The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Shannon eased the boots off her aching feet, and lay back on the camp bed with a sigh that was at least half a groan. She wasn’t quite ready to peel off her socks to confront the sweaty, stinking, blistered messes that used to be her feet, so she just tried to adjust her body into a somewhat relaxing position, while staring up through the mosquito netting to the rough canvas of the tent’s ceiling. Nocturnal oblivion was calling, and she was inclined to answer.

A childhood fascination with flowers, butterflies and bees had ended up in a biology degree, specializing in botany; two summer expeditions had given her a taste for exploring remote environments, resulting in her now being two years into a Ph.D. Though this particular expedition in rural Costa Rica was only tenuously connected to her research, her supervisor, Prof Garrahy (though she, in her earthy way, strongly preferred her students just to call her “Brenda”) had not quite ordered her to come along, mostly because of Shannon’s excellent grasp of Central American Spanish. Unusually among her peers, Shannon actually liked her supervisor, and was willing to make the trek into the jungle to her and the team’s two post-docs.

Costa Rica was much more hot and humid than her previous expedition to the steppes of Kazakhstan, and Shannon wasn’t doing that well with the heat. Fortunately, the skies had been fairly clear over the past few days, and overnight temperatures had been almost tolerable. Still, she was constantly drinking water to stay alive—and hoping that the purification tablets were doing their job. Brenda had warned her of the potential consequences of unpurified water in the tropics, and the post-docs had helpfully followed up with lurid third person stories of dubious provenance.

So far, the expedition had been a qualified success. They had successfully located the flowering creeping vine that was their target, had taken bio samples and surveyed its spread and reaction to local conditions, and managed to piece together a picture of most of its immediate symbiotes. They still had to transport their samples back to the local lab, uncontaminated by any accidents on the trails—it had taken them two days to reach this spot, including six hours of hiking. Shannon was thankful that they had so many porters, and she only had to carry her own equipment and bedding, but she wasn’t looking forward to the hike out to meet the rickety old Land Rovers at the trailhead.

There was a tap on the canvas, and Carmen’s distinctive voice—Spanish with a strong flavor of Bribri—came in. ”Profesor, can I disturb you?“

Shannon groaned, and pulled herself back to a sitting position. The guides didn’t distinguish between academic ranks, so all four of the academics were addressed as Profesor; it was somewhat flattering, but as the sole decent Spanish speaker, Shannon was the inevitable nexus for the guides’ concerns and problems.

“Come in, Carmen. What’s up?”

Carmen ducked under the loose door flaps, and crouched down to be level with Shannon. Shannon briefly looked at the guide’s rock-hard thighs, and internally sighed with envy. Carmen could squat in that position for hours, and think nothing of it.

“Profesor, I know this isn’t the focus of your expedition, but you need to know—tonight, under the moon, there’s going to be a flowering of a local plant that very few people have ever seen.“

“At night?” Shannon frowned, thinking. “There’s the tan hua , Epiphyllum oxypetalum. White flower, flattened stems? Thank you, Carmen, but they’re fairly well known. Pretty, I can’t deny.“

“No, profesor , only tonight—the full moon. And, these flowers are silver.“

“Silver? That doesn’t make any sense...” Shannon pinched her nose. “Okay, where is it? It sounds interesting, at least.”

“A canyon, two miles from here.” Carmen gestured at the sun, rapidly sinking below the horizon. “We should leave in three hours to be there when the full moon is nearly overhead.” She scratched her arm—a spider bite from several days ago was still bothering her. “We are very fortunate—it looks to be clear skies tonight. The plant needs direct moonlight to bloom.”

Shannon checked her battered watch. “Okay, so depart about ten thirty...” She reached over for her camp sandals. “Thank you, Carmen. I’ll tell the others.”

Carmen headed off to help with dinner preparation. Shannon had noticed a small wild pig tied up in the camp’s makeshift corral on return to the camp, and was fairly sure that its life expectation was very short, but at least it looked lively and healthy. She picked her way across the flat rocks around the main fireplace, and tapped on her professor’s tent. “Brenda?”

“Come in, my heart.” Brenda’s cheerful brogue hadn’t been much changed by fifteen years away from her home in Cork, Ireland.

Shannon found the professor busy taking longhand notes in her journal. “What’s up, Shan? How are your feet?”

Shannon grimaced. “They’ll have to cut them off when we get back home, and I’ll grow a fresh pair. But that’s not why I’m here. Carmen says that there’s this local flower that only blooms in direct full moon—like we’re having tonight—and from the description, it’s definitely not tan hua. I don’t know what it can be.“

“Interesting!” Brenda closed her journal and stared at her student. “Do we know where it is?”

“Carmen can guide us—she says we should leave around half ten to get there at the right time.”

“Well, I’m game.” Brenda gave her a wink. “Are those battered feet up to a little late night stroll, Shan?”

“Try and stop me, Prof. Besides, I wouldn’t want to subject Carmen to your Spanish. I’m sure it causes her physical pain.”

“Ay, you cheeky chusile! Mocking your elder... Go tell the twins, would you?“

Frannie and Annie weren’t actually twins, but were of similar age, and while sca was from Italy and Anah was Slovenian, they had sufficiently similar hair and complexions that, when they started as Brenda’s new postdocs, they had very quickly been dubbed “the twins” by the undergrad students in their classes. “Frannie and Annie” had quickly followed, and the pair bore their forced twinning with good humor.

Shortly after ten pm, they emerged from their tents with head flashlights, small packs with camera equipment and sampling kits, and freshly filled water flasks. Everyone had eaten well courtesy of the visiting wild pig, so there was no need to pack food beyond a bit of chocolate. Carmen had assured them that they’d only be walking an hour or so to get there—wherever “there” was.

Brenda was traveling light, with just a flashlight and walking stick, and so Shannon as junior team member got to pack the videocamera, its mounting poles, and the spare batteries.

Carmen and her colleague MJ—María José—were waiting for them. MJ was carrying some of the climbing gear that they had brought but not yet used.

“I will lead; MJ will take the rear,” Carmen told Shannon, who translated for the others. “There is enough moonlight that we shouldn’t need flashlights for now, but we will need them later when the tree canopy gets thicker. If anyone needs to rest, just say.”

The party walked off into the sparse jungle that surrounded most of the camp’s clearing. Initially they were following a game trail, which was quite easy going. After half an hour, though, they switched off to a much smaller track heading up the side of a hill, and Carmen slowed the pace as Brenda and Shannon started to straggle.

They crested a ridge, and descended into thicker jungle. Carmen commanded flashlights on for every other person, and they carefully wound their way down through increasingly thick brush. While the way was never fully obstructed, and there was always some evidence of a track, this was clearly not a frequently trodden path.

All of a sudden, Carmen stopped and held up her hand. “We are here.”

The line of explorers bunched up, ing Carmen who was looking down into a narrow canyon. The jungle canopy was open across the width of the canyon, and a little more to each side, and now the full moon beamed down on them through the gap.

“Down here,” Carmen instructed, as MJ made fast a climbing rope to a thick, well rooted tree they had just ed. ”Profesor Brenda, please wear a descent harness. Other profesors, if you choose not to, please be careful.“

“Understood, thank you.” Brenda propped her stick up against the anchor tree and started to step into the harness. “Who’s first down to be eaten by the giant jaguar, that’s no doubt lurking at the bottom?”

“It’s got to be the grad student,” Frannie said. “You can pick up a new one for nearly nothing if you need to.”

Shannon stuck out her tongue, and pulled on the climbing gloves that MJ offered. “I’ll tell the jaguar to wait for the two-for-one offer.” She tightened the straps on her backpack, angled her flashlight down, took a firm hold of the rope, and started to back down the rope.

The descent wasn’t as difficult as she expected. The surface was mostly rock, with plenty of grip, and even at its steepest, Shannon wasn’t having to hang much weight on her arms. A few minutes saw her standing on the canyon floor, panting a little, and—after a swift check for jaguars—she shone her flashlight upwards to aid Frannie, who was the next to descend.

The canyon was noticeably quieter than the jungle above. Shannon hadn’t realized how much she’d taken for granted the background chirps, coos, hisses and snarls from the regular jungle, until she listened to the sounds of the canyon—or lack of them. Regular jungle noises were faint, and nothing local except the breathing of the explorers supplemented them.

A tiny stream emerged from the rock face that appeared to run down the base of the canyon. Brenda pointed at it.

“You see how small this stream is? Look at the erosion layers in the cliff face—this canyon has been carved out incredibly slowly. This is relatively hard rock, as well. The fossils further down must be incredible.”

She turned around to Carmen. “How did you find this, Carmen?” Even in Brenda’s butchered Spanish, the meaning was clear enough that Shannon didn’t feel the need to translate the question.

“We encountered it on a previous expedition, Profesor. The client, from University of Rome, asked us to search the canyon for a lizard,”—here Carmen used a name that Shannon didn’t recognize—“but when the full moon came out, we saw this flower appear.“

Shannon was about to translate back, but hesitated, and asked her own question. “Carmen, why didn’t your client study this flower?”

“Oh, they didn’t think it was important,” Carmen explained, blandly. “They were running out of money—we didn’t get paid all of our last amount.”

Shannon translated back for the others. “Brenda, it sounds like we might have lucked onto an unexplored opportunity here?”

“Let’s take a look, ladies. Can we get the cameras out?” Shannon and the twins started to unpack their equipment. “Carmen, how far are these flowers?”

“Only a couple of minutes walk, Profesor.“

The party walked slowly down the canyon, their path illuminated by the full moon which was now practically overhead. Carmen was in the lead, but Shannon close behind her could start to make out a dark mass ahead that spanned the narrow canyon floor.

She touched Carmen’s shoulder. “Should we get out our machetes?”

“No!” Shannon was taken aback by Carmen’s vehemence, but the guide collected herself and explained. “This is the plant producing the flowers, profesor. We need to go deeper into the growth to find them. If we damage the plant, the flowers will die.“

“Understood.” Shannon turned and relayed the message to the rest of the team. “This is the flowering plant; we must not damage it. Walk slowly and carefully through the leaves.”

“Thank you, Shan.” Brenda’s eyes were sparkling in the moonlight. “Tread lightly, ladies, and that you’re not being paid to bring back empty SD cards.”

The expedition slowed, following Carmen in gently parting the dark, scented, broad leaves of the plant while they pressed on down the canyon.

Shannon saw a glint ahead; unsure, she further slowed her pace, and picked up the camera slung around her neck. “There’s something up here. Hold on.”

She took slow, cautious steps forward, until the silvered petals of a flower, maybe four inches across, came into view.

“Well, this isn’t a tan hua...” She snapped several pictures of the flower before approaching it, careful not to crush any stems under foot.

Frannie was just behind her. “You know, I’m sure I looked down into this canyon—or one very much like it—a few days ago, and there was just scrub and a stream at the bottom of it. No sign of leaves like this.” She took in a long breath. “It does smell very nice, though. Very relaxing.”

“Mmm...” Shannon very gently took hold of the flower, and stared into its structure. It was unlike anything she had seen before; there were several structures that looked like individual pistils, but there was no obvious place for pollen to be gathered. The base of the petals had a vein-like pattern that appeared to be very slowly pulsing in the moonlight—an optical illusion?

The silvery glint from the petals appeared, on closer inspection, to be due to an extraordinarily fine, irregular mesh of silver lines on the surface. She refocused her eyes in an attempt to discern whether the silver lines actually embedded in the leaf, or were proud on the surface, but the moonlight made it very difficult to tell either way. She ought to take a petal for study, surely?

She drew in another breath, and the heavy spice smell was now stronger. Her limbs were starting to feel heavy. It was so late... she just needed to stand here and rest a while...

Something wound itself around each of her wrists, continuing up her arm towards her elbow. She lethargically looked down to see a dark green vine slowly tightening its grip.

“Hey...” Her protest died away as another surge of spice-laden air washed over her. Frannie was similarly entwined, her eyelids flickering as she appeared to sink into sleep.

She didn’t know how long she had stood there before she felt something thick and slightly rough start to wrap itself around her body. Her arms were released by the original vines as the newcomers started to press them against her body. Soon, she was constricted from head to toe by three or four inch-thick vines.

There was a pause, then a sensation of contracting, and she was slowly pulled under the dark green leaf cover. The spice smell redoubled in intensity, and her head sagged as sleep took her...

Shannon slowly slipped back to consciousness. She was in her bed at home, tightly wound in her sheets to stay warm. Her bedroom fan was playing lightly scented air over her face...

As her eyes opened, she realized that things were not as she imagined. She was almost vertical, held halfway up the canyon wall by a cluster of broad, thick leaves that wrapped around her to form some kind of pod. An unconscious Frannie was held in a similar arrangement a few feet away, and Annie and Brenda were cocooned on the other side of the canyon.

“Frannie... Frannie, wake up! Carmen? MJ? Mmph!” Shannon’s call was unceremoniously cut short by several thick leaves that circled over her mouth, forming a rough but effective gag.

She tried to push out against her bindings, but it quickly tired her—the leaves yielded slightly, with enough force, but as soon as she relaxed her muscles, they pushed back to bring her back to her original state. After a couple of rounds of this, sweat was running down her face and her muscles aches.

Something started to snake up her thigh.

It was slicker and smaller than the vines which currently bound her, dexterously and teasingly circling her leg, sneaking under her shorts before it started to push up, finding the gap in her inner thigh that let it underneath her panties. Shocked, she struggled harder, but the vines had apparently anticipated her reaction, and preemptively tightened.

It tickled the outside of her sex, and she whimpered in a combination of arousal and fear. Then it slowly parted her lips, and slid inside.

Almost immediately, it started to pulse, and Shannon gave a muffled gasp as it gently stretched her, sliding around her nub before contracting again. Two more, smaller vines encircled her forehead, apparently to absorb the perspiration now appearing there.

It took a moment to realize that a second slick intruder had an interest in her rear door, but as her cheeks were slowly parted she started to pant in anticipation of its destination. Initially she wasn’t sure that she could feel anything—until it started to pulse inside her, causing a feeling like electric shocks to run down her back, curling her toes in rhythm to the pulse.

Whatever was stimulating her, it apparently could recognize the signs of an impending climax, and repeatedly dialed back its activity to pull her back from the brink, to the point where she would have been dribbling with frustration had it not been for the secure gag. Similar noises from Frannie nearby indicated that she was likely experiencing something along the same lines. Or vines.

Louder noises from lower in the canyon pulled her gaze downwards. Carmen and MJ were spread-eagled among the dark green leaves on the canyon floor, their arms and legs held by vines, and apparently had long since shed their trail pants, since their bared midsections were entwined with vines, pulsing and probing them. They didn’t show any sign of struggle, however. Their faces were suffused with the signs of climax, and the plant was apparently letting them express their satisfaction out loud, unlike the rest of the expedition.

Shannon winced as something thorny pierced her right neck, and then a corresponding sting on the left was accompanied by a vine slowly constricting around her throat. The restricted breathing, coupled with the prolonged stimulation caused her to start hallucinating, and it was a while before she realized that the crawling sensation on her cheeks wasn’t part of a perverted dream, but was actually happening to her. With great effort, she focused past the stimulation to see what was actually happening.

Frannie’s eyes were still closed, but now a silver mesh of fine threads formed a complex pattern, growing from around her throat to cover her cheeks, similar to the pattern she had seen on the flower’s petals. To Shannon’s great alarm, what was presumably her own mesh felt as if it was starting to invade both her ears and her nostrils, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. At least, her breathing and hearing didn’t seem to be obstructed, but the thought of it spreading through her head...

All of a sudden, the moonlit canyon vanished, and she was inside her own mind—her memories spread out like an armada of butterflies, pinned in place for the leisurely examination of a collector. She could sense this Collector’s mind—slow, but deep and powerful, like the currents underpinning an ocean—surrounding her.

“Who are you? What are you?” Mute, she tried to launch a thought towards this mind.

No reaction, but the invader continued to spread deeper into her mind, older and darker memories ing as each vault effortlessly surrendered itself to the Collector.

In the background she started to be aware of Something, beyond this plant. Something with an unknowable deep, chthonic existence that had existed unfathomably long before humans had started to descend from their trees. Something with an implacable will to expand Her existence and knowledge, though with barely a concept of Time itself. A curious Something, wanting to understand these fragile, tiny mayflies that occasionally invaded Her presence as She communed with the White Sky Goddess...

The full moon had arced most of the way across the canyon sky when Shannon returned to her body. Still firmly bound, and silenced, her body continued to shiver, her formerly firm muscles like jelly from what must have been hours of relentless stimulation. She could still feel the invaders slowly sliding in and out, though by now she was slicker than she ever ed and the stimulation was tolerable, though not sometime she could fully block from her mind.

The tendril in her sex was starting to swell.

It was hard to tell, at first, but soon Shannon felt her slit being pushed further apart. With every few pulses, another expansion stretched her further. Even with loosened muscles, she started to groan in discomfort.

Suddenly, she felt the end of the tendril nudging up against her cervix, and her eyes widened again. She tried to shake her head in protest, but the vines were implacable. Then a very strange feeling started to come from deep inside her—a tickling from somewhere that was not used to intrusion.

Faint cramps started, and she gave a stifled moan. They were slow at first, but became increasingly stronger. Her legs were shaking as much as was possible inside the cocoon. Although the sensations weren’t actually painful, they were distinctly uncomfortable, and in between cramps she wondered how long they would continue.

Finally, something rigid started to make its way down the tendril, implacably spreading her slit to make its way inside her. It was if someone was pushing an 8-ball inwards, though her muscles were so tired that they were completely incapable of resisting the intruder. She felt it push up against her cervix and start to stretch it further—then a brief but sharp burst of pain, and she could no longer feel it, just the ache where it had ed. In shame, she felt warm wetness in her panties and realized that she’d peed herself during the ordeal.

The invading tendril must have shrunk, since it was now gliding slowly in and out of her, tenderly stroking her aching parts. Slowly, the discomfort faded away, to be replaced by guilty pleasure as her nub was delicately tweaked and kissed by the tendril’s tips.

Down in the canyon, Carmen and MJ lay still, vines loosely wrapped around them. Brenda and Annie appeared to be in a trance, but Frannie’s eyes were looking around her, and caught Shannon’s gaze. Both muted by the vines, it was hard to make much in the way of communication, but it was still a relief for Shannon to realize that she wasn’t completely alone.

Now, the silver pattern across Frannie’s cheeks started to glitter, scattering moonlight. Shannon was able to see Frannie’s gaze go distant, and her eyelids start to close, before a pulsing started in her head and her own vision darkened. The Collector had returned, and was reaching deep into Her captive’s minds again...

Shannon’s bed felt unusually hard, and cool. She sighed, and tried to shift around to find a more comfortable position.

It took a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone. Warm bodies pressed on her from several positions.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes. This wasn’t her tent. She was curled up on the grassy floor of a narrow canyon, near a small stream that quietly bubbled its way past her.

Annie’s peaceful sleeping face was only a few inches from hers. What looked like Frannie’s back and bottom were nuzzled against Shannon’s legs. The light from above was no longer the Moon—the sun had come above the horizon, and was lighting up the sky above the canyon.

The air down here was still, but damp with the morning dew, and although Shannon didn’t feel particularly cold, she wasn’t very comfortable. She eased herself up to a sitting position, trying not to disturb her friends, and looked around.

Brenda was already up, leaning on her walking stick and peering into a crevice in the canyon wall. She was making notes in a tiny notepad, and occasionally using a metal scraper to collect stone dust into a small tube.

Shannon rubbed her eyes, then focused on her hands, and was surprised to see a gray-ish dust covering her palms. Tentatively, she stroked her cheeks, and a little more dust fell off. She pulled a small mirror from her pocket, inspecting herself, but just saw a couple of gray smudges on her face; a quick brush cleared them off.

“Brenda?” She wobbled to a standing position and tottered over to her mentor. “What’s going on?”

“This is fascinating,” murmured Brenda, poking at what, on closer inspection, was one of a number of narrow but apparently deep fissures in the rock. “I’ve never seen geology quite like this. And look at these runes!” She indicated two columns of small petroglyphs, each about four feet high, carved into the rock. “Can you ask MJ if she knows what they say? She’s just up the canyon, checking on the ropes.”

Shannon obligingly trudged upstream on the rough grass carpeting the canyon, retrieving MJ from her work, and bringing her to the petroglyphs.

MJ stared at the symbols, her face wrinkled in thought. “I recognize the shapes, profesor. We have seen writing like this near some of the older temples. I think this is ‘moon’ "—she pointed at one symbol that looked like a rough circle truncated at the bottom by a line—“and this is ‘plant’ or ‘flower’ "—she pointed at a second symbol that looked somewhat like the kanji hon for ‘root’. “Other than that, I don’t know.“

Shannon translated, and pulled out her camera. “We should record these, shouldn’t we, Prof?”

Brenda paused, apparently lost in thought for a moment. Then she reached out and gently pushed the camera down. “No, Shan, I don’t think we should. We had a nice night time walk, let’s just return to camp. Could you wake those lazy twins?”

Shannon was briefly tempted to scoop up some water from the stream and douse Frannie and Annie, but self-preservation kicked in and she just poked them in the shoulder. “This is your wake-up call,” she chirped, as the grad students grumbled and blinked awake. “Time to go back to camp.”

Annie yawned, brushing grass from her jacket. “Time for breakfast!”

Frannie groaned. “Time for coffee!”

“You’ll only get those at camp,” Shannon reminded them. “Get on your feet, we’ve a wall to climb.”

Shannon suddenly opened her eyes. Her bedroom curtains, poorly installed, had never properly closed, and tonight a shard of pale moonlight penetrated the gap, and fell across her face.

She sat up in her bed, and pushed away her blankets. For a few minutes she was almost immobile, just moving her head slowly left and right, letting the light play across her face.

Finally, she walked to the window, and pushed the curtains aside to stare out at the fields and forest that were now lit with a milky glow by the full Moon. This small house on the edge of town, that she rented along with two other grad students, allowed her easy access to the countryside when she felt like a walk to clear her head—but now, she simply gazed into the far reaches of the forest.

A keen observer would have noticed an impossibly fine lace of silver threads across Shannon’s irises, glinting in the Moonlight.

For an hour, or maybe more, she stood there, transfixed. Occasionally, she softly stroked her stomach, but her gaze never wavered.

“Not yet...” she whispered. “Not yet...”

A bank of clouds had been building to the west, and slowly moved across her vision. Eventually, the dense dark mass slid across the full Moon, reducing its glare to merely a gleam, and then cutting off all its light.

Shannon blinked and started, as if waking from a dream. She looked around—it was clearly her bedroom, the wall clock showed a little past two a.m.

“Sleepwalking!’” she muttered to herself, rolling back into bed and pulling the blankets back over. In only a few minutes her breathing slowed into the slightly stertorous rhythm of her sleep.

sca took a swig from her water bottle, leaning against a tree as she took a brief break from her bushwhacking. The old beech forests east of Firenze were practically unexplored in their depths, once the hazel bushes and similar sturdy undergrowth started to accumulate. She had previously hiked in the Provençal maquis, dense with thorns and prone to flay unwary hikers; this undergrowth was less vicious, but at least as stubborn. She had lost track of the number of times that a springy hazel branch had whacked her in the face as she pushed through the scrub.

The clear skies above combined with the sparse beech tree canopy to scatter full Moonlight throughout the forest. Within her, a quietly boiling purpose pushed her forward towards the narrow canyon that she’d previously identified on the local geological maps. Her eyes gleamed with purpose—and from the silvery mesh that traced across her irises.

Finally, she broke through to a steep slope leading in to the wider base of the canyon. Here, she could pick up her pace, and pushed forward as the canyon walls narrowed and rose around her.

The full Moon beamed down from above, and she stopped—transfixed, she gazed upwards. She could see all the craters, the scarring from millions of years of impacts, all lit in reflecting glory from the invisible sun.

Her stomach began to cramp.

sca doubled over, moaning as the first spasm ed through her. Her fingers tingled—somehow, she knew this was expected, that it was time for ... for a change, a new beginning. Another, deeper series of cramps squeezed a small cry from her. Obeying some deep impulse, she scrambled to pull down her hike shorts and panties, and dropped onto her back on the soft grass.

“Madre,” she gasped as the next cramp seized her middle and squeezed until she thought she might out from lack of air. However, it let go as suddenly as it started. She drew in quick breaths, trying to restore her oxygen levels. As she re-focused on the moon above, her breathing slowed and her body relaxed.

Without warning, her body arched, and a suppressed scream forced its way out of her mouth. It was as if a fountain of lava had erupted in her sex, and yet it felt expected—she somehow knew what to do. Gathering her muscles, and gritting her teeth, she bore down on her sex. Lightning flashed in her vision, and the full moon above seemed to spiral, quicker and quicker...

The night was still when she came to. The full Moon still hummed its silent tune, but her body was now limp. Her sex ached, but the muscle ache of a distance runner having reached her goal.

Her initial attempts to sit up, trying to employ arms that now seemed to be made of rubber, were clumsy, but eventually she could look down between her legs. There were dark streaks on her thighs, but what attracted her attention was a small object, like an oversized walnut, glistening in the Moonlight.

She carefully reached forward to scoop it up in her palm, and brought it to her face. The scent was distinctive—it smelled of her!—and it was slick in her palm. The texture was like a walnut, but at not even a tenth of the scale; a barely discernable pattern of dimples and ridges, traced over with a pattern of fine silver lines.

Her head started to hum, and she stumbled to her feet. With the nut still in her palm, she wandered towards the edge of the canyon wall, head bent down to examine the ground. Here, the soft soil of the canyon floor was split by long shards of rock, apparently deeply buried by decades of soil and decomposed foliage. She reached down and scratched gently with her fingers, searching.

Finally, she found it—a four-inch-wide gap between rock shards, filled with soft soil that went down as far as her fingers could dig. Once she had excavated a hole, about six inches deep, she gently, reverently placed the nut at the bottom, then replaced the soil on top.

She stood, brushing the soil from her fingers, and returned to her discarded shorts and boots. She paused for a moment, looking around the Moon-lit canyon once more, and somehow, through her bare feet, sensed a movement in the soil as the buried nut started to push its tendrils out and down, exploring its new habitat. The hum in her head intensified, and she briefly staggered as images flashed before her eyes—this canyon, but now filled with the dark green leaves and silver blossoms of the Plant. sca herself, naked, laying down on the leaves as tendrils gently wound their way around her legs...

The Moon went behind a cloud, and sca returned to the present. She shook her head, pulled on her shorts and boots, and set out on the barely marked trail back to the better-trodden parts of the forest where she had parked her car.

Anah steadily made her way through the thick forest northwest of Goreljak, heading in the general direction of mountainous Triglav—although the dense foliage precluded any view of the mountain itself. Her first expedition along this path, five full Moons ago, had been more tentative as she had searched for the site identified on the map—but this time, the navigation was easy. The hum in her head strengthened as she closed the distance to the shoulder slope in which she had found the narrow fissure; now a home to the nut she had borne.

The Plant was calling her.

She trekked steadily up the sloping animal trail, barely pausing to swig water before resuming her march. Above her, the yellow full Moon beamed through the spruce tree branches, scattering into impossibly complex patterns on the forest floor.

The hum in her head was almost unbearable by the time that she reached the small stream running out of the fissure. She shucked her pack, propping it against a tree, and swapped her boots and socks for hiking sandals before plunging her feet into the stream, feeling cold water around her ankles.

She looked up at the two giant flat stones that were the Scylla and Charybdis for this narrow fissure. The stream didn’t quite touch each side, but the banks were hardly anything to speak of. She simply waded down the middle of the stream into the darkness, occasionally having to lean left or right as bulges in the rock obstructed her age. Only the faint and occasional glint of Moonlight let her glimpse the higher canyon walls.

It was only a few minutes, though it felt much longer, before the high narrow walls took a sharp turn to the right. As Anah rounded the corner, she could see a silver glow ahead. The hum shifted to a higher pitch, and she scrambled forwards, careless of the splashing she made.

The walls broke open to a roughly circular shaft, maybe ten meters across. Above her, she could see the bright Moon framed by the jagged rock edge of the shaft, but her main focus was on the bed of dark green leaves that now filled the shaft—where, five Moons ago, had just been rock debris and grass.

Now nearly frantic from the hum in her head, she jumped out of the stream, and quickly pulled off her clothes. The cool night air, flowing down from the still-icy peaks of Triglav, raised goose bumps to rise on her skin, but she hardly noticed—wading into the mass of dark leaves, she reached for one of the flowers and drew to her face, inhaling its scent. As her eyes re-opened, the fine silver lines on her irises sparkled.

Ever so slowly, she leaned back into the leaves. As she did so, thick green vines surrounded her, easing her back gently into a near-horizontal position. Anah sighed with happiness as thinner, slicker tendrils wound around her thighs and butt cheeks, teasing her entrances before gently slipping inside. More tendrils wrapped her head, and her hearing was blocked as each ear was invaded in turn.

She lay in limbo for a while, but then there was a sudden sensation like a waterfall pouring out of her head. Her vision greyed out as a kaleidoscope of images flew through her mind. At one point, it felt as if her arms and legs were rooted impossibly deep in the soft soil, reaching miles down around the embedded rocks, tapping water channels, and—at the tips—feeling the first heat of the still-distant magma.

Then she was herself again, but now there was a distinct consciousness connected to her.

“The Collector,” she murmured to herself. “The Plant.”

“The Mother,” a strange voice murmured in her ear—in both her ears; no, deeper than that. “You carried Me here, you bore Our seed. Now, with My new flesh growing, I take My leave of your mind.” It was a slow, deep, earthy voice—speaking no language known to humans, the meaning just surfacing directly in Anah’s mind.

Tears started in Anah’s eyes. “You’re abandoning me?”

What might have been a rich chuckle rippled through Anah’s mind. “My child, My butterfly. Could any Mother cast aside a such a worthy daughter?” The tendrils wrapped around Anah gave her a comforting squeeze. “Of course not. We will go our separate ways now, but every full Moon, you will sense Me—and not just here, everywhere that I root. And whenever you come to Me in person, we will once again connect.”

The slick tendrils slowly writhed within Anah, and she gave a groan of happiness. Above her, the bright Moon beamed down on her. She sensed the leaves of the Plant—the Mother—spreading out further inside the canyon, more silver flowers blossoming to drink in Moonlight. Deep, slow pulses down in the earth announced the Mother’s presence—and now the Plant, and her own body, vibrated with answering pulses, coming in from various directions at seemingly impossible distances.

“We are complete with Ourselves once more,” the Mother announced, languidly. “I sense that your friends are with Us tonight. Do you feel them too?”

Anah was squirming with impossible pleasure as the tendrils attended to her, but with effort managed to drag her mind out from the earthy distractions and try to tune it to the alien thoughts within her. It was like trying to find the right station on her now-dead babica’s ancient radio station, moving up and down the band to pick up a sliver of voice from the noise.

Suddenly an image of sca came to her—laying in a bed of dark leaves and entwined in vines, just like Anah, eyes closed but silver veins patterned on her face, a low murmur of meaningless Italian coming from her mouth as her body rose and fell in response to the Plant’s—the Mother’s gifts.

“Very good,” the Mother whispered. “In time, you will learn to reach further, and further.”

An unknowable time ed, while Anah gave her body over to the Plant, and freed her mind to wander through the Mother’s knowledge and history. The stars decorating the Moon turned on their axis, as the Moon Herself followed Her arc across the night sky....

Anah blinked awake, feeling cool air on her face and something slightly damp on her back. What had been cool Moonlight was now the first finger of early sunlight, refracting into the chasm.

She was blanketed by a loose cover of brown leaves, and as she sat up, they cascaded off her body—her naked body—disintegrating into a brown powder. Her skin felt the cold morning air, and she shivered; a quick retrieval of her clothing re-insulated her, and she took a last look around the chasm.

The only evidence of the Plant, the dead leaves that now covered the chasm floor, was disappearing as she watched, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until they were either washed away in the river, or became one with the soil.

Anah sighed, and waded into the cold water. It was going to be a long hike back to her car.

Brenda had known of the roof access in her college building for a while—some of the more adventurous students had conducted night time expeditions across the roof to hang various banners and displays there, in blatant violation of University regulations, but until tonight she had felt no particular need to venture up there. Ironically, as a full professor, she had had no difficulty at all in procuring a key to the padlock on the exit door. Now, she carefully locked the door behind her—making it imable from the inside—and slowly walked out onto the roof space.

The crenelled battlements on the roof called back to a time when academic study had been much more dangerous than now, and Brenda appreciated the historical context, but their main benefit now was to hide her from any curious eyes in the college courtyard. She had pulled a collapsible beach chair with her, and set it up in the middle of the roof—invisible to either side of the building, but soaked in bright Moonlight.

She settled into the chair with a sigh, and stared upwards. The silver veins burst forth across her irises.

“I know You are there.” It was a barely vocalized murmur, but she had no doubt that Something was listening.

Her body stiffened, and she grasped the arms of the chair as something came pouring up within her, like an uncontrollable landslide of moist Earth.

“You know what I am.” The response was not a question.

Brenda felt herself disconnect from her body, floating free in her mind. She obtained a brief impression of the other entity—something much older than human understanding.

“Every full Moon since Costa Rica, I’ve felt You in my head. I well what happened to us down in that canyon, but inevitably, at dawn, my memories of You vanish again, like mist in the mornin’.”

She took a deep breath. “Why are You in my head? Why me, for all that’s holy? What do You want from me? During Moonlight I see occasional pictures of my girls—snapshots, blurry, overlaid with the kind of carnal desire I haven’t had for twenty years or more—and can see them working for You. But what do you want from an elderly academic—way past her years of erotic enjoyment?”

“Why do you think you are past that?” The internal voice held a tone of human amusement. “I watched you in Costa Rica, as you surrendered yourself to My connections. You can’t deny that you enjoyed the experiences.”

Brenda blushed, a peculiar shading on her face in the Moonlight.

“I can’t begin to fathom Your purpose, and I can’t deny that You have me dialed in—but You were waiting for me to connect, weren’t You?” She paused, adjusting her thoughts, and trying to follow through from what she had gleaned. “You know what I know, and You feel what I feel, but You need me to make a... a stronger connection to the rest of You? No, that can’t be it...”

The fragment of the Collector within Brenda remained silent, allowing her to work further through her thoughts.

Brenda started again, slower, as the deeper gears in her highly capable mind started to mesh, and turn. “The other girls—my hearts—they spread You to new locations, didn’t they? You reward them with a place to commune with You. But Carmen and MJ in Costa Rica—they didn’t bring You there, did they? They found You, and You brought them to be part of You...”

She laughed, suddenly. “Begorrah! You want me to be Your Mistress of Harlots! Well, strike me with a wet fish, I had no idea this was awaiting me in my autumnal years.”

She felt the silent amusement of the Collector alongside her. Unbidden, images of Carmen and MJ surfaced in her mind, the two women spread on an oscillating bed of dark leaves, eyes closed and faces in expressions of ecstacy.

“Well then, I think I know how next year’s expeditions are likely to go, don’t I now? Take my weans out to near wherever you are, and commune at Moonlight. You think that I still have that kind of direction at my fingers?”

The normal moistness of the Collector was absent in her reply. “Why else would We have chosen you?”

“Fair, fair... But still, how will I ...”

Brenda suddenly gasped, eyes wide open, and made futile efforts to draw in air. Her face turned a color that would have been crimson except for the Moonlight illumination. Her whole body tensed, fingers gripping the arms of the beach chair with a strength she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her feet tapped something like a jig on the stone flooring.

Just as she thought she might explode, there was another rushing feeling within her, a swirling around her loins that quickly tightened, sped up, and intensified to a point of fire that lit up her too-long-neglected sex. Rather than a bellow of satiation, though, she could only manage a high pitched squeak—then the wave collapsed within her, washing out across her body, and she slumped back into her chair, eyes prickling with tears.

“If You do that to me again,” she mumbled, eventually regaining the power of speech, “my heart is going to burst like a balloon. Where were You when I was twenty-two? Back then, I could have gone through that for hours at a time, and been the happiest young thing in my college...” She realized that she was rambling, and tried to pull herself together. “Well, talk about a Faustian bargain. Me selling myself to a Plant for the carnal pleasures!”

She wobbled herself out of the chair, finally getting to a standing position, and looked up at the Moon, now starting to assume a shroud of clouds.

“We’re going to be quite the partnership, You and I.” She reached down inside her skirt, and gently touched herself. ”Dia sabháil ! Either I’ve wet myself, or You’ve planted the Fountain of Youth in my gee.“

She fished out a key from her pocket and unlocked the padlock. Before entering the stairwell, though, she paused to look up at the Moon once more.

“Well met by Moonlight, proud Brenda...”