John tugged at the sleeve of his khaki shirt. They’d assigned the uniform, but as tended to be the case with uniforms, it wasn’t exactly a perfect fit. He had the mixed blessing to be tall and thin enough that he had to either go a size down and tack the word (tall) onto an outfit or go a size up and deal with it being baggy. His employers had decided to go for option C, which was giving him the non-tall version. It left him with a shirt that wasn’t quite long enough to stay tucked in and shorts that rode a little higher on his gangly legs to look dignified.
If he’d not been self-conscious enough, his supervisor for the day turned out to be Paula. She was the head gardener and looked like she should be hosting a Saturday morning kid’s show about wild animals. Tanned, fit, and right about at the level of pretty that got you on TV. She made him nervous. There was nothing strange about that, most things made him nervous. But there was something about the combo of not looking his best and having to make a good impression on someone who was both attractive and his boss that really ratcheted up the anxiety.
“John!” she said. “Johnny boy. Welcome to your first day at Kennedy Arboretum.”
She unlocked the gate and held it open. He stepped inside.
“This is the big leagues,” she continued. “We’ve got more rare specimens than anywhere in the country. We’re second in the world in orchids. But that’s not what you’re here for.”
She led the way through the empty arboretum. Most of the place was outdoor, a wonderland of fancy trees and flowers. They were headed to the greenhouse complex. Towering buildings of steel and glass, windows fogged with humidity. She opened the door to the largest one.
“You’re here to take care of the big boys. Our claim to fame. The world’s largest collection of megaflora,” she said, spreading her arms as she walked backwards through the main aisle.
She turned and paced along. He hurried to keep up and kept his head on a swivel, eying the towering plants.
“M-megaflora?” he said. “Isn’t this a little advanced? It’s my first day.”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re here. Those orchids? They’ll drop dead if you look at them funny. We’ve got roses that it takes a full lab team to keep the PH right. Can’t risk a newbie taking care of those until he’s had some extensive training. But these guys?”
She reached over the fence and slapped a thick leaf. It visibly shifted, curling like a tongue at her touch.
“These guys are tough. You’d have to work to do them harm. On the contrary. The goal of today’s training is to make sure they don’t do you harm. Because plants don’t grow this big, and move around this much, without a very particular diet. That means protein for size and fat for energy. These babies are meat eaters.”
He tried to keep to the center of the aisle as he walked past the various plants. It was like he’d been transported to a hostile alien planet. Huge, brightly colored pitcher plants. Yawning Venus-fly trap types that shifted to follow him as he stepped by. Vines shook and jiggled, rattling like snake tails.
“That one’s called the Coroner Bloom. We pitch in a pig twice a month. That one over there is called ‘Chicken Ivy’. Think fly trap, but with birds. We chuck two chickens in every now and then. A turkey around thanksgiving. Live, of course. The sap flows better if they move around more, so you’ve got to let them hunt.”
She pointed to something that looked like a mildly toned-down version of a piranha plant from the Mario Brothers games.
“Old kissy lips back there is the Dionaea Gigantum. We call her Audrey. A little on the nose but what do you expect from a bunch of plant nerds? That one is the hungriest. At least one cow a month. Just open up the gate and let the sucker wander in. It feeds itself.”
“I-I really think maybe I’d be better working with those roses. I’m really good with PH levels. My major was chemistry.”
“What’s the matter? Scared? Don’t worry about it. There are procedures. Plans upon plans. We’re pros. Haven’t lost an intern in… what, must’ve been three years now. Don’t worry, we’ll start you off small. We’ve been nurturing Audrey there for long enough that we’ve got a trimming to take root. Raising it up to transplant to another arboretum. We’ll get you started on that one.”
She led him to the very back of the arboretum. A smaller version of the same plant was waiting for them. Smaller was a relative term, in this case, because the glossy green clamshell of a head was still about the size of a dumpster. It was craned at the top of a long, coiling vine, maybe thirty feet long, that was thick as his waist and led back to a portly stem the size of a garden shed.
“Okay,” she said, rather cavalierly stepping over the short fence to march up to it. “We haven’t fed this thing this month, so it’s hungry. Perfect time to learn the safety procedures.”
John’s eyes widened as the vines spread out across the ground of the enclosure started to curl toward her.
“Paula, it’s moving.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Of course it’s moving. It’s hunting.”
One of the vines curled around her ankles, pulling them tight together. She wavered a bit, but remained standing.
“The smaller ones are on full feeding frenzy mode most of the time, so they’ll be active predators.” The vines coiled up along her legs. “They’re very strong, but they don’t constrict like snakes do. The goal is to ensnare, not asphyxiate or hemorrhage.”
Another vine curled up and wrapped around her upper body, pulling her arms tight against her body. The pair of vines slowly lifted her into the air.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” John said.
“Hey, listen close, okay. You’re doing this after I finish. See, these things can’t see. They hunt by smell and taste. The ends of the vines smell, and the whole vine tastes.” It pivoted her sideways and started to roll her slowly toward the maw, which was yawning wider. “Once it has something, these little hairs compress against the body to detect motion. You struggle, it holds tighter.”
The bulb started to tip up. The vines that were coiled around her raised her up and started to angle her feet toward its gullet. The lips started to close around her ankles. 
“Since they’re not smart, all you have to do is make them think something else is struggling.”
She curled her fingers up around the vine and tickled at the outside of the vine. Instantly it uncoiled like a party favor, rolling her out and away. She spun on her heel and stumbled free of the vines without even falling over.
“Tada!” she said, stepping over the fence.
“See? Nothing to it,” she said. “Get up there and try it out, John.”
“You almost got eaten!” he said.
“Almost, but didn’t, because I followed procedure. Now get up there and follow procedure. It’s easy. A child could do it.”
He took a breath and stepped over the fence. Maybe it was because they had been woken up by her little stunt, or maybe it was something else, but the vines didn’t take their time with him like they did with her. In seconds a vine had lashed around his abdomen. The moment he felt it, he reached down and slapped the vine. It curled tighter and then lashed away, a pinch of the vine held tight to the corner of his shirt, popping all of the buttons and refusing to let go. He struggled out of the shirt.
“Okay, okay, I did it, that’s enough,” John said, hurtling toward the fence.
A vine wrapped around his upper thigh. He hammered it with his fist and it pulled a similar stunt, curling away but snagging a bit of cloth and holding tight.
“Hey, did I say ‘beat the thing with your fists?’ No. It’s a little tickle. You stay calm and tickle. If you’re rough with it, it’ll be rough with you.”
In a panic, he unfastened his belt and let the thing strip his shorts away, leaving him in nothing but his boxers. Before he could dash for safety, another vine wrapped around his waist and quickly looped around his hands, locking them to his sides.
“It’s got…” he struggled. “It’s got my hands!”
“So tickle it. Easy.”
Another vine wrapped around his thighs and started to coil down his legs.
“I just said it’s got my hands, how do I tickle it?” he said desperately.
The vines hoisted him into the air and started to rotate him, reeling him toward the maw.
“You’re making a lousy first impression,” Paula said.
She hopped the fence and was immediately assaulted by two vines of her own. She deftly teased them away, though not before one of them snagged her shirt.
“Quit getting so frisky,” she muttered, pulling off the shirt rather than pausing long enough to unhook it.
John was already raising up above the fluttering lips of the plant. She reached up and tickled at the vines. Just as before, they started to unroll, spinning him out toward the main walkway again. Unlike her, he wasn’t quite so graceful and went tumbling to the ground, flat on his back.
“There,” she said, pacing toward him. “Easy. You just have to follow procedure and you’ll be--oof!”
She tumbled forward and landed on top of him, face to face. He felt a vine wrap her angles and his, binding them together. Then they were drawn up into the air to dangle for a moment like a hunter’s prize catch.
“They really are feisty today. I wonder if it’s because you’re a guy.” She said, reaching aside to go for the vines. “Most of our botanists are ladies.”
Another vine curled around their middles, mashing them more tightly together and beginning the slow rotation toward the maw that was becoming unsettlingly familiar.
“See, this is perfectly normal,” she said, awkwardly shifting against him as the coils wrapped more and more of their bodies. “I can’t quite get my fingers around to do the tickling. Can you?”
“My arms are trapped between us.”
“That’s fine. That’s fine,” she said, not a hint of concern in her voice.
The vines pulled them back to the maw and began lowering them in.
“It’s going to eat us!” he yelped.
“It’s going to try to eat us. See this is a very small one yet. And combined we’re like… one and a half times what it would usually eat. It probably can’t even get its jaws closed around us.”
He tried to keep from hyperventilating as her firm body was squeezed against his by the vines. The plant lowered them down into its surprisingly warm, and humid maw. The waxy, slick walls of its mouth tightened around them. It had to flex a great deal, curving around their trapped bodies, but finally the only light that reached them was filtered through the thick, flexible membrane of the maw.
“That’s it! It’s over!” he said.
“Don’t be so excitable. This is exactly what we need to happen. See, it doesn’t want to eat its own vines, so now that it thinks we’re trapped. It’ll release us from the vines.”
As she explained it, the vines started to slide against them, unwinding and pulling free from between the “lips” of the maw. After a few seconds, they were free, though their situation didn’t change much, the walls of the maw were clamping them together just as firmly as the vines had been.
“There, see? Like clockwork. Now we just have to get the jaws open and we’re fine.”
She pushed her arms past him past him, heaving at the wall behind him. He did the same, shoving at the wall behind her. There wasn’t very much room for them to get good leverage, but the jaws twitch open a bit every time they shoved.
“You’ve just got to trust the procedures and everything will turn out fine,” she said. “We’re going to get this open no problem. It hasn’t even started the swallowing reflex yet.”
As if that was its queue, the walls of the maw pinched down at their heads. Like fingers sliding along the outside of a tube, the motion rolled down along their bodies, squishing them downward until their feet squeezed into a snug, elastic tube beneath them. As soon as the first one finished, a second one started, mashing them against each other and driving them deeper.
“I-is there a procedure now?” he said, shoving harder against the maw which was now closing tighter with each wave, eliminating their progress.
“Of course there is. This little thing will never be able to get past our hips. Then it’s basically just us getting a massage until Monday when the morning crew comes and gets us.”
A few more swallows brought their thighs into the throat. He could feel weaker pulsing motions from within the tube working to draw them further. For a few minutes, she seemed to be correct. No matter how it pressed the two of their entangled bodies together, it wouldn’t go any further. Then, after the moisture had lubricated their thighs enough, a sudden jolt sent them waist deep, at which point every little pulse easily mashed them deeper.
“And now?” he said, his face pressing to hers in a near kiss as the tube started to inch up their necks.
“It really isn’t a problem,” she said, her arms around him in an involuntary embrace. “See, this thing isn’t even hungry.
They pulled fully into the throat, now inching along the lengthy stem, pushed along by each of the curling pulses.
“It ate us.”
“It’s a plant. It does what it does. When there’s something to eat, it eats it. When it needs to digest, it digests. We’re fine. You know how we know we’re fine? Because the first thing this plant does when it’s actually digesting something is release an enzyme that breaks down foreign plant matter. It hasn’t done that, so we’ll just slide down into a gullet with no digestive juices in it and then the Monday crew cuts us out. It won’t even do the plant any harm. It’ll heal back up.”
“Um… I think my boxers are dissolving.”
“... Yeah, so are my panties and bra. Okay, then we’re plant food.”
“What?!”
“We followed all the procedures,” she said with a shrug. “Now we’re all out of things to do. Right now, as far as the outside world is concerned, we’re one big, vaguely human bulge slipping slowly along the main feeder stem of the plant. Just my ass and your ass squidging along. This plant doesn’t have a regurgitation mechanism. The swallowing is one-way. Technically it’s already digesting us, it just started with the clothes. In a minute or two, we’ll squeeze past the surface of the ground and into the enzyme chamber. By the time the Monday crew shows up, we’ll have been a nice nutritious meal and our bones will be calcium deposits to strengthen its vines and maw. You win some, you lose some. We’re still technically doing our jobs as gardeners, taking care of the plants. Just, you know. Directly.”
She huffed a breath in his face, his lips nearly touching hers.
“There’s just the one thing left to do.”
“I thought you said we were out of procedures.”
“Oh, yeah, but we’ve still got some time left.”
“So what are we--”
The second half of the sentence was lost when she pressed her lips to his. She didn’t have to lean forward, she just had to stop resisting the pressure from the vine that was cocooning them and let the involuntary embrace turn into a voluntary one.
Startled, he pulled back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m here, you’re here, we’re naked. Two bodies, pressed together, moist and slippery. We’re making the best of it.”
“But I barely know you. I just met you.”
“We’re about to be closer than anyone else you’ve ever met. Mixed up into a slurry and then part of the same plant. Now come on.”
She kissed him again. He let it linger a bit longer this time, then pulled away.
“But… It just feels like…” he said.
“I know you want to,” she murmured. “Your boxers are gone and I’ve got a very eager little friend slipping between my thighs.”
He huffed, not quite able to find the words to resist. She rubbed her slick thighs together, pinning his shaft between them and giving it a squeeze. He grunted, then a sharp curve in the vine ground them even tighter together. Their legs were curving downward, the pressure around them growing as they slipped past the surface of the ground. He felt her breasts against his chest. Her arms around him. He slid his hands down, caressing her back and her toned behind.
“Let’s do it,” he rumbled.
No sooner had the words slipped from his lips than the pressure around their legs released. A final wave extruded them into a more spacious chamber. The air inside was heavy and sweet, and when they struck bottom splashed a pool of syrupy goop all over themselves and the walls. She hungrily rolled him over and mounted him, plunging his penis deep into her warm slit. She bucked and swiveled her hips, leaning forward to scoop her arms behind him and hold him up out of the goo. The level started to rise, more of the stuff weeping out of the walls and pooling around them. Wherever it touched, it tingled. Not unpleasantly. It just seemed to ratchet up the sensitivity. Their pulses were racing, each thrust building the heat, the anticipation. She kissed him, licking the enzymatic nectar from his lips. The pair rutted like wild animals, more and more fiercely grinding and thrusting. His grunts and her moans echoed off the walls. He kissed her breasts, licked them clean, then put his hands around her waist to help build the rhythm. He lifted her and pulled her down, driving himself deeper with each thrust until, at the same moment, they both erupted into a glorious, exquisite climax. When they were through, she tumbled from atop him and the two slumped into the goo, utterly spent.
Their eyes became heavy. They pulled each other into their arms, and so entwined, the enzymes did their work. By the time they dozed off, their flesh was already softening. By the time the sun went down, they were a nutritious stew. And by Monday, they were nothing but a shock of new growth for the hungry plant. One final job done by the arboretum’s caretakers.