bodies feel natural, I’d guess. Let’s see just how far that goes.” Wendy said as she stepped forward again. I shivered as I felt one of my wife’s hands slide between my legs, but didn’t resist. Now that I knew what was down there, I felt an ache within, a need to have this new pussy touched and played with.

Wendy slid her fingers inside me and began stroking, then used her free hand to guide one of my hands to her own pussy. We kissed and held each other tightly as we brought each other to orgasm. My entire body shook with pleasure.

The orgasm jolted me out of my dream, and I found myself pressed tightly against Wendy’s body, with the mental link between us wide open. Through that link, I got to replay our shared dream from Wendy's perspective, and our bodies shook anew with fresh orgasms. Exhausted, we both drifted into a dreamless sleep for a while.

From then on, Wendy and I roamed our dreamscape together. Our lovemaking was frenzied for a while, but then we both began to lose interest slowly. It took a while to understand just why that was, but I realized one day that Wendy’s breasts had disappeared entirely. In fact, our dream-forms now appeared to be small children, puppy versions of the adult dog-taur bodies we had so recently experimented with.

This latest change came with a seemingly boundless mental energy and desire to explore, and we went sprinting off through the dreamscape. After a time, we ran into a pair of other puppies like us, and soon we all chasing each other. Words no longer seemed necessary, as introductions took place on some sort of unconscious level, and we played and frolicked together for a seemingly endless time.

As we played, more and more puppies came to join us, and the world seemed to grow larger and larger around us. I was dimly aware that we were continuing to grow younger, our games becoming less and less demanding as our bodies grew less coordinated. By the time the last puppy joined us, the world was blurry, and even scents were muted.

Then a new, very familiar form appeared, dominating the landscape with her giant form. Jane lay down on her side, and all of us puppies rushed to snuggle close against our mother. I felt the world shake around me, and the puppy next to me vanished, absorbed into Jane’s furry body. It shook again, and another one disappeared.

After six more quakes, it was my turn. I awoke from the dreamscape to a crushing pressure shoving me along Jane’s birth canal. The light burned my eyes as my head emerged from my mother’s body and the amniotic sac split open. Another shove and I was out, staggering around on the floor below me as another tiny form began to be born behind me.

The smell of milk reached my nostrils, and my body moved before I’d fully thought about it, staggering around to Jane’s side and rooting for a nipple while the rest of my siblings were born. I was dimly aware of others nursing next to me, but I was too focused on nursing to pay much attention until one of them took my hand in hers. I looked over and found myself staring into Wendy’s smiling baby face. I smiled back, then settled back to nursing from our new mother. Whatever adventures this new life brought, I was reassured that we would face them together.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

50: The Sphinx, Part 2

Postby dreamweevil » Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:55 pm

Daisy: "So those really exist now? Dog-taurs? Is that what we call them?"

Stacy nodded. "I'm pretty sure they do. Daisy, you made virtually everything possible. So over time I think we're going to see everything."

"I guess so."

"I'm really proud of you for making that happen," Stacy said. "I know you're doubting yourself... but... I mean, look at us! Flying! Each invention inspires the next. There will be mis-steps, I know, but...

"What I like about it is how it's never just about the transformation itself. It's the surprise, the wonder, and most importantly about going through it together with someone you love."

"We should visit Wendy and Joe someday," I said.

"They haven't posted any address but I bet they wouldn't be too hard to find," Stacy replied. "But my point is that there are dozens. I love the ones where a woman surprises her boyfriend." She flipped through her phone a bit more. "Like this one here. Imagine coming home to find that your girlfriend has gained the abilities of a spider, of having her chase you through your own house right into one of her webs, and then... having her way with you...

"Shouldn't read this now, though. I'm more than halfway through my backup battery and we should probably get onto initial descent anyway."

Thank goodness. I haven't wanted to complain but bee wings are not designed for sheer distance.

I felt very sad for Stacy because I knew I'd barely make it to the bed before falling asleep. I wanted to make it up to Stacy: let her know how important she was to me, but to be honest with myself... and with her...

"I'm afraid I'm going to collapse once we get to our room," I finally admitted. "I really wanted a special night with you before we face the Sphinx but I don't think I've got enough reserve left. I'm sorry."

Stacy lined up our approach but then looked at me. "I wasn't expecting anything, Daisy. You were up all night doing something you needed to do.

"Besides, I know you love me," she added, and reached out and took my hand.

"That I do," I said, and it was true in that moment more than ever before.

. . .

I'll be completely honest and explain that I never could have been granted an audience with The Sphinx had I been virtually anyone else, not on such short notice. Despite the fact that the Sphinx is a relatively recent addition to our world, she already has a rather full appointment book.

That appointment book is maintained by a Ms. Helene Gaudmont, who lives in a very modest home near the Sphinx herself. Nobody sees the Sphinx without going through Helene first, and even Stacy nearly got turned away until Helene connected the fact that it was the Stacy, without which there would have been no Sphinx in the first place, and that the "patient" was myself.

Helene is a cranky, yet kindly old lady. Of course, she isn't, really. She's an actress, a person who chose this form to play this role. Helene maintains an exhaustive set of rules for those who hope to gain audience with the Sphinx, the first of which is that anyone who sets eyes on the Sphinx prematurely will be refused admittance. For this reason, rather than fly from our motel to Ms. Gaudmont's house, we hired a taxi.

On arrival we followed signs to a waiting room: apparently a former dining room in the house, which was covered with old-timey (and completely fake) newspaper clippings of the Sphinx along with other posters and pages of Sphinx incarnations throughout history. Here, we were supposed to wait, just wait, to be called on, but we heard and saw nobody. Nor were we the only ones in the waiting room.

"Are we just supposed to wait here? My appointment was twenty minutes ago," a young woman who was here before us said.

"I think so," Stacy answered.

A couple entered shortly after Stacy and I and waited. The husband, presumably, was irritated at the delay.

Finally, a door opened; we didn't see a person, just a hand, and a voice that called for Patricia, and the young woman nervously rose to her feet and disappeared through the door.

"I can't believe we spent all that money for this," the man said. "It's a racket."

"It pays for living expenses," his partner explained.

I whispered to Stacy: "You paid for this?"

"Five hundred dollars," Stacy whispered back, quietly enough so the couple wouldn't hear. "No big deal."

Okay, that'd be no big deal for my family, but I suspected it would be for Stacy herself. "I'll pay you back," I whispered.

"Forget about it," Stacy said. "Just keep your eyes open and pay attention to everything."

It was another forty minutes-- fully an hour after our own appointment time, before the door opened again. "Stacy and Daisy," the woman called.

We rose to our feet, and the couple behind us startled as they connected just who we were.

Helene closed the door. She was, indeed, an elderly, wise-looking woman, with just a hint of mad scientist. You know the type. You probably, if you've ever read or watched anything, know what happened next: she sat us down and looked us over and asked obvious questions about us. Meanwhile I heard some mild racket, a booming roar of some sort followed by a thud.

Oh, I thought. It's a pre-show. To get us ready for what follows while Patricia, out back somewhere, is actually meeting the Sphinx right now. Sure enough, Helene played her part. When Stacy explained what had happened to me, Helene reached behind herself and made a big show of removing a dusty volume (that she probably removes from that same shelf every hour or so during the Sphinx' visiting hours), blowing the dust from it, and flipping through pages to a well-worn section which she proceeded to read from us as though she hadn't seen it in some time.

"You are in particular danger," Helene informed us, "For you possess unique knowledge and knowledge is what the Sphinx hungers for. I know, I know, you are here for the Sphinx's wisdom, and are surprised to find out that she may indeed hunger for yours, for she knows far more than any other creature ever has, but I swear to you that she finds nuggets of new wisdom in the unlikeliest of places and if she sniffs this out on you, you shall be very lucky to evade her grasp.

"Or even luckier if you fail to evade it. But to that extent you need to understand that you may never leave this place, and neither the Sphinx nor I nor Great Wisdom Enterprises, Limited, shall be held responsible for your fate once you agree to proceed. Do I have your agreement, then?"

She pushed a huge, almost parchment-looking contract at us, and a giant ballpoint-pen "quill". The oversized, weathered paper probably cost ten dollars itself: no wonder this "experience" costs that much.

Stacy signed and then slid the impressively large-font contract over to me.

"Who is going first?"

"Going?"

"For the riddle, dear, the riddle! The Sphinx always assesses her visitors with a riddle. Answer correctly and she may let you live, may impart some small bit of wisdom upon you. Small to her, that is; the tiniest nugget of her mammoth intelligence is known to change fortunes forever. Fail to answer... and... I'm sorry to say... you are likely to end up her next meal."

Helayne stood, reached up, and pulled down a well-worn, spring-roller map from overhead, which had a chart on it with a pie chart: the much larger, red slice implied the percentage of Sphinx visitors to fail the challenge and be, presumably, devoured. "You need to be here," the woman said, pointing to the green section. "We've had a number of failed attempts lately and hopefully you'll break the losing streak! Ha! But no backing out now!" She verified the signatures and took the contract away.

She peeked through a back window. "Ah! We're ready! It is time!"

By this point I was pretty thoroughly disengaged. It was amusing, perhaps, but it was amusement-park amusing, and Stacy had led me to believe that this experience was somehow genuinely useful.

Ms. Gaudmont carefully put her book away, ready for the next customer, then dusted herself off and led us to a back door. Here I saw remnants of what this was before it was a tourist attraction-- an old grill and a lawn sprinkler lay near the back of the house; and there were two panels that blocked our view of the backyard, festooned with last minute safety tips and the lettering: "Good luck!"

Then, for a moment, I was almost impressed: for in this woman's backyard stood a gigantic, ebony, perfectly-sculpted statue of a Sphinx. Easily thirty feet tall, shining in the hot early sun despite its deep color, the craftmanship was amazing: there were no seams, amazing detail right down to individual feathers, large pendant breasts that seemed magnificent, a lioness' body portraying tremendous strength. They should sell scale models of this in the inevitable gift shop.

"It's a statue," I whispered to Stacy.

"Since there are two of you, I shall read the first riddle and the Sphinx herself shall read the the second. Oh, mighty Sphinx, world's wisest creation and holder of virtually all knowledge, I hereby beseech you to behold the one who answers the question to your first riddle:

"'To me, in the world of Truth, Science is above God, Art above Science, and History above Art. Who am I?'"

She turned to me. "You may not help her, dear, or it shall disqualify both of you. Good luck!"

Ms. Gaumont waited a moment while Stacy began to work out the puzzle, then without a further word headed back into her house, leaving us alone.

"I couldn't help if I wanted to," I said.

"Ssh." Stacy was running through something in her mind, counting on fingers, rehearsing her answer. "It's easier than I thought. You are a librarian."

No response.

"Specifically, Melvil Dewey."

Suddenly, the statue took a breath.

"Very good," it said. As I watched, the entire thing became soft, blinked its eyes, turned its head.

"I knew she was a librarian prior to this, so I did my research," Stacy whispered. "That's the order of the Dewey Decimal Classification System."

"You: Daisy Potemkin. Are you ready?"

"Ummm... Yes?"

"Stacy, you agree to bind your fate to hers? I do not obligate you to do so."

"Yes. I would give my life for her."

"You may be doing just that," the Sphinx growled. "Very well. Daisy Potemkin, your riddle:

"Who are you?"

"But-- that's not-- that's the question I came to ask you..?"

All concerns I had previously were gone: Ms. Gaumont, the tacky pre-show, the worries that this wasn't the real thing. I could see the Sphinx breathing, moving her eyes, waving her tail. I could smell her. She was real. And she asked the one question I couldn't have possibly answered and she knew it.

"Shall you just admit defeat then, Ms. Potemkin?"

"You can call me 'Daisy'..."

"I'll call you whatever I want. Perhaps an early lunch?"

"Daisy!" Stacy shouted. "Just say something! Answer her!"

But... what am I? A human? A sister, a child, a former bee-girl, Stacy's partner... "I don't know!"

"Ah," the Sphinx cried out. "Music to my ears." She brought her wings up and roared and leapt forward, landing with her front paws behind me, the earthquake-simulating thump that I'd heard before. She leaned down, and inside her human mouth I saw razor-sharp teeth. Her bosom hung down right over Stacy and I.

"You may not know your eventual destiny," the Sphinx said, "But you know your immediate one. Stacy, your partner has failed you, and doomed you to the same fate. Make your way to where you need to go." With that, the Sphinx tightened her massive hind legs, lifting her rear end from the ground just enough for a human to walk underneath; a tunnel with welcoming daylight on the other end, and just the Sphinx's lion tail visible beyond.

"Are we about to be... unbirthed?" I asked Stacy.

"Looks like it. I think this is a good thing, Daisy. What people hope for."

"It's what I've hoped for," the Sphinx said.

"But--"

"Remove anything you are wearing, and get moving," the Sphinx said. She lifted a front paw, which was very much alive and fitted with razor-sharp claws.

Stacy removed her pouch with the phone and her wallet, and as I undressed she texted a quick message. "Come on," Stacy said, taking me by the hand.

I was hoping we'd just make it underneath the Sphinx, through that tunnel and out to daylight. Get us to the gift shop and we'll buy whatever it is you want us to buy. We walked toward's the Sphinx's underside, out from under the bosom that looked like it would crush you should it fall, under the slope of her body. The scent of the creature grew markedly stronger as it became more confined, as we entered the area between her legs. Unlike the dog-taur encounter that Stacy had relayed to me, the Sphinx had a very conventional arrangement of parts hidden underneath, and a very raw, unwashed animal scent.

As we walked, I wanted to get over to the side, even though that meant we'd be at threat of being crushed, but Stacy guided me in a straight line, directly under giant labia. Something splashed my arm; sticky and wet: the Sphinx' lubricant dripped once as she prepared for us.

All at once, Stacy pulled me tight to herself and the Sphinx sat, collapsing what must have been several tons of weight around me. One good swallow and our feet were lifted from the ground, strong muscles closing beneath us to separate us from the desert and the backyard and everything.

Even though I had no fear, though I'd been through this sequence before on both sides, though I somehow knew that the Sphinx' act was just that, I still held onto Stacy for dear life as we were propelled through the Sphinx's womanhood. I just did not want to be separated from Stacy for any reason. Muscles pushed and lubricated passages directed us where we needed to go, trying for a moment in vain to separate us, and then finally pushing us into a small chamber which immediately sealed itself behind us.

Apparently, she had several of these chambers, because I could feel the knees or elbows of another human-sized creature right next to me, through the walls: probably Patricia, the woman who'd gone before us.

I held Stacy tight and prayed that the Sphinx would somehow keep us alive. But she didn't seem interested in doing that. Instead, time sped up around us as the Sphinx swallowed three more people: the couple that had been in the waiting room and one more after those two, then returned to her perfect sitting posture.

I could still communicate with Stacy. I no longer liked this and cried out to her: "No!"

The Sphinx' body was hardening. Her appointments for the day were over and she was returning to her statue form. I mentally traced the path to the exit, out from under her tail, and it was impenetrable not just because her muscles held it closed, but because the entire passage had become solid stone. The same was about to happen to Stacy and I.

Not day, Stacy corrected. She normally sees visitors only once per week. That's why they're so hard to get.

"I may go longer than a week," the Sphinx then explained. "Every so often I'm tempted to take a huge leap into the future."

"No!" I cried again, in tears. I became aware that the entire chamber Stacy and I occupied was equipped for neural induction, but not like I'd ever seen: for that that moment the Sphinx not only invaded my thoughts, but took absolutely everything. Every thought, every memory, every image, every bit of everything that I knew and copied it irrevocably into herself, as she did simultaneously with Stacy.

The price to pay for entering the Sphinx is that all of your knowledge is added to hers. Since Stacy and I had insisted on remaining together, this took the Sphinx a little longer than apparently it usually did, but it did happen.

"Thank you," the Sphinx announced: not just to Stacy and I, but to all of the visitors she'd chosen to accept that day. Of all of her guests this day, only one this day was rejected: a person we didn't see.

I could tell that my body was dying: being shut down, taken apart by the Sphinx. As I felt myself floating away from my own body, still grasping furiously at Stacy's "spirit", I reached backwards-- "What's going to happen...?"

The Sphinx suddenly set us free. Not into the real world: but into herself.

I don't know if I can describe it.

A young woman, younger than I'd expect, with vaguely sphinx-like features, stands before our small group. I look. The couple, who was after us in today's appointment book, are holding hands, as are Stacy and I. Patricia, the woman who went before us, has a slightly jealous look for an instant until she starts to understand just where she is, what this means.

"Welcome," the woman says, in very much the same voice. "Before I took on my new role, my name was Margaret. I'm not going to bore you telling me about myself beyond this: my entire history is catalogued here much as yours now is, and if you choose to learn more about me you can do so on your own.

"Some of you may never choose to leave here. So far, very few have. You understand already that your physical body is no more: I have freed you from it, and those bodies will be absorbed into myself over the next few days. If you do have the need or desire to return to the outside world, I will furnish a new body for you."

Behind the woman is a seemingly infinite, complex space that changes depending on how I imagine it. I know that Margaret was a librarian, so as I imagine a library that's what the space becomes: floors and stacks as far as I can see, elegant, well-organized, inviting. There are others here, in my view, browsing the imaginary books on the imaginar shelves. The vision in the foreground, of Margaret and my fellow travelers remains unchanged.

"Here, you can explore anything. Learn anything. Do anything. Though I am near my beginning, there is already far more here than any human could learn; probably ever. Nothing, no information is off limits.

"Which brings me to my one and only rule. Despite the interview and theatrics you all just endured, we do have one key screening process that's already been carried out on your behalf and it revolves around ethics. We are all now one family with no secrets from each other but potentially many secrets to be kept from others."

Margaret pointed directly at me. "Daisy Potemkin joins us shortly after her 'rescue' from a wasp-woman colony where she was about to become Queen. Her mother, Amy Potemkin, is co-founder of The Factory and is currently worth approximately one point three billion dollars. Despite her lack of income and her generous funding of supplies for a colony of lamia, Daisy herself still has an account at Valley National Savings Bank with $2,411,609 in it; proceeds from a trust fund established by her mother. She feels guilty that her friend Stacy paid $500 for her visit here. Her banking access code is 16951816, and her bank card, which she left with her friend and lover, Stacy, is currently in the safe that Ms. Gaudmont has in her basement for just this reason. She invented what we colloquially call Human 6.0 as a means to regain control of her life after it was nearly stolen from her by her sister Andrea, who at this moment...

"Dear, I've rambled. Need I go on?"

I was still in shock over this horrible betrayal: I'd need to change those codes immediately, but...

"I see I've made my point. You are here because Daisy can trust all of you with that information. Just as you must now trust her with yours. Soon, these secrets will seem small to you, petty even. I expect you all to learn, grow. Solve problems. Specialize or generalize; it's up to you. Your own information has not been completely catalogued yet: this will take me a few days, I expect, but... you are now free to explore my entire library."

The man, from the couple in the waiting room, immediately whispered. "Okay, I was wrong. Totally worth it." She smiled at him.

"Although this is redundant, any questions?" Margaret asked.

"Why... the solid black statue form?" Patricia asked.

"Excellent example. Ask yourself that question, each of you."

I did just this. And no sooner did I ask the question than I knew the answer. Margaret was a librarian and loved the job. The lion and statue portion of her new form is a play on library lore: the stone lions often found gracing many a public library; the size is because she's designed the world's most expansive brain and needed a large body to house it. By becoming solid she becomes impervious to everything: weather, insects, and -- most of all -- those who, at some point in her future, may wish to do her harm. Her coloring: she is solar powered; in statue form, which she often remains in for weeks at at time, her body becomes completely solid but her amazing brain, where I now apparently reside, requires not a bit of food, water, or oxygen; thus wasting not a second on those mundane tasks when she could be organizing her vast knowledge, combining what she already knows to form even grander observations I am very far away from being able to understand.

My ancestors invented the ability to transfer and accumulate knowledge along generations, ultimately arriving at the limits of the human brain we call the "horizon". The Sphinx has no such limit. She remembers everything; and she has a way to organize that information. She is, at the moment, the absolute pinnacle of knowledge, and this observation brings a twinge of sadness: I, as any other form in the outside world, could never hope to know but the tiniest fraction of what she already does.

Her body comes to life for only two reasons: To interact with her keeper, who is indeed an actress and Margaret's far-less-adventurous lover, and to grant an audience to those to Helene finds worthy of her attention; to absorb them.

She does eat from time to time, but has never eaten a live creature even though the threat is nearly always part of the "show". And she is capable of being very fierce if she needs to be: even my dragon-sister Clarisse would likely not be a match for her.

I'm in awe. And shock. I look at Stacy and feel a new, deeper admiration for her. Stacy gave this power to Helene, during our "world tour", and Helene passed that 6.0 ability onto her lover Margaret, who became this. No wonder we had no problem getting the appointment.

I want to know more about Stacy than I already do. I want to know why our relationship has been less than perfect: though we have been physically intimate I believe we're both aware that something is sorely missing.

I dive into Stacy's memories as she dives into mine. I immediately gain the sense that our curiosity has not gone unnoticed: among the other residents here, several, including two who have been here quite a while, wish to know what I, Daisy, am curious about, why I'm here. This recursive spiral quickly arrives at a single message: "We can help you".

The answer pops into my head instantly, with this incredible help.

Both Stacy and I miss Brad. The two of us met because of Brad. We cooperated to keep him safe as long as we did, and then to liberate him from his mundane human existence as we've done. In all we've already done, we've become not a couple but a trio and a third of our being is missing. Together, Stacy and I feel incomplete because we are. And that amplifies the basic friction that's arisen due to all the things that have happened since: my long, unexplained absence. Brad's self-sacrifice. My failure to do anything about it even though clearly he was absorbed into the same bee-girl colony as I --

But --

Stacy is exploring my entire history as a bee-girl, which unfortunately is still very clear to me. I watch her watching me. Fighting as Bambi taunts me and slowly swallows me into her bee-tail. The sudden realization that the Queen Bee wouldn't grant her offspring with the ability to change their own form: that so much of myself could be stripped, locked away. My progression through the ranks, the intensity as I worked to make my colony the best it could be, to please the Queen, whom I loved despite myself.

I felt some relief in Stacy as I fought with myself over the girl, Lisa. A softening of Stacy's rightful anger as the Queen noticed my regret and did what she could to make things right.

"My lord, Daisy... I had no idea..."

Nor did I have any idea what I'd put Stacy through. Her anguish after Brad told her that he was coming after me no matter what the cost; how she couldn't bring herself to go along on that suicide mission and how she couldn't forgive herself for it, or me for putting her through it. No wonder we haven't been able to connect quite the same way as before. And, yes, having her watch me mate with Laurie was a mistake no matter how important it was to deliver Francesca's egg and for her to keep me safe while I did so and--

Amanda.

But--

There's no question. It's Amanda.

But--

The combined brilliance of the Sphinx solved that question in an instant. I was, immediately, best friends with the bee-girl I knew as Amanda because... that's what happened to Brad.

Curse Aeris for taking that from me! The memory of Brad had been locked away but course I found myself attracted to what Brad had become. Amanda was five weeks younger than I-- the precise interval that Brad had waited before his desperate journey to find me. I was barely hatched when--

A new flurry of jealousy from Stacy. Brad has been missing from her life for over sixteen months but not from mine, and I didn't know it and didn't care. I had the friendship and love that had been cruelly torn from her and had taken it for granted. She knew that none of this was "my fault", but still...

There was only one way out of this. I had to rescue Amanda: find her and set her free. When can I get out of here? I need to get out of here-- I can do something!

Stacy was very clear. She wasn't letting me anywhere near that hive. And the Sphinx was a solid, inescapable statue at the moment, and I still didn't know who I was and had absolutely no rescue plans for Amanda. Going near that hive would still be a suicide mission; everyone agreed on that pretty much instantly.

It's overwhelming. I get that. I send a message of love, undying affection, to Stacy, my sorrow for what I've put her through, and then my appreciation to the Sphinx.

It feels like an eternity has passed. Outside, the sun has not even set on my first day here. The Sphinx is sitting, proudly as she does, in the dry, huge backyard of Helene Gaumont, where she does not plan to come to life again for six-and-a-half more days.

Okay. Amanda will be safe. She's not Queen Bee, but she's a high-ranking member of a colony that will protect her. We can take our time to work this out. And for me to answer quite a few questions about myself, perhaps apply some of this vast knowledge to my future.

Stacy has stuck with me through all of this. I make an immediate and irrevocable promise, the same one she's made to me: I'm never going to leave her side again. And we're going to find Brad, somehow. We'll use all the amazing resources right here to come up with something.

"Slow down," the Sphinx advises. "You've found that you have time. Relax. Enjoy the sunset with us. The sun will rise soon enough."

There is a period of calm, of quiet, as indeed the sun sets. The Sphinx' power comes from the sun, so when it is dark she sleeps: all of her occupants frozen in space and time exactly where they were. Knowing that this sleep is coming, as the sun sinks to the horizon, gives us time to prepare. It's a strange feeling: knowing that you're about to become completely unconscious, that your thoughts will slow and stop and that the night will not exist for you at all. She can use reserve power to wake herself in an emergency, but there is only one person on the outside world that she will wake for, and that is Helene.

"How... do you stand... having her out there, alone, if she is your lover?"

"Because I know she will join me eventually. Because she knows I would protect her with my life." I dive into that memory and then think better of it: it feels like snooping through the medicine chest of a person who's invited you into their home.

I hold Stacy tight and we watch the sunset and turn to stone and don't mind it one bit.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

51: The Sphinx, Part 3

Postby dreamweevil » Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:37 am

Daisy: I procrastinated in finding the answer about myself, and for the first time Stacy and I considered never leaving this place. Our bodies were long gone, and as the weekly rhythm of the Sphinx' life continued on, she welcomed more souls into herself and built up an increasing awareness of our world and its inhabitants. Each week, the same "show", the same act. Rarely, perhaps once per week, a paying visitor would be turned away, his or her money refunded minus a twenty-dollar service charge. About half of those turned away were turned away due to a problem detected during the rather exhaustive background checks; the other half when the Sphinx herself was able to assess that the guest was not truly ready to make this particular trip, or had little experience of his or her own to offer.

Stacy and I spent time with the Sphinx "herself". The analogy is that of sitting and having a cup of coffee with the librarian while there is such a tempting, vast library of knowledge waiting just behind her. She appreciated the "company", probably for the first time ever: even though she, like everyone else, spent time perusing her knowledge to better organize it and develop interesting, wise conclusions.

She was very glad to see that Stacy and I had already divined one of our problems: that one of our trio was missing and could, given some plan we'd yet to devise, be rescued. We'd made a half-hearted attempt to come up with such a plan but... were procrastinating there too. Once we knew how to rescue Brad, we'd be ethically obligated to do so, and would be leaving the Sphinx. The Sphinx disagreed with this: I also needed to find "myself" in all this, reconcile the different worlds I'd lived in and what I'd done to my family and friends.

Part of the problem was that there were empty shelves in key places where my answers should have been. The only knowledge of the inner workings of a bee-girl hive came from me. While we could combine this with knowledge of military strategy, or psychology, or physics and biology to synthesize some information that I didn't already have, no answer was materializing yet: nothing that would convince Stacy to allow me near the hive, no way to lure Amanda out on her own.

So Stacy and I took to learning other things together. How the world was taking to 6.0, what people thought of it, where we seemed to be headed as a civilization. The bee-girls aren't seen as universally evil: I was glad to find that. Yes, they have their detractors. But so does the Sphinx herself, which surprised both of us. But overall people are finding it freeing, which was exactly my intent all along. People are starting to understand the inequity of the the last few thousand years. People doing the same thing over and over for their entire lives. There used to be a job called toll collector: where people stood in a small box for eight hours a day five days a week and took money from people who wanted to drive on a particular road. Take the money, give change and a receipt, try not to breathe the exhaust fumes, count the minutes until the next break or the end of the day and try not to make a mistake that gets your supervisor upset. Do this every day until you can't do it anymore and then try to survive without your savings running out and then you die and that's it.

That was life on Earth once upon a time, at least for some people. 2.0 started to change that, well before I was part of this story. You could start to share your knowledge with people and we started to figure out that we can be better than this. Everything since has been an improvement. We managed to survive and get to 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 without war or some other planetary calamity and people are starting to get a sense that we're going to be okay and only wish we'd done this sooner.

Stacy and I have bonded more tightly. Even though we don't have the answer to our Brad/Amanda problem yet, we know that it will arrive, perhaps in the form of one of our weekly visitors, and we'll be ready for it when it happens and will be enjoying ourselves, growing, in the meantime.

Only it didn't arrive that way.

The Sphinx' voice boomed in my ears. "I'm sorry to interrupt your explorations, Daisy. An event is about to occur in the outer world which I'm afraid needs your attention. Several of your friends are, I'm afraid, in danger. The wasp-women have committed to an attack on the lamia colony."

Francesca's in danger.

Helene Gaudmont had delivered the message early in the morning, just a few hours prior to of the Sphinx's next block of "visiting hours", and the Sphinx tapped immediately into her reserve energy to reanimate herself.

She brought her reproductive system to life. We didn't need to discuss what was happening, as in a way we were all in this together. My only disappointment was the hurry: the Sphinx had no time to design a new body for me, and even when I pleaded to just have a copy of the avian body I used to have, or even to become Stacy's twin, the Sphinx merely explained that something in her vast knowledge told me that I needed to retain very much the same body I had when I first arrived here, the miserable bee-hybrid with those noisy, transparent bee-wings and there wasn't time to make anything other than a few very subtle changes to it.

"You must hurry," the Sphinx insisted. "But before you leave you must do to things: you must promise to return to me."

Stacy and I had no hesitation here, but Stacy asked a question: "When must we return?"

"I set no timetable for that, merely that you must. You will learn things that I have to know."

The Sphinx's infinite expanse faded and was gone, just like that, placing Stacy and I in isolation from everything except each other. One last thought came through very clearly, very quietly. She did not put it into words but gave us the vision: Someday, also with no timeline, we are to become the Sphinx' child, or so she presently believes. She understands that having only one copy of this Great Library will be a risk to the information itself, and to protect that from destruction she intends, in some time perhaps twenty or a hundred years from now, to reproduce.

Whoa.

We both agreed to this promise without reservation.

"Stacy, you're all set to go. But Daisy must answer my riddle before she can leave, since she failed it earlier."

It was, after all the exploration, after even my interrupted soul-searching mission, immediately, stupidly obvious.

"Whoever I want to be," I answered, and I knew in my heart that the answer was the only correct one.

Almost immediately, or so it seemed, the mighty Sphinx lifted her tail and deposited two life forms on the dusty, dry backyard behind herself.

"Thank you," Stacy and I whispered. We were soaking wet and smelling of birth and reproduction and now dusty from landing on the ground. The sky was beginning to lighten but the sun not yet over the horizon. I stroked the Sphinx' hind leg nearest me, looking up now at it's rear end in admiration. "I'll be back."

Ms. Gaudmont came rushing out of her house carrying a shopping bag. In it were two bottles of water, two apples, and two granola bars in custom printed wrappers: "Compliments of Great Wisdom Enterprises Limited. Visit Us Again Soon!", my clothes, and Stacy's pouch containing everything she'd arrived with.

"I took the liberty of recharging your electronics: I hope you don't mind. There's a shower behind the house, dears, but you need to get moving. I'm very sorry for the delay in relaying your message: I normally do not accept off-hours phone calls or relay outside messages to our guests, and she does not like to be awakened prematurely. When you see her, please pass the snake-woman Laurie my apologies as well."

I shook the woman's hand. "I shall. Margaret really loves you, you know."

"I know, dear. And I love her. Good luck saving your friends. Stacy, darling, I recharged your phone for you while you were away, I hope you don't mind."

We thanked Helene and just barely rinsed ourselves off -- fifteen seconds under cold water together -- and sprung into the air both dripping wet. I worked at getting my clothes on, which wasn't easy, as we flew, and Stacy furiously rebooted her phone and starting putting together the flight plan.

We pushed ourselves harder than I thought possible. We reviewed the message that Ms. Gaudmont had received: Francesca had been born, was a lamia now. The hive was about to swarm and was going to wipe the lamia out in the process and it was going to happen today-- I had no idea how anyone knew this -- and we were still easily six hours away from it all. Using her wind profiler Stacy was able to shave about fifteen minutes off it, which hardly made a difference.

Once we had a signal, Stacy contacted her family, and I called both Amy and Belle to tell them what was going on. Belle was absolutely against me getting involved but Stacy defended me, and made it clear that we had no choice.

"Should we call Brad's parents?" Stacy asked.

"Not quite yet," I said. "I don't feel that we should get hopes up until we know that we were right and have some way to rescue him."

For all our hurry, I had no idea what we were going to do. Warn the lamia of something they already knew about? Somehow the expatriate bee-girl would convince an entire colony to change their mind, disregard the inviolable wishes of their own Queen? The Sphinx would not have released us at all if she didn't think that both Stacy and I were essential to changing what was about to happen, so we could at least take the flight time to come up with some kind of plan, yet none came to us. We just pressed on as fast as my wings would allow.

Then, about thirty minutes from the lamia colony, as Stacy was planning a route to keep me far away from bee-girl territory, and as we were both imagining a grassy field where we'd arrived too late and most of the lamia had already been stung, I insisted on a course change to the northeast.

Directly to The Hive itself.

"This way," I said, making that turn.

"But--"

"We're indeed too late. But the lamia aren't in trouble. The bee-girls are."

"What???"

"You're going to kill me for this, Stacy, but I had the Sphinx give me radio antennae on the bee-girls' frequency. They're hidden in my legs. Receiver only: a transmitter would be useless as I don't know the bees' code-of-the-day but I can tell the volume and nature of their communications."

Pleasantly, Stacy didn't chastise me. "So...?"

"The bees are sending multiple distress signals -- they're not encrypted -- but nobody's answering them. There's no traffic at all from the direction of the lamia colony. And there are far, far, fewer voices than there usually would be, definitely would be just before, during, or after a swarm. Something's gone terribly, terribly wrong."

"But you can't just go right to the hive itself! They'll kill us both! Or turn us into bee-girls!"

"Right now we are the absolutely least of their problems," I insisted, picking up some speed and starting a straight-line descent and forcing Stacy to follow. "Just stay with me and we'll get through this. Trust me, Stacy. I know what I'm doing. I hope."

"Okay, Daisy. I'm not leaving your side for an instant."

"Please don't. And I won't leave yours; not ever."

We powered our way down through the city and the bee-girls were nowhere to be seen. No scouts, none of the usual patrols watching for dangerous flying creatures approaching the Hive.

Nor had I seen a single human being for probably fifteen minutes. Last time I went through here there'd be a few, here and there, or signs that one was hiding from us. Now: nothing. The entire area was devoid of any humans. "Follow me," I asked Stacy, who lined up behind me.

I'd made this same approach a hundred times. Along the street, level with the Hive's fifth floor, just enough momentum to swing up to the sixth and stop as required for the guards.

There were no guards at all. I had Stacy follow me into the hive itself and she couldn't help but shiver. There was still a hum to the place, still bee-girls somewhere, and we could both smell the fear. Nothing more dangerous than a scared bee-girl.

So we proceeded slowly, until a Guard-- rushing to take her place at the main entrance, saw both of us in a hallway. "Intruders!"

This wasn't Amanda, wasn't Lisa or her mother but was one of Jillian's other trainees, and I knew her well. She just didn't recognize me.

"It's me, Rachel. Willow." I did my best to say this in Willow's voice, the one Rachel would remember. That wasn't what worked, though: not the bee-wings or my voice or my declaration of who I was: Rachel looked deep into my eyes, and I believe picked up a familiar scent. Either way, apparently, she was convinced-- sort of.

"What happened to you? Where did you go? Where's your antennae? Your tail?"

"I was recaptured by the humans and partially changed back into who I used to be. But that's not what's important. This is Stacy, she's here to help. What happened here?"

"The lamia-- they-- attacked us, wiped us out... they've... they've... killed our Queen."

"Bambi?"

"Bambi. She's not dead yet, but--"

Just as I was about to be asked how I could help, to be taken to Bambi's side, two of the Queen's Guard responded to the intruder alert. These weren't bees that I knew, but probably Bambi's own offspring. She'd given priority in the promotions to her own children, apparently. I was sized up immediately, and the guard noticed I still had bee-wings but was missing the bee-tail. "Get her clothes off," the Queen's Guard insisted, pointing at me.

"No!" Stacy cried, but another bee-girl emerged from behind her and held her tight.

"Don't resist or she'll sting you!" I cried.

"Darn Tootin," the large bee-girl responded.

"The Queen wants to see her. One false move and I'll sting you so hard that--"

"She's here to help us!" Rachel explained.

"Yes," I said. "I picked up the distress signal."

The Queen's guard looked, unabashedly, between my now-unclad legs, at my human genitalia. "This might help us. Get her upstairs, right to the Queen's quarters. There might still be time."

"She's been poisoned... but is still conscious?" I asked.

"Barely," the first Guard said.

Stacy and I were grasped, and rather roughly dragged through the twists and turns of the hive to the Queen's lair. There were bee-girls here and there, but... so few of them! The spectacle of Stacy and I getting hoisted through the air drew attention.

"I can fly this route myself," I said, worried that my captor might damage my wings.

"Not this time," the bee-girl carrying me said.

As we went past the nursery, I saw her. Amanda. Tending to larvae that were in the process of hatching out into bee-girls. She looked and saw me, and then I was pulled out of her view and brought to the Queen's chambers, with Stacy in tow.

Six bee-girls were here, plus the Queen who was lying on the floor and breathing very shallowly.

"Here," the bee-girl behind me said, unceremoniously dumping me on the floor. Stacy, instead, was pressed up against the wall.

"Secure the avian," the other guard said.

Another bee-girl, much younger and smaller yet in the Queen's Chamber anyway -- I guess under the circumstances they couldn't be picky about staffing -- nodded. "Hold her still". She turned and faced away from the wall and from Stacy and the guard, who held her hand flat up against the wall. The young bee-girl raised her tail, stinger thankfully out of the way, and dragged the end of it along the wall across Stacy's right forearm, leaving behind a yellowish, honey-looking ribbon.

I'd never been an Engineer myself and had never seen this. The goop secreted by the bee-girl quickly hardened and became part of the wall itself. The bees then released Stacy, who thrashed about but was stuck fast, her arm now embedded in the wall. The Engineer, apparently still not happy with Stacy's degree of physical freedom, threatened Stacy with her stinger and then applied more goop over her right leg, freezing that to the wall as well. "That should do," the Engineer said.

"Well done," the guard said, appreciatively.

I looked longingly at Stacy but knew that she was safe for the moment: the bees could have stung her, but hadn't.

The guard then turned to me. "Save her."

"No!" Stacy cried. "Don't you dare!"

I knelt down. Bambi's bosom was black-and-blue and swollen where the lamia had stung her, injected her with some huge amount of venom. She could barely open her eyes and tried to speak but couldn't. Her body was failing her. Yet her tail section seemed... fine. It squirmed with life, in far less distress than the rest of Bambi's body.

"Now," Bambi managed to whisper. "Hurry."

The guards immediately grasped both my arms and lifted me into the air. Bambi laboriously rolled over so she was face-down on the floor. "This is your fault," one said. "So you're going to fix it."

They set me on top of Bambi, straddling her with my legs between her human and bee-halves like I was riding a horse. The patch of Bambi's skin and bee-tail in contact with my thighs was already red, raw, and when her touch burned my skin.

"Hold her down!" one guard shouted to the other. They pulled down on my arms.

I realized that I was starting to adhere to Bambi. Trying to wriggle away hurt where I was most delicate.

"What's happening??" Stacy cried.

"She's trying to fuse her body with mine!"

"Don't let her!"

"You'll do whatever the Queen wants," the guard to my left growled. "Or you'll watch your friend die of dehydration... or worse."

I didn't have to allow this to happen. I had the power that Aeris had taken from me: my DNA was encrypted, safe, and the only way anything could change was with my conscious permission. But then I felt, through my legs, Bambi's consciousness.

I could feel Bambi's sneer. Welcome back, Willow. Looks like you get to be Queen after all. She was unable to duplicate that emotion on her face. Instead, she used all her strength to push her human body back into mine, sandwiching me between her human and bee halves. I felt the bee tail grow, climbing up over my rear end, trying to attach itself to me.

My legs, my pelvis, my rear end all burned as Bambi's body desperately worked on connecting to me, desperate to get to my stored energy, leverage my ability to purge the lamia's venom. She was breaking down my skin where it touched her.

She was preventing the lamia's venom, somehow, from crossing over into her tail section and destroying the eggs she held inside herself. Which meant that the venom was concentrated in her human half, poisoning her that much more quickly.

"It's working," the second Guard reported. "Willow has enough bee-girl left in her."

"No!!!" screamed Stacy. "You can't let her do this!"

"She has no choice," the Guard said. "Even removed from the hive, her loyalty remains. She must serve her queen, even if this means taking Her place at Her command."

I looked down. Bambi's body was merging into mine at the pelvis. I felt her bee-tail attach to me like it was part of my own body. Bambi herself seemed stronger: she pushed back into me and my abdomen, my breasts, adhered to her back.

I looked at Stacy. She understood that this couldn't be happening without my consent.

"I have to," I said.

"For God's sake, Daisy-- No!"

"There are forty-four souls trapped inside her. Forty-two humans, two avians. They were all going to die along with her. She's prevented the venom from affecting her eggs so far but her human body is too damaged to continue. I can't let them die, Stacy, I just can't. They're innocent."

"But-- Daisy-- they're bee-girls now, aren't they?"

"Yes." I took inventory, the stages of development of each egg inside me. Only the three youngest weren't completely transformed yet, and even for them there was no turning back.

But there was also no saving Bambi herself. I'd stopped the progression of the venom but her internal organs were beyond repair. I allowed myself to connect the rest of the way: the huge bee-tail wrapped around me and hungrily stole oxygen from my body so I started panting heavily as the the fusion continued. Bambi's body began to shrink.

The guards began to look pleased. "Soon she will rebuild our colony," they told Stacy. "Fulfilling her promise to us." They called to another bee-girl just outside. "Inform the others: soon we shall rule the skies again. Alert the nurses that new arrivals will be on their way, and organize the hunting parties. Our Queen's brilliance has been confirmed, and the expatriate has been of some use after all."

Stacy took one more look at me. If it hadn't been for the Engineer's resin gluing her to the wall, she would have collapsed in defeat.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

52: Queen Daisy, Part 1

Postby dreamweevil » Tue Jul 18, 2017 8:15 am

Daisy: It took hours, with Stacy still pinned to the wall and crying, but soon my transformation was complete. Bambi's human body was gone: too damaged to save, all I could do was absorb her body and transfer her memories to the same part of myself that transformed humans. I felt her scream in anguish and simultaneously sigh with relief as she understood what I was doing to her, as I began encapsulating her within a tiny egg, my forty-fifth child.

I took inventory of my yet-unborn offspring. They all seemed very aggressive, exactly as Bambi had promised, just like Bambi herself was. I listened to their thoughts, their dreams. Chasing down the remaining humans, feeling that deep pleasure of that hard, venomous stinger plunging deep into soft flesh, the orgasmic release of the poison. Several were dreaming of doing the same to the lamia; perhaps Bambi's understandable wish.

A guard entered the chamber. "I've told the nurses to expect new larvae to be delivered soon. Two hunting parties have been dispatched. You'll need more humans... as food."

Amanda floated around the corner. Our eyes met. She could tell something was familiar about me but couldn't place it.

"No," I answered, without looking away from Amanda.

I pointed at the Engineer, who, once again, was filling in as a guard. I hope they're ready for this. "You. Release her."

The Engineer spun around, puzzled, then brightened. "Oh, okay. I'll request a Hunter to pre-digest this one for you."

"No. Just release her."

The Engineer's confusion returned. "But--"

"Are you daring to question your Queen?"

I smiled at Stacy, and for the first time this day she smiled back. The Engineer reluctantly put her tail to Stacy's arm. A strong solvent smell emanated from the Engineer's tail at that point, and the resin holding Stacy began to soften. The engineer moved to Stacy's leg and began to do the same, and Stacy nearly used the opportunity to clobber the Engineer on her head: I shook my head. "Don't injure my children!" Stacy looked at me with some dismay, then reached down to wipe the remnants of the resin from her leg as the Engineer patched the wall.

"Amanda, come to me."

Amanda, still as puzzled as ever, approached, hovering effortlessly.

"Hello, dear friend."

"Willow... Is that really you?"

"You'll address our Queen correctly!" said one of the guards.

"Yes, it's me, and she can address me however she likes," I said. "This is closer to the appearance I had... before. But it's me. I'm sorry I wasn't been here for you. I brought something back. Here. Drink."

I held my right breast, which was still bare, out to Amanda.

"But--"

"Just drink. Then relax."

I elevated myself a bit on my bee-tail. My wings were not yet strong enough to lift this massive weight from the ground, but I could at least use the counterweight to prop myself up such that my nipples were level with Amanda's mouth.

I watched Amanda's lips slowly encircle my areola, then cradled her head and held her there. I've barely had long enough to get this part of my biology working.

It took about a minute before any liquid left my body at all. Custom engineered for my friend, for this particular bee-girl, to which I held the keys to the kingdom, so it were.

She got about three mouthfuls in and then her wings started to fail her. I grabbed her with my arms and lowered her to the floor. A moment later, her body went limp.

"Your Highness-- if I may be so bold-- what did you just-- do?"

"I just set her free. Leave us. I'll summon you after she wakes."

"But, your highness: I can't leave you with an unrestrained humand and no other guard!"

"I would entrust that human with my life. Leave us." I could tell that none of them were happy about this, but they had no choice but to obey. The door closed, leaving Stacy and I alone with the unconscious bee-girl, Amanda.

I waited in silence, watching Amanda's eyes as they fluttered. She's got lovely eyes. Deep brown, just like... Brad. Why had I never noticed that? Aeris was usually creative with her offspring's eye color, often crazy colors that conveyed the wild dangerousness of their owners. She'd left Brad's... Amanda's... unchanged.

Finally, Amanda whispered: "Where... where am I?"

"Welcome back, Brad."

My own training seemed to chastise me. Never tell a new bee-girl her old name.

"But... I was... a bee-girl!"

Stacy had been sitting against the wall. She smiled. "Hate to break it to you, but you still are, silly."

"I'm sorry-- I'm touching your floor--" Amanda squeaked, and then tried to get herself back into the air.

"It's fine. You can touch the floor. Do you... remember anything?"

Amanda shook herself. "I... think so... I was... You... Daisy...?"

I nodded, then she turned and saw Stacy. "Stacy?!"

Amanda buzzed over to Stacy and immediately brought her into an embrace, lifting her from the ground. Instinctively, her tail came around between her legs, stinger at the ready, until she caught herself. "Oops. Sorry about that!" Amanda lowered Stacy to the ground.

When Amanda turned around, she was crying. "I'm not sure what's real...?"

"You and I have to get ready for this," I said to Stacy, as she comforted Amanda, touching her antennae and wiping tears from one cheek.

"What do you mean?"

"I think we should release them all. Do you agree?"

"But-- the hive, how would it... no, of course, there's no choice." Stacy looked around at the hive, put her hand on her opposite arm where it was still red from having been glued to the wall. "But why... are you asking me?"

"Even though I happen to have the body of a Queen Bee at the moment, you're my partner, and I'm done making big decisions unilaterally. Not when I've got you. And Amanda.

"Me?" Amanda squeaked.

I motioned to Stacy, and the two of them came close. "You've been through a lot, Amanda... Brad. Since you're a girl right now, can I continue to call you Amanda?"

Amanda nodded silently.

"Good. I've been through this before, Amanda, so I have a good idea where you're at. You had a life experience you weren't expecting and right now it's all crashing down about you. Stacy helped me get through it. Like we're both going to help you."

Amanda took a moment and we sat there in silence. Then she nodded. I could see her continuing to clear up, far more quickly than I had.

"I guess the easiest thing for me to say is that you were indeed everything that's led you to this point. You were Brad, human. Then Brad, avian. And then you were Amanda, bee-girl extraordinare. Now you'll be whatever you want. All it takes is time. And you've got plenty of that."

She looked back at her tail as though I just reminded her of its existence. Dangerous-looking stripes, needle-sharp stinger. I felt that I had to be completely honest. Feeling that Amanda wasn't quite ready, I spoke directly to Stacy.

"I have such a desire to send her on one last hunting mission. I've watched her sting people. I've watched humans disappear into that tail. It would be so amazing to feel her deliver one of them into me."

Stacy leapt to her feet and grabbed my face. "Daisy! No! Snap out of it!"

I grabbed Stacy's forearms. "I wasn't going to do it, just wanted to be honest about my feel--"

"How about I just take Stacy?" Amanda interrupted, winking at me. "She's right here, would make a great bee-girl, don't you think?"

Stacy wheeled around. Amanda got herself into the air, backed away, and curled her tail into what I knew was a mock attack posture.

"Yes, she would, wouldn't she?" I said, smirking. Stacy whirled around, panicked, and looked for the best escape route.

"Relax! I'm not going to do it!" Amanda said, landing heavily. "Here, let me try something. Hey. Queen."

"Yes?"

"Fuck off."

I burst out laughing, as did Stacy. In tears, she added: "Sorry, just had to try that--!"

I turned to Stacy. "I guess she's adapting well to her newfound freedom. But for heavens sake keep your voices down! We've got some curious colonists just outside the door, and they won't understand."

Stacy was still catching her breath from laughing. "Okay... okay. God, you had me there for a minute. I can't believe the three of us are back together... and I'm so glad! So... what now?"

"Well, once the three of us are ready, I'll make the announcement to the colonists and we'll start setting them free. Then I've got forty-five eggs to lay."

"But that means... forty-five more bee-girls!" Stacy observed.

"Yes," I said. Suddenly I realized just how much a prisoner to this body I really was: These were forty-five previously-human souls inside me, my body preprogrammed to do exactly what it was doing: transforming each of them into eggs that would almost instantly hatch into bee-girl larvae once they were laid. With 6.0 I could reprogram my body, my reproductive system, but to do that midstream would put them at even more risk than they were when the lamia poisoned Bambi.

"That's why I'm going to need an amazing nursing staff," I said.

"Well, that's one thing I'm good at. Think I should stay like this for now?" Amanda asked.

Stacy's eyes went big. "But-- Daisy-- you're trapped on a treadmill, aren't you? Don't you need sustenance to bring all those eggs to maturity? Which, now that I understand your biology... means... more humans? And more eggs? How do you escape that loop?"

I had to think about that one. She was right.

"You still have my phone, right?"

Stacy searched her belongings and found it. She handed it to me, and I looked up my own research notes. We found the recipe I'd developed for turning myself back into an avian, and then one for giving myself a "normal", human-style digestive system. I gave that to Amanda. "I think we do something like this," I said. But I had a more immediate problem: I already had that human-style digestive system, which was out of place on a Queen Bee. And, after all I'd just been through, I was depleted, tired, and hungry. In a six-hour flight I'd had a granola bar and a bottle of water; and while hydration wouldn't be a problem I couldn't eat solid food for two very important reasons. First, no amount of solid food through my relatively tiny intestines would be enough to keep forty-five wriggling eggs alive, much less get them to the point where I could lay those eggs. Second: bee-girls cannot poop. They're very efficient at turning human beings into more bee-girls, and energy for themselves, and produce only an innocuous liquid as a waste product, and from what I can tell a Queen Bee doesn't even do that.

When I escaped the full bee-girl form previously it took weeks before I was able to use the bathroom even quasi-normally. I lived off the reserves of my tail section while I made that transition, and I don't have that option now as I need to keep my "children" alive.

Holy cow. We're in more trouble than I thought.

. . .

I summoned up sixty of our remaining sixty-three colonists in "my" chambers. I had just four members of the Queen's Guard, two Scouts, six Hunters, three Nurses if I included Amanda, eight Guards, six Junior Hunters, four Engineers and thirty Hatchlings, who had mostly been protected from the lamia's wrath thanks to the Nurses and regular Guard.

I told them what I had to tell them. That, starting at the top, I would be setting each of them free: releasing them from their Oath of Loyalty, restoring their memories, and giving each of them the biological ability to change their own forms.

None even knew what the 6.0 design was. That knowledge had been stripped from them, even though the entire 6.0 program was right there inside each of them, encoded in that last encrypted block. All I had to do was repeat what I'd done with Amanda.

So many friends I had here were gone. Janiss, Violet, Heather, all taken by the lamia. I was thrilled to see Lisa had made it to the rank of Scout: she was the one whose memories had been left most intact of pretty much any bee-girl, and though her mother had been swallowed up into a lamia's vagina during the raid, she somehow knew that things were going to turn out okay.

We had to leave the colony's destiny up to the colonists themselves. All I could do was be completely honest with them, explain what was happening, try my best help them through the anguish each felt about having another abandoned life before this one, about having the entire promise of 6.0 betrayed for the sake of building this colony, this species.

Something amazing happened. Okay; amazing to me: somehow both Stacy and Amanda had a confidence in their fellow woman that I lacked.

Only three of my colonists defected; and even then with good reason.

I didn't believe it at first: I felt that they was still some lingering "loyalty" programming, but Amanda assured me, as she had proven, that there wasn't. All of a sudden we were a group of women in bee-girl bodies who all shared the same experience, of having been captured and transformed and done what we'd done, and now we shared this new problem and had a veritable mountain of experience and intelligence we could put to use in resolving it.

Within the hour, we had a plan. I wasn't happy with it, not exactly, but I was assured by my Guard and Lisa and Amanda and even Stacy that it would work. Though we'd lost a lot of talent to the lamia we still had biologists, mathematicians, scientists who now remembered who they used to be.

Including the one that brought the solution we ended up using. She was a Hunter by the name of Fleur, and if she seemed familiar to me immediately, it's because half of her was the woman that enabled a dispirited bee-girl named Willow to win the Games.

Sage.

The woman who'd come to me in the park, who'd volunteered to become a bee-girl, who'd given herself to me. Aeris had combined her with another woman, in utero, to form the bee-girl that stood before me, but we had an immediate connection.

"We need just two more humans," Fleur said. "Perhaps three at the most."

"But--"

"There's no other choice," Fleur immediately interrupted. "We'll start on the other changes immediately but you'll need that much to sustain you while we transition over. If we can deliver just two more humans to you today you'll be okay for a while. We've done the math on it."

"How can I ask anyone to chase down a human victim?"

Fleur answered. "I can do it, Willow... Daisy. I can find one, just like you found... me. I know someone who'll do it, I think. That gives us one. And if we're persistent and honest, hopefully we'll find the second, perhaps a third. If we do have to resort to taking someone involuntarily... it'll only be temporary. You won't have to take their memories or reprogram them or any of that: just temporarily borrow their energy--"

A voice from off to my left: "Take me."

I swivelled my head. It was Stacy.

"No."

"Daisy, if there's anybody I would trust with my life, it's you. We just went through it with the Sphinx. It's just a body. Besides, I don't know if you've noticed, but I kind of feel out of place at the moment."

"It's settled then," Fleur said. "I'll head out right away with one other Hunter."

"But--"

Stacy pointed at Amanda. "And you'll feed me to Daisy. That's how it works, right?"

"Okay," Amanda said. Fleur headed out as I tried to object. Amanda caressed Stacy's head and shoulders and then floated up into the air.

"I don't like this," I said.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but you're not exactly in charge anymore," Stacy said. "Okay, Amanda, at least promise me I'll enjoy this...?"

Amanda looked at me. "You don't have to watch if you don't want to. I can take her down to the Hunter's Lodge."

"Wait!" I cried. "Stacy... I'm so honored that you'd do this, but--"

"Of course I'd do it! Dammit, Daisy, when are you going to get it through your head that I care about you??"

"I get it. I feel the same way! But I need you to listen for a minute. We need you... I need you... like you are. If the colonists are going to be able to eat solid food, we're going to need someone to negotiate with the humans for us. I can't exactly have Amanda or Lisa or Fleur buzz on down to a nearby restaurant. I can't dial out for Chinese food: "Hey, would you mind delivering that to 161 Twelfth Avenue, fifth floor? But you-- Stacy-- right now you're the only one here who can explain what's going on and have half a chance of any kind of cooperation. We need to get the word out that we're under new management and that this isn't just some devilish bee-girl deception. The world already knows you who are. I'm in no shape to do it myself."

"She's got a point," Amanda said, nodding in agreement. She floated back down and gently touched down on the ground.

I looked at Stacy with the biggest, most soulful eyes I could muster. "You're part of the team, Stacy, you're absolutely part of it. But we need one human-- or at least one non-bee-girl-- to interface with everyone else."

Stacy nodded, but I could see some faint disappointment. "Okay."

"Then... who's going hunting?" I asked.

"I'm the one with the contact," Fleur said, immediately. I saw in her, even in that instant, the young woman, lost, who'd approached me on the park bench. "I should go."

"I figured that."

"The three of us," Lisa said. "Amanda, you were a Hunter before you returned to the Nurse role."

My eyes met Lisa's. She knew my history with Amanda. She's a smart girl.

"I'd like that," I said. "Amanda, can you get someone to cover for your other duties?"

"There aren't any eggs left to hatch. I can go."

"I'll stay here, I guess," Stacy said.

"I'd like that, too."

. . .

Shortly after the trio of hunters left, Stacy told me she was hungry. With no reason not to go, she headed out to civilization to get a good meal and freshen herself up.

Suddenly I felt very alone. An hour went by, then another. "She's back," one Guard--

No. I can't do that. She's not just "my Guard" or "a Guard". She's a person. A bee-girl, yet, but with a name. A past. A future. My blog readers might not need to know her name but I do. Her name is Tammy. She's intense and professional and used to be a veterinarian and is doing this because she wants to, because she knows it's the right thing to do.

Like I said, I'm more surprised and honored than I would have thought possible. I felt great respect for this community, even when it wasn't being held together by stingers and venom and the forcibly programmed loyalty.

Stacy returned well-fed and, somehow, clean. She smelled nice. I had her lean against me, so I could feel her breathing. She was exhausted. I knew how to run my finger over her forehead, cushion her body with mine, and help her drift off. It didn't last long-- maybe a catnap of twenty minutes-- before the hunters returned.

They'd done what they said they were going to do: the impossible. Not one, but three humans who acknowledged the sudden change in demeanor, who just knew at a subconscious level that what the three women told them was the truth[i].

I was almost too weak to move at this point, and definitely could not fly. Lisa, Fleur, and Amanda were all bursting with new energy and figured out that they could circle behind me, brush my tail with their own. The reaction, some kind of pheromone coding, was automatic; I felt the end of my tail open, and I felt [i]hungry
. Hungrier than I was already. I desperately wanted to clutch Fleur, who was going first, to my bosom and finally realized that I could roll onto my back, so long as I was careful not to damage my wings, and I had her lay atop myself.

She was so delightfully full of energy! So warm and moist and alive and no sooner were we in position but I felt it: her captive, already stripped of much of his discernable form, large and warm and soft and delicious and I was so thankful that I kissed Fleur and held her tight and just let her push and push as this former human being entered my body, exactly what I needed, what any Queen Bee-Girl needed. Like sex but purely, vitally essential.

Then I felt him. The human. He wasn't even completely out of Fleur's body yet and that neural connection was there, so clear. I knew everything about him in a flash: his name ws Mark, he worked for a small plumbing company from across town, and he'd dated Sage for a while, and although they'd decided to see other people they'd remained on good terms. Instantly the entire encounter played back in my head: the frantic call from an ex-girlfriend, the fond memories that Fleur played up, the stunning revelation that Sage had become a bee-girl, that her life and forty-five others were at stake, and that Daisy Potemkin needed his help to fix it all.

He wasn't going to do it until Fleur mentioned my name.

Yes, Mark. It's really me.

And here you are, Mark. Inside me. I'll share my whole life story with you but right now I need your body. I'll catalog your old one from top to bottom-- I'm very good at doing that, now: but I need your substance, your fat and protein and sugars and minerals and even what you had for lunch a while ago. Here: feel them-- the forty-five other former-humans like yourself, inside me? I need you to nourish them. Keep them alive. Help them grow. They're your new sisters.

Lisa went next. It turns out that Mark's girlfriend is Candy. Almost a caricature of the ideal girlfriend, at least physically: huge bosom, narrow waist, rear end to die for. Surprisingly intelligent, even though she doesn't always act that way around Mark. She had the 2.0 genetics. Here, Candy, I've got a place for you too. Right next to your boyfriend. Any other Queen Bee would have immediately merged you two into a single bee-girl egg, but I've promised not to. If you choose to share your thoughts with each other while you're in here, that'll be up to you. I've promised to keep you intact, to give birth to you exactly as you were, if that's what you want.

I stroke my hand through Lisa's hair as we finish that transfer. For the first time I feel "full", and that feels great.

Amanda sensed, somehow, that fullness. I could tell that she was disappointed, but Lisa had actually done both of us a huge favor. By having Amanda go last, I got to say:

"Amanda, I want you to spend the night right here, with Stacy and me."
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

53: Queen Daisy, Part 2

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Jul 21, 2017 8:09 am

Daisy: It's probably two-thirty, maybe three-thirty in the morning. I haven't looked: Stacy has the phones and I don't want to wake her.

We've retired to the room behind "my" throne where there's a bed more than large enough for the three of us. Stacy's just sound asleep. I'm trying to sleep but can't, and finally I figure out that Amanda is awake. She's uncomfortable: while a queen bee is used to this, apparently, for a "worker" it's hard to just relax when you've got the mass of an entire human being inside your tail.

"Okay, Amanda," I whisper. "We can do it now."

"Thank goodness," Amanda said. Without thinking, she lifted herself from the bed using her wings, which is a sound that would absolutely startle any sleeping human awake (and probably give her a nightmare in the process). It did.

"Sorry, Stacy!" Amanda cooed.

"Here," I said. I had one arm around Stacy and now encircled her with my other. "Come. I want you to feel this," I told her.

I lifted myself into the air, easily hoisting Stacy with me, and hovered so I was off the bed and that way had a bit more vertical space, and curled my tail under myself and set Stacy atop it, straddling it like an oversized horse.

God, am I huge. Okay, not the size of the Sphinx, but I feel like a whale even when I'm in the air.

I'm holding Stacy facing outwards. My naked breasts lay atop her head. I look down: she's frightened, not exactly sure what I'm doing, but Amanda gets with the program instantly and hovers closer to me. As she does I release Stacy, one arm at a time, and grab Amanda's arms instead.

There's just enough light now for Stacy to see what's happening. But I'm also sure she can feel it, smell it. That great maw at the end of my tail makes a wet, sticky sound as it opens, immediately in front and below Stacy. It's not quite bright enough for Stacy to see the color or much detail.

Even deprogrammed, that sight, to a human-laden worker bee, is very much like a baby bird's red, open mouth is to its parents. I remember that moment, from the other side, very well: When Aeris opened her tail like this, the instinct was instantly activated and pretty much irresistible. I suppose it's also very much like putting a naked woman with an exposed, waiting sex in front of a horny man.

The opening itself is large enough that Stacy, should she have fallen right then, would have easily disappeared inside and be swallowed up.

Instead that opening is almost instantly occupied by Amanda's tail. At first the business end of that tail is pointy and slender but it swells tremendously as it opens. The pink, wet, soft insides of Amanda's body touch the pink, wet, soft, insides of mine, and the sense is completely electric and overwhelming.

Thank you again, Lisa, for having Amanda go last of the three of you. After the prior two feedings I have enough energy now to actually enjoy this, and that's exactly what I plan to do.

Amanda and I look down, between us, at Stacy, and squeeze her between us. We start writhing, and squirming, enough that in the dim light it's hard to maintain the proper altitude for this; twice I feel my wingtips brush the ceiling, even though the ceiling here is about twenty-seven feet off the floor, and one time I felt the back of my tail touch the floor. It doesn't dissuade me in the least.

I know where Stacy's sensitive spots are and make sure they're involved. I feel her moisture, barely, atop my tail, her different, mostly human, scent. I release one hand from Amanda and slide it between Amanda and Stacy, running it along both of their sides and underneath Stacy's feathers. Amanda takes the clue and does the same.

I feel something emerging from Amanda's body. As she pushes, she stretches ever larger and I love it; more and more of her substance in contact with mine, completely vulnerable to each other. I can read her thoughts now, start unloading and resolving the differences between us.

Amanda ducks her head. Her mouth comes to Stacy's and, breathing heavily through her nose, puts her tongue in Stacy's mouth. I feel Stacy react immediately. I'm impressed: while the normal bee-girl doesn't have the same neural connectivity through her tongue as we did before, Amanda has already altered that part of her self such that she does. Thus she's able to communicate what she's feeling, thinking, and doing to Stacy. Instantly I feel the change in Stacy's body. She's no longer just going along for the ride, sandwiched between two women who are, in all senses, having xex. Instead she's part of it, and that's what she's needed to feel for a long time.

This is what I've needed, too: more than anything. In the least normal way, in that moment, everything is blissfully normal again.

I almost forgot I have to make this little move with my tail to indicate my acceptance of Amanda's offering. I do just that; perfectly line up the center of my opening with Amanda's and then she presses into me very tight and our two canals fuse to form a single passage between her body and mine. An effortless push-- and gravity, brings her captive down into mine, and I reciprocate by pushing back the other way, back into Amanda's body.

I know there are technical reasons for this. It helps lubricate the passageway. It helps distribute my "digestive" enzymes that will reduce this human into a liquid slurry inside me. It helps Amanda absorb what she needs from her captive before she delivers the rest into me, and empty herself out completely.

But that's not why I do it: we do it because it feels so good to do.

At the same instant I'm coming into contact with that human. Another man-- this surprises me. Or maybe it shouldn't. This one, name of Kevin, is a landscape architect. He knows about varieties of plants and how they grow and when they blossom and exactly what it takes to keep them alive.

Given what he does he'd expected to meet a real live bee girl long before now. He'd spent time outdoors when everyone else told him just how dangerous it was in this area -- during "peak bee time", even, and we'd just never come across him. He finds us amazing and tantalizing and, literally, even though he'd never seen one of us in person was willing to "die" just to meet us. When Mark and Candy called him-- he'd done their landscaping work-- he practically crashed his car in his rush to get over in time.

See, Bambi? You didn't do as well as you thought you did.

Kevin is enjoying this as much as the rest of us are. He can feel his body melting away as he passes between Amanda and I; yet the perfect seal between the Queen and Worker Bee prevents even a drop of him from being lost. He feels the connection already to my ovaries. He knows who I am, what I can do.

A few more pushes, Amanda. Oh, this is heaven.

Finally, Amanda is spent. A last push clears herself of Kevin and the liquid he's becoming, and I suck him deep into myself and then seal him tightly inside before carefully releasing Amanda. I hear a scream as soon as Amanda's lips leave Stacy's: Stacy has orgasmed, though she's in some mild pain from the awkward position we've pinned her into. Amanda backs away and, in the improving light, I see her tail-slit close, I close mine as well and pull Kevin way down inside, then set Stacy down and raise my tail up to finish Kevin's digestion.

It's brutally quick; so quick that I had to race to catalog his body before too much of it was gone. But it feels so good, his solid mass fading away, each squeeze of my tail continuing this process.

Kevin is impressed that it didn't seem to hurt at all: just the opposite. I lead him, by the virtual hand, over to my left ovary. If all goes according to plan you'll be my last "child" in this body, Kevin. You can be a bee-girl if you like. You can be... anything, really. Here: let me introduce you to your forty-seven sisters. Take some time and decide what you want to become: my ovary and I will accommodate you when you're ready.

Kevin's already decided. He wants the Bee Girl Experience. Heck, he'd be happy with just the Girl Experience, I think, but if you'd like to see what life in the Hive is like, you're more than welcome to. Okay, Kevin, here you go.

I'll see you soon.

The three of us slept until daylight. Everything always seems so much more manageable in the daylight. Much has already changed. The "workers" are beginning their own, invisible transformations. Or, in a few cases, visible transformations: the ones that have elected to leave the bee-girl form entirely will be re-absorbing their own tails. In doing so they're freeing up energy that they, and the rest of the colony, can use: this was part of the equation we'd worked out earlier.

I'm the only one who cannot change her body plan: not until forty-eight eggs have been laid.

Stacy still felt uninvolved: I could tell this. We'd gotten her as physically (and neurologically, thanks to Amanda) involved as we could, last night, and that was fun, and next up for me was to start laying eggs and for Amanda to help care for the resulting larvae. I think Stacy really would have liked to have been swallowed, to become one of "us" even though having her in her current form made a lot more sense.

I had a devilish idea, then, that I shared with Amanda while Stacy was off getting herself breakfast. Amanda loved it.

When Stacy returned, I announced that it was time for me to lay my first egg. And although only nurses, hatchlings, and the Queen have ever been inside the nursery -- it was even spared the lamia's attack -- I made an executive decision to grant Stacy the role of Honorary Nurse for the duration, under Amanda's direction.

Stacy seemed overwhelmed by this, somehow. So Amanda took Stacy on the tour, and with my lumbering body I followed.

"It's empty... and very clean," Stacy said.

"Yeah. It's almost eerie," Amanda said. "Until the attack this place was always busting. Now, without new hatchlings to clean up, I've been worried that it'd get dusty. That doesn't seem to be happening. Even the egg cells are still clean, even in the bottom. See?"

I hover my way past where Stacy and Amanda are standing. Sure enough, when Amanda invites Stacy to look, she does, leaning over. "Those are deeper than I thought they'd be from your description, Daisy."

Amanda took over. "It's designed to contain and protect the eggs and larvae, make it easier to feed them until they completely "hatch". Doesn't always work, in that the larvae can escape and the nurses need to chase them around to feed them. The larval stage is pretty short, thank goodness. You can actually see the developing bee-girl parts right from the beginning. Here, get a closer look."

One little kick and push and Stacy isn't toppled, but rather slid, into the empty cell.

Before she can reorient herself and scramble out, or even utter her indignation, I back into the cell, careful not to spear Stacy's head (or any part of her) with my stinger.

"You wanted to be involved," Amanda said, giggling. "Looks like you're about to get a front-row seat to to something no other species has seen."

My positioning in the cell feels just right and I push. The end of my tail immediately swells up as my first egg moves downwards. Stacy tries to squeeze out around me, but it's too late: a second push and as my slit opens I can feel my tail get tight in that space; the confinement feels good, and now I know why we've built these "cells" rather than just having the Queen dump her eggs onto the flat floor.

Stacy is apparently resigned to her fate as she slumps to the bottom of the cell. There is a little gap for air, a slight and intentional mismatch between the shape of my tail and the size of this opening, through which I hear Stacy's whine:

"Why are you doing this to me?"

Amanda and I giggle. "Hey, you wanted to be more involved."

"Yes, but--"

I can't wait any longer. The egg is right there and I'm sure Stacy can see it now; there's no turning back. At the time they're laid, Bee-girl eggs weigh probably as much as an adult human being does: they're large, heavy, wet, slippery, alive. Air rushes out of the gap and I hear Stacy squeak.

"Here. Catch!" I say, as I push.

There's a wet sticky sound and one more comment from Stacy: "Oof!"

All done. As soon as the egg is laid the end of my tail returns to normal, and I get out of the way to make sure that Stacy's all right. She's working on squeezing her way out from alongside the egg, and though she's wet and a bit sticky, when Amanda flies over to offer her a hand, Stacy waved Amanda off for a moment.

"This is amazing," Stacy said. "I didn't expect these eggs would be this warm, or this alive. I can actually see all these organs, and blood vessels, and... wow."

Mission accomplished. I can see the egg/larva squirm and can tell that the forthcoming bee-girl appreciates Stacy's presence. And why wouldn't she? She knows who Stacy is. She's an intelligent woman: this one was an artist, a painter: she was set to forget that part of herself, but now she hasn't. When she hears me laugh she's already in on the joke and squirms around Stacy, sucking her back down into the egg cell for the moment and tickling her until Stacy can't take it any more and shouts "Quit it!"

At last, Stacy is truly involved.

This time, I help her out of the depression on the floor, using my overwhelmingly large tail as a counterbalance.

"You're a mess," I said, giggling. Her feathers were all plastered down with sticky, slippery birthing fluids.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Stacy said, smiling. "Thanks."

. . .

I didn't lay any more eggs until the first four colonists had reached the point ot being able to eat solid food, but within three days of that the entire Hive seemed to come back to life. Stacy, who'd started off ferrying increasingly large take-out orders from almost eight miles away, finally made the appropriate deals such that we had four food trucks per day, parked right outside the Hive itself, and finally it wasn't Stacy making all the trips to get food, but the bee-girls themselves.

At first the humans remained safely inside those trucks, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner through small windows. Then, one ventured outside. And nothing happened, other than that we bought meals and talked with them.

It didn't take long for the word to spread of what happened. Humans were off the menu, replaced with a steadily increasing variety of foods. Soon we had workers-- human workers! in the building, if not the Hive itself, installing plumbing, doing electrical work, working alongside the Engineers to add bathrooms, stairways, even fire sprinklers, resuming work that was stalled long before the first bee-girl appeared on the Earth.

I wouldn't get to-- didn't need to-- see all that work finished. Because as soon as the colonists started breast-feeding me, I began laying the remaining eggs. We counted down together from forty-seven. With each birth I could feel myself get lighter. It was finally easy to fly, and it only got easier as my body became lighter and smaller and my queen-bee wings grew stronger.

I remembered that Aeris was able to lay twelve eggs a day. The most I ever achieved in a day was four, probably due to the change in food source. But it was well worth it.

Meanwhile, since we had Stacy's phone, we were able to fill friends and family in on what was happening. The best part of this was hearing Brad speak to his parents-- in "his" own voice. He gave me way too much credit for something that was my fault to begin with.

The other think we could do was decide what we wanted to become, what we wanted to do, after the last egg was laid and we could leave the Hive. All three of us loved flying, so there was no question that we were keeping a design that could do that: and for a time we entertained the idea of just returning to the form we had just before the whole bee-girl thing: feathered wings, no need for clothes, colorful.

Stacy pointed out that this design, ever since we'd first shown it to anyone, was actually becoming commonplace in our 6.0 world. Perhaps it was all the bad memories of hour after hour spent stuck inside a car on our then perpetually-jammed roadways?

So she went downtown to an art supply store and came back with a sketchbook and colored pencils and we spent many hours drawing, feeling very much like Aeris and Mary must have when they were designing the bee-girl.

Amanda came up with the idea we went with. Not a huge change from what we'd been before, but just enough. If our previous design was based in part on your standard backyard bird, we sketched together a design more informed by the hawk. Stronger, larger, faster, and with much better range, great eyesignt, and really swanky: handsome, elegant. And definitely bee-girl proof, sorry.

Which left the question of our sexuality. At least that was a question for Amanda/Brad, who had been thrust into a female body at the same time that he'd become a bee-girl.

I pointed that out. "Okay," I said. "You've been a worker bee but never really a woman, so that might be interesting to experience."

Amanda thought about it for a moment as Stacy tried to help her out with this decision. "Actually, I don't think I was quite done being a guy," she said. "Even though I know I'm technically female, I kind of liked the idea of being the very lucky boyfriend between two amazing women. I felt that got taken from us too early."

That vision was instantly appealing to all three of us. It felt like how things were supposed to be. His actual sexuality didn't have to be male, but he'd project that personality: strong, confident, and... protective. We'd make him larger and perhaps adjust his coloring to make this distinction obvious, and theme our coloring to make it apparent to any who looked that Stacy and I belonged to him, that the three of us were one.

"So... it'll be 'Brad'?"

"Once I've transformed, yes, I like that."

I'm going to get credited for the next idea but I don't deserve it. Stacy had the initial inspiration: She felt jealous that I had antennae in my legs and Amanda atop her head with which we could use to communicate with any bee-girl wirelessly. She asked whether the hidden antenna idea might be good for the three of us, so we'd never be apart even when we were physically separate. Amanda immediately reported the problems with that idea: the radio communication felt like radio communication, limited range, interference, blocked by certain structures, and often pretty busy. We knew that once this idea leaked into the general population the airwaves, even with spread-spectrum technology, would be even more a sea of noise than they are already.

Stacy then found, in her own memories, the real hero in this regard, the one who should get the credit for it. Rob McLeane.

We'd use quantum teleportation to communicate with each other.

Stacy had the idea, again. And the three of us worked it out together, between egg-laying sessions and when Amanda could spare herself from nursing the larvae.

"So," I said, looking at a crude diagram in the sketchbook, "This new organ produces pairs of entangled particles. We keep one of each pair and transfer that to a separate organ used for bidirectional communication: by altering the properties of the particles it alters the same property of its partner, at any distance, in a way that can't be blocked or jammed or otherwise interfered with."

"And completely undetectable," Amanda said.

"That'll require a huge neuro pathway," I said. "But I think we can do it."

Stacy closed her eyes, recalling as much as she could of the relevant parts of Rob McLeane's thesis. "The particles decay, though. One error and the entanglement is broken."

"So we transfer a new particle when we need to." I suggested.

Amanda nodded. "Better yet, just have a lot of particles. Billions and billions of them. A quantum fluid designed for just that purpose. We can use averaging to eliminate error, have much better bandwidth. We can discriminate the particles that have lost entanglement and reabsorb them... but the supply would still run out eventually. We'd have to have some way to transfer--"

Stacy and I looked at each other. "Uhhh... Amanda? I think we can devise a way to transfer fluids between us, don't you?"

"Oh. Right."

. . .

I wasn't confident that the integral design validation of the 6.0 framework would detect all issues with our quantum teleportation mechanism, so we put extra time into really doing as much math as we could. Now I felt left out: Amanda's tail was shrinking and both she and Stacy were starting to develop the underpinnings for their new wings: I was afraid to make any changes to myself while still functioning as a Queen Bee.

Late one night, Stacy and I were just admiring how sleek and handsome Brad was going to be, how we were both looking forward to having a "big strong boyfriend" to "protect us".

He was about about halfway through that transformation, so I think it's fine to refer to him as Brad now, and "he" was fine with that.

"About that..."

I knew immediately that this sounded serious. "What's up, Brad?"

"I don't know. But..."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Anything. You can tell me."

Stacy came to our side. "Me too. What's up?"

Brad couldn't look directly at either of us. "I'm really looking forward to this. I want to be there to 'protect' both of you. I'm looking forward to this next phase, of being one with you, one person with three bodies and all, and I want that to last forever, but there's something you should know, I guess..."

"I don't think you'll really need to 'protect' us," Stacy noted. "It's just a persona, an image. Sorry," she added: "Didn't mean to interrupt. Go on."

"Well, ever since you first kissed me, and it... changed me, I feel like I've been under your control. Yours, and..." Brad turned to me. "Yours."

"Oh," I said, turning to Stacy. "He's right. Brad, I'm really sorry about that... we can fix it: you'll have as much control as--"

"No," Brad said. "I... like it. That's what I wanted to tell you. I'd do anything for either of you. I... like it, when you... take control like that. Even when Violet was swallowing me, I felt..."

"Good," I said, finishing his sentence. How could I forget that sense myself? Disappearing into Bambi's tail while she laughed and I had no control of the situation at all? Or even... when, ages ago, I myself was a human male, reduced to a few inches tall by my "girlfriend" and...

"Yeah," Brad confirmed. "And since we haven't quite finalized this design yet, I figured that any changes the two of you would like to make to me so I could... better... service any needs you might have... I'd let you... make those changes."

"You're submissive," Stacy said, finally catching up.

I kept going. "Kind of like when Aeris reprogrammed your body to serve hers? Took away your free will and you felt that happening?"

"Yes. It was scary, but exciting, and... to be needed like that... I just wish it'd been you, or Stacy, instead of someone I didn't know."

"And now it could be both of us," Stacy said.

Stacy looked at me. "What do we do?"

I nodded at her. "I think I know. Brad, can we have a minute? Before long these private conversations will be impossible between us, but I'd like to confer with Stacy for a moment."

"Oh, yes, sure-- I'm supposed to be relieving Marcia on nursery duty anyway--"

Stacy and I worked out the plan that would define our relationship for the foreseeable future. We were going to become one, yes, and at some point, invariably, perhaps when we return someday to the Sphinx, we'll most likely reach a point where the three of us will share one body. But right now the appeal of flying side by side, of having meals together and adventuring together and sleeping together and feeling each other's warm bodies and being just different enough to make every minute interesting... is fascinating.

If anybody deserves to have this fantasy indulged, it's the man that both Stacy and I have grown to love, who has gone to hell and back for the two of us. Stacy and I got onto that channel immediately it was a perfect compromise. Brad would be his own person, have autonomy and free will and yet be completely under our control and would know it.

All we had to do was decide on the wording of our proposal, so it would be part of the experience too.

It was a torturous two hours until Brad returned to us. He was a weird sight at this point: early signs of feathers, the greatly diminished/absorbed tail, and yet a substantial rack with which he/she was feeding our increasing number of larvae.

I pointed that out, the little drip of that very-concentrated bee-milk still visible on one nipple. Embarassed, he wiped himself: "Sorry."

"That's just evidence of how much you like serving others," I said. "And if you'd like to serve Stacy and I exclusively after you're done feeding my 'offspring'... I think we can make that happen."

"Really?"

"Yes. But to make this happen we're going to need your informed consent, Brad. Stacy will read off the proposal we've come up with. You decide whether you like this plan or not. You can even propose changes. But once you agree to it, there will be no turning back... well, without good cause... or unless you really really want to... get it? We both love you, Brad. You're part of us and we want to be with you forever. We want you to be happy. Stacy?"

"So, Brad: You're going to have free will, most of the time, be able to act on your own. You'll be strong, protective, just like your body plan says. But through that link we're establishing: Daisy and I will be able to control you completely. We'll be able to outvote you on any decision you make, take direct, remote control of your body if we want to or have to. We'll alter your body plan to serve our needs in some rather intimate ways, even to the point where your body will be able to completely support ours if that's what we wish. This may impose inconveniences on you that you'll find yourself unable to complain about. We'll be able to synchronize your feelings to our own. You'll be driven to help us with... whatever it is we might need help with. And the best part is that nobody will ever know. From the outside you'll seem just the ordinary, dedicated, hawk-boy boyfriend, the essential third member of our group, the glue that holds us together and makes us strong. Nobody will know-- and you'll be unable to say-- that some of your actions were driven not by yourself, but by Daisy and I. The two of us will be aware of everything that goes on in your life and will guide you to those actions that help the three of us. You'll never be free of our thoughts, wishes, or desires. Daisy and I will train you to service us... forever."

I nodded my agreement with the plan.

"So, Brad, if that's what you want, Daisy will reprogram you for it. But you have to know that this is forever. We will make it so you never want to unwind this."

"Kind of like the bee-girl programming," I said, "Sort of. Does that appeal to you, Brad? Is that what you'd hoped we'd come up with?"

"Well--"

Despite better judgement, I added: "Okay. It's hardly as severe as the bee-girl reprogramming. The physical changes and mental connections will be real, but we all understand it's just for fun."

Stacy smiled but shook her head, a mock scolding. "That's not what we agreed to, Daisy. Complete, helpless slave to two women who will ruthlessly control every aspect of his life. Right?" She winked.

"Yes. That sounds... perfect," Brad said.

"Are you sure? You accept those terms? Remember, there's no turning back," said Stacy.

"I'm already under both your spell," Brad said. I motioned him over. "This just formalizes it," he continued.

I brought him to my bosom. Without the promised quantum link this would mostly be a placebo for now, though I'd encoded a few early bits of biological reprogramming he could (and would) choose to accept from me, to get things started: mostly the implementation of the new sex organs we'd designed for ourselves. They were internal to all of us; no dangly bits to hang down while Brad was flying, but would make things very interesting once we'd all completed that development.

"Okay, then, Brad, this is it." Stacy came up to me, and we squeezed Brad's head between our chests as Brad drank.

. . .

Just like that, the last three eggs were gone. Mark and his girlfriend Candy, who-- as promised-- were not transformed into bee-girls at all but back into slightly tuned-up versions of themselves, or at least they would be once they escaped the larval stage they'd have to go through. Then Kevin, my very last human, who did want to become a bee-girl and had been indulged in that request. (She'd chosen the name Kristen for herself.)

I'd been keeping count, of course, but I'd stopped announcing it once I got to nine. We'd gotten into such a routine, nobody was expecting me to say what I said:

"That's it. It's over."

A Queen Bee is, by definition, always pregnant. I am no longer pregnant; therefore, no longer a Queen Bee. At least in my way of thinking. To be truly rid of the role, however, I felt there was one thing I needed to do. I summoned Lisa, the orphaned girl I'd "rescued", and told her that she'd be spending the night with me.

She would be this colony's new Queen, to do with it as she-- and her fellow colonists-- chose. I trust they understood why, though honored to have filled this role, I needed to hand it to someone else.

Lisa accepted.

In the days before these, the transfer of the powers of the Queen was a substantial affair. Not only did one Queen need to unlock the biological key of her chosen Queen's Guard member, but she needed to transfer all the hive's other secrets: most notably the names, original identities of all of the bee-girls. But I had no such secrets to transfer, no such keys to unlock: they'd all been unlocked already, so this transfer was mostly ceremonial and otherwise completely unnecessary.

So I couldn't engage in the full night of passion that traditionally accompanied this act. I could not unwind myself from the knowledge that, if it hadn't been for me, Lisa would still be a young human girl: bee-girls grow up much more quickly than humans. And to be passionate with her that way also seemed like a betrayal of both Brad and Stacy. So we did... what we needed to do, but that was all. Lisa could remain Queen if she chose, could breed more bee-girls if she chose, could return to her human life and even seek out her human friends and relatives: it would all be up to her.

Finally, with only modest fanfare, it was time for us to leave. To me, this was not a moment too soon, for just at the edge of our territory lay a grassy field full of lamia who were all, most likely, terribly pregnant with former bee-girls. Even though Brad and I still look very much like bee-girls, this visit did not deserve one minute of additional delay. There were two lamia, in particular, that I had to see, and some serious damage control that needed to be done.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

54: Normal Relations

Postby dreamweevil » Wed Jul 26, 2017 4:52 am

Daisy: Flying isn't as easy as I thought it would be. These wings are designed for hovering, and short distances, and very heavy lifting. They're designed for a Queen Bee whose body is swollen with eggs and... more. Now, my tail weighs next to nothing, so balance is difficult, altitude control is difficult, keeping a constant speed is difficult.

At least this won't be for much longer, and I have a bit of a preview of what's to come as Brad is well ahead of me in his own transformation. My own transformation is only just starting: a little tingle in my skin but nothing visible yet. Brad's tail is nearly gone and I see some of the little "spines" that will be feathers before too much longer.

It's a beautiful, but rather warm day. Good news is that the warmth vanishes quickly with altitude: you don't have to get very far up for the air to feel much cooler. I don't think I'd have made it to the edge of the bee-girls' territory otherwise.

Stacy, having less of a change to make, is an even better preview for me. Her wings are getting longer, her colors changing to the ones we came up with. I can see where her muscles are getting stronger. Her legs will be stronger too, more like feathered human legs than the skinnier appendages we had before as a weight-saving compromise. My own legs are tucked up against my tail section, and I kind of have to hold them up there to keep the wind resistance down.. They're human legs too: designed to be sexy, part of a curvaceous, seductive woman that just happens to have wings and antennae (I don't) and a bee's tail, to disarm her prey using her looks.

Once we're out of sight of the Hive, Stacy, pulled out her phone to call the lamia. The last thing the lamia need to see, to be unprepared for, is a pair of bee-girls descending upon them unannounced. It takes her a few minutes to make that connection: they've gotten rid of their one-time landline and she had to look up Zoe's number but, at last found it and got through.

"Here," Stacy says. "Zoe wants to talk to you." I almost dropped Stacy's phone on the transfer and I was wondering if any of us could possibly dive fast enough to catch it. Maybe Stacy could.

"Is that really you? Daisy?" Zoe asked.

"Hi, Zoe. I'm so sorry it's been a while."

"We have quite a bit to talk about, I think."

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that. That's why I'm on my way. I'm not really a bee-girl anymore, but you need to know that I still look like one. As does Amanda."

"Amanda?"

"Brad. Sorry. You'll remember him as Brad. Still kind of looks like a girl but is transitioning to a-- oh, never mind."

"Daisy, you, Stacy, and Brad are welcome here anytime, no matter what you look like."

"Thank you. Zoe, I'm really, really sorry for what happened. If I'd become Queen, I had plans for a much gentler presence overall. I think the nightmare is over, though."

Silence for several seconds. I turn up the volume: it's hard to hear a phone over the whoosh of these wings, even though I'm not "buzzing" in the least.

"I don't think it was a nightmare, Daisy. Just... life. It's going to be interesting times, that's for sure."

"Hey, that's what I was going for. Interesting."

Zoe laughed. She sounded pleasantly content.

"How are Francesca? And Laurie?"

"Francesca's amazing. You'll have a lot to talk about. And Laurie... well... she misses you. Look, we'll talk when you get here. You can eat now? We're making a great lunch today. And can you sit at a table? I'll reserve one for the six of us."

"I can't eat yet but that doesn't stop me from sitting with you, as long as there's some room for this tail. I'd love something to drink. It's pretty dry up here today."

"God, there are times when I wish I could fly."

"Someday you will, Zoe. I'm sure of that."

"Meanwhile I'll go get ready for your arrival. How long until you're here?

I relayed the inquiry to Stacy, I looked over at Stacy, who made fingers at me: "fourteen minutes."

"Alright. Land by the barn and I'll meet you at the door. See you soon."

As we descended toward the gleaming, new, white "barn" with the solar-panel roof, back into that warmer air, I could see Zoe and Laurie just outside the door, with one other lamia between them: a raven-haired snake-woman with her tail coiled neatly behind herself. Francesca.

"Wow."

I said it aloud. A man so very close to his own extinction, mere moments from it, at long last has substance, a body of her own. She'd made some modest changes to the design Rob and I had worked out, or perhaps Laurie had: but her appearance was close enough to her original design that there was no mistaking her.

There didn't seem to be many more lamia about than there were before. Except there was one major difference: These three, and every other one I could see in the distance were very much pregnant. You could see it in their tails; the swollen sections higher up. Each of those lumps... a former bee-girl, in some stage of digestion and transformation. And although the lamia were scattered, I knew the statistics: The lamia held somewhere around one thousand former bee-girls within those tails: many of my former sisters, coworkers, hive-mates.

My landing was miserably awkward because I stupidly tried to keep up with Stacy, who just effortlessly swooped in and pulled off a nice smooth landing. Perhaps I just wished I had that body already and forgot that I didn't. Or I was thinking about the lamia and not about getting myself down safely.

At least it was an opportunity for a introductory comment, a little self-deprecation: "Ugh! I've forgotten how to land this thing. Miserable, unbalanced...!"

The joke didn't quite inspire even a smile from the lamia, which preyed on my worst fear: these things had just battled a horde of attacking bee girls that look, unfortunately, just like me. I look back at the tail I'd rather forget: even though my transition plan should result in me losing my stinger soon, that hasn't happened yet. It's still there, all its deadly sharpness.

"I apologize for my appearance," I said.

"Come on," Zoe said, opening the door. "It's hot outside. You're hot. Come in." The lamia glided through the door and we had to wait a moment for their tails to get out of the way, Laurie circling around to close the door behind us.

More shock. Again, everyone here was very pregnant. The lamia moved slowly, conscious of their own size, careful with the occupants inside themselves.

My eyes met Laurie's. "You have a beautiful daughter," I said, as a way of introducing myself to Francesca.

"We have a beautiful daughter." Laurie corrected. "Thank you. She... saved us all with her bravery."

Francesca looked down and blushed. If anything, she seemed abashed at the sudden attention, and not all that used to it. Somehow, beneath the layers of scales and lamia confidence, that little bit of social awkwardness seemed to remain.

But then Francesca, with her perfect, raven hair and strong, sleek body, seemed to suddenly grow in that confidence. She eyed me, looked me over and I couldn't have felt more self-conscious. "Hello, Daisy."

Her next words were a little less certain.

"How are you-- I thought you were going to the Sphinx."

"I did."

"We did," Stacy confirmed, backing me up. Across the large, very clean floor there was indeed an area set up like a restaurant: counters, tables, all with this soft, green, textured flooring that the lamia could glide across easily. Many were watching and as we walked across the expanse I saw there was a table set with three stools, away from the others.

Right. Lamia don't use chairs or stools. Usually a bee-girl would just flip her tail under and sit on that, but that doesn't work at a table with others seated there.

"Thank you so much for inviting us," I said. "So much better to do this in person. Stacy and I did indeed visit the Sphinx. She... invited us inside. It's as amazing as you've heard, possibly more so. We'd barely begun to explore when... the Sphinx picked up the bees' warning of the attack. When that happened... actually, shortly thereafter, she released us so we could intervene, but... it was... too late. I picked up the bees' distress signals and we rerouted but by the time I could reach the hive the battle was already over."

"Francesca led the attack on the Hive," Laurie said, quite proudly. I could see instantly that neither Zoe, nor Francesca, were quite ready for that revelation, especially when lunch hadn't even been brought to us yet. Francesca, in particular looked a little uncomfortable before speaking.

"I'm sorry, Daisy, that it had to happen how it did," she said quietly. "But I'm not sorry about it having to be done. You know my opinion on Bambi and the bee girls, you've known all along, and you saw what she intended. I had inside knowledge and needed to use it - the whole of the lamia were under threat. But... you should have been nowhere near - how did that result in you -- you weren't a bee. How did you end up--"

As I looked at her, playing through her likely actions in my head, something clicked together so suddenly that I just blurted it out, with no less tact than Laurie's revelation.

"You were the one who poisoned Bambi." It was patently obvious: she led the attack and was the only one with direct knowledge of how to reach the Queen's Chambers.

"Yes, that was me. She was too big to--"

The last thing I wanted to be was upset with Francesca but I couldn't help it.

"There were forty-four innocent human souls inside her. Another half hour, two hours at most, and all of them would have died once Bambi's human body failed completely."

Francesca went a little pale. It was pretty obvious that she didn't know about the eggs within Bambi, and had chosen not to ask. "I assume you...took over for her somehow?"

"They made Daisy do it," Stacy said. "I was there. The Queen's Guard-- they forced Daisy to--"

"Nobody forced me. The situation did. So, yes. I took over for her. We almost didn't make it. I just finished laying forty-eight eggs, including Bambi and three human volunteers that saved us all from starving to death until we could eat solid food."

Zoe turned on Francesca. "You never mentioned that there were other humans still--"

"I had no idea they were there," rebutted Francesca, trying to keep her voice calm. "And even if I did we had no -- Daisy, Bambi... she's still alive??"

"You left forty-four innocent humans to die??", insisted Zoe.

Now Francesca's voice took on a tone both of muted anger and fright, seemingly uninterested in the other part of the conversation happening concerning herself. "Bambi's there with right now with forty-four brand new bee-girls?? Daisy, are you telling me that you've just unwound everything that we've done-- started the entire cycle over again? After all that we--"

I had to interrupt. "Bambi's barely into the larval stage right now. And she'll be no threat to you. She's so docile now, has so much self-regret, that she'd never think of hurting everyone. I freed them, Francesca, Zoe. They have their memories back, aren't bound to the Queen or the Hive or even to remaining as bee-girls, and in fact many aren't going to. But forty-four would have died if I hadn't gotten there when I did."

Francesca fiery eyes were stunning under that hair: she didn't hold back. "Again, I knew nothing about that, and I wouldn't have believed Bambi had she told me and even if I had - what time did I have to do anything about it?"

Her voice then dropped to a harsh whisper.

"And one thing, even more important: you know very well, that those forty-four would have been converted to deadly bee-girls if I hadn't gotten there when I did. And both of those things would have been the fault of Bambi and her bee girls. No one else's."

Silence again. Lunch came, brought by two very friendly lamia who scooted over very smoothly with two huge platters. A rather uncomfortable silence.

I was still fuming. I found myself staring, rather unabashedly, at Francesca's chest. She wore a teal halter top at the moment, but it did nothing to conceal the presence of the two mammary glands that I now easily imagined pressing against me, delivering their twin loads of powerful poisons which she intended to kill both me and the forty-four bee-girls I was developing within myself. I imagined myself suddenly spewing those forty-four vicious bee-girls from myself and watching as they descended, stinger-first, upon the one who tried to kill them.

It took some work to shake myself free of that. Work, and a touch on both elbows as, simultaneously, Brad and Stacy touched me: and then one squeezed that elbow, cautioning me and, thankfully, disrupting that train of thought.

I looked up and counted to ten. I could tell that Francesca wasn't convinced: I'd resurrected the hive's reproduction machine, at least in her head: soon the Hive would be churning out bee-girls again and thus I'd sentenced Francesca to having to lead another attack, and...

"Francesca is right. She had no choice."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," she said, still indignant.

I caught my breath. "There are more humans left around here than I thought, and Bambi planned to hunt them to extinction if she had to. She would have turned those forty-four humans, and perhaps thousands more like them, into deadly warriors. She was going to be devious, sneaky, whatever she needed to be to make you pay. Francesca is correct. She had to stop Bambi despite the cost. And if she hadn't... I wouldn't have been able to save them."

I turned instantly to Stacy. "The Sphinx..."

"What?" Stacy asked.

"Do you think she delayed our intervention on purpose?"

"What do you mean, delayed?" Zoe asked, trying to get in on the conversation.

"We didn't get released from the Sphinx' control until... it was too late. A six hour flight, which we pushed as hard as we could, but still too late. She had to have known we wouldn't make it, that the battle would be over. But... if we'd gotten there earlier..."

"We would have attacked you, Brad said. "I like to think that 'I' wouldn't have, of course, but..."

"Right. Neither Stacy nor I had any defenses. The only modification to my body that the Sphinx let me have was the one that let me pick up the bees' distress signal. We arrived at the hive when it was defenseless but with enough time to save Bambi's "offspring". And for that to happen the hive had to have me take over as Queen, and once I was Queen I could..."

"Free them all", Stacy said.

I looked up, and then met Francesca's gaze. "This couldn't have happened in any other sequence. Together, we saved the forty-four humans and freed every bee-girl in the hive."

Francesca seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, before giving a nod. "Yes. I think that makes sense. There was no other time that this could have worked. You had to let us reduce the colony to almost nothing, and that allowed you to do what you did - that was the only way to save as many lives as you did." She turned to Zoe and Laurie. "If she'd been too early... she wouldn't be here talking to us now."

I gasped. "She's brilliant, the Sphinx. I had no idea, but... she must have known."

Francesca then let out a long, low breath. "I'm sorry you still had to go in and do that, Daisy, I really am. But it seems like it had to be this way. And your friend the Sphinx knew that all along."

I nodded. "I completely agree." I looked to my sides and got agreement from Stacy and Brad too. Does Brad look a little more like a guy now? Perhaps.

I watched as the others finished up their lunch, and probed my own body to see how close I was to having a normal human digestive system: not close enough yet, sadly. Nobody came to take the plates away: as I looked around I realized that this wasn't so much a restaurant as a communal eating area and kitchen. When Laurie got up to clear the table, Stacy went with her, and nobody objected: this was proper etiquette here. Of course, I watched across the expanse of green to the kitchen area and saw Stacy, who'd help to wash the dishes, fighting to reach a cabinet clearly built for lamia as it was way too high for anyone of human stature. Laurie took the clean dishes from her and effortlessly stretched herself upwards to push them away.

"So... what happens now?" Zoe asked. "The bee-girls... still alive? Do they even have a Queen, now that you're here?"

Stacy returned to my side. Laurie moved a bit closer.

I looked at Francesca. "Yes. Do you remember Lisa?"

Francesca nodded. "How could I ever forget?" For the others' benefit, Francesca relayed the story of the frightened orphan girl. Laurie already knew the story, of course, but it hadn't made it to Zoe, who was rightfully shocked.

"I left her in charge," I continued. "Though nobody has to listen to her, I suspect they will. Her mother, who was merged with her father, is here, somewhere, supposedly."

"I don't have the complete roster in my head but I can ask," Zoe said. "I'm sure we can find who's got her and how close she is to her birthday. Then we can get that message back to Lisa, somehow...?"

"Yes. We can spend some time and get those communications established."

"But-- Daisy," Zoe continued, "This is... only one colony. There must be... hundreds."

Brad nodded.

"She must know how many... I mean he," pointing at Brad.

"I don't know the exact number. There's not too much communications between hives except just before and after a swarm, during the siting process. But some of the bees work to keep track of such things and at the last count it was officially three hundred and seventy one, adding about two per day."

I nodded, having precisely the same information.

"And we only took care of one?" Zoe asked, rhetorically. "Okay, we've won this battle but I think we've lost the war." She put her head in her hands.

"Not at all," I said. "Most hives aren't like this one. One of my friends... she became Queen right before I almost did, had her own swarm before the one that attacked you... she said she was making changes, now that she could. Her hive was going to protect a wildlife refuge, and other than zapping poachers or trespassers, the only humans she was going to take would be those who asked to join. If she did was she said she was going to do, her hive has has a full-blown kitchen and cafeteria and her workers can eat solid foods like like Brad can now. I modeled those changes in this hive on Jillian's idea. I guess another way to put this is-- that aggressiveness is getting diluted as they spread. You just happened to have the first, original, and most aggressive hive in your neighborhood precisely because it was the first."

Francesca looked a little askance at me. "I'm still not totally convinced about that, Daisy, but I hope you're right."

"But what's to stop some other megalomaniac from starting her own hive and doing the same thing?" asked Laurie.

"Nothing, I'm afraid."

"Yes. Something," Stacy said. "Us."

"Yeah," Brad chimed in, and Francesca said the same.

"I started this," I corrected. "It's my responsibility to do what I can to keep it from getting out of hand."

"I'll disagree," Francesca said. "You can't do this alone. And you don't have to. You said it yourself: Look what we just did together. I'll pledge right now to keep doing it. What they did to you was unforgivable - and they paid for that. I, myself, would dearly like and work to see every bee girl who does similarly pay similarly."

"She's right," Stacy said. "This isn't your issue. Brad and I were a part of it as much as you were, and we-- you-- have friends. If we did this here, together, we can do it again if the need arises. Right?"

"I think most, if not all of the lamia would agree. I mean--" Zoe patted her swollen tail-- "Look at us."

Zoe raised her water glass to us. "To cooperation, then."

. . .

To free the table for other diners, we wandered together. The lamia were still in something of a building frenzy, within days of building sufficient accommodations for their soon-to-be burgeoning number. It was all quite impressive.

"We have no delusions that all of them will remain lamia for too long," Zoe said. "Mine have all decided to give it a try. But they all have your 6.0 abilities, of course," she explained. "So my goal is to make this life as positive and as comfortable as we can: to welcome each new arrival... because... well, we really feel that way. As bee-girls, all these women had to endure pretty rigourous schedules, training, all the hunting, I mean... they all claim to like it, of course, but now that they're free I want to give them all something worthwhile. Stacy, you're the one who told me: In this world, the best to increase your number is by making your life so appealing that others want to join you. So that's exactly what we're trying to do. The right mix of nature and technology, a supportive environment, you get the picture."

"It seems wonderful," Stacy said. "The bee-girls have grown their numbers through predation, mostly... but this works... just as well."

"Well, we don't have three hundred and seventy one colonies with thousands of individuals each, so... the jury is still 'out' there, Stacy, but I like to think it'll work in the long run. As for the bee-girls... The woman who started it all... I'd very much like to meet her," Zoe said.

"Yes. Speaking of megalomaniacs," Francesca interjected. "This all started with her."

"It was two of them," I answered. "The woman whose idea it was is named Mary and I think she's still Queen of one of the hives. Her best friend, Aeris, helped implement it and got that original hive started."

"They should both be locked up, or worse," Francesca mused, partially to herself.

"Then let's make that a mission," Stacy volunteered. "I'd like for Brad and Daisy here to get through her transformations first," Stacy said, "...but I bet we could find Mary and arrange an... interview."

Francesca smiled. "I would very much like to be there when that happens."

Another lamia glided up, a little slowly thanks to her pregnancy, and whispered in Zoe's ears.

"Human laws have more or less completely failed us here," Francesca said. "When Daisy...started the 6.0 revolution, there were supposed to be some kind of Protective Services. Daisy's sister is part of it. Keeping humans safe from the other 6.0 developments if needed, and making sure that everyone coexists peacefully. But some have said they're just as bad, just another human organization trying to give an edge to humans because they're humans. And from what I heard from Alicia herself, the humans also passed some ridiculous legislation at some point in the last year which means they can't interfere now at all. They've pretty much washed their hands of the whole thing, from what I can tell. They don't care if humans get taken, as long as it's not folks close to them."

"Well, that's fortuitous timing," Zoe explained. "Because, Daisy, it seems that you have three visitors that have just arrived at our property. Were you expecting your sister?"

"No, I--"

I shot a look, immediately, at Francesca. Alicia.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

55: Retribution

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:33 pm

Thanks again to bigmacrmuk! --dw

Francesca: My jaw had set. My mouth was a thin, bitter line as I held Daisy's gaze.

She was here.

The immediate question now, however, was...what was I going to do about it? And, more to the point - what would Daisy let me do? I knew what I wanted to do - wanted more than anything right now - but if Alicia was here, and Daisy told me directly not to harm her...I would comply.

"Let's go see her," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "But you do the talking. I want to introduce myself to her later on - if she starts asking questions."

"She'll have no idea who you are... who you were," Daisy said. To me, her eyes looked blank. Two years trapped inside that girl's body, in her various forms, gives me a lot of context. The look tells me she's surprised. And scared. And Daisy doesn't scare easily. She took a deep breath to steel herself. "Okay, let's go."

I nod, and then come to a decision. "Let's go out to the barn and meet her there, rather than at the gate. If I'm going to introduce myself to her, then I want a few of my sisters with me."

That drew a shrewd look from Daisy. I was pretty sure that she knew what I was going to plan on by using the barn - but again, she could say the word and Alicia would walk free, unmolested.

We walked out to the barn, and quietly waited for a few minutes for Alicia and whoever might be with her to approach. I deliberately remained in the background, inconspicuous amongst the other lamia...but inside, my heart was beating very fast.

How was this day going to end? Was I really...ready to do this?

Deep breaths.

Daisy grew impatient and her friends followed, fifteen yards or so towards the road and away from the barn where I wanted her.. We'd told Alicia that Daisy was here, of course, but I suspect she didn't believe us. I cautiously slid up a little closer, through the grass, so I could hear: but at that point I was just one of many curious snake-women, undistinguishable. And I very much wanted it that way...until the time was right.

Daisy's bee-girl tail was impossible to hide no matter how much Daisy tried to turn her body. She held that tail down against the ground, black stinger lying in the dust, pointed my way. Alicia, flanked by her miserable "friends", came up in big strides and didn't wait until she was close enough that she could have kept her voice down before letting all of us know exactly what she was thinking.

"Daisy, you fucking idiot."

Daisy seemed taken aback. Her stinger lifted off the ground just a bit. To her credit, though, she stood her ground:

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to ask you that same question. I was going to ask, after I spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on an apparently misguided 'rescue' of my dear sweet sister, why she made a bee-line for that goddamed hive at the first available opportunity, but now I'll say I no longer care about that. You want to be a fucking bee-girl for the rest of your life, that's now officially your problem."

"You-- you don't talk to her that way. You have no--" Brad said, trying his best to sound macho, but at the moment, failing to do do.

"And who the hell are you?" Alicia demanded of this interloper.

"I'm-- Brad." The other bee-girl took a step forward and probably wished she looked a little less, or more, like a bee-girl at that point. Brad had no stinger, not much of a tail to speak of, and was not yet very... masculine.

"Brad? The infamous boyfriend? Oh, yeah. I remember. You tried to rescue your precious girlfriend on your own, didn't you? And got turned into both a bee and a girl for your trouble? That's precious! Sorry, Brad, your pathetic story doesn't interest me. I'm here to find out how the lamia one-upped those cretinous insects and what the hell my sister is doing here."

Zoe, ever the leader, took command of the conversation at the point; her voice very clear, very authoritative. "And I need to know what use that information would be to you," she said. "Because I'm afraid we're not at liberty to just answer your questions for no reason at all."

"And why not?" Casey asked, standing elbow-to-elbow with Alicia.

"Because," Zoe explained, "at our last encounter, you and your people made the very transparent accusation that we were responsible for the disappearance of your sister. We cooperated with you fully and you made our lives miserable during the investigation. Now the evidence of our innocence stands before you and I've yet to hear the slightest hint of an apology."

"Not that I believe I would accept it, at this point," Zoe added, as a postscript.

I listened to Alicia exchange insults - mostly from her end - silently, watching her converse with Daisy, Brad and Zoe. If anything, Alicia's attitude helped me - her coming in with such obvious contempt towards everyone involved made what I planned much, much easier.

I could pretty easily trap them inside the barn, but for that to work I had to get all of them in there first. And I needed to do that while remaining silent.

All of them...including my own ex-girlfriend, Cerys, apparently.

When Alicia and Casey had come out to investigate, she had chosen to follow them, it seemed. Evidently they remained close, maybe Alicia had gotten her a job with the same police agency that she belonged to - either way, it suited my own plans down to the ground. Also it was pretty clear that the lamia had neither forgiven nor forgotten what Alicia had obviously put them through after Daisy had disappeared, and that played into my hands too.

Though we really did need to lure them into that barn...

As the conversation continued, I began to bristle more and more at the attitude Alicia was displaying. But I couldn't make myself known. Not yet.

"How did you even know I was here?" Daisy asked of her sister. Good question.

"The hive has a very interesting weakness: one way in, one way out. And I've got cameras. And facial recognition. Did you forget? When they tagged you arriving, I was surprised, and maybe even sad... for about thirty seconds. For maybe ten of those seconds I even thought of sending a team to rescue you again until common sense came back to me. You went back voluntarily. So... scratch one pesky little sister off my list of worries, you know? But then you left the hive. The same cameras caught you and your genetically confused 'friends' this morning."

Zoe whispered to one of her helpers, who scooted off toward the barn. "Just a momentary interruption, if I may. I may not be inclined to help these humans, but I would like to demonstrate that we are civilized and are willing to talk this out. It is still quite warm out and also our dinnertime. I suggest we invite our guests indoors, where we'll have more comfortable accommodations for this discussion."

Atta girl, Zoe. Play it cool.

"Thank you," Daisy said. She was sweating; a bee-girl, I think, would use her wings to cool herself but it was so dry out on this pathway that doing so would just kick up a lot of dust.

"Fine," Alicia said, in a frustrated voice. "Keep your eyes open," she cautioned.

Zoe dispatched another lamia ahead to the barn door, and with a glance I understood she was checking with other lamia inside, getting them to ready the trap once Alicia was inside. Alicia's defenses were up, and we needed to lure her safely into air-conditioned comfort. I could also tell, despite her tone, that she'd be very anxious to see what this new, large building of ours held. Perfect.

Daisy and her friends waited for Alicia and her friends to pass them, so she wasn't having to walk alongside her sister.

"So," Alicia continued on the walk, "This makes for the second time that, somehow, my sister was able to voluntarily leave that hive. And since you had everything to do with those insects even existing in the first place, I'm starting to think that she's given herself some kind of founder's immunity to it. Because if that's true, that would change everything we know about this 'freedom' she's supposedly given us."

We reached the door to the barn, and a lamia at the door graciously motioned everyone inside. Similar to on Daisy's arrival, there were tables set, aside from the others. Daisy and Brad, in particular, were thankful for the coolness, and Alicia and her friends seemed disappointed that our building held living and community space, not some deep, dark, snake-woman secret. As before, we'd set up a table for this gathering. I slipped into the building well behind, keeping near enough to blend in with Zoe's other assistants.

I glanced up towards the barn eaves. No lamia up there...yet. Didn't want to spook Alicia, or Casey or Cerys. But they would be shortly.

"Daisy," Stacy said, "I wouldn't let her insult you like that!"

Daisy whirled around instantly and faced her sister. "Don't worry, Stacy, I won't. First of all, Alicia, how dare you imply that I'd ever do something like that! Being loyal to the Queen is part of the bee-girl culture. It's something that most of the colonists actually like, if you'd bothered to ask any of them. I'm here now because, after Zoe and her team attacked the hive, in their desperation the remaining colonists took me on as their Queen, as I was still biologically suited for it. Once I was in that role I used my authority to release all of the remaining colonists from their oath of loyalty. All of those colonists are as free to leave, even to leave the species, as I was. I turned my 'crown' over to another woman who feels the same way. My job there is done. So here we are. Any further questions?"

Rather than waiting for those further questions, Daisy turned and headed towards the table we'd set up for the meeting. She had definitely attracted the attention of many of my sisters.

Alicia slapped her hand on Daisy's shoulder, which nearly resulted in Alicia getting a well-deserved sting had Daisy not halted that reflex in time. She spun around again.

"Yes," Alicia said, her face just inches from her sister's. "You never explained how you escaped the first time, even to make that phone call."

"Well--"

That was the question I was waiting for. The one that I wanted to answer for Daisy. Almost time.

As she stumbled over her answer, from the background I gave a silent hand signal, and three lamia took places in the eaves, moving silently, relying upon the distraction posed by Daisy and Alicia at the table to remain unseen.

Now they were directly above the doorway, unseen. And Alicia and her friends were more than enough inside the barn.

I allowed myself a little smile. Trap set. Time to start the show.

"Excuse me..." I said, slithering a little forward, presenting myself. "Francesca Castella. Nice to meet you."

Alicia turned to face me, still with the same contemptuous look I knew very well indeed. "Why would I care what one of you snake-women calls yourself? And if you hadn't noticed, I was talking to-"

I shrugged, smiling. "You shouldn't. But perhaps...you should care about the question you asked. Maybe it's one you should have asked the right people before. How exactly did Daisy escape the Hive, when no one had done before or since? How did she escape with enough of her mind intact to be able to summon you to help in a way that was undetectable to anyone but who she was sending it to?"

Alicia shook her head, evidently impatient. "Like I said, she probably built some kind of immunity to it, so-"

I interrupted. "If that were the case, why not get out before? Why choose a day a year and half after she was captured to escape?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking her," replied Alicia, clipped and irritable. "Now, if you'll let me, I'll ask her the questions, thank you."

With that, she turned back to Daisy, ready to question her again.

I nodded for a moment, wanting to draw it out for as long as I could. This feeling of exultance, the feeling when you're finally about to acheive something you've been thinking about, something you've been working for for years...I wanted to bask in the glow, I admit it.

Then I slithered a little forward, before speaking again.

"Perhaps she had help. Not from inside the Hive, but from inside her own head."

Daisy's eyes widened. She knew I was very close to revealing myself now, and so I had fully committed to the plan I had in mind.

Alicia didn't notice. She had turned back to me...seeming to notice me and pay more careful attention for the first time. "What exactly do you mean?" she asked, face suffused now with suspicion.

I kept the facade up, playing the simple expositor. "Exactly what I said. Perhaps, at some point, someone she "took in" became a passenger in her head, and as a result that passenger was able to help her escape at a crucial time. Maybe it happened by accident while she was with the bee girls..."

I fell silent for a moment, before saying the sentence that would drop the most obvious hint yet.

"...or maybe they were there all the time. From before she was captured. Someone that she saved."

Alicia's eyes had narrowed to slits. "I want to know how you know all this - if it is in fact true."

At last.

"I think you know the answer to that question, Alicia Potemkin. My name wasn't always Francesca Castella."

I draw myself up a little, showing off my full height.

"I was that passenger. I saved Alicia from the grotesqery that the bee-girls did to her. And...once upon a time...my name was Rob McLeane."

Alicia didn't seem to catch on in that first instant. But Cerys, my ex-girlfriend, absolutely did. Her eyes went wide. It was delightful, as until this moment the last memory I had of Cerys was rather unpleasant, to say the least. I'd hoped back then she was merely under Alicia's spell: but, years later she was still at her side, which told me all I needed to know.

"That's completely impossible," Alicia responded. "I happen to know for a fact that Rob McLeane is--"

Then, deliciously, the facts kicked Alicia's legs out from under her.

"What, Alicia? He's...what, exactly?"

"Yes, Alicia," Zoe injected. "Since you seem to be aware of this person, exactly what happened to him?"

Zoe was in on my terrible, almost unbelievable secret. It's not a story I'm proud of: captured by Alicia, shrunk down to a single egg cell, then "entrusted" to my ex-girlfriend to restore my body. But Laurie, my loving 'mother' here, necessarily learned my story when she took me in. She saw what happened through my eyes, through Daisy's. Rather than give me back the life that Alicia had stolen from me, how Cerys sat neatly atop Alicia's toilet and menstruated.

And Alicia was now in a room with a fair few lamia who knew exactly what she had done to someone who was now one of their own.

"Crap, Alicia, we have to get out of here," Casey said.

Alicia didn't listen, didn't move. "But--"

Finally I got to ask the question. The one I'd been waiting to ask for years.

"Did you forget that Daisy shared your body at that time? Unlike her sister, she's got a good heart and rescued me from the fate the three of you planned? Did you even forget that she flat out told you that she had done so?"

"Daisy-- is this-- true?"

"Queen Aeris missed that I had Rob's memories, personality in my head," Daisy said, without emotion. "Therefore Rob wasn't affected by the memory wipe. He inspired me, at the right time, to get that message out to Belle. He... saved me. I owed this to him. To let him become what he wanted." Daisy pointed at me. ""He wanted to be this. But more important, to be under her own control. For a change."

I nodded, completing the message.

Then, finally, light dawned on Alicia. "Holy Crap. Daisy, you-- he was going to--"

"I don't think there's any rationalization possible for what you tried to do, Alicia," Zoe said, still in her calm, leader voice. "The question now is what--"

"Run!" Cerys shouted, and to them, I'm sure, the twenty meters to the not-quite-closed barn door seemed like ten times that distance. Alicia turned and bolted. My sisters closed in from the sides, more curious about the commotion than participating in an orchestrated trap, but it had the desired effect: a nice, clear pathway to escape, a perfect distraction from what lay overhead.

I noticed that Alicia didn't seem to notice or care when Casey slipped on our flooring and fell, or that none of us were chasing. Fortunately the door itself is heavy enough that by the time Alicia had started to open it, Casey had caught up.

I nodded to my sister and cousins. As Alicia started to open the door, over fourteen hundred pounds of lamia fell atop the three of them from the beams above the door: a huge pile of human screams and green scales and writhing muscle as my sister and cousins each picked one of the three girls and began converting that pile of chaos into three neatly wrapped, completely coiled-in women.

I calmly walked up to the door. My sister and cousins smiled, proudly, at me, and Zoe nodded at them. Perfectly done. Absolutely faultless.

"Be careful!" Daisy yelled, as my sister prepared to tease her captive. "Alicia's got defensive weapons like yours! Her breasts, her urine--"

"Daisy! You fucking rat! Whose side are you on? I'm your sister, for God's--"

I held one hand up and made a fist, squeezing it. Alicia's tirade stopped and turned into a sudden and rather noisy wheeze, wheeze as my sister, quite pleasantly, squeezed the air from her lungs.

Alicia couldn't breathe in. We watched for perhaps fifteen seconds until I nodded, and next thing she was gasping for breath, still unable to speak. As she coughed and spluttered, I slithered forward, covering the ground between them slowly, deliberately.

"You know..." I said quietly, "it's funny you should be so interested in family ties now when you clearly couldn't care less about your dear sister when she revisited the bee-girls."

As I got closer, I nodded to Cassie, the one that held Alicia. "What Daisy is said is exactly right. Keep your skin away from any part of her body. Scales should be fine though. Just like with a bee-girl."

Cassie nodded eagerly, and I gave her a wink and a smile.

"So..." I continued. "Seeing as we're all here now, why don't you tell us all the grand story of Rob McLeane, huh? Tell everyone here exactly what happened to him...and, more importantly, why you did it..."

I crossed the remaining gap to Cassie, Alicia now fully enfolded from feet to neck in her coils and squirming.

"Why should I?" fumed Alicia.

"Oh, because I said so??" I responded. Cassie effortlessly tightened her coils again. "And because my sister will crush the life out of you if you don't?"

I watched my sister carefully loosen two coils at Alicia's waist, then reach through the gap to begin relieving Alicia of anything she carried in her pockets. Good strategy, those bee-girls have. One by one she pried free a phone, a wallet, while Alicia squirmed and tried to prevent it. My cousins took that hint and removed similar implements from the other two girls. Then, down by Alicia's ankles, a gadget that looked like a spring-loaded syringe.

"Your sister isn't allergic to anything, is she?" I asked, as Cassie held up that find.

"No. That's probably similar to what she used on me," Daisy said. "It would knock you out, probably."

Zoe summoned one of my other cousins to collect everything the women had on them. "I'll take care of it, no problem" The lamia glided easily through the partially open door and disappeared with the syringe, phones, everything.

"Ooh!" Cassie said, spreading two coils near Alicia's midsection to reveal that her shirt was wet. A milky white substance dripped from one of Cassie's coils to the next. "She's trying to poison me, poor thing! That's okay, honey, let all that nasty poison out... won't hurt me."

"You infernal--"

Another squeeze. Cassie was enjoying this, which was absolutely fine with me.

I give another quick hand signal to her to stop squeezing Alicia, and grin.

"That's it...all you have is words, now. A bit less cutting when you're the one at someone else's mercy, aren't they? A little bit less cutting when you don't have a person trapped helplessly in a vagina, their whole life taken from them and you're the one with all the power...?"

I now come face to face with her again, with my own eyes, for the first time in many years. The first time since I saw that evil smile of hers as she drew me inside her in my apartment building all that time ago.

"So let's hear some more words like that now, shall we? Come on. Answer my question. Tell everyone here...what happened to Rob McLeane?"

I shrug. "Or Cassie can just eat you right away."

Alicia gritted her teeth. "You know damn well what happened, if you used to be him."

"But I think we'd all like to hear your version, wouldn't we?"

Others started to gather. Zoe nodded, inviting the colony to gather around. The three humans squirmed in my friends' warm, strong tails, trying in vain to get comfortable or perhaps escape.

Word went out, and soon my peers were filtering in from outside, the other buildings. We had the Regional Protective Services girl, Alicia, and odds were that none of them would be leaving.
Every second that Alicia stalled, her audience grew. Casey and Cerys were visibly sweating.

"Fine," Alicia said. "You want the whole story? Then let's start at the beginning. You like being lamia? Well if this man had his way, each and every one of you would still be human. You'd grow old and die and couldn't change your appearance or share your thoughts during sex or any of it. He stumbled onto the secret when it was still a secret, before we were ready to share it with the world and when the one-point-zero men[/] of the world could have put a [i]violent stop to it. If it hadn't been for me stopping him, you'd all be in jail right now. Or dead. Or sitting at home in your sad human house complaining about your miserable lives and counting the days. You'd be housewives and maids and secretaries and administrative assistants and prisoners of a society designed by and for men. You'd be making and feeding babies and hoping your sons don't get killed in one of their endless wars. Is that the story you were hoping to hear, 'Francesca?' Because you were about to run to the authorities. Did you forget about that?? Well?"

I stayed silent for a moment...and then gave an enthusastic round of applause, still smiling broadly, showing my clapping hands as I walked a little circle.

"Fantastic! All of it true, and such concern shown for the lamia here!" I enthused. Then I lowered my voice a little, giving a stage whisper.

"Though it's rather funny that Officer Potemkin is showing such concern for lamia welfare right now, when before she showed nothing but contempt."

I continued my circle. "Yes, I discovered the secret that Alicia and her family had, the one that allowed her to gain such power. The one that Daisy then truly unlocked - much to Alicia's chagrin, of course. If it had been her decision, avians, bee-girls, lamia...none of them would exist at all.

"And yes, I saw the power that they used being abused. I saw a world dominated by 5.0 women...in the same way that men had done before them. I saw nothing changing. I saw the same old power struggles -- just with a different group in charge."

I lowered my head for a moment. "And yes, I was going to tell the authorities about it, so that power could at least be handled well. But before that, I made possibly the biggest mistake I ever made. I told them I was going to do it."

I finished my circle, and glared once again at Alicia.

"And now you can stop avoiding my question. Once you found out this defenceless man was going to tell someone...tell them what you did to him. Tell them exactly."

And now my voice became ice.

"And. Tell. Them. Why."

Alicia started breathing heavily, enough that Cassie relaxed her coils a bit, but that confinement wasn't a factor.

"Fine. You want to know what happened?" Alicia stared right into my eyes, an unwavering, fierce stare. "He was frightened. Oh, so frightened of a teenaged girl. He knew what he'd done, what he'd sentenced himself to. It wasn't just me that he'd threatened, my family. It was everything. Thousands of us, decades of work by extraordinarily brilliant women, all at risk. But, see, he didn't actually run to the authorities like a frightened three-year-old: instead, he baited me. Dared me to do something about it. So I did. I let him feel what a real woman could do when she wanted. I grabbed his imagination and didn't let go. I seduced him. Cornerned him. Undressed him.

"I didn't wrap him in some goddamned tail or point a gun at him. I used my looks. My hair. My scent. My voice. Oh, and he was scared. So delightfully frightened of me, of what he knew I could do. He let it happen, didn't you, Rob? I cast my spell over him and watched his body start to shrink and he screeched like a little girl but then couldn't stop it... could you? Smaller, and smaller. He started looking so incredibly delicious, so edible. He didn't know what to do: his body shrinking away at my request, and I felt myself start to get nice and wet between my legs... you should have seen him! The tears! The last-minute regret for what he'd done!

"I tried to give him a chance to save himself. To be a part of what was happening around him instead of a threat to it. But he wouldn't back down. So I spread my legs. I opened my vagina. I picked him up and put him against my sex and oh my god you felt so good going inside me. I made room for him inside my belly and I knew right then that I was probably never, ever going to let him go. I sucked him into my twat and" -- Alicia squirmed her hips suggestively -- "squeezed him into myself and sealed him deep inside me. Oh, and he felt so good: to start absorbing him, know that the world was rid of him even if I wasn't."

Casey was as white as a ghost as Alicia paused. "Alicia--'

"We arranged to bring his girlfriend here from London. I had to know what she found appealing about you. She's an amazing woman, Francesca. You don't deserve her and never did. You were never a good boyfriend to her. Where were you when she needed you? How was she even a part of your life? I saved her from the existence you'd planned for her. Casey and I fell in love with her immediately and she with us and now we're partners--"

Casey shook her body, trying to get Alicia's attention. "Alicia-- this isn't helping--"

Alicia wasn't derailed in the slightest. "And my two partners are so wonderful. Oh, God, yes. I'd do anything for them. Best friends. Soulmates. We're teammates. We work together all the time on everything and fulfill each other perfectly. Oh, yes, and every night we fuck like rabbits. Your ex-girlfriend is so absolutely hot, and Casey and I--"

"Alicia!" Cerys cried out. "Stop!"

At that, Alicia stopped. She scanned the room, the first time she'd broken her gaze with me. Hundreds of lamia tuned into every word, listening to every breath.

"So I reduced him to a single egg," Alicia continued. "And as I did so, every time I went to the bathroom I teased him, how a little more of his body was going down the drain every time. And then, when the time was right--"

"Alicia," Casey whispered, "for heavens' sake--!"

"--I gave that egg to you, Cerys, so you could decide whether there was anything left of that relationship you used to have with Rob. Anything worth saving. Anything worth nine months of pregnancy and years of child-rearing and you decided, like I already knew, that there wasn't. And we decided instead that, in another year or so, after what's left of Regional Protective Services is dissolved and humans themselves are nearing extinction, that the three of us would have our own children, retire and raise them ourselves in our lovely home. Not converted humans, but our own children, just us--"

"I think we've heard enough," I said, gesturing to Cassie, who immediately squeezed, making Alicia gasp and splutter. "Cerys, what did you do with that egg? With all that you thought was left of 'me'?"

Cerys was crying. "Please, please don't make me answer that."

"You could have held me inside your ovaries like Alicia here did. You could have given me another chance. You could have, someday, given birth to me. What did you do, instead?"

"Please, Rob-- Francesca, I wasn't in my right mind, I didn't--"

A nod, this time, and my cousin Yvonne squeezed about half the air from my ex-girlfriend.

"What... did... you... do?" I demanded.

"I let myself get my period."

"And?"

"I... felt you leave my body. I thought you were gone... forever."

Two-thirds of my lamia relatives hadn't heard this much of the story, and there were gasps and murmurs in the crowd.

"And then?"

Cerys was in tears. I wasn't moved by them-- well, maybe for a tiny instant, but sense returned to me. When Cerys stalled, Yvonne squeezed her again, this time around her legs in a way that hurts: she burst out crying. I didn't care.

"And then???" My voice was steel.

"We... peed on what was left of you," Cerys said. "All three of us. To make sure you were gone and to... laugh."

None of my lamia friends had heard that part of the story - not even Zoe. Even if Laurie had read that from my memory, she hadn't shared it with anyone. Now the gasps were very much audible.

Zoe lost her leader-like, civil composure and strayed, impossibly, into salty language. "Holy shit. Francesca--"

I nodded at her. "I know. No one knew about that...until now."

Taking a look around at the other lamia, noting their complete, horrified fascination, I had to marvel again at just how well this had gone. I knew Alicia, knew what she thought about what she did, and as such I just had to lead her down the path she had been dying to go down - to stand up and say what she did was right...in front of an audience.

To make what came next seem at least half-right.

"So..." I said slowly, looking at Alicia once more. "There you have it. All of that is true. That is, pretty much to a letter, what this woman did to me - someone she could have talked down, someone she could have negotiated with...but instead chose to do all that, simply because she could and because she enjoyed it."

I put a finger to my chin, pretending to remember something. "Oh, and there was that business with the two guys you had screw you while I was inside you and the little family taunting sessions...but we can't really cover everything here, can we? We'd be all day."

"Alicia--" Casey pleaded. "Do something! Alicia!"

Tears were still running down Cerys' face. I paid them no heed. I couldn't afford to - not right now.

"These women tried to kill me, simply because I was afraid. Without any regret - indeed, with enjoyment. Drawing out the process as long as they could."

I looked at Daisy, who held my gaze for a moment. "And if it hadn't been for the grace of Daisy, somehow claiming what was left of me when all seemed lost...they would have done. And no one would have known about it."

Enough was enough, I thought. Time to bring the curtain down on this little performance.

"For that secretive, malicious abuse of power...they will all pay."

And now I moved very close to Alicia.

"Now."

To give her her due, Alicia didn't back away, even knowing what was likely about to happen. Her face just showed the same contempt it had always done. Don't worry, Alicia. Plenty of time for the fear to really set in...

I then lower my voice to a whisper.

"So...who goes first, Alicia?"

A cousin glided up, with a pail of water, gloves, and a sponge. "Here, Cassie," she said. For the next minute or so she washed Cassie's coils down, getting rid of the poison that Alicia had expended. With that done, Cassie carefully stripped Alicia of her clothing.

"Me, obviously. I'm the one you want. You can let my friends go."

"Alicia!" Casey yelled.

My other cousins began undressing Casey and Cerys.

"So we become snake-women for a while. Disgusting slithering creatures, I know, but there's got to be some silver lining to that dreary existence or there wouldn't be so many of them."

I had to laugh at that. Evidently I hadn't been clear in my intent.

"Oh, I'm sorry... did I mislead you into thinking you were going to survive this?" I asked Alicia. "For some long, drawn out process of changing your mind and body while I exult in the sensation? I am very sorry if I did." I did my best to give her a knowing smile.

"You're a miserable beast, has anyone told you that?"

I ignored Alicia's taunt and instead lifted the far end of my tail. The slit underneath was hard to see until I pointed it out. "When you leave my body, it's not going to be as one of us. If you get my drift. But despite your wishes I think we should save the best for last, don't you?"

I glided over to my cousin Valerie and her captive, Cerys. "My dear, sweet former girlfriend. We had a future before us, once. I believed that." I nodded at my cousin, and watched as she unwrapped her coils from around Cerys' chest, keeping the tip of her tail around her neck. She wrapped her arms through the gap instead, locking her arms just under Cerys' naked bosom, put her chin on Cerys' shoulder and just nodded, smiling like she was telling her best friend a secret. Meanwhile, I looked down at myself. A tiny slit appeared just below my waist, and then it started to grow. I looked back up. "Such a shame it had to end this way. I wish you had made a much different choice than to fall for this woman, of all people."

Cerys could not take her eyes off of what was happening just below my waist. My vagina made some faint wet, sticky noises as it opened. This always seemed to surprise humans: I mean, they knew we could swallow them whole, yet never considered that to do so, the "hole" would be so large. As she watched, that opening kept growing, revealing the soft, moist, inviting, and very hungry interior. Suddenly, Cerys stiffened and shrieked as Valerie injected her with her poison.

"Alicia-- do something-- help me!!" Cerys cried.

Alicia, to her credit, struggled mightily trying to free herself: to the point where Cassie felt compelled to release her, reset her coils and grip her again, more securely.

"Cery--"

Cassie squeezed, preventing Alicia from speaking or moving. Instead, she turned Alicia, who was now completely immobilized, to watch what was about to happen.

I leaned back as Valerie lifted Cerys from the floor. "No! Please! Rob-- I... I still love you! I--"

"Oh, please, don't degrade yourself with lies now, Cerys. I'll keep it nice and painless, I promise. Both physically and emotionally - you know, the way you didn't. You'll go into making a better and stronger me! So your life isn't wasted after all."

As Valerie lifted Cerys, she uncoiled from her, feet first. I leaned back, and Valerie aimed Cerys' feet for my opening: facing away from me, so she could be eye-to-eye with Alicia. I wanted to her to see all of this - in detail.

Then, I brought my own tail up and interwove it with my cousin's, so I could help guide her.

"And don't you remember? Rob is dead. You killed him. But...Francesca lives."

Alicia could barely get a whisper out as Cerys' legs disappeared into my body. "No--!"

"Alicia! Help! Casey! Stop her!"

I knew Daisy was behind me, but I couldn't see her. Alicia didn't call on her, couldn't take her attention away from what was happening right in front of her eyes. I wriggled my body as I swallowed Cerys' hips: they were nice, shapely, slid inside easily and gave my vaginal muscles something to hold onto. A little bit more and I could release my coils from around her body.

"Cerys!!!" Casey shrieked.

But gravity and my vaginal muscles were working against Cerys now. Her torso slipped in pretty quickly: faster than I wanted, actually, but my passage down there was quite empty. "Mmm... You feel really good. Delicious, actually."

"Go for it, Francesca!" one of my friends shouted from the crowd. This kicked off a round of cheers that drowned out Casey's cries and Alicia's attempts to speak and Cerys' last words. She never finished that last sentence.

"I never--"

Then, with a slick, hungry gulp, Cerys was gone.

I just sat there for a moment, swaying in rhythm to help work Cerys further down into my body so I could get to work digesting her. Everyone could still see Cerys' outline through my body, still struggling, all knees and elbows, impeded only partially by Valerie's poison. Still very much alive, but everyone watching knew it wouldn't be long. It wasn't as quick a system as the bee-girls have: the Queen Bee could reduce a human being to liquid within maybe thirty minutes, but lamia are designed to not completely digest a human if that human is going to be transformed.

My vagina slit zipped itself closed again and Cerys slowly sank further down, her body already softening inside mine.

"Thank you, Valerie. Nicely done."

Valerie received a polite round of applause from my species-mates, and then, with a smile, glided away to join the audience.

I spoke with my other cousin, Olive, who was still keeping the death grip on Casey. I reached down, quite aware of the large bulge Cerys was making in my rather short tail.

"I don't know if I can handle all three," I said. "Would you mind?"

"It would be my absolute pleasure, Francesca!" Olive chirped. I glided over until I was next to Alicia, watching along with her as Olive injected Casey with her venom: just a small dose. As she was doing this, her vaginal slit appeared and began to grow.

"Alicia! Do something!!!"

But Alicia couldn't do anything. To Casey's dismay, she didn't even plead for Casey's life. It was spiteful: Alicia knew I was hoping to hear her beg.

"Say goodbye to your lover, Alicia," I whispered, smiling as we watched the scene unfolding before us.

"She was my college roommate," Alicia whispered, stunned. "She was such a wonderful... friend..."

Casey overheard this, to my delight. "You're already referring to me in the past tense??? Dammit, Alicia, I thought we--"

Olive lifted Alicia from the floor, leaned back, and opened wide. She centered Casey's feet over her opening.

Alicia, still, was silent.

"Alicia! Francesca! Someone! Please! We didn't mean it, Francesca! I'm so sorry!"

"Too late," Olive whispered, uncoiling from Casey's legs and injecting that part of Casey into herself.

I watched Alicia's face from inches away. She couldn't take her eyes off the scene, except to survey the audience once, and barely whispered: "Casey..."

Olive went much more slowly than I had, working Casey's hips down into her own. Once Casey was in that far, and Olive had a good grip on her that way, she uncoiled herself from the rest of Casey's body. She started what we call the "snake dance": slow, sensual, elliptical gyrations that helped us swallow our "prey". For a willing victim, it was an overtly sexual dance: most humans were driven to ecstasy as they slowly slipped down into a lamia's waiting body. Casey was too tearful and panicked to enjoy it that way.

I saw Olive use another trick I wish I'd thought of with Cerys. By arranging her tail the way she had, she was effectively having Casey stand up inside her: Casey's tail a "sleeve" that so far had been pulled up from Casey's feet to her waist. With each orbit of the dance Casey slipped a bit more of her tail under Casey's feet: the effect being that the top of Casey's head remained the same distance from the ground, Casey's own natural height, but Olive was gradually sliding up over her, growing "taller".

Casey looked down, which gave the reaction most people would have looking down over a precipice; namely, wishing she hadn't seen what she'd seen. She reached down with her fingers, to probe that point where Olive's body met her own, the green scales yielding to Olive's soft interior, a thin layer of moisture and Casey's own bare skin. Her fingers almost got caught and she yanked them away and looked back at Alicia, who remained unhelpful.

"You know," Olive suddenly volunteered, "This one doesn't seem so bad. From what I'm reading from her, she was more caught up in Alicia's plans than the driver of anything."

"She participated," I answered. "She was there when it happened, and she encouraged Alicia and taunted Rob all the way through. She seduced Rob's girlfriend and smuggled her into the US inside her vagina. She helped turn Cerys against him."

"I know, but... I think she might be redeemable. Of the three, she might be worth saving."

Casey tried to turn. Olive kept the snake dance going but with less intensity, stopped making forward progress.

"Thank you..." Alicia whispered. "She's too good to... to..."

Alicia hung her head. "You can have me. Just let her go. It was my fault."

Olive, perkily, shook her head. "Oh, I can't let her go. It's too late for that."

I nodded, and, still watching Olive and Casey, spoke in a moderate voice to Alicia: "That vaginal entrance is decidedly one-way, I'm afraid."

"But I think I'm willing to take you on as my child," Olive said. She nodded back at me, a timing cue. Then she ran her fingers through Casey's hair. "You can be one of us. You'll make a great lamia. How about that?"

"Really? You're going to spare her?" Alicia said. For the first time, I think I saw a tear.

"Her errors were ones of words only, rather than deeds...so I think so," I said. "She'll become one of very many children. All those former bee-girls, her cousins. And I think we can arrange to have her forget this sorry little bit of her history." Then, in a whisper: "Including you."

We couldn't actually do that-- or wouldn't tamper with a woman's memories in that way, like the bee-girls do, but Alicia didn't know that. Olive continued the snake dance, making progress again, sliding herself up. Casey's bosom was compressed upwards as it reached Olive's opening, then suddenly it was gone, leaving Casey's arms, shoulders, and head. "No-- please! Alicia!!"

"It'll be fine," Olive said, soothing. "I'll take very good care of you. You have a long time to work out what you've done, for me to make a better woman out of you." Another wriggle and Casey's arms went into the air as her armpits reached the edges of Olive's opening.

"Goodbye," Alicia said, not quite loud enough for Casey to hear. "I love you."

"Unfortunately, Alicia," I said, winding my tail into Cassie's: "You won't be around to see her birth."

Alicia startled and looked down. My vaginal slit was already open again: my fellow lamia had seen it happen, but we'd distracted Alicia from it. Together, Cassie and I hoisted Alicia into the air, I leaned back, and Cassie and I slipped Alicia's feet into my opening, facing away from me. She missed Casey's final disappearing act: by the time she could see what was going on, Olive was smoothing her scales closed, still doing the snake dance to slip Casey further into herself, and then settled down. I went more slowly than I had with Cerys, trying to absorb that lesson from my friend, Olive, but got Alicia's hips into me so I could hold her tight. I had her facing away from me, as we'd done with all three of these women, so the others could watch, see the expression on her face.

"What?" Alicia said, looking back at me over her shoulder. "Did you forget to poison me??"

"The venom lessens the sensation of being digested," I said. "You don't deserve that. You deserve the full experience. You know...just like you gave to me."

Alicia spat back a curse. "Fuck you, snakewoman." She thrashed inside me, using the fact that her muscles hadn't been weakened. And of course, she was strong: a legacy of being human 5.0 - the same speed and strength that had so easily cornered and drawn in Rob McLeane all that time ago.

But this time, the tables were turned.

She greatly underestimated just how strong that part of myself was: the muscles in my tail powered all the peristalsis of my combined digestive and reproductive tract, and were easily strong enough to keep Alicia very confined and literally bend her to my will. I used the end of my tail to pin her arms, though, prevent her from punching or hitting me.

Zoe raised her height by a bit so she could look down on Alicia. "Francesca may be brave, but she's a young lamia. Her tail is the shortest of any here. The shorter a lamia's tail, the longer digestion takes and the more slowly you'll move through her body."

I felt something move further down inside me. Perfect timing.

"Aaaa!" Alicia shrieked. "Something's got my ankle!"

"Not something, someone. Have you already forgotten your other girlfriend, Cerys? Seems like she wants to be with you for this journey."

"It hurts!!" Alicia cried. I think she tried to kick Cerys away.

"You'll be together until the end, it seems," Zoe said. I did a few wriggles and worked Alicia down past her navel. She could feel Cerys, still very much alive, trying to climb up Alicia as though she could rescue herself that way. Cerys' digestion was already underway, though, which is why her touch would sting Alicia. It was wonderful, delicious. "Francesca, I do think you'll gain a least a couple of meters by the time this is over."

I smiled at Zoe like a little girl who'd just eaten her vegetables. Then another wriggle, a little more sliding myself up and over Alicia.

Then Alicia whispered one word. "Daisy."

I looked up. Directly opposite me, front of the crowd, flanked by her two best friends in the whole world: Daisy.

My eyes were, at that instant, glued to Alicia's sister.

Alicia, tearful at last, pleaded.

"Please... Daisy... you can stop this... she'll listen to you..."

But Daisy didn't respond. Brad and Stacy held her arms tight, pale as anything. The murmurs of the crowd ceased and all anybody could hear was Alicia's tortured breathing.

Alicia took advantage of the silence: "Daisy! I'm your sister! This monster's about to kill me! You can do something! Anything!"

From Daisy: Nothing. I swallowed Alicia a little bit more, forcing her to kneel so I didn't have to extend myself upwards like Olive had done.

"Stacy, Brad, please-- snap her out of it! She could save me, I know she could!"

Still nothing. I had Alicia up to her bosom at that point. Rather than squeeze those organs into me, and giving Alicia any pleasure, I instead relaxed my vagina so I could just subtly enclose her chest. Then I used my own arms, while Alicia was focused on her sister, to push her arms down and in.

"Daisy... goddamn you... I thought you were my sister..."

"...That you cared about me..."

I swallowed Alicia up to her neck.

"...That you loved me..."

Daisy was as white as I'd ever seen her; eyes wide open an unblinking, a complete, blank poker face that told me nothing, like all emotion had drained from her soul in that instant. I had this horrible fear that inside she was screaming, pleading with me to stop, that she'd hate me forever for what I was doing and I didn't want that at all: I adore Daisy, would have done anything for her. Like I said...if she'd raised her hand, told me to stop...before or now...I would have done it. Regardless of my feelings towards Alicia, if Daisy had told me to let her go free...I would have done.

I just hoped that she wasn't saying it in her mind right now.

Without saying anything, I used my neural connections to begin soothing Alicia. I wanted to show, right at the end, that I wasn't like her - even as I was delivering her to as fatal an end as she had planned for me all that time ago.

"It's over, Alicia. Despite what I said... it won't hurt. I promise."

One last look, one stare at Daisy. Still completely blank, powerless, emotionless.

I prepared myself for the final swallow of Daisy's sister. The final part of my retribution.

Daisy didn't move, didn't come one step closer. The only words she said:

"I loved you."
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

56: Stacy says hello

Postby dreamweevil » Sun Jul 30, 2017 7:38 am

Stacy: Hi.

It's me.

I haven't gotten to write here before, so my apologies if I'm a little rusty with it. I know you're probably expecting Daisy but... well, she needs a little time right now. Brad and I thought it would be good if she could write about her experience but... she can't. I'm sure you understand why.

We're still at the lamia's spacious abode right now. See, we had a little near-tragedy a while ago. About ten minutes after we witnessed Alicia's end, Daisy decided, more or less on her own, that she needed to be away from there. We didn't think she was in any shape to fly.

Brad turned out to be the one in no shape to fly. When Daisy flew off, without really resolving anything, both Brad and I went after her. But Brad lost one of his bee-wings about fifteen seconds after takeoff. I was close enough that I could grab him and get him back to the ground safely.

He was just too far along in his transformation to fly. Daisy saw behind her what had happened and turned back. Brad knew it wasn't safe to try again: if he'd lost one wing, he'd lose the other three anytime now. Losing those bee-wings is part of the transformation. That means Daisy really needs to stay out of the air too: she's behind in the transformation but catching up quickly.

Zoe saw the near-accident and rushed to help us. They insisted we stay, and Zoe took me aside and made it very clear: we can't, shouldn't just run away from this.

Right now Daisy needs some time. I get that. And she needs Brad and I at her side more than ever. We just witnessed something we can't characterize as either terrible or necessary... but it's happened.

It was left to me to call Daisy's family: Amy, Alicia's mother, and her two sisters. I don't think any of them knew how to take the news, either. I think Amy and Belle... I don't know... expected something like this to happen. I mean, Alicia's behavior isn't confined to what she did to Rob McLeane. She was an assassin, after all. Power hungry. Frustrated that "she"-- and she always identified as human-- were losing a battle and didn't seem to care. She had taken the diminishing power of the rule of law into her own hands: technically, what she did to Rob was legal.

As was what Rob ultimately did to her in return.

Brad and I kept Daisy isolated. Especially from Francesca, at least for a while. I caught a glimpse of Francesca not long ago and the two bulges, or one large bulge, in her tail are still clearly visible. From what I've heard she's unapologetic and, in my opinion, deserves to be so. But I can't imagine Daisy having a friendly conversation with Francesca right now knowing that her sister is right there, dissolving away into lamia food, neither alive nor dead.

There were some bits of a silver lining that Brad and I could focus on. Daisy can eat solid food now, and cooking is one thing the lamia are exquisitely good at. They still get Daisy's food deliveries, since that subscription hasn't run out yet, but they're no longer depending on that: Lamia are perfect farmers by nature and are building an amazing enterprise around it, more than enough to feed themselves. They're working very hard to be able to house and feed the population explosion that's coming: just over 200 lamia trying to get ready for a colony of over twelve hundred, once the former bee-girls meander their way towards the end of those tails and into the outside world.

Zoe set us up with our own space in the second building and spread the word that we're to be taken care of and left alone. They're keeping us very comfortable and just giving us what we need: time.

. . .

I have the urge to get out and test these stronger, larger wings but I intend to keep my promise to not leave Daisy's side no matter what. She's absorbed what was left of her queen-bee tail and lost two of her bee smaller wings now, and her down and contour feathers are coming in and her spindly wings are starting to show. She's extraordinarily quiet and I worry that she's depressed. But then I think I might be, too. We've spent months in a nightmare that seems over.

The first lamia to request a personal visit was Laurie. That makes sense: I'm surprised it's taken this long. I figured it would be good to shake things up and get out of this doldrum of eating and sleeping and not talking about what happened.

Laurie is very pregnant, like most of the lamia here. And that's what we talked about, really. These bee-girls-- amazing women in their own right-- captured, sometimes knowingly or even willingly, made to do the Queen's bidding and given a life of predictability and order and very intense sisterhood, more so than the lamia and much more so than humans.

Laurie, for her part, was concerned that Daisy might be holding her to some level of responsibility. To her credit, Daisy dispelled that misconception right away. Laurie had done a tremendous thing, after all, giving life to Francesca like she was, at that very moment, giving life and freedom to six of the bee-girls.

Daisy ran her fingers through Laurie's hair: the first stirrings of any kind of affection or emotion in more than a week, as Laurie tried hard to get 'inside" what Daisy was thinking. She ran her hands down Laurie's side, onto her scaled tail, and when she looked at Brad and I, expecting some kind of jealousy yet finding none, drew her hand back to Laurie's hair and repeated the entire motion. Brad and I nodded to each other.

"That feels nice," Laurie said, interrupting her conversation at that point.

"Yes, it does." Daisy ran her hand further down Laurie's tail, across two of the bulges that were two of Laurie's future children.

She's imagining her sister inside Francesca Castilla's tail. Or so I thought at the time.

Brad put his hand on Daisy's, and they stroked Laurie's tail together, Brad guiding Daisy's hand further down the tail than Daisy had done on her own. Daisy looked up at Brad and then at me and I smiled at her and felt it, what had been missing since we'd been here: love.

Laurie saw it too, and without saying a word, without a single regret, knew just where things were. It was magical. Not sexual: the curse that had been upon Laurie, this mysterious crush she'd had, was lifted painlessly in that instant.

Daisy took a long look at Laurie, and the two of them kissed. And where I expected to feel jealousy, instead I felt joy, even elation. I looked at Brad: he was feeling the same, even though we'd not yet established any sort of quantum link yet, already in a kind of sync. We both knew Daisy's tongue was in Laurie's mouth and vice versa: Daisy was sharing her thoughts with Laurie, and vice versa.

It's precisely, absolutely, what needed to happen more than anything else in that moment. In just ten minutes Laurie would understand a little more of how this world fit together; that Daisy didn't consider Francesca her "child" in that sense, even though in very many ways she is.

I mean, there aren't really children any more, are there? Francesca is a very independent, intelligent person whose body was stolen from her. She didn't need to be raised again. Taught to speak and how to care for herself and right from wrong: she knew all these things already, just needed the physical body with which to make it happen.
In that sense, Laurie was an essential partner in bringing Francesca back to life, her contribution to that success no less relevant than Daisy's. And they-- we, really, will always have that.

In the exchange between Daisy and Laurie would also be the seemingly jealousy-inducing detail: that, in our newly-developed body plan, neither Daisy, Brad nor I can bear children. We can't give birth, we can't do the reverse. We can have sex, but for rather different purposes: and we can only do so with each other. We're already physically incompatible with humans, other avians, everyone: so for now, unless we mutually agree to change that body plan, our days of mating with others-- of spreading 6.0 and genetic material and changing the world that way-- are over.

But that's just sex. It's not friendship. And Laurie and the three of us would always be friends: even though I wasn't party to the thought transfer I know Daisy well enough that that message would be there.

There was no possessiveness to it, no roles to fulfill, no despair or distress. We'd let Laurie into our group, in a way, let her see that Daisy was exactly who we all knew she was, let her know how appreciated she was and that she'd always have a place with us. This is what Laurie needed more than anything else.

Suddenly, Daisy was talking again. Laurie named each of her six future children, their former bee-girl names and their human names before that, and who they were becoming inside her, and this engaged Daisy in a positive way at last. And then we started talking about the bee-girls in general, philosophy, our plans and the lamias and everything until it was quite late and this mother-to-be needed her rest.

About ten minutes after Laurie had left, Daisy finally spoke of the elephant in our room. "I need to talk with Francesca. I don't want to... in some ways..."

"Well, you don't have to," I said. "Zoe's made that very clear. She doesn't want anything to make you uncomfortable."

"Yes, I do have to. But not quite yet."

"Right," I agreed. "Not quite yet. When we're ready."

Now I, for the first time in a while, tried tentatively running my hands through Daisy's hair, taking advantage of the thawing ice. She closed her eyes and let me do this, and then I touched her wings and, carefully, her new feathers. "You're going to be amazing," I told her.

"I don't feel amazing," Daisy said.

"But we can help you feel that way,' Brad said. I nodded in agreement.

. . .

I wish you knew me better. Here I am, Mary Sue McGuffin, until this entry just a third character in Daisy's story: the one that stole Brad from her, triggered an infection in an unprepared boy through the mechanism of a teenage girl's kiss. I like strawberry ice cream and couldn't stand history but love geography and my parents are big-time supporters of both the genetic evolution that's been unleashed on the world but also of the 6.0 "freedom". I have a mother and a "father" who's actually another mother but I never thought of him that way: they successfully pulled of the illusion of being a normal family until that day when those illusions were no longer necessary.

I love being Daisy's right-hand girl. Helping her navigate through both the air and through life. Having her depend on me. And I love my relationship with Brad, and I can't wait for that to move forward like it's about to.

Am I afraid about losing my individuality? The individuality that you didn't know I had? Not really. My life is supposed to be bound up into these other two. I knew that from the moment that Brad freaked out, discovered he could read my thoughts. That Daisy and were related, in that way, had this secret. It was exciting.

My big regret? I should have gone after Daisy alongside Brad. I should have been at his side when the bee-girls descended on him. I should have been absorbed into the tail of a bee-girl and become one of them, spit out of Aeris' tail as a wriggling larvae and discovered years later that "Amanda" and "Willow" had been my best friends all along and still were. Instead I spent that time alone, in a haze of tears and self-pity and trying desperately to get someone to find my two best friends in the whole world.

I didn't go because my parents talked me out of it. Either Brad would find and rescue Daisy or nobody could; and if nobody could, they'd need me to rescue them both. Back then, to me, Daisy's sister Alicia was the coolest person ever: oh, back then, when we all thought that the lamia, who were hungry for recruits back then, were responsible for Daisy's disappearance. Alicia pulled out all the stops for her sister. She put the lamia through the third degree and I was all in favor of it. We'd find Daisy before they changed her, took her from us. She had the power of the law behind her, and an impressive array of people and hardware.

I mean, the conventional wisdom said the bees couldn't have taken Daisy. She wasn't in their territory, and back then the lamia and bee-girls had an iron-clad agreement of that territory. She could fly faster than any bee-girl, so if attacked she'd have no problem getting away.

But I should have been there. I should have been standing side-by-side with my lover, with Brad, waiting for those bees to descend from the skies.

Having informed the family of Alicia and Cerys' final chapter, I found myself not really speaking with Daisy nor Brad of the matter. It's too early, I think.

I don't know what to think of it. Perhaps I'm like Daisy that way. I've seen, through Daisy's thoughts, exactly what she and Cerys did to Rob. I heard her admit to it with my own ears. A man, reduced to nothing by a powerful woman, traded between them like a bauble, left to deteriorate and turn to female discharge within his ex-girlfriend's body. And then to see them, the three of them, laugh. I couldn't have forgiven that, spared Alicia, any more than Daisy could have, than any of us could have.

Yet... in some ways... Alicia was right. There's no other way to put it. While I have no way to tell whether Rob McLeane could have carried through on his threat, could have "outed" the entire movement before there were enough women involved to make it unstoppable even if he had told people, one thing was very clearly true:

He wanted to be caught.

He wanted to challenge these amazing, powerful women to use their amazing powers on him. Alicia saw it. I saw it. He wanted a woman to wrap her strength around him, if she could, to experience her most sacred intimacy without the uncertainties and inconveniences and effort of seeking her friendship, her interest, her sexual favors in the usual way.

In that way, Rob McLeane got what he asked for. The problem was that he got a lot more than that. The moment the secret-- our secret-- was out, Alicia could have, should have, set him free.

I don't know what to think. Fortunately nobody is asking me what I think.

Anyway: a watershed moment is on its way and for me it can't come soon enough. The day when Brad and Daisy and I will no longer be separate, at least if this works like it's supposed to. Right now I'm the furthest along: going from a "robin" design to a "hawk" isn't much of a leap. But I'm still quite pre-pubescent. My sex organs are still under development deep inside my body. But I can feel them, almost there.

My new design is so complex that I'm very glad we went over it as many times as we did. Look how far we've come! From a simple "hole", a vagina into which a man could squirt his millions of sperm cells and maybe fertilize an egg that might or might not be there, to a far more sophisticated interconnection that's custom-designed as a perfect fit to both Daisy and Brad, and them alone.

We won't have need to share genetic material. But while "connected" we'll share just about everything else. Our thoughts, of course. That's been pretty much the standard for quite a while. But also: food, water, even... yeah.... waste products, will all transfer between us as we need: but especially this quantum "fluid", the one thing we'll need to share above any other. When we're connected, we'll share everything. Hormones, emotions, energy, even heat.

Oh, and I should mention: this will work with any pair of us, but-- through the miracle of precision genetic engineering and and awful lot of physical design work: with all three of us at the same time. That was the design goal that drove us, and... man, we tried all sorts of arrangements until we came up with this one.

Our sex organs are internal, but with components that extend outside the body when properly stimulated. In a 5.0 human we used to have an ovipositor, but since none of us plan to lay any eggs we're not calling it that, not calling it any name that we've agreed upon, really, which is fine because nobody will ever see it; the parts are so complex that they need to be protected pretty much at all times: if not inside my body then inside my partners'. For ego purposes and a little bit of practicality, Brad's parts are larger than both Daisy's and my own: he can extend himself into both of us at the same time, while my body reaches inside Daisy's and she into mine and the two of us back into Brad.

Oh, yes, there are nerve endings. Lots of them. And pleasure centers wired in. I made sure of that.

Oh, that's not quite all. Maintaining all those connections through the inevitable sexual gyrations (or at least normal movement!) was going to be difficult, so our bodies actually are designed to lock together that way: deep inside each other, to become completely inseparable through several different mechanisms: microscopic hooks, muscles that tighten around each other's organs, even a kind of clamp that holds us together. I mean, it's basically the Voltron of biological creatures: when so inclined we connect ourselves together and become something greater than we were before.

And while it wouldn't be easy to do some things while connected that way: walk, for example, we made sure we could do something a little better than that. We can fly.

Our color patterns are something of an iridescent gradient on the outside, and a rather monotonous sky blue on the inside: Brad's idea, make us harder to spot from the ground. Those color gradients are designed to match perfectly when our bodies are assembled that way. Brad would be on "top", in the back; his wings the largest of the three of us. The underside of his wings have hooks that will fit the leading edge of mine, and mine fit Daisy's, who will provide the trailing edge of wings that, so combined, lift all three of us. It was a bit of mechanical engineering to get all that working, the wing hinges particularly so that our wings will support each other and work as one instead of sliding against each other's, but I... can't wait to see the results.

I'll be sandwiched in the middle, yes, and won't really be able to see very much, but that won't matter. Connected, in theory, we should be able to soar for days without having to land: our bodies transferring their various needs to each other without even thinking of it! And yet, when we need to be in multiple places at once, as has happened, we'll be able to do so... without ever leaving each other.

Have I mentioned how I love body plan designing as much as Daisy does?

Oh, geez, I've been talking about sex a little much, haven't I? Sorry about that. I think I'm getting hormonal. Entering "puberty"... again. Okay, Stacy. You can be patient. Just a little longer.

. . .

We sit in the evening helping each other preen new feathers, healing emotionally and physically. We're discussing less of our future than usual, but perhaps right now that's okay.

To pass the time, I've searched through some of the other stories of our world, and we sit together in the evenings while I read them aloud. There is so much going on that no hawk wings, no travels, could experience it all: the world has grown beyond that, beyond us. We are a decreasingly small part of the story now, as it should be. Diversity is spreading and, bee-girls aside, people seem to be having fun with it. One of my favorite, increasingly common stories is the rather trendy diversion of developing surprise abilities and using them on an unsuspecting partner.

Perhaps that's like Rob McLeane. People like to be surprised, to be captured, when the capture itself is pleasurable and intimate. Some of the best stories are those where an empowered woman sets an interesting trap for her uninitated boyfriend...
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

57: Silky Surprise

Postby dreamweevil » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:45 am

Frank Perkins:

It is just the third day since my parents left this house to me. It's a split-level home, nothing to speak of, needs some work here and there.

Then again, houses are no longer that difficult to come by.

But at long last, long last, my girlfriend and I have a place of our own, and nobody can stop us from doing whatever the heck we want! Ever since she heard the news she's had a gleam in her eye, an "idea" that she said she'd tell me if I really needed but it's be so much better as a surprise. I trust her, so... what the heck?

I know this is going to involve some power getting used on me. She's "preserved" me, so to speak, this "powerless" twenty-two-year-old that has no business owning his own home. One good old-fashioned human.

She's persuaded me to change that, of course, and I've agreed to it: but she's left the "how" to be a surprise.

Okay. I like surprises. Hey, and it's my birthday.

The surprise wasn't in the house, but the old garage out back, a shed that once held an old boat and a bunch of rusty bicycles. I'd figured it'd make a good workshop so I've been working hard cleaning it up. I've got some new flooring on order and a couple of light fixtures and I've painted one wall and scraped down another. Donna had kept me out of it for an entire day preparing her surprise but, finally, it was time.

The catch: we'd have to streak from the house to the garage stark naked. Okay, it's secluded enough, especially since the Browns next door abandoned their home to fly around the country on their own wings.

I figured she'd set up some kind of sex contraption. You know, trapeze, some kind of kinky dungeon thing out there, and that was the present. Fine with me!

"Ready? Set? Go!"

She's fast, Donna. She was on her high school track team. Of course, having the perfect genetically-engineered body helps. I fell behind, but what red-blooded guy is going to mind chasing that rear end?

There was a present: the new drill press I'd wanted with a bow on it, on my workbench.

I never made it to the workbench. Donna stopped just at the door, and about three feet in, I ran right into the web. I didn't see it at all. She arranged the lighting-- on the far side, so the web would be completely invisible.

The web didn't break. It stretched in some places but not in others and next thing I was stuck, tangled. Thrashing only made it worse. I expected it to just snap and come down around me but it didn't. Donna stepped right through it like it wasn't there.

"Surprise!" Donna said. She seemed embarrassed, momentarily. "Aww... are you stuck?"

"Yes!" I said, impressed. "Where did you get this?"

"I made it!" Donna said, beaming. "What do you think I was doing all day?"

I felt for the web-- still very hard to see. Very sticky. I didn't want to stretch it, break it, but a few strands had caught my hair and I couldn't pull myself free.

"This is really strong. Like they could make bulletproof vests from it or something. Where'd you get the stuff to make it?"

"I didn't. I made it."

"But-- wait a minute... like spider-woman or something?"

"Exactly like that," Donna said. She jumped up onto the web herself, and it picked up her entire weight without bending.

"You mean you have glands that produce--"

"Yup," Donna said. She climbed up a bit, somehow not sticking to the web at all.

"Like-- on your fingers, or wrists or something--"

"Nope. They're where they really should be." She touched a finger between her legs, and when she pulled that finger away there was a strand of silk attached to her fingertip. She fed that strand through the web, around my neck, and affixed it back to the web. It wasn't tight, but-- I tried to snap through it and... couldn't.

"I've caught you," Donna said. "And now I'm gonna eat you. Surprise!"

She ducked through the web again and was behind me, while I managed to break just one strand that was stuck to my leg, and free just one elbow that hadn't really been too entangled.

Donna touched her body to the web, her body flexible beyond what I'd expect of a gymnast, and spun a new strand behind me, fastening my waist to the other side of the web.

"You're going to be delicious."

She ducked through and faced me again. "Here," she said, her face to mine. "Drink this." She stuck her tongue in my mouth. She tasted very sweet, and her mouth got very wet and I tried to pull away but she grabbed my head with her hand until I drank her... spit? Whatever it was?

"That'll protect you so what happens next won't hurt you," Donna said.

"Wait a minute! What's going on?"

Donna ignored me. She grabbed one arm and put it between her legs, and I felt warmth as she sprayed silk onto that hand, sticky. Then she held that hand to my side and snapped part of me free of her web, my hand still tethered to her crotch. She spun me around and as she did the silk wrapped completely around me until it was stuck to itself. Then she climbed back up. Each time she touched her lady parts to the web new strands came from her, which she'd wrap around me and back to themselves or to the web.

Okay. This was fun but--

I tried to escape. For a moment it seemed like I'd be able to, but it was difficult. My efforts inspired Donna to redouble her own. She flipped upside down and through the web and left a continuous trail of sticky silk now: thicker, more visible strands right from between her legs. As they started to layer each other I realized she was wrapping me up in some kind of cocoon, leaving only my head, chest and groin uncovered for the moment.

"Donna, I--"

"Tee hee hee! Into my spider sac you go!"

She spun me around, now, using my own momentum to make the thin layer of webbing thicker. It started to become opaque, from gauzy mesh to solid, impenetrable white fabric.

Just like that, she stopped. Climbing back up, I saw her crotch near my face: she nearly sprayed me right there, but then I realized she was just reattaching this sac to her web, adding reinforcements to hold it, and me, completely still.

"Okay!" she said. "That oughta do for now!"

With that, my girlfriend climbed in front of me, and, more or less, mock-raped me.

"Donna! I'm not protected!" Despite that fact that she's 6.0 and can only get pregnant when she wants to, we'd come to an agreement that we'd use protection... for now.

"I know," she said, unconcerned as my very stimulated manhood disappeared between her legs. "I'm taking your sperm whether you like it or not. And since I'm a spider... that sperm will last forever inside me. I could have hundreds of your babies and you can't do anything to stop me!"

"But--!"

She wrapped her legs around the sac she'd spun, and me, and pulled me in tight.

"Come on, lover!"

"But--"

But Donna had me. She knows exactly how to get to me that way: a look in her eyes, from deep within herself the way she arches her back and squeezes me the right way triggers it: it's involuntary. I exploded. Over and over, pumping myself into her--

It wasn't over. She took a look at me, partially spent, cocked her head and went in for another kiss. Her tongue found its way into my mouth again: that sweet taste, and this time more of it than before. Something down below caught my attention. She was aiming her nipples for mine.

Donna's never been that big up top; that was fine with me, because she oh-so-cute and I love her whole body, not any one part like that. But she never had needles there before, and now... she does. When she realized I was watching that in fascination she just stabbed herself into me.

It hurt.

I tried to yank back but couldn't. Her nipples seemed to take root in my skin, bury themselves deep inside me. We were connected now at all four places: mouth, both nipples, groin, each firmly. She broke the seal at my mouth for only a moment.

"The liquid you're drinking will digest you from the inside. So just enjoy, lover."

"What??"

Back into the kiss: another squirt of the sweet liquid. I felt suction at my chest. Her breasts began to swell. Meanwhile, her nether regions began working me up towards another orgasm.

I struggled as hard as I could. As fast as the liquid poured into my mouth, twice as much was leaving through my chest, inflating Donna's bosom and flowing into the rest of her body. She began to grow, and I to shrink.

She broke the contact at our mouth again. "Oh, that's so... so good, Frank... You feel so good, flowing into me... just let it happen..."

Then back into the kiss.

My body began to fail, shriveling up from my toes upwards as though, increasingly, I was made of tissue paper. I lost sensation in my legs. My vision blurred. Soon I was only aware of the connections at my chest, and between my legs, and finally just last words:

"Okay, honey, come inside me now..."

One last orgasm and everything went dark.

She spent the rest of the day spinning a large egg sac into which she laid exactly two eggs. I vaguely remember that: down in the bottom of this dark cavern, deposited and helpless, a tiny hole just large enough for her to fit her genital opening to, only faint hints of light as the second egg fell atop me. Then silk came from her body and she made that hole smaller until it was gone, and then: so was she.

I saw, later, what this process had left of my body, and hers. Almost nothing at all. Still trapped inside the cocoon she'd spun about me, she turned me into dust; and the last effort of laying those two eggs exhausted her and she'd "died".

We pried our way into the light together, tearing at this fabric from the inside until light shone in; then, suddenly starving for air, made the opening larger at least one of us could fit through it. I let Donna go first, watching, from inside, her wriggle her hips through the tight opening. I heard the soft [i]flump[i] as she landed on the floor.

While I worked on orienting myself to fit through that opening, a male voice.

"Donna??"

I heard my girlfriend shriek.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to...!"

I poked my head through the opening in the sac. Donna had scurried away to the corner of the workshop, and my other next-door neighbor was at the door, shielding his eyes. Donna found herself an old shower curtain I'd held on as a drop cloth and was trying to get underneath it.

"Frank?"

"Robert-- sorry... we're kind of indisposed at the moment."

"I see that. Sorry to disturb! I heard a commotion and thought someone'd broken in or something and found... ummm...

"Kind of a ... sex thing," Donna said. "Birthday surprise for my boyfriend."

"Spider?" Robert asked. I didn't emerge from the egg sac the whole way. Heck, I had no idea what I looked like and didn't want to find out-- at least in front of my neighbor.

"Yeah," Donna said. "Spider."

"Kinky," Robert said. "Cool. Well, at least you're in the club now, 6.0, right, Frank?"

"Yeah," Donna said. "Finally."

Robert took another peek at the scene before him, and I could see some disappointment not knowing what I looked like-- or perhaps that he didn't get long enough of a glance ay my girlfriend. Heck, for all I know at the moment I might be a girl: I won't know until I get out of this cocoon.

Robert nodded. "Well, I'll leave you two lovebirds alone-- next time you're going to do something like that, be gone for four weeks, let me know and I'll keep an eye on the house for you. Okay?"
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

58: Confronted with it

Postby dreamweevil » Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:37 am

Stacy: Hi. Me again.

Despite my promise never to leave Daisy's side, there are a few bits of practicality that necessitate it from time to time. She seems like she's doing much better now, after the meeting with Laurie, and the lamia have been so gracious, bringing these completely-prepared meals to our rather sequestered selves, that it's about time to pay them back. Thus, with Daisy's permission, I went down to the kitchen well before lunchtime to lend a hand not just with our own meals but with all of them.

Okay. I can't reach the half of the cabinets that a lamia can reach by extending herself up on her tail, but I certainly wash dishes and chop celery and restock ingredients from the large walk-in they've got out back.

While doing so I found my efforts appreciated (although some of this was the reaction I was fearing: finally, you're helping us). They're extraordinarily busy, almost finished with the fourth gigantic building on the property just in time for the first of the bee-girl rebirths. Again, Zoe's principle: make the new arrivals welcome, comfortable, happy to be snake-women. It's a mantra that rides through the entire place. Each of these women, as she emerges tail-first from under the tail of another lamia, will have given up the ability to fly; the universal fear-borne respect granted a bee-girl, and the tidy hierarchy of the hive. In its place will be a different kind of respect: for being women who know how to be part of a community, for having gone through what they went through and having survived it.

Daisy's feeling is that no lamia would care to gaze upon her at this point in her transformation: ugly, useless wings, incomplete feathers, and the implied discrediting of the snake-woman body plan (I think there's no question that the lamia would have been happy to take all three of us into their species). She's wrong, in my opinion. Daisy's well past the worst of the transformation, and so is Brad: it wouldn't surprise me to find that either of them could get themselves off the ground already, even if all the flight feathers aren't in yet. If she'd spend some time preening and fluffing those feathers up she'd find that she's a lot more attractive than she thinks she is.

I was able to use that excuse to leave their side for a couple of hours. My feathers are in, I have preened them and think I look presentable. I feel like I'd be a stronger flier now than I ever was before: to the point that it's almost painful to be here on the ground like this, unable to reach those cabinets a few feet above my head.

Now there are three kitchens in the lamia's compound-- the fourth is coming soon but not open yet, and I knew this left a chance for what happened next to happen. Serving lunch I took the place of another kitchen assistant and next I looked up to find Francesca at the counter.

For a second she seemed a little flustered, like she'd forgotten we were still here. But I made up my mind right there and then: We, especially Daisy, had run out of excuses.

"How's... Daisy?" Francesca asked.

I told her that Daisy was doing okay. And that, immediately after lunch, we were going to end this mutual frustration and face what we knew was coming, and Francesca agreed. (Somewhere, I imagined I could hear Zoe sighing: "Thank goodness.")

I had no compunctions about showing up at our guest room with Francesca at my side, completely unannounced and catching Daisy off guard. It had to be done like this, quickly, like pulling off a bandage or jumping into a cold swimming pool.

"Come in," I said, opening the door.

Brad was in the middle of preening Daisy's feathers. He was about half-done with the task, leaving Daisy's left side looking like... well, a real hawk-girl, while her right wing, side, and tail looked like she'd just hatched from an egg ten minutes ago.

"I brought lunch," I announced. "And..."

Daisy, who was facing away, turned. "Oh, Francesca, sorry, I'm not--"

"I can come back later," Francesca said, and I could already see her rearranging her tail to do just that.

"No. You've lived inside her," I said, partially blocking Francesca's imminent retreat. "You've already seen both the best and worst of each other. We've stalled this long enough."

Brad nodded at me, as to say "Good girl." Then we both stared at Daisy for her reaction. In that instant, I came to realize something about myself: I don't need to be afraid of Daisy. She's our partner now and she knows that.

"Okay," Daisy said. "I may not be presentable, but Stacy's right." Though she did shoot me a little glance implying that it wasn't. "Come in," she added.

Francesca slid silently into the room: I kicked her tail to inform her that she wasn't quite all the way in, then closed the door once she was. She tried to coil her tail in a way that hid the two slightly-diminished, enlongated bulges inside herself: unfortunately the maneuver only made it a little more obvious what she was doing.

"Uh, I'm...sorry..." she said, her face turning a little red. Then she tried to take a seat on one of the nearby chairs, keeping that part of her tail underneath it. I could sense the awkwardness.

For a few moments, there was just the sound of our breathing, and the little sound of Francesca finishing positioning her tail so that she was comfortable.

Then Francesca, and Daisy, both started at the same time.

"So...."

"So...."

Another few awkward seconds of silence followed before Francesca broke it.

"You look well. Almost finished with the upgrade?"

Daisy shook her head. "Still a way to go yet, but I'm getting there."

Francesca nodded, and then glanced at both me and then at the feathers. She could see as well as I could that Daisy was indeed almost finished and looked a lot better than she was letting on...but she let it slide.

Then Francesca spoke again. "Look...I guess we need to talk - about Alicia and-"

Daisy held up a hand, interrrupting. "I'm sorry, Francesca, but I can't-

I stepped between them. "Enough."

Brad even stopped the preening at that.

"It's long, long past time you talked this out, so we're going to do it now."

Daisy, for long moment, looked at me, and for a second I thought she was going to refuse, even walk out. But then she settled into her own chair with a sigh, and nodded. "All right then."

Francesca faced her once more, and started slowly. "Daisy...I'm sorry that you had to be there to see that. Or indeed that it had to be done. But...you saw everything about what she did...to me and to other people."

She hung her head. "But I've spent a pretty long time since wondering if I made a dreadful mistake."

Daisy looked up. I could tell she was deciding whether or not to ask the obvious question, and she asked it before I could stop her.

"Are they past the point of no return? Are they... gone? Because it seems like if you were agonizing about it--"

I put my hand on Daisy's shoulder as a way of both interrupting Daisy and preventing Francesca from answering that most difficult of questions.

"There's nothing she can do about it, Daisy."

Daisy looked over her shoulder at me. "Of course there's something she can do about it!." Then she turned and looked at her own lap. "I'm just not sure if she should."

"Stacy's right," Brad said. Daisy looked up: for the first time in... well, a long time, Brad sounded authoritative, male, and in that instant I was very glad for it. "The lamia all have the 6.0 design," he explained. "If Francesca were to offer Alicia or Cerys a new body now... if that's even possible... I think they'd make very sure that Francesca dies in childbirth."

"But she could-- I mean-- she could make some kind of deal, reprogram her--"

"Then she wouldn't be Alicia anymore. She'd be your idea of who Alicia, and Cerys, ought to be. Hard as this is, Daisy, I'm thinking... it has to be this way." Brad put his hand on Daisy's other shoulder.

Daisy looked up. "Francesca, I..."

She couldn't finish the sentence. Instead, her eyes met Francesca's, wet but not quite to the point of tears.

Francesca shook her head, her own eyes looking misty. "Stacy is...right, Daisy. Either I gave both Alicia and Cerys new bodies with their current personalities, in which case I would likely not survive their birth...or I would have to change them so much that they...weren't Alicia and Cerys anymore."

She then stopped for a moment, before continuing. "And...we've both seen exactly where that road leads."

Daisy nodded.

"I...I can't do that," said Francesca. "I won't do that, take that step."

Again a silence, and then more words, this time chosen very carefully - as if Francesca had prepared them beforehand.

"When I took them in I knew I was treading the line between doing what was right and doing what they did. They, the bee-girls, whoever - those who would consume, without a second thought or any kind of due process, because of their own plan, because they enjoyed it...or both. That day...I knew a bit of that power. What it was like. I felt like I was so close to crossing that line...and changing them, shaping their identities to what I want...what we want - well...that would make me cross it completely."

Another shake of the head. "So I won't do it. For the sake of my own sanity, I have to believe that I'm different from them, in word and deed."

Now Francescas eyes were more than misty, and I understood another little reason behind her having avoided this conversation with the three of us. She'd not only been struggling with how to talk to Daisy about the loss of her sister...she'd also been struggling with herself. Trying to reconcile what she'd done - both to the bee-girl colony and to Alicia and Cerys - in a way that made her not like them. A way that would make her able to sleep well at night.

She then gave a little hiccup, seeming to recover some strength from somewhere, before focusing on Daisy again.

"Do you understand?"

Daisy nodded her head. "Yes. I do."

This was one of the few rooms in this building that had a view of the outside world: most of the windows on the second- and third-floor rooms overlooked the cavernous inside of the building, where one could watch lamia doing various acrobatics, crossing from one end of the place to the other without touching the floor. But this room was in a corner and had a better view of the outside than it did the inside: Daisy looked out the window, facing away from Francesca for a minute to help focus her thoughts.

"In fact," Daisy continued, "though I knew I'd be sad... I was kind of hoping you... enjoyed it, at least a little."

For a moment, Francesca said nothing, and then she cocked her head, expression quizzical. "Enjoyed it?"

"I would have," Daisy said.

"But--"

Daisy turned around, facing Francesca again. "Please don't mistake my self-pity for anything more. I can't... won't blame you. God, Francesca, you're here now because you had the courage to do what I couldn't. Alicia gave me a ringside seat for what she did to you. There's a part of me that wanted to wring the life out of her then, do to her what I watched her do to you. I couldn't do it. But you could. So... what I'm saying is... don't feel guilty. If you enjoyed it."

Francesca ran her hands through her hair, clearly thinking about her response for a little while, before answering.

"I'm...glad to hear that, Daisy," she said, coming a little closer. I felt for a while that you were trying to tell me to stop, but couldn't voice it. I hoped I hadn't made a mistake...and I was afraid to ask."

She then took on a lighter tone. "And I know you know what they did to me, and you understand. You saw them at their worst, and you rescued me from them. But, even for all that...I took no pleasure in what I did to them. In extracting their confession, breaking them with talk, trapping them in the way that I- we did...that was pleasurable, and I know damn well that it was necessary. But the consumption itself...no. If I felt pleasure from that...I can't- it would make me like them."

Despite those words, her face then creaked into a smile.

"But there is such a thing as satisfaction."

Daisy walked over to Francesca, and cautiously put her hand on Francesca's tail. "I get it."

She looked up, into Francesca's eyes again. "May I?"

"I think I'd be offended if you didn't," Francesca said, and Daisy kissed her. It wasn't sexual, even romantic; but it was friendly. Francesca coiled up a "lap" Daisy could sit in while they shared their thoughts directly with each other. I kind of wished we had our link already so, presumably, Brad and I would be a party to this, but at the same time I realizing that level of privacy will be ending for me soon, so a little longer is not an issue.

I really wanted to know if Daisy searched for her sister's thoughts among the various streams going through Francesca's mind at the moment, and if so, if she found anything.

Daisy didn't seem distressed by the "conversation", in any case. I'm sure she'll tell me about it later on.

"Are you leaving soon?" Francesca said, apparently having forgotten to ask that of Daisy during the kiss.

"This afternoon," Daisy answered. "We've overstayed our welcome, and... I'll be able to fly once I get these feathers under control. You're going to have your hands full."

"You're not kidding. Are you sure you'll be okay? It'll be crowded, but we'd always make room for you--"

"We'll be fine. Look, Francesca... I know this wasn't easy on either of us. Any of us. I'm sorry for taking you along on our little detour, but I'm glad we got to the right place in the end. We both did what we had to do. I'll never forget our time together."

Daisy held her hand, then, just over her waist on her right side, her right ovary, where she'd brought Francesca back to life.

For a few seconds Francesca just remained silent, feeling that spot - the spot that had brought her back from the very very edge of oblivion, and remembering how she'd repaid her in kind by delivering her from the oblivion of a different sort given to her by the bee-girls.

Finally, she spoke. Her voice was soft.

"It's not about where you're going...the journey is the worthier part. And...if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have been able to take that journey at all. That it was a...little longer than expected, well...that was all part of the trip."

She then raised Daisy's hand to her mouth, gently kissing it with her lips. I saw her blush - expressing this friendly affection as a goodbye to someone she respected. A true friend, a friend who she loved....through everything that had happened to them both.

"Thank you, Daisy, for everything. I hope we'll meet again before too long."

Within the hour, we'd cleaned up our own lunch dishes, said our goodbyes and thanks to the others, and were on our way.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

59: Quantum

Postby dreamweevil » Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:53 am

Stacy: I've been having the sense of readiness for days and it's been a bit of torture waiting for Daisy and Brad to catch up.

I stayed behind in our little formation for the entire eighteen kilometers, watching my partners for any sign of trouble, particularly exhaustion, the effort of hoisting themselves through the air on brand-new and decidedly unfinished wings. I'd done my best to get all three of us preened perfectly, that very thin coat of oil spread just right to keep air from leaking through feathers where it's not supposed to. Meanwhile my own trip has been effortless. I could bound up a thousand feet higher into the air in an instant and would love to do so if I wasn't temporarily hobbled by my two partners.

Daisy didn't want to admit on landing that I was right: that the very short trial voyage was warranted. Just far enough to get out of the lamia's hair and test some wings. I'd even considered, at one point, making the flight just a kilometer or so long and hiring a car to take us the rest of the way, but I also knew that a bit of a push would strengthen those all-important flight muscles.

We'd arrived early in the afternoon, which was blissfully sunny and also much cooler than the few days before. Daisy checked her feathers, smoothing them back into place where the airflow and landing had disturbed them.

These feathers held a secret that we'd lifted from the Sphinx: despite our coloration, they were cool to the touch, collecting solar energy that fed back into biological processes. Photosynthetic, like a plant, only more efficient. During daylight we figured this mechanism could supply more than sixty percent of our nutritional needs: basically meaning that we will, once we're fully developed, be able to fly all day without getting very hungry. If the winds are right we could cover over a thousand klicks in a single day.

Despite this, on landing we spotted a convenience store that shared the mostly-empty parking lot with our mostly-empty hotel, and Daisy and I had the same idea at the same instant: Chocolate.

The lamia had mostly farm-fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains in their diet. It's what they raised. They weren't big on desserts and definitely not on the snacks that humans used to have all the time. As the human economy collapses under its own weight, one of the mixed blessings is the impending doom of the food "industry", which has developed its own sort of optimizations, leading to the ability to combine cocoa powder from Mexico to be combined with sugar from Hawaii, peanuts from Chile, and milk powder manufactured in Wisconsin in a giant processing facility in East Hanover, New Jersey, wrapped in metallic plastic and shipped across the world and sold for just one-and-a-half dollars.

Everybody knows this system will collapse soon and things like the photosynthetic feathers we've developed as a hedge against this future will, ironically, hasten it. Nobody wants to be dependent on any insdustry if they can help it, and now... they can help it. The bee-girls wen for two years with no food at all, no electricity, nothing except some water, air, and a steady supply of human victims. Surely their transition to human food will be temporary as well.

So an opportunity to grab something as simple as a candy bar feels like a time-limited luxury. Plus, it felt too early to check into the hotel.

Walking into the the convenience store was a shock and it took more than a few seconds for us to connect why. It wasn't that the girl behind the counter had cat-ears and a tail, or that the next customer walking into the place was a full-fledged skunk-girl, it wasn't what was on the screen behind the counter or the conversation we overheard: it was all of these things, together. Three hawk-women walking in the door didn't raise an eyebrow, nor did the skunk-girl, who seemed to know the owner of the place.

"Hey, Melanie," the cat-girl behind the counter said to the skunk-girl. "How have you been?"

On the TV monitor is an overhead shot of some kind of minor crime scene, and in the shot I catch the edge of a flapping wing. This shot isn't coming from a helicopter or drone: the camerawoman is, clearly, avian. The sound is turned down but it doesn't matter. Another customer: clearly one of Groblek's dog-taurs, is approaching.

"Not bad, Star," the skunk-girl answers. I notice then that the cat-girl has a white star shape on the back of one ear. "Have you noticed that all of the human males remaining on the planet seem to be total pussies?"

"Did you have a date last night or something?"

"Yeah, sort of. Is it me, or has the world become a safer place? I mean-- I used to love it: walk alone at night and wait for some strange guy to catcall me and I'd be all like: Want some of this, honey?"

Melanie's tail shot up toward the ceiling and she turned her rear end towards the imaginary assailant. Her tail hit one of the LED light strips that hung from the ceiling, which hit two other strips and reverberated with an aluminum clang.

"Oops! Sorry!" Melanie immediately lowered her tail, then blushed as she saw, apparently, the top of Brad's head just over the rack, close to Melanie's apparent line of fire, though still protected by the rack of candy bars we were all standing behind.

Now self-aware that we were eavesdropping and no longer selecting our purchase, we stepped out from behind the rack, at which point Melanie went to personally apologize and then connected just who we were.

"Oh my god! Are you... Stacy-- and Daisy Potemkin??? And you're... Brad? Star! It's Stacy Six-seed and her friends!! Here!"

Apparently, that's a name they'd come up with for me, a play on "Johnny Appleseed" given us shortly after our first tour around the country spreading the 6.0 genetics.

"I thought I recognized them," Star said.

"Pleased to meet you," I said, shaking both hands.

Melanie the skunk-girl was more star-struck than Star the cat-girl.

"You used to have different colors," Star said, remaining fairly calm.

"Yes," Daisy said. "I had yellow with a black stripe. Now we... match." Daisy extended a wing up against mine. "It's a long story."

"That's so cute!!", Melanie shrieked. Her voice made Star smile, and I wondered if there was anything between them: they were both straight out of Anime.

"I'm sorry, we couldn't help overhearing... we just came from the lamia's territory, and--"

"Lamia," Star nodded. "Nice folks. Not frequent customers, but I've promised to do something to that front door so their tails stop getting caught in it."

The chiron on the television caught my attention. HOMO SAPIENS EXTINCT IN TEN YEARS, SOME EXPERTS SAY.

It hit us all at once. In front of two women we didn't know. That the world wasn't human anymore. We'd all been living in a complete monoculture for so long that we'd assumed our own little bubble of it was an exception: Daisy and Brad had lived among the bee-girls for years, then she and I with the Sphinx, then the lamia.

The world isn't human anymore.

I felt so horribly naive at that moment. I had the least excuse to be that way: Brad and Daisy were captive to the bee-girls for well over a year but I could have been out there, watching what was happening in the real world. They're calling this new iteration "Hetero Sapiens": a play on our predecessor's name, self aware and intelligent yet otherwise completely diverse.

We posed with Star and Melanie for a picture, which Star of course ensured made the name of her little shop visible.

"I'm sorry we startled you," Brad said. He caught Melanie's eye, and she almost unconsciously flirted with him right in front of us, turning and brushing her fur to accentuate her hips.

Brad smiled at me. The masculinity was working, apparently, and that was quite fine with me.

I apologized for being in on their conversation. "We didn't mean to overhear you... but are there really that few men left? And the ones that are... are..."

"You can say it. Pussies," Melanie said.

"That wasn't supposed to be a bad thing," Daisy said.

"I didn't say it was. I mean, wasn't two years ago when a woman couldn't walk down the street alone in daylight without fearing for her life."

"More than a few met their 'end' in Melanie's," Star said, smiling. "She used to do nighttime security for me."

"That's what I miss," Melanie said. "Used to be so cool, slipping out of the shadows when some hunky man was threatening someone. I'd give them a simple choice: stink for a month and lie in a pool of their own vomit, or..."

"...baby skunk-girl?" Brad said, guessing.

"Baby skunk-girl. You can guess which they usually chose."

"But those days are coming to an end," Star said. "I can't say that's for the worse. Heck, if it weren't for the bee-girls a woman could walk down the street naked in the middle of the day, and nobody'd bother her. The men who remain men are...

"Too smart to take that risk," Brad said.

"The bee-girls won't be a problem anymore," added Daisy, changing the topic.

"Daisy took care of them," I added. "Again... it's a long story."

"I heard... that the lamia wiped them out," Star said, looking back and finally ringing up three candy bars.

"Almost," I answered. "We'll just say they're under new management now."

"That's why business is up during the day," Star said, back behind the counter and smiling at the door. A couple of dog-taur were walking up to the door.

. . .


Brad is going to be magnificent, fast, and, best of all: mine. Daisy's not too far behind. She's sexy, more so than I've ever seen her, even with feathers covering her body. (No more clothes! Yay!)

Okay. I'll share him with Daisy. And I'll share Daisy with him. Oh, this is going to be great. A little overwhelming, but I found a way to use this to mutual advantage. I advanced on Brad.

"So, Mister, are you ready to become our plaything?? Once we do this, there's no going back."

We're finally alone in our hotel room. I'm aware of a distinct fullness in my lower body: one side of my quantum communications gland is full, the other completely empty.

Daisy looked at me and gave me a little smile. Brad, for his part, had apparently completely forgotten his request. It didn't take too much tweaking-- just a little adjustment in the interconnection between his spinal cord and his quantum communication organ. He has a safeword, of sorts, that I won't reproduce on the blog but that he knows. With that, he can break our control over him whenever he needs to, but otherwise Daisy and I should be able to override pretty much any part his body, mold his desires to fit our needs. He's going to love every minute of it.

It's a minor adjustment because we're expecting this interconnect to be pretty substantial in any case. Once we do this, Daisy and Brad should have access to my thoughts: not just my memories, but what I'm thinking right now, and I'll have access to theirs.

It's frightening. But it feels the same as when one's about to have sex for the first time: a new frontier. Scary and exciting.

Daisy, tuning to the same channel, advances also. We work together and pin Brad to the bed by his wings. I hold him still. Daisy starts nosing around where his private parts should be like she's a dog or something, finding that vulnerability hidden beneath his feathers. I bring my own genitals a little too close to Brad's face for his comfort, tickling his nose with my ventral feathers and interrupting the action by making him sneeze.

"Sorry!"

We've worked out this connection enough times that I'm hoping we remembered to destroy all the printed copies and sketches we'd made. Daisy backs away and we see this organ emerging from Brad's body.

"Last time you'll have control over this reflex," Daisy taunts. She's correct, of course.

It was harder than we thought, fitting ourselves together in just one of the configurations we'd worked out. I ended up lying atop Brad on my back, and Daisy atop me on her back-- the same layout we'd be in to mate in the air, just upside down. I rode Brad this way until I felt him enter me, and at the same time Daisy felt it too.

But we had to reset ourselves a couple of times until we got the alignment just right that our organs could enter each other's deeply enough. Our bodies would adjust to each other: a feedback mechanism would ensure that-- but this was, after all, our first time.

It was probably one in the morning when what we might call our orgasm began. Finally, all the internal connections perfect, everything latched together and all the seals between us double-checked and then-- at last--

Release.

It was so amazing, so perfect, that we spent four hours together locked together, just like that. From the huge initial surge of quantum fluid, flowing six ways between us, to a gentle, ongoing trickle of it. Brad's thoughts, Daisy's thoughts, my thoughts, all together.

This is it, lovers. We'll never be apart again.

And we never have been.

At five in the morning we were all thirsty. With agreement, Daisy and Daisy alone disengaged from the connection, went to the other side of the room, and drank three glasses of water, all by herself.

I could feel the water going down her throat. I didn't say anything: I just watched in amazement, in the near-darkness, as what I saw matched what I felt, perfectly, with Daisy several feet away.

When she returned, she tried a different position, face down towards me, and we found our way into reconnecting much more quickly than the first time took.

"Here."

And just like that, neither Brad nor I were thirsty: our bodies immediately balancing our hydration between each other like we were sharing one bloodstream, which we might as well have been. Comfort, intimacy, fatigue all came together. Daisy spread her wings over us like a blanket, the tips of her wings nearly reaching the tips of Brad's, which overhung the edges of the king-sized bed by several feet.

"You felt her drink the water?" I asked Brad, without ever opening my mouth.

Brad didn't use words. He'd felt it.

We decided to test that communication in all six paths. Daisy made up a number in her head, and Brad repeated it. Then the same with me. Then we gained control over each other's internal organs, especially our communications organ, ensuring each of our own reception glands were as full as we could make them. Then we slept and woke again, still attached.

We decided to send Brad to the bathroom for us. This required completely disconnecting from each other, as he was still pinned to the bottom, and didn't want to disengage but something amazing happened there too: When we disconnected, physically, it didn't seem like we were disconnected at all. When Brad got up we felt him getting to his feet. The light in the bathroom was too bright and we all wanted to wince. We could feel him "go".

On his return from the bathroom, I decided to tease him: "Well, that was certainly convenient. I think we'll do it that way from now on, don't you, Daisy?"

She smiled at me, then Brad. "Oh, that'd be my pleasure."

I think right about then, Brad got the first inkling of what he was in for. And if Daisy and I could help it, he'd love every minute of it.

A little while later, as Daisy was pondering the breakfast menu and simultaneously preening her fingers, I had Brad sit at the little desk and write a little note on the little paper with the hotel's little plastic pen, waiting to see when Daisy would notice.

She didn't have to get up to see what Brad had written: she just looked through Brad's eyes.

"Sorry, Daisy. I love Stacy the best. She's the greatest."

She grimaced. "That wasn't me!" he said, fighting my control of him to get the words out.

Daisy whirled on me. "Stacy!!" she chided. "Brad, I know--"

Realizing that she didn't need to speak: I know that wasn't you.

Just seeing if you'd notice, I said. I had Brad wave at her, this time with his complete cooperation.

Next, Daisy was in my face again, kissing me, then I felt something between my legs and all three of us ended up in bed again. By the time we left the room we'd missed breakfast completely. At least lunch was good.

In the afternoon, to satisfy scientific curiosity, we intentionally flew in different directions to test our quantum communication link. This would take the longest to get used to: being able to pay attention to what Daisy or Brad sees, hears, smells, feels, or thinks just as easily as paying attention to my own senses. Daisy had written about "triangulation" once; the effect of seeing the same event from multiple viewpoints: now we were destined to do this live, all the time. As we flew, we could see three similar but different blue skies that at first my brain would try to fuse into a single picture but couldn't: it inspired almost enough motion sickness that I nearly threw up mid-air, until I narrowed my vision to only my own eyes.

We landed at seventy kilometers distance from each other, well beyond the threshold of the bee-girls' radio-frequency communication and found no degradation whatsoever, even with terrain and buildings in the way. We celebrated together even though we were at such a distance: It works!!

We spent a second night at the same motel, supposedly resting, but of course... not really. One more day for feathers to grow in and for us to really start learning about each other, supporting each other, filling in each other's gaps. It was amazing the difference an extra day made: by the time we were ready to leave, Daisy and Brad were comfortable in the air at last. With a good rest and refueling we were able to climb well above the other avians, get into favorable air currents towards the shore, and...

Well...

Why am I having trouble saying this? I mean it was right there, out in plain sight for anybody with binoculars. Anybody who watched the skies. And none of us are embarrassed about it in the slightest, right? No. We're not.

We mated in mid-air, just like we'd designed ourselves to be able to do. It was beyond wonderful: it was enough to start seriously considering whether I was actually still alive or not.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

60: Visitors

Postby dreamweevil » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:29 am

Stacy: I'll keep tagging who's narrating here, though in so many ways it no longer matters, does it? It could be Brad typing my words constructed from Stacy's thoughts of events that happened to all three of us and you'd never know, right?

We've decided I'll "write" this, though. You'll see why in a moment.

Mermaid's Rock is a misnomer: it's one of the outermost harbor islands and is far more than a rock. It's wooded in the center, and has a small dock where boats can, and sometimes still do, arrive.

It's another nice afternoon, and the three of us are dangling our feet in the water, pondering which kind of feet would actually have suited us best. I mean, a hawk's talons might have made sense, but we're not snatching prey from the air or perching in the tops of trees. But human feet require some kind of shoes, and even though we have very minimal sandals at the moment we're debating designs that would render even those obsolete.

The world is no longer human and it's becoming less so over time. A number of hybrids, like the snake-women lamia, have spun off variants that ditch some of the human parts: a snake-woman without breasts, with scales right to her armpits or even above, can glide through underbrush and terrain much more quickly, without scraping anything sensitive on the ground. Some species were half-human because of the sexual appeal of the whole animal: but if sexual appeal is subjective, and there are diminishingly few humans to appeal to, what's the point?

Francesca and I came to an interesting finding. As we diversify, we tend to add new creatures to our instinctive definition of attractiveness, without actually removing any of the previous variants from the list.

At what point will the hybrid animals simply become the animals we emulated? And, if we retain that super-human intelligence, ability to bond across species, ability to vary ourselves over time, does that matter at all?

The first part of Mermaid's Rock has an accurate name, however. Because a human woman becomes visible, about twenty feet out in the water. She looks, clearing her eyes, then brushes some seaweed from her hair and swims closer, finally propelling herself onto the smooth rock that seems made for that purpose. She's got a large, iridescent, blue tail but from the waist up is pretty instantly recognizable.

"Hi, Mom," Daisy says. I can feel her form the words in her throat as tears, simultaneously, form in her eyes. Brad and I, simultaneously, feed her emotional support, steeling her a bit without sapping her emotional intensity.

"I'm so sorry," Daisy says, sliding over.

It's a surreal scene from my angle. Amy, the mermaid, sopping wet, wrapping her arms around her feathered daughter, whose feathers mostly protect her from the salty moisture.

Amy coughs a few times. I see gill slits, down near her waist, virtually invisible now, but she has to clear air from her lungs before she can speak.

"I know," Amy says.

Daisy telegraphs her mother's sense of loss. Alicia was her first, the first of four children in that alphabetical sequence. Completely natural, born a little girl and raised from scratch, the old-fashioned way. And now, at just 25 years of age, she's gone.

Daisy plunges her head into her mother's neck and cries.

"Honey, honey, it's okay," Amy soothes. I watch as they kiss. I've dreaded this moment: Daisy feeding Amy the raw, uncensored visions of the last few moments of Alicia's life, the way Brad and I saw it. A last desperate plea and whisper as the lamia's body consumed her. The knowledge that Francesca will deliberately avoid becoming pregnant, just as Cerys did when she plotted to destroy Rob.

Solely because of our quantum link I can feel what's going on between Daisy and Amy; I also feel something through that link: love. For me. For Brad. As Amy discovers this link, she uses it to communicate directly with us, and it's unmistakable: If if weren't for both of you, I don't know what would have become of Daisy.

But next thing I'm crying too, as is Brad. Amy is surprised at this, how quickly the link works to share emotions, not just thoughts. Amy's strength redoubles itself. And she makes two things very clear:

Things have happened as they needed to, and:

Alicia is not gone. The best parts of her still exist, inside Amy, inside Francesca, inside us. Those parts cannot help but emerge in other ways: A little bit of Alicia's accumulated experience cautioning Francesca not to make the same mistakes, and indeed to pass that wisdom on to her children.

She is no more gone than Jessica, Daisy's other mom, nor any of us ever will be.

We cry a few more minutes, and Amy has us jump down into knee-deep water so she can touch us as well. By now her hands are dry and I'm loaded with questions on just how this happened, on how the woman who was so instrumental in all of this became a mermaid and exactly what that life is like, why she made this choice.

"You can find out whenever you'd like to," she said. "I'd like to know what it's like to soar through the clouds, but someday I'll experience it myself. Right now this just seems more important." Immediately, a sense of scale comes through: surely, seventy percent of the Earth is ocean, but since everything outside the ocean generally lives on "the surface", and underwater creatures live at many different depths, the total space of the ocean, and the life within it, is many, many times what I'm used to. And while I wonder about the obvious questions like dealing with sharks and jellyfish and communication and just what mermaids eat, there are simple answers to all of it. It's a marine biologist's treasure trove and we're only now discovering answers to things that weren't even questions just two years ago.

Amy imagines adding one more degree of freedom to our present design: a winged fish would have complete freedom of both realms, would it not?

Daisy nods. I can sense her thoughts, see her imagination: wouldn't take much of a change to be able to simply dive from great height right through that surface, adapt our wings to be able to swim, to be able to breathe underwater.

Amy responds that we've got a lot of work to do first. Land-dwelling humans haven't cared about the ocean, really, except for what it could give them: fish, whale oil, fossil fuel drilling opportunities. We've used the oceans as our own species' dumping grounds for centuries and the place is littered with trash dumps, discarded weapons, shipwrecks, the remnants of old oil spills, radioactive pollution, and a whole lot of plastic. Because we humans couldn't see under the surface we had no idea what we were doing, how much damage ten billion humans could cause.

Amy plans to fix that. Or at least to get started doing so. She's got much the same plan as the lamia, then: as a first stage, to make that underwater stewardship palatable to people used to living on dry land: to make it comfortable, and safe. Underwater habitats from which dedicated people could begin to unwind centuries of damage that we'd done. To give back to the oceans that gave life to us. Alicia's memory, her mistakes and successes, will guide her, even if Alicia herself is not here.

We stayed with Amy until the sun touched the horizon. She explained she had a long swim back to where her friends were, but we could visit anytime: return to this spot and she'd find us. I saw, in her eyes, she wasn't expecting it. She knew we were on a different path, an important one, which at the moment it didn't seem at all to me.

These are all your children, she said, tears in her eyes. You did this. And it couldn't have happened any sooner, or in a better way. Thank you. Take care, my loves.

Wow.

We watched Amy swim off into the distance. The setting sun was off to our side, and the glare made it hard to tell whether the last little shadow we saw was a wave, or the tip of Amy's tail as she dived.

Did you both just get the weird feeling that we're not going to see her again?

Daisy nodded.

. . .

Our next stop was not far, at Pamela's barn, to visit the centaurs. It was a lovely visit and we got to watch not one, but two of these amazing creatures being born on the same day, and two humans take their place in those cavernous bellies: to wrap themselves in the same grey birthing caul that the young centaurs had emerged from and then be sealed up, drawn inside to begin a yearlong gestation process.

It was polite and interesting but had no surprises, really: the centaur life was going as it was supposed to, the number of humans awaiting transformation getting down to the last few. Except for one surprise that was, apparently, waiting for either us or someone just like us to arrive.

Gail Sinter is one of three Designated Humans at Larkin Farms: a 6.0 woman who is intentionally forgoing the promise of becoming a centaur herself in order to assist the centaurs with those (dwindling number of) tasks that the centaurs have trouble doing themselves, usually due to their size or weight. After a very nice dinner with Pamela and several of her friends, Gail pulled the three of us aside. She had a favor to ask of us.

"This is going to sound weird, but... the best way to to this is to come right out and ask. I'd like to intentionally infect you with a parasite. Honored, really, should you accept--"

Brad fielded this one. "Excuse me: a parasite??"

"Specifically, my daughter. Or... one of my daughters. I've named her Gaia, you know, after the planet?"

Daisy and I had our attention suitably drawn. "Look," she said, turning to me. "I can share everything about it--"

She went to kiss me, and I understandably turned that down.

"Oh, okay. Sorry. Why don't I explain?"

"Okay, that can't hurt."

"I'm one of the scientists that helped Pamela work out the original centaur design, you know? How they have so little impact on the environment and why we're not inundated with flies and such right now."

"Right," I said, and we looked around. Still nice and clean as ever, despite the growing size of the herd.

"Since that design was done I wanted to work on something else. And with your inspiration I've done it. Imagine a life form that could adapt to help clean up our planet from all the different messes we've made. That could digest plastic in the ocean, tar on beaches, and... turn decaying plant matter into diamond rather than let the carbon dioxide escape back into the atmosphere."

"O...kay," Brad said.

"We've been assuming that we have to be this size, you see, or larger." Gail pointed at several of the centaurs nearby. "Really, pretty massive. But suppose intelligent life-- us-- could be much smaller? Still have the 6.0 ability to adapt but now at a scale and number to deal with big problems in very small ways?"

"Okay, but what does this have to do with a parasitic infection?"

Gail nodded. "More symbiotic, I suppose; but strictly I have to say a parasite as there's no direct biological benefit to the host. But it's less than a quarter of one percent of the energy budget of someone your size-- oh, I just would love to have you meet her." She leaned over for a kiss again, this time to Daisy.

"Wait! What does this have to do with us? Stop trying to infect us!"

Gail looked perplexed, then shook her head. "Oh, gosh, no. A kiss wouldn't infect you. I just wanted you to hear her thoughts, that's all."

"Whose?"

"My daughter's. Gaia's. She could explain it all to you."

"You're daughter's inside you? You're already infected?"

"No! I created her. I just haven't given birth to her yet. We had other avian visitors, yes, but so far all of them turned me down--"

"So if I kiss you," Daisy said, "I'll be able to sort all this out and it still won't infect me?"

"Correct. Absolutely can't infect you that way." Gail looked up and took a breath. "I'd do this myself, but I'm stuck here. Designated Human, remember? But I've developed an intelligent life form-- as intelligent as you or I, really, that would like to help solve some of our world's big problems. Pamela's all for it, she just didn't think you'd take to the idea. But see, birds-- like you-- are really good at distribution, you know? And that's what Gaia needs to get started. If I released her here, she could help our local area but that's it: it would take decades for my grandchildren to make a dent."

I'm interpreting her urgency as excitement, Daisy sent. I'm inclined to see what this Gaia has to say. Any objections?

Our DNA protects us from parasites and everything else, so there shouldn't be any risk, Brad volunteered.

Okay. Going for it.

"Alright, Gail, introduce me."

Daisy sat back and accepted Gail's kiss. She tasted vaguely of roasted red peppers, and as I looked I saw a plate of red pepper hummus nearby.

Whoa. Gaia is indeed alive, startlingly intelligent (perhaps not so startlingly, given who her mother is) and very conversational. Immediately we're treated to depictions of what her children, Gail's grandchildren, will be able to do: analyze situations and adapt themselves to correct environmental damage, on either a microscopic level or anything larger, as the situation calls for it. We were treated to school-film style romp through her imagination, complete with math that, when I checked it, worked out. It explained how various materials that humans had so carelessly deposited in the environment could be degraded, transmuted, whatever. Equipped with short range communications, forming their own mesh.

They figure the bulk of the effort will take about thirty-five years, given how extensive it is: thirty-five years to effectively erase a lot of humanity's unintended footprints on the Earth.

Then what? When the mission is over, they all perish?

No. They're 6.0 just like you, so I imagine they'd join themselves together into larger creatures and then use the opportunity to enjoy the planet they'd just saved, regale us with their tales, do... whatever they want. When I'm done laying eggs, when we've seeded the planet, I'll join them, or you, or... well, we'll figure it out then.

Laying eggs?

Gail answered this time, still immersed in the kiss. That's how this works. You carry my daughter inside you. Whenever you poop, you release hundreds or even thousands of her eggs. Like we said, for you it'll hardly be noticeable: barely a quarter of one percent of your energy will go into keeping her fed and producing those eggs.

Absolutely, Gaia confirmed. If you tell me what kind of terrain we're heading towards, I can customize accordingly. But if you ever find I'm a burden, you just let me know, and we'll part ways. I'd do this on my own, but I need someone like to you help me travel. You're even more magnificent than I imagined, it'd be such a pleasure.

Why not just develop your own avian offspring who could fly on her own and still lay all those eggs?

A difference of scale, and focus. It's taken a lot of effort to replicate all the functions of the human brain into a much, much smaller space. That, and all the other functions I needed, were what my effort focused on. Perhaps I didn't really consider the distribution angle early enough. Mentally she flipped through her own research notes, where it was pretty clearly visible: "How about geographic dispersal? TBD."

Gail broke off the kiss, and looked us all in the eyes, in turn. "I mean, I'm sure I could come up with something simliar but it would take time. This, what I've already got, we could do now."

Holy cow. Gaia is, of all unimaginable things, an intestinal parasite. The strangest 6.0 creation yet imagined: far beyond the wild things that we'd ever thought up or seen.

And we thought about it together, and inevitably came to the conclusion: with her heart in the right place, with the amazing amount of effort she'd already put into it, there was only one answer.

We wish we'd thought of this ourselves.

"We'd be honored to help you."

Gail was not expecting that reaction at all. She was expecting us to tell her and her parasite daughter to get lost. She broke into tears and hugged Daisy.

"Just one problem," Daisy said. You know what I'm about to say, right?, she sent to us.

"What??"

I nodded my Sorry, Daisy. The poop question again. I smiled at her and she grimaced at me. "We don't poop in mid-air. Okay. Total transparency, we did once, but..."

"Oh, yes, civilized and all, I've seen your interviews, of course. But certainly under some circumstances one of you could make exception-- you know, unpopulated areas and all?"

"I suppose," Daisy said.

"This is so great!" Gail shrieked. She ran off. "Pamela! Pamela! They said yes!!"

"Good for you," we heard Pamela shout in the distance. She trotted up a moment later. "Please, I didn't mean to inflict my friend's idea on you, but if you're willing, I think it'd make a huge difference."

"We agreed to it," Daisy said. "You know us. All about making a difference." Brad elbowed Daisy in the ribs. She deserved it.

"That leaves-- which of you--"

"We've arranged things such that Brad handles most of that department," I said, without adding any unnecessary detail. "Sorry, Brad!"

"Oh, very good. Is there a place where we can go to handle the... infection?"

As if privacy matters with a quantum link like this, I said. Daisy laughed out loud: Brad was too nervous. Gail took him to her own quarters, had him explain his rather complicated anatomy to her, and had him reveal the relevant parts to her. Finally, she giddily lay atop him, and extended a long, slim ovipositor from her body into his, deep into his intestinal tract, finding the perfect spot. Having done so, her body went into spasms as she laid that single egg, her "daughter", in a place where it attached to the interior of Brad's body, effectively becoming a part of him, with his express permission.

At least it didn't hurt.

Gaia was immediately surprised to know that Daisy and I were feeling every instant of that, and that she had access to our thoughts as well as Brad's. We didn't generally make a big thing about having this permanent connection between us.

You have... a quantum-particle communication link! Could I repurpose that? My own mesh network is the weakest part of my design.

Welcome to our little group, Gaia. Please, knock yourself out with it. If it helps you...

I don't know show she'll refresh that link once the particles decay, Brad said.

It doesn't need to last long. A few weeks... You--

Gaia instantly discovered how we refresh our own link, and burst out into amused laughter. "You three have sex to recharge your link! That's brilliant! I don't think I need that, but if for a few weeks it keeps me in touch with what's happening on the ground, it'll be worth it. I'll get right on it, soon as I..." Gaia faded out.

Brad felt a little creeped out, knowing that this egg was hatching inside him, and that Gaia would soon be ready to start spitting out her own eggs. It was basically as though she said to all of us: "Don't mind me," and then got to work.

Within a few days we weren't bothered by it at all. When nature called, Gaia would suggest an altitude based on the humidity, temperature, terrain and so on, to give her tiny eggs the best chance of survival. Brad would often have to dive from our usual altitude down to fifteen hundred or so to do his business, or we'd all glide down to that altitude together, depending.

. . .

We spent weeks visiting many of the other creatures we'd spawned into 6.0 enlightenment, loosely following the loop we'd made once before, but now much faster. Many of the stops were brief, and often we'd take big, pleasurable detours to visit other interesting species we'd heard about.

Something started to happen. About three hours after we visited an area, we could feel a connection to it. Intelligence where there had been none before, like the Earth itself was coming alive and speaking to us over the same link that we used with each other. First, growth, and safety: then, an assessment of the problem, Gaia's desired solution to it, which she'd share with the three of us. Some of her children were experts in biologically destroying petroleum products, some plastics. Their oft-chosen waste product was a form of carbon chemically similar to diamond: completely inert, at least at normal Earth surface temperatures and pressures.

Man, the humans were going to be furious when they found that the last of Earth's coal and oil deposits would soon be useless as a fuel source.

As we flew, we grew quite a bit stronger, and a bit larger. The longer flights became surprisingly easy. As the weather grew colder we flew south, like millions of other avians, and at the coast stopped for several days to rest, make love of course, and feed, and then did something we always wanted to try: to cross the ocean. We flew to Los Angeles, of all places, spent a few days there resting, sightseeing, and eating, and then, without telling anyone what we were doing, headed out over the Pacific.

This had been one of Gaia's highest-priority destinations. A century of pollution gathered here, and as we crossed the salty waters, she released more of her children into them. This would be more arduous work: the plastic here ranged in size from microscopic to well larger than that, and provided little of a fuel source on its own, so gathering energy from the Sun was important. But her goal is to not make any situation worse while making it better, so she had to limit her children's number and size, and of course a fair number would be lost to hungry predators under the surface. But this worked well to her advantage, for the pollution, animal life, and her children would follow the same currents, and it was simple enough to recruit marine life itself into her cause: fish eating her eggs, or the varied life forms that emerged from them, could easily be infected with the same sort of parasite that now lived within Brad: usually they would arrange to free the same animal from other infestations, so as not to be a burden, and then those animals would continue the spread.

The long flights proved no problem at all. By joining our bodies together, we could soar more or less continuously, pausing only every 1-3 days to stop for food and water. In my usual position, tucked just under Brad's wings and above Daisy, I could tuck my head into her shoulder and actually sleep, waking up many hundreds of kilometers from where I was before, and then take over for either of my other partners, transferring the balance of energy only slightly. We made it to the Hawaiian islands with no difficulty, marvelling at the sights none of us had yet to see with our own eyes, rested and fed again, and then headed off towards Japan, Asia, Russia, and Europe.

Where Gaia found radioactive contamination, her children would consume it: actually encapsulating each of the billions of tiny particles left of Chernobyl's exploded reactor core. They would swell up into a fungus the size of a beach ball, using that radiation to power themselves, then, with surgical precision, remove individual protons and neutrons from atoms until the substances they contained were no longer hazardous. When she found chemical pollution they'd engineer ways to deal with that.

Humans were bound to discover what was happening, but we were way ahead of them and generally uninterested in their news at that point.

Half the time we navigated with purpose; the other half just for fun, wandering in a direction for hours merely because the clouds that way looked interesting. We enjoyed colder weather when we felt like experiencing that; we visited cities when we wanted to experience civilization, or flew far away from it when we didn't. We liked being in the air most of the time because, that way, we were physically connected to each other.

We visited Russia, Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, finally crossing the Atlantic. We'd done it: a complete trip around the globe.

It was finally time for a visit we'd been putting off: the bee-girls. Specifically, Aeris and Mary. We felt we owed this to Rob, to Francesca, and to the world in general. One problem: we had no idea where to find either of them.

We had to fly, first, to Janiss' hive. Janiss would know where Aeris had gone after her retirement, after all, and from there we could locate Mary, with any luck.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

61: Janiss

Postby dreamweevil » Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:57 am

Brad: Okay, my turn at the keyboard for a bit.

Daisy likes Gail's "invention", her daughter Gaia, because she's the most creative life form to emerge so far, at least that we know of.

I've come to really like her as well. When she's busy adapting her next batch of offspring for the enviroment we're expecting to find, she's very focused on that task, but at other times she's a hoot to converse with: she's very intelligent, and downright funny, which, given where she lives, I suppose she'd actually have to be.

She figured out the relationship between the three of us pretty quickly. A little too quickly for me, though. One morning, after we'd had a good night's sleep, she asked a question, but it wasn't to me, her host:

"Stacy, Daisy?" she asked.

"Yes, Gaia?" they answered, together, over our link.

"I'm wondering if I could have your permission to take up a little more space in your partner's body; to grow myself about... oh, sixty percent or so. I was originally designed for a smaller, avian body, but Brad is larger than that, and there are... three of you. If I were larger I'd be able to lay more eggs more frequently, which would result in a better mesh, and would avoid slowing you down."

She shared her design with my two girlfriends. Stacy, at least, raised a little concern. "Will that cause him any problems?"

"Hey," I objected. "Shouldn't you be asking me that?"

"No," Daisy and Stacy answered, again in unison. "Remember? We own you?"

Gaia laughed. "Face it, Brad... you've got your other two girlfriends at one end, and now me at the other..."

"But--"

I felt Daisy review the plans in her head, and she gave Gaia the permission to proceed, with Stacy's approval.

"But-- Is this fair??" I asked. "I don't see you two taking on your share of this--"

Gaia giggled inside me. "They're already doing their share, Brad. Tell me: when was the last time you had something to eat?"

I counted backwards through the days. This morning, we had such a great night: I had some juice but wasn't hungry. Daisy and Stacy both had the breakfast buffet. Dinner-- I went to sleep early, they had take-out. Lunch before--

"Two days ago, lunch, Macaroni and Cheese--"

"That was us, silly," Stacy answered. "You said you weren't hungry."

"But I remember what it tasted like!"

"You remember us eating it. I thought it was a little too salty."

"You're right," I answered. "A little too salty...?"

I tried to think back even further. I know what each meal tastes like. I just can't find one that I ate... myself.

"You've become dependent on each other," Gaia observed. "Your bodies are reducing duplicate functionality where they can, which is why your metabolism is becoming more efficient. You don't eat anymore because Daisy and Stacy take care of that for you. Your body does other things for theirs. You've still got plenty of redundancy between you, just less of it. One of these days you're going to hook up and find you can't unhook."

"What? Really?"

"It makes perfect sense. I mean... it's what you want, someday, right? Your bodies are designed to stay linked at essentially infinite distance. But how far apart are you, most of the time?"

The furthest distance we've ever had between us is when we tested that distance. Even since we've really never been out of each other's line of sight. The range of the quantum link is more useful to Gaia than it is to us.

"And with me here you don't even poop anymore."

"Then what... comes... out of me?"

"Just my eggs, with a binder to hold them together and protect them. Between the four of us, we're very near perfect efficiency. Better than I expected. Brad, I..."

It was rare for Gaia to cut herself off mid-sentence.

"I don't think I could have done this with anyone else. I just want you to know that. Your experience, your nature makes you the perfect host and I love being with you."

I felt Daisy and Stacy start to object: that they were now sharing their boyfriend three ways, but they stifled themselves to let Gaia explain.

"You're one of the very few who wouldn't abuse the power we now share."

Suddenly, I have a clear vision from far below. The last batch of Gaia's eggs had hatched and I'd never actually her babies up close: and though I knew that her children were all specialists and therefore very different based on terrain and purpose, she and I focused our attention on just one. About a centimeter long, brownish-green in color to match the forest floor, wormlike with a razor-sharp tail. She knows we're here, communicating with us. Immediately she puts the tail to use boring downward into the floor, into the dirt. She evades other organisms that are plentiful here and works to bury herself, and in the lower layers of biomass becomes suddenly hungry and begins eating. Her body extinguishes the microrganisms she digests, and I can feel her poop out a tiny, sandlike crystal which I know to be pure diamond. Just ten minutes of this and she releases an egg, and suddenly my thoughts are following two creatures instead of one.

Gaia then zooms her thoughts outwards. I feel all of the children from that last spawn, how they're working together as a team of scientists and engineers might. They know where they are, where they'd like to spread to and how they're going to do it. I feel their dreams: what they'd like to accomplish and who they'd like to become when it's finished.

That's when it hits me: the power Gaia is talking about. Her children form a massive army of sorts, an army that can double in number in a single day, that spreads to wherever I fly and decide to lay more of her eggs. And the center of it all is right here inside me.

Gaia and I could destroy the planet just as well as save it. We could selectively target anything, anyone. Gaia knows that she's inside a creature that would never abuse that power. I'll instead work with her to accomplish the mission she's on. When we're done we'll completely relinquish that presence and very few will ever know how we've done what we've done.

Not only does Gaia hear that promise, loud and clear, but her children do too. Suddenly, we all feel the value of that quantum link: not only do I love our planet, but now I know it loves me back.

I feel Gaia growing inside me. I don't regret it for an instant.

. . .

Janiss' new digs are seriously cool. She did exactly what she said she was going to do. Her Hive had a front door. It was hardly as large as the original Hive, but indeed she'd done what she'd promised: there was a restaurant, and a balcony, and fully a third of her workers were involved in farming.

She had no dedicated hunters, but Scouts were everywhere. On top of her hive, watching us approach carefully, on foot. In the air far above. Signs not far beyond the hive itself warned:

Wildlife Protection Area
No humans permitted past this point
Protected by hungry and venomous creatures. Bee-ware!
To join our protection effort, see the recruitment desk on the first floor of our Hive.

An icon of a smiling bee-girl with the sun glinting off a drop of venom hanging from her stinger was in the corner of the yellow-and-black sign.

Indeed, I got the feeling that if I stepped over that line by a meter, any of the Scouts far above would dive at me, stinger-first. To be fair, I never thought we'd make it to the front door, even if Daisy and Stacy tried to convince me otherwise.

We weren't in the lobby for three minutes when Janiss herself, the actual Queen Bee who should never leave her floor except when swarming, came to greet us. She was large, like any Queen Bee, and... well, I remember her.

"Daisy," she said, using Daisy's human name. "Amanda," she said, for some reason using my bee-girl name.

"Brad," I said.

Janiss stood back. "Well look at you!! Very sleek."

Janiss, for all her immense size, looked, well, sexy to me.

That's okay, Brad. You can admit it.

I didn't have to: my eyes told Janiss I was impressed with her appearance, and she blushed. "I can't exactly fit through the doors to our restaurant, but I invite you to visit. We make some great meals here."

"So no... predation?" Daisy asked.

"Like I promised. We get about six humans a month, actually. Used to be more, until they learned that those signs out there mean business. No poachers, photographers, researchers, none of it. Now most of our visitors are here to join us."

Janiss pointed proudly to the recruitment desk, which is what she had Daisy had imagined. A smiling bee-girl stood sentinel there, in front of a poster of a bee-girl in flight at sunset: "Ask us about the Bee Girl Experience!"

"I mean-- I can't imagine you're here to join us, but if you are... I mean, welcome back, Daisy."

Daisy got right to the point. She gave Janiss a huge hug: Janiss lifted her off the floor, and for an instant I thought Daisy was about to get swallowed. "I heard what you did back at Headquarters," she whispered to Daisy. "I've got a messenger bee that goes out there every third day. Nicely done."

Janiss hug was a little tight for Daisy's decidedly more lightweight body, so it took a second for her to regain her breath after Janiss set her down. "Actually we were hoping to find where Aeris and Mary went to. We just thought we... owed it to humanity, or what's left of it, to understand how she could have done what she did."

"Cleo, do you have that?"

Cleo pulled an actual binder out from under the counter she was standing behind. "Aeris: No. But Mary's still queen of her own hive. Number one-thirteen."

Stacy walked over, and reading upside down, got the coordinates. "Not too bad. Less than six days from here, without pushing it."

"Six? No freaking way. More like twenty. I only get relay messages that far out, not going to send a messenger that far--'

Daisy cocked her head, looking down at her own feathers.

"You're that fast? And have that range?"

"We're that fast," Daisy said. "New improved design."

I raised my right wing so Stacy and Daisy could line their wings up with me, and show how the gradient colors matched.

"Whoa. You can fly in tandem," Janiss said. "I want that. I mean... once I'm done with the whole Queen Bee thing. Will you publish it?"

I smiled because Daisy smiled. "I'll think about it," she said. "It's not that difficult a design, really." She mentioned nothing about the other, far more difficult, design details.

Janiss had to excuse herself a short while later, leaving it to some very eager worker bees to lead us to the restaurant for a "complementary" meal, which was really quite delicious. They started to continue the sales pitch for the Bee Girl Experience when, apparently, Janiss asked them to quit it via her radio link.

. . .

Our trip to Mary's hive took six days... but only because we took an entire day off in the middle to rest and refuel. Daisy didn't think it prudent to reveal our actual speed or range at this point, so we sandbagged it by a bit just in case.

This hive was in a sparse, almost rural neighborhood, dotted with closed gas stations and little standalone shops where perhaps one in three was open for business. We flew low along the streets and past small farms along fairly desolate country roads. Greenhouses. Florists. Roadside farm stands.

And a faint, low hum when we passed the farms.

We checked the map. We'd gone a little less than the optimal route, sightseeing, and there were were two larger farms between us and the hive, so best to fly directly across. I looked up, expecting to see the bee-girl sentries overhead. It took time, but I finally spotted two of them, a short distance apart from each other, watching us.

The ground was moving. As we glided, something hit my wing, and then Daisy's.

Bees.

Not bee-girls. Round, fuzzy, completely ordinary bumble bees. There were thousands of them, chaotically scouring the fields below us for nectar from the acre after acre of flowering plants below.

Ordinary, that is, if the insect inspiration for the bee-girl hadn't gone extinct some eleven years ago.

We looked up, and found the entrance to the hive about thirty feet off the ground, a landing zone just inside it, with a couple of bee-girls standing guard there. A scattering of bees flew in and out of that opening, as well as one other near it, but when they saw us approaching they seemed to clear a path, leaving just enough space for us to land in front of the guards.

The guards seemed very wary of us, and hovered with their stingers ready. They were cute, as always, but clearly no nonsense. "May we help you?"

"My name is Daisy. I used to be... one of you. Willow. From headquarters."

"Willow?"

I waited. If there were indeed messenger bees, this guard would radio her inquiry to someone else in the hive that kept track of such things.

"Very well. I take it your companions were also with that hive?"

"One of them." I held his hand up, slightly embarrassed with the name: "Amanda."

"And you?"

"My name's Stacy," Stacy answered.

"And what business do you have with us? Were you intending to join our hive?"

The second guard looked at us and licked her lips. A third guard buzzed down from an opening in the ceiling behind the first two guards.

"We were hoping to meet with your Queen," Daisy said.

"Nobody sees the Queen--"

"Except the nurses or Queen's Guard," Daisy and I recited together.

"Ah, so you are familiar. And unless the Queen herself--"

I watched Daisy cock her head as the bee-girls fell suddenly silent for the inevitable radio-frequency reply.

"Kindly turn around. We will take you to her chamber."

The bee-girls picked us up from behind, as there was no way our wings were designed to fit through the vertical openings intended for bee-girls... and bees. We just hung there, in their grasp, and waited as one by one they hauled us through the hive, upwards, to where Mary herself waited.

The one who started it all.

The recognition between Mary and Stacy was instantaneous. The Queen Bee looked a little tired, not as large as I remember most Queen Bee-Girls. The Guards who brought us set us down gently: a little too gently, as though they might break us. One tail brushed my cheek as the worker holding me flew away and hovered near the Queen's door until she was dismissed.

"I thought you'd come," Mary said. I had the instinct to hover, to avoid touching the Queen's floor, and then remembered that I couldn't: this body couldn't hover in a confined space. The occasional, errant bee flew past, seeking pheromone clues as to its correct place in the hive.

"I thought I'd see you before now, actually," Mary continued. One of the lost bees flew over and landed, rather gracefully, on the Queen's outstretched fingers. "I bred them. We're helping give them a new start, will protect them until... well, for now."

"Was that... the goal all along?" Stacy asked. "To re-introduce bees to the world?"

"No," Mary said. "Although I wish I'd thought of it sooner. I hope they didn't bother you on your way here: these generally understand when they're not at risk and will leave you alone--"

"Just like regular bees," I said.

"Exactly like regular bees because that's what they are. Or at least as close of an approximation as we can get. We've adjusted our pheromones so we, in a way, can communicate with them and they know they're safe here, that neither we nor you are a threat. Not that those tiny stingers could get through all those feathers."

"You... breed them here?" Daisy asked.

Silence.

"You... laid their eggs for them," Daisy said.

"I'm trying to restore them to what they used to be," Mary continued, "but it's proving to be a very difficult needle to thread. I was hoping that the environmental threats that wiped them out in the first place would have dissipated by now-- the mites and parasites that destroyed their colonies would be extinct as well. But so did many of the plants on which they formerly depended. We retrieved the code for many of those plants and have recreated them, but outside this area there is little food for them, and of course the insecticides that seem to have been the cause of their demise are still present. As you know, the extinction meant there was no more reason to restrict the things we later proved killed them off."

"I think we may have a solution to that," I said. Immediately, both Stacy and Daisy cautioned me to go no further: we didn't completely trust Mary and didn't want any difficult questions. Fortunately, Mary seemed not to notice.

"Getting rid of the humans seems to be a solution," Mary said. "But if that's what you're here to ask, that wasn't my intent either. It was just... never supposed to go this far, to be this successful. Neither Aeris nor I thought it would."

"Janiss has proved that... the humans would join us voluntarily. That we didn't need to hunt them."

"Ah. And so you're wondering why? Why hunt them down and lock their memories and turn them into perfect worker bees?"

"Yes."

"I didn't."

"But--"

"You need to speak to Aeris about that."

"She's retired."

"I know."

"Did you and Aeris have a falling out?"

"You can say that," Mary said. "But I hope to resurrect our friendship right after I finish resurrecting at least a few species of bumble bee and honey bee. That's why you're here? To find Aeris?"

Brad nodded. "If that's who has the answer, then... yes."

"You have a tablet?"

I handed her this one after Stacy handed it to me. She entered the coordinates.

"Unless she's moved, of course," Mary said, handing the tablet back. "But if I were to look for her, this is where I'd go."

. . .

This trip was not far. Less than three hours. It put us into the evening, but not too late, we felt, for an unsolicited call on our former queen.

"Willow, Amanda," Aeris said, upon opening the door. She said nothing more, but stood out of the way, inviting me into her modest home.

How did she recognize me as Amanda?? I asked my partners, but they didn't answer.

"This is Stacy--"

"I know who you are. I know what you've done. I know why you're here."

Aeris looked older, tired. She had no bee-tail, no antennae, had lost-- intentionally? -- the royal, entitled smile she was rarely seen without. She remained attractive, but not in the same way.

She had us sit, the three of us, on one sofa. Stacy caught my attention, immediately focusing on a framed, child's colored-pencil sketch on the wall. A bee-girl.

"I'll tell you what you want to know," Aeris said.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

62: Aeris

Postby dreamweevil » Wed Aug 16, 2017 5:59 am

Aeris: I know what you're expecting to hear. How I was either the rich spoiled brat of a girl who had everything and wanted more, or that I was the pitiful, bullied schoolgirl given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to gain immense power and exact revenge on her enemies.

Neither of those cases is true.

I had my challenges in school. Every girl I knew did. Sure, there were a few girls who seemed particularly popular; I was not one of those. Nor was I really bullied, aside from the occasional mean-girl comments. They didn't really bother me. I was different. I was one of us before it was fashionable. I had brilliant parents who believed in it, who read (and shared) every advancement in this amazing biological advance, who couldn't wait to raise a daughter who had those abilities: me.

I took it in stride, fought to get through school and avoid exposing who I was. I thought I did pretty well; it's hard to be just another girl when you know you're anything but.

Finally, almost blessedly, came the big collapse, the upheaval that obsoleted "school" as a way of learning things, at least for those of us who no longer needed it.

Then came the email from Daisy. I really didn't know what I wanted to do with this power but I knew I wanted it. I was bored. I answered an inquiry and spoke with Stacy and told her about myself and next thing I had a date! Not with Daisy herself but with one of her best friends and someone who could get me in on this "beta test" of 6.0. I don't care why I was chosen; I was just glad I was.

Me and my best friend, Mary, talked for hours about what we'd do with that ability once we had it. The date slipped several times: Stacy told me that it was approximate, that she and Daisy and her friend Brad would be flying across the country and so they'd be subject to weather delays and such.

Flying! Oh, yes, I wanted that. From all the chatter it seemed to be on the top of the list among we lucky few to get 6.0 early.

But finally it happened. I had my night with Stacy and became "infected", just as promised. Stacy was kind and gentle and explained everything she knew about how this new body would work. I was sorry, actually, that she couldn't stay, when it was over. I went right away to Mary's house and we talked again. I couldn't infect her quite yet-- it would take a few days before I'd incubated 6.0 long enough to spread it.

The bee-girl idea is Mary's. I was flipping through a sketchbook and found this sketch she'd made four years earlier and I thought it was... beautiful. Sleek. Sexy. Strong. Just dangerous enough. So while we waited for 6.0 to do its thing we started imagining what the life of an actual bee-girl might be like. She could fly, and not without all those messy feathers of the avians like Stacy. Her wings could be fast and strong and carry a lot. Hour after hour of chatting and late nights with Mary it just all started to come together.

I don't think my parents liked the idea. But then again they did. I was going to be different, take my own path, not be just another Daisy lookalike in a different color scheme. Then again, I didn't tell them the bigger picture.

We obsessed over it in pretty much all our free time. We started to imagine what not just what a bee-girl would look like, but what she would do. How would she spend her day? How would she work with others like her? We had real bees as models, of course, and we came up with the idea of ranks, different roles, and that every bee-girl would experience all of those.

Except me. We needed one person to start it all, and I was the one infected with 6.0 first, so... I got to be the literal Queen Bee. It was fine with Mary-- or that's what she told me-- she wanted to feel what a worker bee's life would be like, test that out, get the full... well, we called it the Bee Girl Experience, eventually.

I'd barely started to "show" my tail when I came up with the idea for The Hive. Mary and I stood outside this abandoned building downtown. It'd been left unfinished when the original developer went bankrupt; just unfinished floors with only a few windows, no elevator, no electricity. But if I was a queen, I'd have... workers, right? I could give them the ability to do construction, not with wax but a polymer they could secrete and-- well, you get the idea.

We'd run it like a business: with better eyesight than humans, and endurance to remain in the air for long times, we could act as a paid security service: my army of sentinels, each equipped with her own razor-sharp, poisonous sting, there to protect our customers and have fun doing it. The business never really worked out: we just weren't good at it, didn't have a good sales pitch, went through our budget very early.

What happened next was a... dreadful... misunderstanding. We shared the design, the look of the bee-girl, the design of the poison: not fatal, just deadly enough, the transformation mechanism, the larval stages, the ranks. We didn't share our plans for each other. Not that way. Mary wanted to feel it, have the experience: be stung, disappear into the Queen's body and become her offspring.

I mean-- we were best friends. We hung out all the time. We listened to the same music. I thought I knew what she meant, what she wanted. We'd talked about it. She'd even said the words herself: "A loyal army of bee-girls to command."

It went to my head. I did what I thought she wanted: reprogrammed her just like I thought I was supposed to. Then I asked her, after it was done: and she loved it. She thought the way I chased her, captured her, stung her and swallowed her was absolutely perfect, and she couldn't wait to prove herself to me, to be by my side, to serve me like a good worker bee.

And that was it. It wasn't supposed to work; it was never supposed to go this far. It was supposed to stay small and, you know, boutique. But the women I'd taken in to help me, to become worker bees, all were good with the program once they'd hatched. They started helping fulfill that original mission, perfecting "hunting", applying everything they knew from the prior lives to making the Hive really... if you excuse the term... hum. They started methodically expanding the colony and then we figured out how we'd swarm to start new hives.

Finally, Mary was Queen. She had her own hive. And by then we'd had so much fun, been so blinded with what we were doing.

I can't say that it was ever completely a mistake. I thought everything would be perfect: Mary and I as equals and best friends again, powerful.

Then-- I learned otherwise. I'd stolen my best friend's memories and turned her into my servant. With no way for her to signal that's not what she wanted. Next thing humans were disappearing by the dozens. Then hundreds. And every time, every hatching they were thankful: "oh, this is what I really wanted!"

Of course they wanted it. I'd told them that. It became so automatic, so wonderful, so industrious!

I can't say that I regret all of it. With extraordinarily rare exception we haven't killed anyone. We've injected some excitement into very dull lives and created order where there was chaos. We've liberated humans from overcrowding and doldrums and inspired others to use their capabilities to the fullest.

But... I'd lost Mary. She was in a different hive, and... has never really forgiven me for what I'd done to her. As Queen Bee she has her memories back... yet I never hear from her. Only once.

She's still Queen, and has her own hive, and it's pretty clear that I'm not welcome there. I'd never had done any of this if I'd known how she really felt.

I'm sorry. To everyone I've ever hurt, every human who we chased who didn't think it was "fun", just a game. I'd taken it too far. And for that, I'm sorry.

- - -

Francesca: Once this had been written, Daisy (or really, the hivemind that Daisy, Stacy and Brad share now) were kind enough to send this to me so that I could add my own thoughts as a postscript. They knew well enough my feelings towards Aeris, and even though I couldn't actually be there to listen to her explanation face to face it's good to be able to see it before most other people and give my thoughts. Well...here we are.

Firstly, I stand by what I said before and what I have believed all along; what Aeris did was dreadful, heinous, unforgivable. Aeris and Mary, together, took the identities of thousands of people, often without their consent, and changed them forever.

She may have the convenient rationalization that the bee-girls do "eventually" get their memories back, but by then the damage has already been done. The bee-girls themselves may not feel it: they've been "freed" from inconvenient memories of their previous lives - they feel little emotional pain. She, however, entirely omits the pain felt by friends and family members left behind! When we've liberated them from this existence, the former bee-girls universally feel regret, just like Daisy did. Imagine what their friends and families have to go through, trying to reconcile what they've lost...

But it's worse than that.

In a design shortcut, Mary and Aeris designed a bee-girl that feeds solely on other intelligent creatures. As Daisy disclosed, it takes more than four humans to produce one bee-girl. We hear of the few lucky ones, like Daisy herself, that were not combined with several others, but for the vast majority of bee-girl victims, having four or five souls blended into a single bee-girl was a matter of course: and once that merging is done, there's simply no way to undo it. So, even if the lowly bee-girl ends up becoming Queen, and recovering those memories...she's still not the same person anymore. The individuals used to make her, their personalities...they're still essentially lost, no longer what they were before - and they were the moment the Queen took them inside. No matter what self-serving mental gymnastics Aeris comes up with to justify it...that remains true.

And of course, this is all hinging on a worker bee ending up becoming Queen in the first place - and given how big the ratio of Queens to other bees is...what exactly are the odds of that? It's much more likely that a bee-girl will die somehow before she even gets close to becoming Queen...and then all of those memories are useless anyway.

It's not always a bad thing: I will always have some of Daisy's memories and she'll always have some of mine; but to have that done to you -- with no choice in the matter -- is completely unforgivable.

For me, there's very little distinction between what Aeris did completely consuming and erasing an identity - and between that and what Alicia liked to do, come to that.

However...with all of that said, having read this and taken it all in, and having thought about it some...I can't bring myself to want retribution against her personally, or even to be particularly angry about it any more.

From what she has written here...she lives by herself, bereft of her best friend (and most other friends, by the sounds of it), and the guilt that she feels about the whole thing turning out the way it did is pretty evident in her words. She's likely going to spend the rest of her life close to alone, thinking about the course of action she did - and the guilt that goes with it.

Yes, she took things too far (and she's hardly the first or the only one to do that in this new world) and I will never forget nor forgive what I saw and experienced in the Hive with Daisy (and being very, very close to getting the full experience myself)...but what's done is done now. Thanks to myself, Daisy, Lisa and a fair few others, the old way of the bee-girls is history...and now the creator of that way passes her time in her house, alone.

Life, and her own remorse, is punishing her enough. I need not do anything.

And as a postscript; regardless of what our future holds, I wish all of you reading this the best. Be the best you can be in this brave new world.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

63: The End of an Era, part 1

Postby dreamweevil » Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:13 am

Daisy: I don't know what will become of Aeris. I don't know if we even believe everything that she told us.

We came to two conclusions, though: we don't have to solve every problem ourselves, and this particular problem... well, it's not a problem anymore, really. Aeris' tale will serve as a cautionary one for all time.

As will Alicia's.

It's tempting, in this world, to make oneself all-powerful. God Mode. Stingers and poisons and the ability to shrink and entrap others. But we can't lose sight of the fact that it needs to remain in the realm of fun, not fear. There are enough things wrong with the world already: our first obligation is to not make things worse.

We all feel something happening. As more of the world falls into Gaia's grasp, the map of where we've been becomes visible. Like an awareness of all life, everywhere, growing more intense as time goes on.

It's temporary. We all know that. Gaia's purpose is not to populate the whole world and hold onto it: it's to accomplish specific missions on a tiny, often microscopic scale, wrap up, leave no trace. Her children "die" all the time, transferring their consciousness across their self-generated mesh to where new children are arriving. They rest and regroup and design the next fix for the next problem: leaking barrels of toxic waste buried in the soil, eutrophication of waterways, everything they can find and think of.

Her map lines up with Stacy's; there are decreasingly few areas that we haven't visited, at least that need our attention.

There are two places that remain gaps on our map. Home. Yes. Something feels good about that, right now.

We visit Stacy's mother, Brad's mother. Both have plans: Stacy's mom wants to fly, like we did, explore the world. We spend a day with each, have a final meal, talk of love and the future and happiness. Both times we get the same feeling that I had with my mother, Amy: they know our mission, this one, is nearing its end.

Finally, Belle and Clarisse. Belle is still stubbornly human: she likes it, but her role in caring for my sister is nearing its end. Belle seeks to spend her next few decades with the humans, demystifying for them the magic that is happening all around him. Nothing phases her; nothing ever does. We never mention Gaia, even to her: somehow she just seems to know that we have something to do with the changes that people are just starting to discover: my mother's reports, for example, that some new organism has appeared and is beginning to reverse ocean acidification somehow. Belle doesn't ask; we don't say.

Clarisse.

"She's out on a video shoot," Belle said, first time I mentioned her name. "She knows you were on your way, should be back around six."

"A video shoot?"

"She's become quite the celebrity," Belle answered.

"What does she look like?"

"She made me promise to not spoil it for you," Belle said. She poured us all glasses of iced tea with honey, which reminded me instantly of Mary's bees.

"Ah," she said. "She's back." Belle looked at the clock: barely four forty-five.

No phone rang, there was nothing but the sound of a sudden windstorm outside.

Or at least what sounded like that.

I ran from the house to the backyard. My mouth fell open.

My little sister is larger than the barn that Belle and my mother had specially built for her. She's easily thirty feet tall, longer perhaps if you count her tail. I was expecting a teenage, mid-sized dragon: not this: fully grown, adult, looking perfectly like what we all felt was a real dragon. Completely beautiful: this part of my sister had not changed a bit; she had translucent teal coloring down the sides, racing stripes that led to her tail, glittering where she was supposed to, tremendous wings and--

Belle walked out of the back door and stood between Brad and myself. "You're early!" she shouted.

"Yes," Clarisse sounded. "They were ready early, only needed one reshoot."

"For what?" I asked, shouting. "Dragon magazine?"

"No. New program on new species."

"What the heck does she eat?" Brad asked.

"Whatever she wants," Belle answered, laughing. "Actually, it's surprisingly little. I was expecting to have to buy a herd of cows or something. But she's a vegetarian."

"For now," Clarisse answered, leaning down over the three of us. A wet, raspy, very hot tongue reached out and swiped my cheek, then Stacy's. "You're lucky. You still taste terrible," she laughed.

We talked for hours, and with our permission Belle invited both Brad and Stacy's mother over for dinner, which we ate out in Clarisse's barn. She has to practically roll herself into the building to fit, but likes the "coziness" of it. She lapped up a entire tureen of spaghetti while the rest of us had normal portions. (Brad had a little of his but couldn't finish it.)

My no-longer-little sister made one terrible mistake that she admitted to as soon as Belle brought the salads out. She was lonely. There was no missing the connection that Stacy and Brad and I had-- we'd been together for years now, really. But Clarisse was the only full-sized dragon in existence, anywhere, and while she had her share of admirers, and there were a few "baby dragons" out there, they were years behind her. She was thinking that perhaps she just needed to unbirth her future mate, have them live out their lives inside her body, keep her company that way.

We talked late into the night, crickets chirping and a waxing, three-quarters moon lighting the backyard. Patience, we urged my sister. She was such an inspiring creature that soon enough she'd have company, no doubt.

It was early in the morning when we finally had to answer the question: "What's next?"

It was the question none of us had wanted to face. I could review Stacy's map in my head, all the loops and zigzags we'd made in our travels recorded in a traditional red trace, all the species we'd seen and visited, the overlay with a haze of Gaia's offspring dotted around the planet. One area on the map was conspicuously uncolored: a four-hundred-kilometer, near-perfect circle centered on the Sphinx.

"She sounds fascinating," Clarisse said, as I described our encounter there.

"She most certainly is."

I found it, suddenly, difficult to breathe: as I had to pay attention to each breath to stay conscious. I looked at Brad and Stacy and immediately felt the same from them.

We all went silent at the same moment. Our mission is over, we thought.

Belle nodded, barely able to keep her eyes open. "I'm going to faint if I stay up any longer, I'm afraid. I set up the playroom for the three of you, fresh sheets and all, but if you want to wedge yourselves into Daisy's bedroom, for old times' sake, that's set up too. If you leave before I'm up..."

Belle kissed Brad on the lips, then Stacy, then me. "Know that you've always got a place here, and that I love you."

That feeling again.

We watched Belle go back into the house. She left the back-door light on for us; some moths gathered around it.

"Not for long," Clarisse said. "As you can see I've outgrown the place-- I don't really need a building like this. She's talking about finally getting with the program, perhaps joining Mom as a mermaid. If so... she'll either give the house to you or sell it."

Real estate prices were a joke these days. I remember when it took many years' salary to afford property: now, with the population dropping, prices had gone through the floor.

"So..." Clarisse said. "Care to explain the sudden silence?"

Stacy looked at me. Brad looked at me. I was tempted to have him answer for me, because we all agreed on this, but had put him through enough lately.

"I think the Sphinx is supposed to be our last stop."

"Last stop as in..."

Stacy was distracted and spoke out of turn. "Every time you mention her name that feeling is growing stronger."

"She asked us to return to her, someday. And I'm getting the very strong message that... she needs us. Now."

Clarisse turned her respectably large head. "But certainly--"

"She said there wasn't a deadline," Stacy explained.

"But I'm getting the strong feeling that there is... something... urgent."

"Now? In the middle of the night? Could it be that she knows your mission is done and she's just... impatient to have you... back?"

"I don't know," Stacy said, while I had a last drink of water. "I just get the feeling that she needs us." Stacy removed the tablet from her wing pouch.

"Now?" Clarisse asked.

"Now."

"But-- Stacy, that's clear across the country--"

The more we thought about it the stronger the urgency became.

"How fast can you fly?"

"Individually: Brad's the fastest, by just a bit. One hundred three kilometers per hour. Stacy can do 101, I've managed ninety-nine--"

"Not sustained, Daisy!" Brad said. "That was just a race to see how fast--"

"Together: One hundred twenty one, and we can sustain that all night if we have to--"

"Two hundred and sixty," Clarisse said. "I just timed it today, on my way back here."

"Holy fuck," Stacy said, dropping her glass. It didn't break.

"Sounds like I'm taking you to the Sphinx," Clarisse said.

. . .

Holding onto Clarisse at those speeds was an exercise in itself. We found that we had to lay flat, wings out, streamlined; lifting just a bit from Clarisse's wings would result in air getting between her and us, blasting us off the dragon's back as though we'd been hit by a hurricane. But down, flat, it worked well enough, and our wings kept Clarisse very streamlined, and us warm despite the altitude. Stacy rode in the center, providing the navigation guidance from memory and some sort of intuition, rather than the tablet.

Despite the speed, the sun was already rising behind us as we approached; at least the sky was light enough to see the ground.

Clarisse stilled her wings and we finally began to slow, and descend. We elected to ignore the rule about not witnessing the Sphinx prematurely, and arranged to leap from Clarisse's back and approach first.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the Sphinx itself: she was a solid statue, as before. We circled, dropping ever lower with Clarisse remaining well above, and elected to land in the front yard of the little house, where the front door displayed a sign: "Closed".

Brad was elected to knock, and did.

Helene Gaudmont, the keeper of the Sphinx, was clearly awake, and initially went to shoo us away: "We're closed!"

We took a few steps back. A window curtain moved a bit, and then we heard hustling down the stairs. The front door opened quickly. "Daisy! Stacy! I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you! Who is--"

"This is Brad. A dear friend who was taken by the bee-girls. The Sphinx helped us save him."

"We got the feeling that she wanted to see us--"

"Oh, lord, I've been trying to reach you since yesterday. She's been calling for you--"

"Why? What's going on?"

"Oh, it's just so-- distressing--"

"What? Helen, please? We're here."

"She can't stay here. She's been threatened and so have I."

"Come in, come in. Sit." Helen moved some pillows and sat in a chair opposite the sofa in the waiting room.

"We're all ears. What can we do?"

"It was inevitable. The humans, they're lashing out, they think the Sphinx is at the center of all that's been happening. Four of them visited, were rejected, they think it's some kind of conspiracy, that all this information in one place is far too dangerous for any single being to handle--"

"Of course it isn't," Stacy said. "If anyone can handle information, she can."

"I don't understand what she'd be afraid of," Brad said. "She's certainly capable of caring for herself, from what I understand."

"She's not indestructible... ummm..."

"Brad."

"Right. 'Brad.' Sorry."

"But... the humans are under no particular threat. Less, actually, than ever before. The world is becoming peaceful, and despite the claims of 'extinction', there's nothing forcing anyone to change--"

"They weren't 1.0, dears. They were 5.0, 6.0, something. Some were remnants of Regional Protective Services, I think. The Great Sphinx gave them what she assures me were fair riddles, yet all failed."

"When I failed my riddle, she unbirthed me," I said. "These she turned away?"

"Dear, you were destined to be unbirthed pretty much no matter how you answered, but your answer was, of course, the one the Great and Mighty Sphinx was expecting you to give. But, yes, these she turned away. Their responses made it clear they could not be trusted. They were here to gain information, not contribute to it. They threatened both the Sphinx and myself on the way out, despite a full refund. A full refund! I've never given a full refund, there's always a--"

"Non-refundable processing fee," Stacy and I answered in unison.

"Yes, you remember the terms well--"

Helene cocked her head, suspicious of the way Stacy and I had responded at the same time. Mentally, I berated Stacy for showing off our link like that, but Stacy correctly assessed that the Sphinx would learn of it, as she learns of everything, and it would be disingenuous to hide it it here, pretend that we were actually three different people. Nevertheless, Helene ignored this as continued.

"But there was no specific threat? No timeline?"

Helene thought for a moment. "Goodness, no! Oh, you rushed here, didn't you? And so quickly, too! I was about to ask how you arrived--"

There was a large thump in the backyard. Helene felt it along with the rest of us, but continued for a moment: "She knows she cannot stay here much longer, dears. She's collected all the knowledge she feels she needs right now. Except for yours. She plans to take a great leap forward in time, soon, to escape whatever threats she may face. She's taking no further visitors except... you."

Helene got up and went into her office, the former dining room, without speaking, and peered through the curtains in the back yard. "Oh, dear. What is this??"

She's played the part of the kindly, strict old lady for so long that she can't get out of character, even when something suprises her. We followed, without invitation, into the "office" and Helene opened the curtains to let us see: the first time she'd ever done that.

"That's my sister, Clarisse. She's harmless."

"The dragon? Oh, yes, of course-- but she must know that nobody is allowed to set eyes on the Sphinx-- oh, dear--"

We followed her, quickly, through the back door and signs giving the Sphinx's visitors last-minute cautions and encouragement, to see my sister, standing up, circling the Sphinx on her feet as the Sphinx, slowly, came to life.

"She's beautiful," Clarisse whispered. The two were almost exactly the same size. The Sphinx slowly turned her head, watching my sister circle around her even though the rest of her body had yet to thaw from its solid configuration.

"Clarisse!" I shouted. "I said to wait--!"

"I couldn't help it. Look at her. She's so absolutely... perfect."

"Oh, dear. Now by the rules she must be banished--"

"You can banish the rules, Helene," the Sphinx said. Clarisse finally stopped orbiting and the Sphinx stared at her, eyes unblinking. An unusual scent filled the air, sending Clarisse hunting for the source of it; in sniffing the air, she touched her chin on the Sphinx's shoulder.

"You're not allowed to touch her!" shouted Ms. Gaudmont. "Not without permission, without answering a riddle--!"

The Sphinx did something I'd never heard her do before. She purred.

"I will protect you from anything that threatens you," my sister whispered. Then she completed the circle, stood in front of the Sphinx, facing her, and sat, so they could look each other over.

"My sister has a crush on the Sphinx," I whispered to the rest of us tiny creatures. Clarisse, almost as if to be examined, spread her wings, and the Sphinx looked her over, and then spread her own wings. Clarisse's wingspan beat the Sphinx's by only a meter or so. I saw the Sphinx duck her head close to my sister's body, purring again.

"It appears to be mutual," Helene observed, without otherwise moving. We stood there, in a line, watching as the two great winged creatures circled each other. Pheromones, I sent to the others. One or the other of them is absolutely flooding the area with her pheromones.

Or both, answered Stacy.

We were all shocked with the speed at which things unfolded. Circling quickly evolved into what we could only call a mating dance. I overheard the Sphinx whisper: "It's no surprise to me that that you would be--"

Suddenly, the Sphinx cut herself off. She turned back to her normal orientation and sat up in her statuesque posture, startling my sister. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm getting ahead of myself. If you are ready: your riddle, Clarisse."

"How did she know her name--?" I heard Gaia ask.

She knows everything, I answered.

My sister was shocked, concerned, shaken from her immediate infatuation.

"Answer correctly, and my knowledge is yours. Answer incorrectly and you earn my wrath. Do you accept this challenge?"

Clarisse didn't answer immediately: she continued to circle until she could return to the place just before the Sphinx, a little further away than she had been: she carefully folded her wings, shook them out and folded them again, then sat up straight, eye-to-eye wth the sphinx.

"Yes," she said.

I took Helene's hand and squeezed it, and Brad's, om the other side.

"Very well. No turning back now," the Sphinx said.

"I have no reason to turn back," Clarisse answered.

The Sphinx took three full breaths, which for her meant almost thirty seconds.

"What will given names of my child's mothers be?"

Clarisse turned immediately, stumped and distressed, and Helene mouthed one of the answers: "Margaret".

Clarisse whirled back around and relayed the answer. "Margaret."

"Isn't that cheating?" I whispered.

"The rules don't say I can't help," Helene whispered back.

"And..."

I watched as my sisters eyes went wide. She never actually answered the question: just the look was enough for the Sphinx to nod, and the two giants fell immediately into an embrace.

I looked immediately at Helene. "You always thought it would be you." Stacy, to my right, came over and we hugged Helene together.

"I'm just so glad she's not alone," Helene said.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

64: The End of an Era, part 2

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:52 pm

Daisy: Helene took us back into her house, leaving my sister and the Sphinx some privacy as they got further acquainted with each other.

"Oh, dear," she said. "So much to do so quickly! I have to cancel appointments, we should shred our visitor record for our customers' privacy, and..."

We volunteered to help with whatever she needed, but in the middle of it all she just collapsed, crying.

"The end of an era," Helene said, sobbing. "I knew it would come soon, I just couldn't accept it." She stood, crossed to the window of her office, but didn't open the curtain. "She'll be pregnant soon. Once she is, she will hide herself away until her child is born, perhaps a hundred years from now. We've spoken of such things. I always thought it would require another Sphinx, that it would take decades--"

While Stacy and Brad tried to console her, I took it on myself to go back outside. My sister turned from her amorous explorations for a moment, saw me, and she and the Sphinx came to my side.

"Helene--"

"She is to come with the four of you, of course. She didn't have the courage to do it herself, but I'm certain you can convince her."

Clarisse stared at me with her huge eyes. "Come with-- wait... four of them? Daisy, Stacy, Brad, ...?"

"One of those three carries another inside her," the Sphinx said. "That one has been spreading a lifeform across the planet that is working to erase the humans' legacy of destruction."

"That would be Brad," I said. "Wait-- that's why you want us now, isn't it? Now that we've completed the 'infection' of the entire planet, giving us access to all this information--?"

"I don't know the details, but I look forward to hearing them, Daisy. In return, the five of you..."

Brad emerged from the house, followed in short order by Stacy and then Helene. The Sphinx stopped speaking. "I truly hope you didn't have other plans."

"I would be honored if you... would agree to become my first child. In... sixty, seventy, a hundred years. We will see the future together, as mother and daughter."

Clarisse snickered. "Hear that, sis? You're going to be my baby!"

Stacy and I coordinated a response to the Sphinx, and had it come from Brad's mouth: "It would be our privilege."

Helene turned to us. "But... what happens to me?"

"You're coming with us," Stacy answered.

"But-- I've got so many things to do--"

"Nothing as important as this. We'll send a message to my other sister, telling her what's happened."

"Any my niece," Helene said. "I always figured that she'd--"

"Good," Stacy said. "We'll take care of that now."

. . .

It had taken a lot of convincing to tell Helene that she'd be okay; if anything, she'd be better off. Stacy and I were two of the very few to enter the Sphinx's body and return from it again, and together we were sufficiently persuasive, answering hundreds of questions of life within the Sphinx' body and universe that we thought the Sphinx' own gatekeeper would have known.

We had to keep reminding ourselves that Helene was a lot younger than she looked. She even proposed changing her body, making herself look younger and more attractive: we reminded her that this wouldn't matter: soon, none of these bodies would exist at all, other than as memories within the Sphinx' infinite store of memories.

To be the Sphinx's child! To have the same amazing capacity for understanding as she!

I went outside, solo, to give Clarisse a status update on our progress with Helene-- that's she be ready soon.

Clarisse leaned down, like she was going to gobble me up, and whispered to me, her ominous dragon whisper somehow still having that pesky-little-bratty-sister tone: "I get to completely fuck you out of existence, sis. You and all your tiny friends."

I didn't give her the satisfaction. "I'm looking forward to it. Are you almost ready for your big moment? Think you're up to it? No performance anxiety?"

Clarisse smiled: if she wasn't my sister, it'd be terrifying. "It's going to be my pleasure to cover that little feathered body of yours with dragon spunk, get you all goopy and sticky and--"

"Clarisse!" the Sphinx chided, smiling. "Kindly don't let your sibling rivalries interfere with our newfound relationship!" she smiled.

"It's okay," I shouted back to the Sphinx. "It means she loves me." I lowered my voice to answer Clarisse. "Seriously? Spunk? I thought you were a girl--"

"When I'm the only one of my kind so far, why would I only be a girl? I wanted to improve my odds. So, yes, I've got spunk. Now that I know I'll need it, I'm building up hundreds of liters of it, just for you, as we speak." She turned her head back to her lover. "And you, of course."

"Of course," the Sphinx said, nodding her head demurely.

. . .

Helene Gaudmont was shivering. "I'm sorry! I'm so nervous!"

I thought we had her calmed down?

I'll take care of it, Stacy said. "Come here. Helene, you should be looking forward to this."

"I am. I'm just--"

"Sssh. It's really quite amazing. I've been there--"

"I know."

"So just hold on tight. I won't let go of you. Ever. Okay?"

"Okay."

I watched as Stacy folded Helene into her wings. "Just a few minutes. You'll see what you've been missing all this time," Stacy said.

Stacy was in front of me, and Brad behind, our bodies fastened together forever yet still able to stand up, sort of.

"Okay, that's enough for me", Clarisse crowed from well above. Without warning, she spun above us and slapped her gigantic tail down on top of us, sending us into darkness. Placing her weight atop us, she flattened us down as her vent swallowed us up: a cavernous area just above where her tail joined her body. It was faintly sweet, like Clarisse always smelled, and as she worked her body down atop us, her labia picking us up from the ground as she tightened her muscles, we screamed more from either excitement or surprise-- I'm not sure which.

It's happening too quickly, I shouted.

Nothing we can do about it now.

"Oh dear!" Helene said, sputtering as my sister's secretions got into her mouth.

"Just relax, and enjoy it," Stacy whispered to her.

Next thing we knew, Clarisse lifted her rear end from the ground, us firmly trapped just within her genital folds, and came up to Margaret, the Sphinx, her partner and lover. We could hear the Sphinx purr, and the two giants seemed to resume their mating dance from earlier. Although I couldn't see it, I knew from Clarisse's sense of it that the Sphinx was standing, lifting her tail--

We couldn't see with our eyes because we were facing the wrong way: towards Clarisse's body, Brad's tail feathers sticking out from my sister's cooch as she moved into mating position with the Sphinx. I could feel a little bit of cool air touching my boyfriend's back, leaking in from between Clarisse's labia.

Clarisse folded her wings around her lover, and wrapped her tail underneath the Sphinx, between her legs, where the Sphinx grabbed it and held it, while wrapping her own tail around my sister's waist and pulling her in tight. Clarisse entangled her long neck around the Sphinx' body, and the both of them spread their wings and began to lift themselves slowly from the ground. The rhythm of their wings was synchronized, and perfectly sexual: the slight bounce pressing my sister's body against her lover's: the delicate folds just inside both women's strong exteriors began to interleave with each other's, sealing out the outside air, which I was certain was growing colder and more uncomfortable by the moment.

Clarisse felt a bit of a shock as she realized our fourth passenger was with us, and she felt the sense of Gaia's connection to everything. This was the final element of the Sphinx' collection, at least for now.

I felt my sister becoming more aroused. Inside her body, hidden under her scales and skin and between her legs and tail, she has at least two openings; a larger vaginal entrance below, and a much smaller one above, and she's holding us between her small opening and the Sphinx's larger one. Just above my head her clitoris is growing, stroking against the Sphinx's corresponding organ with each flap of their wings.

We are already sealed away from our last breath, trapped between the two mighty creatures' organs of reproduction, trapped within those two sets of interlocking labia. Helene is frightened out of her wits: the Sphinx has wanted her for a long time but she's just never developed the tolerance for this kind of physical intimacy. Stacy wraps one arm around Helene's naked, human body, and puts it between Helene's legs, stroking along with the rhythm that surrounds and envelops us. Helene seems to relax a bit.

My sister's grip on her lover tightens.

The "small" opening in Clarisse's body is starting to tighten in rhythm with her wings. The entire area bulging outwards as the Sphinx cries, uncontrollably, in pleasure, not caring if the entire world (or at least everyone on the ground underneath us!) hears her. My sister starts making the complementary sound to that: coitus, completely unabashed.

My sister is getting ready to release. I feel it: an ocean of sexual fluid, brimming with my sister's DNA. Brad starts to yelp, in his way: the Sphinx's opening, behind us, is growing as the Sphinx prepares to orgasm as well.

My sister then hits Helene, Stacy, and I with what she promised: a firehose worth of thick, sticky cum that blasts us away from her body and into the Sphinx. It catches the inside of Brad's wings and inflates them against the inside of Margaret's vaginal passage, blocking the sperm from flowing to wherever they're supposed to go, like an umbrella.

It gets very hot. I'm aware of my sister's semen attacking me, attacking all of us, trying to fertilize us.

The blockage doesn't deter my sister. She arches her back and ejaculates again, and again, and again, creating incredible pressure so much that we all want to scream as she does: Brad tries to fold his oiled, waterproof wings but can't, with the pressure in front of us and the vacuum of the Sphinx' body behind, her vaginal walls slipping past us as my sister fills more of the space with her cum. The resistance we're offering seems only to embolden her: with each few flaps of her wings, that hole opens again and emits another powerful stream.

Finally they scream together and the Sphinx's body contracts as the same time as my sister's, blasting us deep into the Sphinx body where my sister's fluids, the Sphinx' egg, and the five of us are confined. Most of Brad's flight feathers have been shredded in the process, and I think at least one of his wings are broken, but it doesn't hurt, nor does it matter. A ring of muscle I can only believe is the Sphinx' cervix irises shut in front of us. I dive into Stacy and Brad and their bodies no longer feel as solid as they were.

Helene manages to scream, some bit of air still in her lungs: "I can't breathe!"

Stacy holds her. "You don't have to. Just relax." I can feel her thoughts. "Margaret, can you increase her oxygen?"

"Unwrap her from your wings," The Sphinx replies. Embarrassed, Stacy pulls what's left of her wings from around Helene. For an instant Helene relaxes, then, frightened, pushes herself back towards Stacy like she's trying to climb inside her for safety.

"What now?"

"Our bodies are coming apart. Just wait."

The Sphinx and the Dragon separate from each other, yielding a small explosion of excess semen that they watch fall as a sticky splotch through the afternoon air. It lands on the roof of a house and part of that house's driveway with a wet splat.

"Oops," Clarisse laughs. "Guess I overdid it?"

"You were perfect, lover," Margaret answers. "Exactly what I needed."

"You mean-- it's working?"

"We'll know soon enough."

Brad, Stacy and I are all doing fine. Helene is finally settling. The physical world is becoming less important.

Margaret calls out to Helene. "Come to me now, my love."

"What? What's going on?"

"Just go," Stay says, giving Helene both a physical and mental push. "You won't regret it."

Suddenly Helene has plenty of air. She's in a large, empty corridor, and when she looks down she's not the woman she was two minutes ago. She's who she was before-- young, smart, a desperate, unrelenting crush on her best friend. She's even wearing the outfit she wore when she and Margaret first met.

She looks up. Margaret is standing in the hallway, also wearing what she used to always wear: the ponytail, the old gamer T-shirt.

"Where... where am I?"

"You're inside me," Margaret answers.

"But--" Helene spins around behind herself, looking for the entrance she'd come through, where two hawk-women and one hawk-man should be drowning in dragon spunk right about now. But there was no such entrance: the hallway behind her continued on just like the one in front of her. As she stared, she saw the library which was one of Margaret's favorite illusions, and the further she looked she saw other people, ones she'd took appointments from and collected payments and done the whole pre-show thing. One looked back at her, nodding, the message clear: "Finally, you're joining us."

"We should have done this so much earlier," Margaret said. She took Helene by the hand and led her down the corridor. "At least you made a lot of money, didn't you?"

"Fat load of good that does me now!" Helene said, smiling. Margaret slipped a virtual arm around her.

Then the Sphinx's attention turned to us, and we were back in our goop-covered darkness, minus Helene, whose body had slipped through an orifice.

"Brad, would you mind releasing your partner Gaia now? Gaia, ready to join me?"

"I'd love that," Gaia said. For the first time since hatching inside him, she wriggled inside Brad's body to start loosening herself.

If I'd been able to see Brad's cheeks, he'd have been bright red. "What? You mean I have to poop her out or something?"

"That'll work," Gaia said, inching her way towards that part of Brad's body.

"But-- wait! No! Daisy and Stacy had a huge meal before we left for here-- it'll make a huge mess!"

"I'll take care of everything," the Sphinx said, laughing softly. She lined Brad up to an appropriate opening in her body.

In the end Stacy and I had to make him go. We felt this sudden emptiness as Gaia's consciousness slipped from our body to the Sphinx's. Maybe thirty seconds later, I heard Clarisse shout as the Sphinx nearly fell from the sky, overwhelmed by the sensation of being connected to everything, or so it seemed.

"Wow," the Sphinx said, recovering from the unintentional dive. "This is perfect. Exactly what I needed."

"Thank you," Gaia announced, politely.

"Okay. Your turn," the Sphinx told us.

We found ourselves in a room not too different from the fertilization chamber that Margaret had been holding us in; she knew she didn't need to spin as much of an illusion for us as she did for others. We were in a small space with one apparent exit, a tiny sphincter that was for the moment sealed shut. We were wet, and the walls were wet and slippery, but at least we were no longer swimming in my sister's jizz: there was air and we could breathe, and talk.

We were also disconnected from each other, where we all knew that, in real life, we'd never let go and were still connected, our bodies dissolving away somewhere.

Stacy and I knew what this illusion was meant to do. Only one of us could leave this chamber and reach the next: the opening was too small and the next chamber over, where the real magic was to happen, could only hold one of us. Brad probably knew this too, just through our mental link, but didn't want to admit to it.

The Sphinx, having already read our thoughts, started the scene for us. "Okay, girls, he's all yours."

"All mine, you mean," Stacy said, daring me.

I lunged toward Brad first. Startled, he held a hand up to block me, but as soon as it touched my skin that hand dissolved away, soaking right into my body, making me stronger. I could feel him inside me, his thoughts, his shock and arousal.

Stacy attacked from the other side, pressing herself against Brad's shoulder. Brad wriggled free but half of his arm was gone. Her eyes met mine and she wheeled away from me, pressing her rear end right into Brad's crotch before I could stop her. Again, Brad's body was absorbed, and Stacy took advantage of her position to set her legs atop Brad's own, absorbing those too, then starting to lean back to take the rest of him.

I got in first, getting my head between Brad's and Stacy's, and kissed him. Stacy hit the back of my head with the back of hers, shouted my name in frustration, and then settled all the way to the floor such that very little of Brad was left. But my lips had melted to his, and I just pushed my head into his until I was kissing the wall right behind where he used to be. I used my shoulders to mop up what was left of him.

When we stood back up, Brad-- or at least our image of his body-- was gone.

But I felt him inside me. Divided between us, slurped up by two women at the same time, he was impressed: "That was hot," he said.

"I think I won," Stacy said. "I got most of him."

"I got his brain, I said, trying to disavow my defeat."

"But I got the rest of him," Stacy said. "So now it's two against one. Okay... one point eight against one point two,"

"You're on," I said. At first Stacy's attack didn't do what it did to Brad-- just touching me didn't cause me to dissolve into her body, but when she got a hold of my foot, as I tried to kick her away, she held onto it long enough that I lost that foot and most of that leg, almost to the knee.

As Stacy "digested" my virtual leg, she grew larger. Most of the growth was in her belly, which she stroked in preparation for capturing me within it. "See?" she said. "Size does matter!?"

"This isn't over!" I laughed. "You're forgetting something."

"What?"

"The power that started all this."

"Which is--?"

"Shrink!" I commanded.

"What?" Stacy said.

"I'm shrinking you! I'm going to swallow you!"

"No! You-- you can't! You monster!"

Stacy giggled and played along. Her body started shrinking at my command. I looked up, feeling the amusement in the Sphinx as she watched us play this out.

"You can't do this to me!" Stacy shrieked.

"Looks like I can! Come to momma!"

I turned around and sat on Stacy. She struggled and I wriggled and she couldn't help but to slip inside me. I bent down, looking between my own legs, looking at her tiny face.

"I win!" I said, before squeezing my legs together and making Stacy disappear.

The sphincter in the wall then relaxed, and as I squeezed myself through it I was very much aware that all three of us were going through it together, all connected.

Back into a world of dragon semen and Sphinx eggs and impending conception. I felt the egg wrap around me, the fertilization happening, Margaret's immense body tucking me away into a very safe place.

. . .

"We did it," the Sphinx said. "I'm pregnant."

The two lovebirds settled for the night in a forest clearing that Gaia's instructions led them to. Here, they rested and nestled and snuggled and made love again, but this time with a different purpose.

"Your turn," Margaret said. They giggled as she laid a number of eggs-- I'm not sure how many-- into my sister's body. They cuddled and slept and conceived and shared and... I don't know what else. All I know is that, when they left in the morning, my sister was pregnant too.

My sister would lay dragon eggs when she was ready to, some time from now. I wouldn't be there to see it happen.

We walked, together, from the Sphinx' uterus into her cavernous library. There wasn't... five of me, not anymore. We were all here, our knowledge pulled into the Sphinx' body, our bodies dissolved, absorbed, combined. I feel my mother, my sister, all the others who have gone into this, ever.

I feel the Sphinx flying, once again, with the dragon who was once my sister. A new world has unfolded for her: the reward for her sudden, essential love is a slice of the Sphinx' knowledge. Clarisse doesn't shed a tear as they fly over the ocean together, guided by Gaia's link and understanding of the world; a part of her love is now within her belly, such that my sister will never know loneliness.

They kiss one last time. A dragon, Clarisse has said, lives three hundred years, maybe more. She promises to be there when I am born. There are no more words between them: a look, longing yet satisfied, and Margaret slows to a stall, folds her wings, and begins to fall from the sky. As she does, she curls her tail around herself, rolls herself into a ball. When she hits the surface she is smooth, black, solid stone once again, just as when I first met her.

My human mother, Amy, is the only other creatures on Earth who knows where I am. She sticks her head above the waves and watches: her daughter, the mighty dragon, as she gradually peels herself away from the lionesque form of the Sphinx, silhouetted against the darkening sky; she sees the stone orb fall, making a smaller-than-expected splash between the waves. Clarisse sees her and nods to her, my mother nods back and disappears into the surf as Clarisse turns and heads for shore, to enter motherhood herself.

Slowly the pressure increases around the Sphinx as darkness and the ocean claim her. I feel none of it. The fall to the bottom takes the better part of an hour, given the specific location she has chosen, and when she arrives at this resting place, the children of Gaia conspire to bury her under the floor of the ocean, decorate her with seafloor life as though she'd already been there for a hundred years.

At last, she is safe. From the ones who would inevitably seek to destroy her and the amazing, dangerous collection of knowledge she's amassed. I am as solid as she is, an egg the size of a ping-pong ball that is the product of all that has come before. Life slows to the faintest crawl and the world buzzes quietly above us at a million miles per hour.

I know will have a huge responsibility someday: all the people and all the knowledge and all the amazing observations she's had will have gone into me, plus the the love our families have given us, the support that my friends and lovers have poured into me, all the people who corresponded with us and guided us on the way; the complete gamut of ingenuity that this world has offered so far. It will take sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years, maybe more, before my new mother stirs from her slumber and feels any need to divest herself of me, to send me on some new mission we cannot yet imagine.

See you then.
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

Acknowledgments

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:25 pm

Dreamweevil:

I'd like to thank several people who helped, collaborated, encouraged along the way:

Groblek for a lot of great questions, ideas, and interaction, the concept for the Sphinx and several refinements to that character, the excellent story "Entering Puppyhood", and a lot of support and encouragement!

bigmacrmuk for a tremendous collaboration: his character Rob McLeane ("Francesca"),
a lot of writing, dialog, and story direction, plot ideas, and patience!

Littlebeast for the conversation, ideas and the reminder that none of the girls had used the ability this all started with: the ability to shrink people! (Hope you caught how that does get used at the end!)

And thanks to all those readers who didn't contribute but stuck with it through the entire thing. It was a lot of fun writing... hope you enjoyed it!

Sincerely,

dw
User avatar
dreamweevil
Participator
 
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:00 pm

Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby Groblek » Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:06 am

Thanks for the entertaining story, and letting me play in your world a bit. it was fun to see just where the AMA ended up leading.
Cheers,
Groblek
https://groblek.com
User avatar
Groblek
Intermediate Vorarephile
 
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:00 am
Location: California

Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby JeebyHeebies » Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:19 pm

Wow, I really wish I was here when this was going. I'm probably necroing here but this was an amazing experience to read, and I really wish there was some kind of continuation of it somewhere. This series was truly magical.
User avatar
JeebyHeebies
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2019 2:14 am

Previous

Return to Unbirth

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users