Archive of Our Own

My husband lies underneath me, his hard body easily supporting mine. He leans up into me, his forehead touching mine.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, though he should already know the answer. His tone carries love, but also worry. There’s a pain behind those eyes that only a soldier could know. I wish he felt more comfortable taking what he needs from me to soothe it.

“Always,” I say, not for the first time, and not for the last.

He brings his lips up to mine and kisses me tenderly. Any woman should be over the moon to find such a wonderful husband. He’s sweet, and he’s kind, and he’s dependable. A foundation of stone that I can trust to build my life upon. I love him to pieces, but still I wish that he’d just take what he wants sometimes.

I break the kiss and look down at him. His eyes are full of care. I line myself up against the tip of his cock, the one part of him that’s unrestrained in its desire for the carnal side of love.

I try to lower myself onto it, but it isn’t there. I fall through him, and onto the sheets.

I can only watch in horror as he dissolves into ash, starting from his hips and radiating out.

“No!” I scream.

I run my fingers through his hair and hold him, hoping against hope that he’ll stay.

“No, NO! PLEASE!”

He wraps an arm around my head and looks at me, love in his eyes.

Then he dissolves through my fingers, ashes in the wind, and I’m alone.

I jerk awake, breathing heavily, tears pooled in my eyes. My eyes dart around the room looking for anything to anchor myself with. The walls catch light from the rising sun, brilliant morning rays against soft pink matte. Curtains surround my bed, dancing gently around me in a pattern that I’m only mostly sure isn’t covertly hypnotic. Stuffies sit perched on nearly every surface, their gaze turned on me, plush sentinels to safeguard my dreams. Mr. Duck sits tall amongst the troop, keeping his silent vigil against the dangers of an era only he and I remember.

My breathing slows to a normal, resting pace.

I flop my arm onto the other side of the bed. My husband hasn’t magically appeared in my bed with me, as I expected. The yawning hole in my heart where he should be drags me back to my present, lonely reality. I rest my face in my hands.

It’s been so long. I really hope you’re doing okay out there.

…if you’re even out there at all-

I snip that thought at the root. No more of that, Penny.

I pick up my tablet to check my messages, in case any of my night owl friends sent me anything while I was asleep. There’s a long trail of memes in the group chat, including a string of truly baffling floret memes from Sara. Don’t think about it. She must be done recovering from her implantation, and she’s probably dying to see me again. Don’t think about it.

I slide out of bed to take my morning shower.

“Would you like me to start the shower, Penny?” Chimes the Hab AI, recognizing my intent. I grunt an affirmative as I shrug off my nightclothes and shuffle into the bathroom.

The water in the shower is hot, just the way I like it. Nearly scalding water rains onto me, gliding down my body in rivers of heat that slowly wind around me, warming my skin but never seeming to thaw the icy void in my chest or the frozen dread in my stomach.

Don’t think about it.

I spot the bottle of shampoo my husband used to use. Its smell reminds me of him. The bottle is old, from the month he decided to face the affini head on, just before they came for Limeen, and long before the Accord eventually lost.

I remember the look on his face the last time I saw him. There was sadness, there was fear, but there was love most of all. He wanted to keep me safe from “The Weeds,” and to him that meant joining up with the Stellar Marines to fight them as a unified front, even if it cost him his life.

The things we do for love.

I can’t say things were better back then. It still stings to admit, but it’s much easier to live in the Affini Compact than it ever was under the Terran Accord. Everyone thought the abolition of money would unravel society, but everything just… kept going. Things got better, even. I didn’t have to work to support our home anymore, and the affini even moved me and all our stuff into this nice hab unit. Seemingly the only things you can do wrong in the Affini Compact are to say “no” or to be sad in their presence.

Do not think about it.

I uncap the shampoo bottle and sniff. My heart flutters a little bit, a single, short-lived mote of warmth in the ink black frost. It’s definitely the strangest keepsake I held onto, and the affini thought my keeping it was adorable.

…

ugh, fine, I’ll think about it.

“Hab, how many pending Notices of Intent am I up to now?” I ask, starting to work my own soap into a lather.

“164, up from 162 yesterday,” the ceiling replies.

Just 164 affini who think I’m just the cutest little cinnamon bun in Limeen Port and want to collar me about it and chase all that sadness away. Perfectly manageable.

I thought the leering eyes of the garrison soldiers were threatening, but ever since the takeover I’ve had to watch my back so much more. “Pining for my pinnate,” they call it. A state of existence they consider inhumane. Intolerable. I can’t even count the number of times some plant has pulled up my file and proposed on the spot to make me happy while I wait, or, even worse, to make me forget all about him. In my DMs, on the street, and even on my doorstep a couple times. Say what you will about the quality of life improvements, but those thirsty plants just won’t stop-

“You have a priority message from Miss Matricaria, Penny.” The voice of the hab rouses me out of my little spiral.

Speak of the devil.

Not that Valeriana is a devil, far from it. She’s been my strongest ally in fending off the tsunami of suitors out to collar me. But, she’s also been one of the most persistent voices down my neck about my mental state.

“Can you tell me what she said?”

“I’m sorry, she was adamant that you be near your device.”

Cool, not ominous at all.

It could be any number of things. A meal she’s proud of. Another extremely suspicious personality survey. A solicitation from her floret to come visit, and to do other things with her (which, flattered, but I don’t bat for the other team).

I finish my morning shower with a little more urgency than when I started. The water turns off, the towel comes on, and I walk back over to the bed. I grab my tablet before falling onto the soft mattress, dreading whatever it is Valeriana seems to want to talk about.

‹Khetnip› You know that I’m always here for you

‹Khetnip› Night night, Penny

- Today -

‹Khetnip› Penelope, are you near your device?

‹this_little_duck_stayed_home› yea. just showered. what’s up?

‹Khetnip› We’ve rescued your pinnate.


I take my seat in the surface-to-orbit shuttle, smoothing down the skirt of my red-and-white polka dot dress as I do. I usually prefer understated sundresses, or even pants when I’m out of the hab. I don’t need more reasons for the many affini in my life to take an interest in me. But if I’m going to see my husband for the first time in years, I want it to be special. I just hope I don’t get any plants flirting with me about it.

A smooth vine slides inside my hand. I give it a squeeze.

I’m glad Valeriana’s escorting me up to the ship like this. I’ve only been on the Tilioideae one other time. Despite it being a constant in Limeenite life, it’s hard to see it as comforting. It’s always perched above us, at all times of day, behind a veil of atmospheric vapor that only emphasizes its gargantuan scale. It looms overhead, enthroned in the heavens like a destroying angel, a divine harbinger of upheaval. The fact that the affini have made things better down here doesn’t make it less scary to visit up there.

“Are you sure you don’t want something to take the edge off, Penny? You’re still agitated.”

I’m glad she’s here, but I’m still mad.

“I’m fine. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Val affects a sigh. I know it’s an affectation, too. She doesn’t breathe like I do.

A soft chime comes from the ceiling, followed by an announcement in typical, overly saccharine affini style.

“Hi, cuties! We’re going to start our ascent soon! Please make sure all luggage is safely stowed in the overhead bins, or under your seat, and please make sure you’re strapped in nice and tight!”

“Petal,” starts Val, “I told you, I don’t know much. I was informed that your pinnate had been rescued, but that’s it. The record was, and is sealed by the Office of Sophont Wellness. Your pinnate’s warden only notified me overnight that it was safe to announce anything.”

She gives my hand a squeeze.

“For what it’s worth, I’m rather frustrated by this lack of transparency as well.”

I lean back in my seat and look out the window. We’re already in the air, and given how small Limeen Port looks, we’ve been up for a little while.

I give Val’s vine a squeeze.

“Do you think he’s-”

“I don’t know, petal.” Val interrupts me, and saves me from having to say it.

A rough and ready military man is dragged kicking and screaming off a terran ship full of decaying metal and sharp edges and smothered in love and comfort, and saturated in enough feminizing Class-G’s to forget they ever had a single sharp angle. It’s a story I’ve heard before, so common that it’s a meme in floret circles. And it didn’t get that way by accident.

But that doesn’t mean it happened to him.

I feel my body lift oh so gently out of my seat as the shuttle slips free of Limeen’s pull.

Val gives my hand a squeeze. A moment later, my tablet pings. I’ve never checked it faster.

‹Khetnip› Your pinnate’s files are all sealed, even the ones I used to have access to before the rescue, but it seems your pinnate’s *caretaker* has been less careful with her own records.

‹Khetnip› There isn’t much, but I do see some forms requesting equipment for in-home physical therapy, as well as psychiatric services. Much of the forms’ contents are redacted, but it appears that one Mallow Nicaeensis, 4th Bloom is focused on helping her ward recover from the trials and traumas of life aboard one of those miserable death traps the old Accord insisted on calling “ships.”

‹Khetnip› I know it isn’t much, but I hope some of that soothes your anxieties. Also, you should consider all of this to be confidential.


I let myself fall against Val’s body and give her vine a squeeze.

“...thank you, Miss. …yeah, I think that helped.”

She runs a vine through my hair. It’s a gesture she knows I have mixed feelings about, but right now I appreciate it. I feel something bloom in my chest. Appreciation. Comfort. Trust.

The frost is still there, but it’s bearable.

“...I appreciate you, Miss Matricaria.”

The vine in my hair halts for a moment, and vines squirm under my shoulder in a way I’m not used to. After a moment, her vine squeezes my hand back.

“I appreciate you too, little one.”

I close my eyes, leaving her to her thoughts as she leaves me to mine.

Technically, Val’s little info drop didn’t tell me much. Spacers, feral or not, nearly always need a lot of physical therapy just to live in gravity after months or years drifting among the stars. Given how long his ship especially must have spent up in the heavens, away from port, my husband would be no exception.

The information did reframe things, though. There would be a lot to do in the days and weeks after his ship was captured, between the physical therapy, the therapy therapy, and whatever else they do for the terrans they pull out of ships. And the evaluations, I’m sure. After all, not every man gets dragged off a TCN ship in a companion dress and a collar.

I personally know one ex-sailor who betrayed her ship to the affini because she was afraid of her crewmates more than she was afraid of them, and the affini outright said they wouldn’t collar her. She just got a long wardship, loads of therapy, and a lot of help getting back on her feet, and that’s exactly what my husband’s caretaker seems to be giving him.

I’m sure my sweetheart of a husband wouldn’t have fired on the affini either.

He isn’t some jarhead. Underneath all that muscle he’s sweet, and sensitive, and smart-

“Hi cuties,” the intercom interrupts, “we’re currently on our approach into one of the Tilioideae’s hangars. We expect to arrive in just a few minutes, and we’ll be syncing with the ring’s rotation speed in preparation to dock. Make sure you’re all strapped in before the gravity turns back on!”

I turn on the screen in the back of the chair in front of me to see the cockpit’s view. It shows the Tilioideae in all her splendor, already too massive for the screen to contain her. The hangar is visible as a shining spot of light, like the open maw of the consuming angel.

My husband isn’t stupid. Once he’d seen the sheer scale of whatever Affini leviathan reeled in his ship, he would have laid down his arms and surrendered. He’s smart. Practical.

I’m worried about nothing.

I stand in front of an affini-sized door. Mallow Nicaeensis’s door. The door my husband is on the other side of.

Val tenderly runs a couple vines through my hair. I don’t fight it. It’s calming, and nice, and so many other things I could really use right now. She’s taken such good care of me today.

She knows me well enough to know when I need to be left to my thoughts, when I need a little reassurance, and when I need a little nudge.

Val gives my hand one last squeeze. A little nudge.

“It’ll be okay, petal.”

“...yeah.”

“I won’t be far. We’re near where I live, and there’s a café nearby. If you need anything, I’m only a message away. I’ll come for you, no questions asked.”

“...okay.” I suck in a breath. “I’m ready.”

Her vine lets go of my hand. I feel the cold dread creep in with its absence.

“...Goodbye, Penny.”

“I’ll ping you later, Miss.”

Val shuffles off in the other direction, leaving me to my reunion. I take another deep breath. Meeting a strange affini is always nerve-wracking, regardless of the context, and I have no idea what’s waiting for me on the other side of that door. But it’ll be okay, I know it will.

It has to be.

…the things we do for love.

I knock.

“Well, if it isn’t my little visitor,” says a voice from the frame around the door. “Come in, come in!”

The door slides open.

An affini stands in the hab’s entrance, easily twice my height. Their body is clearly flirting with the human form but not ready to marry, with a wide skirt of broad leaves that tapers up into a much more humanoid torso and four terran-like arms. They look down at me with their six eyes, three obscured by a curtain of pink-purple flower petal hair. There’s a necklace around their “neck,” with a pendant that looks like a centuries-old skeleton key, with a glass vial set into its bow.

“Are you Miss Nicaeensis?” I ask.

“Mallow Nicaeensis, 4th Bloom, but ‘Mallow’ is fine. ‘She’ and ‘Her.’ Would you be little Penelope Hart?”

“Yes ma’am.” Keep it simple, keep it polite.

“Well, come on in! I’ve been so excited to meet you~”

I step inside.

“Your dress is adorable, by the way,” she says. Her voice drips with the usual affini desire.

There’s the flirting.

“Thank you ma’am.” Don’t push back, don’t deflect.

I move on from her attempt to flirt and take in my surroundings.

I’m not sure what I was expecting.

Affini habs come in too many shapes and sizes to really know what to expect, but you can narrow down a lot based on who’s living in them. On their own, affini seem to prefer eclectic nightmares (although my sample size for that is three, and three more than I would prefer). If an affini is expecting non-affini visitors, or short term (or long term) roommates, they tend toward the styles of the species they expect to live with. And that’s only counting the habs I’ve seen personally, which are all designed to accommodate terrans.

This particular hab has what I can only describe as “hotel vibes.” The door opens to a spacious common area. To my left is a pair of sofas sized for an affini, unassuming things made of soft, rounded rectangles, facing each other with a coffee table in between. Behind them is a kitchen, modestly sized by affini standards. There’s a closed door on the wall to my right, and the wall in front of me gives way to a small hallway, running between the kitchen and the closed door to what must be a bedroom suite.

The overhead lights are turned off, obscured by webs of twinkling string lights that wind their way around the ceiling, bathing everything in gentle, pulsing pink. I look away from the twinkling lights instinctively. I don’t want to find out if they’re hypnotic.

Lamps sit in a couple of the corners, organic-looking, like trees bearing glowing fruit, giving off warm, golden light like islands in the sea of pink.

My husband, however, is nowhere in sight.

Something’s wrong.

I turn back to Mallow. “Um, where is-”

“Napping, I’m afraid.” She cuts me off. “Had a rather busy morning and needed some rest. We can still get to know each other in the meantime, however~”

I sigh. Don’t push her. Be a polite guest.

“That sounds nice.”

I walk to the couch nearest the door. If I were determined, I’m sure I could maneuver myself up the thing, but I wouldn’t want to tear my hosiery. Before I can decide what to do, a pair of hands wraps themselves around my midsection. I’m lifted up and spun around, then placed on the too-big sofa looking Mallow directly in her six eyes.

It takes a few seconds to recover from the shock of it. I appreciate the help, but I don’t appreciate being handled like that by someone I’m not married to. Still, I bite my tongue. Boundary setting can happen once I know what I’m dealing with.

“Thank you, Miss.”

“You’re very welcome. Let me get us some tea, and then we can chat,” she says with a wink.

“I- okay.” I decide not to fight.

Gotta pick my battles.

I watch the loose, bell-shaped skirt of broad leaves and vines that makes up Mallow’s lower body as she slithers off to the kitchen. I think I see the glint of needles there as well, catching the twinkling light. She obviously doesn’t have legs under that skirt, and she seems like she’s not bothering to hide it.

Above the waist, she looks a lot more terran. Her torso is formed from cords of darker-colored vines, seemingly in emulation of terran muscle groups. She even had a modest pair of what must be “breasts” on her chest when she was facing me, subtle but unmistakable, with her necklace pendant resting in the valley between. Watching her as she works in the kitchen, the musculature woven all across her back isn’t all for show. Bundles of vine stretch and contract as she reaches and pushes and pulls. The way her simulated muscles move is almost entrancing. They speak to the incredible strength she must have as an affini, although the simulated nature of her body means they’re probably understating that strength.

Her head is surprisingly terran too, although the eyes sure aren’t. She has a pair of them in very terran positions, as well as two secondary pairs of small eyes, aligned vertically further out from the first pair. They’re all made of the same hammered metal that most affini have, and when she spoke to me all of them glowed the same soft pink as the twinkling lights. Now that she’s under the kitchen lights, I can see her “hair” is also the same color.

She has an intricate braid of more tightly woven vines along the left side of her head, but cascades of pink and purple flowers flow out from the top and right side. She’s clearly going for the kind of countercultural side shaved look popular with the wilder Limeenite women, like communists, or environmentalists, or lesbians. I didn’t used to understand that side of Limeen, but they’ve grown on me in the years since the takeover. They’re nice people.

“Do you take any Class-E’s in your tea, petal?” I hear from the kitchen.

I answer, “No thank you, ma’am.” Xenodrugs are the last thing I need right now.

I look around the room. The couch across from me looks like a sibling of the one I’m sitting on, generic and inoffensive. The coffee table between them looks completely unused, and the common room is otherwise empty. I wonder if the rooms on the other sides of those doors are any less empty. I wonder which one my husband is sleeping behind.

What I don’t see is any physical therapy equipment. It could be in another room, or it could even not be necessary any more. They captured him months ago, after all. Maybe he’s already recovered his strength, or maybe they’re taking a break while they’re visiting the system.

Or maybe she broke him.

I try to shove the thought back down where it came from, but the worry spills out like air from a damaged ship. It’s out, and it’s not going back in.

“I have your tea, little Penny.”

I take the cup and the saucer from her graciously and take a sip.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a little something to take the edge off?” she asks. “You’re clearly stressed petal.”

I nod. “No drugs, please.”

“Well, don’t hesitate if there’s anything I can do to help. We’ll be seeing each other quite a lot, after all.”

Why would we be seeing each other so much?

I already know why.

I’ve always known.

I feel cold. Numb.

“...I want to see him.”

She seems to tick slightly. “One moment.” She slithers off into the room with the big door opposite me. Her bedroom suite.

After a minute or two, the door opens and my heart sinks.

A small terran woman walks out of the door ahead of Mallow, holding a familiar duck-shaped stuffie. She looks even shorter than me, and impossibly soft. I doubt she could even do a pushup if not for the haustorium that, based on her collar, must be fully married to her spine by now. She’s wearing a soft night dress that only mostly obscures the faint piece of metal between her legs that catches the hab’s twinkling lights. I don’t need any more information to know exactly what it is.

After a moment of wrangling my vocal cords, I start to ask, “I’m sorry, there must have been a mistake, my-”

The words die as I spot the necklace running through small loops in her collar. My eyes follow the dainty golden chain down past her neck, below her shoulders, down to the pendant suspended over her chest. A ring, forged of gold and promises.

Frozen dread resolves to despair. I feel like a wasteland.

After long seconds, recognition flashes across her face, and she turns and hides behind the affini.

I can only watch.

Mallow turns and crouches down to the girl’s level, as much as she can.

“You didn’t tell me Penny was coming today, Miss,” the girl complains. The worry in her voice is familiar, but the way she speaks definitely isn’t. It’s soft and dainty, and the rhythm is off.

“Ssh,” Mallow says to her, “She won’t hurt you.”

A spear through my heart.

She won’t hurt you.

“It’ll be okay, sweet pea, I promise,” she continues.

A long moment passes before I hear the girl whisper, “...okay.”

She reemerges from behind Mallow’s skirt, and Mallow leads her by the hand to the couch across from me. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to ask. I don’t even know how I would ask, or with what name.

“Why don’t you introduce yourself, flower? Well, re-introduce, rather.”

“...h-hi Penny, u-uh, y-y-yeah uhm. I’m going by N-Nia now-”

“Full name, petal,” Mallow interrupts.

“...V-Virginia Nicaeensis, second floret. ‘She’ and ‘her.’”

“Goo~ood gii~irl,” Mallow coos down at her. She runs a vine through the girl’s hair, and Nia almost seems to wobble from the apparent pleasure of it.

Mallow lifts Nia up as she sits down, resting the girl on what passes for her lap. Her skirt splays out to accommodate. “This must come as quite a shock to you,” she says, with copious pets and strokes that seem to ease Nia’s nerves. “I’d hoped I could stagger our respective introductions to make things easier.”

My brain works overtime to think of a question to keep the conversation moving.

“H-how did they get you?” I ask.

Nia lightly gasps as a vine runs through her hair. Mallow answers for her, “She opened fire on me as I was subduing one of her little friends. Emptied her weapon into me, actually, not that it made a difference. I filed my notice of intent for her the moment she fell limp in my vines, and the rest is history! But I’m sure my Nia would love to know how you’ve fared all these years.”

Badly.

I desperately try to come up with something courteous to move the conversation with.

I missed you.

“I-I’ve survived. Um, they took over while you were out there,” I say.

I miss the way you touched me.

I continue, “It was hard, being apart, but the affini planetside did their best to make me feel-”

Wait.

Notice of Intent?

The reality of my situation clicks together with dreadful clarity. My blood is ice. I stop talking and reach for my tablet.

“Oh, if you’re checking your active Notices, there’s no need, petal. I filed a provisional Notice of Intent for you as well.”

“...Provisional?”

“Yes, ‘provisional.’ This has admittedly been something of a process. The signs of her artificial persona were visible from the moment we caught her. She had an idea of who she was and what she was about that conflicted with who she really was deep down. And the revelation that she was not, and was never the gender she’d presented herself as exacerbated the issue.”

Mallow ruffles Nia’s hair with a vine, and Nia’s legs squeeze shut. I have some idea how all those touches are making her feel. Bile rises in my throat.

She continues, “Pinnate ferals already present a number of bureaucratic challenges that other ferals do not. Orthodoxy requires us to keep pinnates together in most cases, which means that a prospective owner should be compatible with all pinnates in the arrangement. Even if we can find an arrangement that allows one or more of the pinnates to remain independent, it’s rare that they remain independent their entire lives.”

“So the provisional Notice is…” I trail off.

“Conditional,” she answers for me. “Once we found little Nia’s records, I elected to resubmit my Notice for her provisionally, and to submit one for you as well. I wanted my little Nia dearly, you understand, but not if it meant keeping her apart from her beloved. That said, whether her beloved would wish to remain pinnates was an open question at the time.”

Her implication makes me nauseous. I choose not to take the bait and ask her for clarification. I don’t want her to put words to why this is so hard.

“Once we gathered enough data to at least establish our mutual compatibility, I filed to have my Notice of Intent for Nia take effect. She clearly needed a guiding vine, even setting aside her former feralism, and it wouldn’t do to make her wait a single day more.”

I want to be happy for her, but every gasp and giggle reminds me of who she isn’t. What she can’t be anymore. I squeeze out a couple of tears.

“‘Mutual compatibility’ meaning…”

“-meaning that, should you need to be domesticated, you would be compatible with the owner of your beloved. Me,” she finishes for me. “Not that domestication is necessary right now.”

No, not necessary, only inevitable.

“However,” she continues, “that’s all we were able to establish through the surveys. Which, though I’m genuinely happy to meet you, brings me to the formal reason for your invitation. Namely, whether you and your pinnate are still…”

“-compatible?” I finish for her.

“We turned your big strong husband into the most pathetic little floret you’ve ever seen in your life. Do you still love her?”

Do I? Can I?

“...yes,” Mallow says, “Our data suggests that it’s eminently possible, but we can’t be sure without hearing it from the salmon’s mouth, as they say. We- No, I need to know if you can still-”

I can’t keep it in anymore.

“If I can still love the person you stole from-”

I catch Nia’s eyes. The words die in my throat.

Her eyes are wide as she shrinks away into her plant.

She’s afraid.

She’s afraid of me.

My heart shatters into a thousand little pieces. I collapse into a heap of terran, hot tears painting lines down my cheek as I take a breath, and then another, and then another, and another, and-

“Ssh, she can’t hurt you, petal. I’ve got you,” I hear Mallow say, and it breaks my heart all over again.

She can’t hurt you.

I look up to meet Nia’s eyes again. Her face is a mélange of hurt and pity. I hear her softly gasp. Her pupils dilate like black holes, each swallowing a world of greens and browns from within until only empty black remains. The pity, and the thought, and the humanity all fall from her face. I retch.

“Oh frost, you poor thing,” Mallow coos down at her pet. Nia turns around in her vines and looks up at the plant’s eyes. The tension falls from her body, and she starts whining and pouting and pawing at her owner.

Mallow turns her attention to me. Her eyes are pink, but there’s an intensity there that wasn’t there before. I wither a little.

“I-I’m sorry-” I start to apologize.

“Well,” She interrupts, “I suppose that’s rather indicative as a datapoint. I will insist that you take a Class-E before we continue this, but my darling floret’s needs come first.”

Nia’s batting grows more desperate, and she starts grinding in place.

Mallow affects a sigh. “Ah, rot it. I only dosed her with a Class-E, but with her… proclivities, she tends to interpret any intoxicant as an aphrodisiac.” She turns her attention down to the mewling thing that used to be a Stellar Marine. “I suppose I should take you back into the bedroom, shouldn’t I?”

Nia whines.

I can only watch in horror.

“Petal, I can’t take care of you here, wouldn’t you prefer to have some privacy?” Mallow asks.

Nia looks over her shoulder. Her face twists into a mischievous grin, almost like one she would have given me in the old days, but somehow more youthful. She grinds harder and looks back up at Mallow’s face.

“...Oh, alright, but only if she’s okay with it.” Mallow looks up at me again. “I’m so sorry to ask this of you, but-”

“It’s fine,” I lie. I don’t know what to fucking do, but I can’t leave her now. I don’t want to know what Mallow is about to do to my lover, but there’s no universe where I abandon her to it.

“Very well~” She says, looking down at Nia. “And what is it you want, little Nia? Good girls use their words, after all~”

“Please use me Mistress!!”

My stomach drops. There’s no hesitation, not a spec of embarrassment in her plea.

She can’t mean-

“Use you how, pet?”

“Mmmm please Mistress please! Please!” The desperation in her voice is alien to me.

“I suppose that question was a little much for you in your ‘current state,’ wasn’t it?”

Mallow rips off Nia’s night dress. The sudden movement and the violence of it make me jump in place.

The mass of foliage that composed her skirt gathers and rises, concentrated in the middle. Vines slip out from all over and wrap around Nia’s arms and bind them behind her back, pushing her into the plant’s torso. More vines rise up to curl around her ankles and spread her legs wide, winding up and around her legs, past her knees and up her thighs, hugging her tightly against the mass between her legs. Mallow’s torso contorts unnaturally to bring her head down to Nia’s, and she takes her pet in a kiss. I can see even from behind her how much she melts into it, the way every part of her body surrenders on contact, the way she delights in being controlled by the alien whose lap she’s bound in.

I can only watch as my lover submits.

I hear Mallow’s voice from her chest. “There’s my good little slut. So pliant. So obedient.”

Nia moans into the despoliation. She keeps moving as much as she can, although the vines around her body have her nearly immoble. I realize those vines aren’t just restraining her. They’re writhing and wriggling against her skin, into her thighs, across her chest.

Mallow breaks the kiss and Nia gasps for air.

She never kissed me like that.

A squeeze of Nia’s thigh draws a cry from her. Her voice is honestly lovely, I can only imagine she’s proud of it now, even if I miss the gruff soldier’s voice she used to use for me. A vine creeps its way up her (admittedly enviable) ass and sneaks inside her. The moan that rips free of her is like nothing I’ve heard a human being make before. Certainly not like I’ve ever made before.

“Look at you, coming apart for me like the needy little thing you are. But where are my manners? We have a guest, and here I am hogging the view to myself.”

Mallow’s binds all come undone at once. She twirls Nia around, though the vine inside her stays unmoving, then her binds all reassert themselves in one fluid motion. Nia screams through her closed mouth. I can only imagine what all those simultaneous touches must have felt like, high as she is.

Her eyes open and find mine. There’s none of the hurt in them, and none of the pity. Only unrestrained bliss.

Mallow tips Nia back into her torso, one massive hand pressing gently against her chest, but she keeps looking down her own body at me. I see the vine move inside her at the same time as the hand caresses her breast. She moans again.

“Oh you like that, don’t you, my beautiful floret. You love seeing your beloved watch as I ruin you~”

“Yes!” she cries. “Yes Mistress, I love it, please, ruin me!” she begs, maintaining full eye contact with me.

I can only watch as my lover is undone by the alien’s vines.

Mallow grips her plaything tighter and intensifies the motions of her vines across her skin. Nia’s eyes immediately roll up. She starts thrusting in place again, or trying to at least, but Mallow has her locked down. Her chastity cage twinkles and shimmers in the lights of the hab as her hips move pathetically to and fro, held on either side by two more woody, sinuous hands. In retrospect, she never was enthusiastic about using her cock with me. Hell, it may have been attached to her physically, but I think I was more emotionally attached to it than she ever was. But seeing it in a cage stings all the same.

Mallow’s remaining hand flicks her other breast with a finger and Nia moans, drawn out and wanton.

I think I feel second hand… something, for her. Humiliation? I guess that’s the word, though it looks like Nia isn’t troubled by it at all. But the way Mallow talks down to her is so… degrading.

She never dirty talked to me like that, even when I asked her to.

Am I… jealous? Of Nia, yes, obviously, nothing about her enjoyment of this changes the fact that Mallow stole her from me, and I’m jealous of her in that way. But is that all?

“Please Mistress please!” Nia pleads.

“Please what, little one? Does my pet need something?” Mallow’s voice is sultry. Her free hand grips Nia’s chin and tilts her up to meet her gaze.

She really has Nia wrapped around her finger.

“Please Mistress, please let me cum!”

My cheeks discover a new shade of red.

“Are you sure? Do you really want your beloved to see you climax in my vines~?”

I squirm.

“YES!! PLEASE MISS PLEASE!!!”

“Well how could I say no to that~”

Mallow takes off her necklace and presses the key-shaped pendant into Nia’s thigh. I hear the unmistakable hiss of an auto-injector, and seconds later Nia screams as the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever seen in my life roils through her.

I can only watch.

After at least a minute, the convulsions come to an end and Nia seems to calm down. Mallow slips her vine out of her pet and pulls back her bindings.

“I suppose I should go clean off before we continue.” She looks right at me. “You two play nice while I’m gone.”

Nia sleepily replies, “Yes Mistresss…”

Mallow looks at me, expectantly.

“Y-yes ma’am.”

Satisfied, Mallow slithers off and leaves us to uncomfortable silence. I take the opportunity to process the last fifteen minutes or so. They rescued my lover, but they also turned her into this. But she seems so happy, and some of that must be genuine. But she can’t be “my man” the way she used to be, and only partly because she was never a man at all. I waited and waited, but the big, strong husband who went off to war is never coming back. He is, and always was, ashes in the wind.

Nia breaks our detente, sleepy, giddy.

“Hiii Pennyyy~”

“...Hi, Nia,” I say back, at a loss for words.

“Why are you saaaaaad?” It’s hard to say how much of her current state is drugs and how much is afterglow. Considering the show she just put on, it might really be the latter.

“I missed you,” I say, a partial truth to placate her.

“I missss’d you tooo,” she says, her heart entirely on her sleeve. “...please don’t go…”

My heart breaks all over again. Damn me to hell, for as much as she’s changed, she’s still the same person. She was always a sweetheart who needed a lap to rest her weary head on. She was always sensitive, no matter how much I wanted her to be gruff for me. I can’t deny even to myself that this, the soft girl with her cock caged up and her heart unguarded, this is who she always was.

Who I fell in love with.

Who I'm still in love with.

“...I won’t.”

Tears sting my eyes, carving molten rivers down my cheeks.

I hear Mallow come out of her bedroom. “Well, with that out of the way, and with my little treasure well and truly in her happy place, I’d say it’s time to try things again.”

“...Make me want it.” I say, defeated. I don’t want it, not really, but I can’t just leave her. This was inevitable, and I’m done waiting for it.

“The collar. Make me want it.”

I feel the energy in the room change as Mallow’s face lights up. “Well, that’s quite the turnaround.” She picks Nia up and sets her on the side of her couch, then makes her way to the kitchen.

“I don’t want it. The collar, the drugs, what you did to her. I don’t want any of it, but I can’t leave her.”

“Well that shouldn’t be too hard,” she calls back, “especially if even half the things in your file are correct.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She smirks at me. “What’s that supposed to mean…” she says, making a circular motion with one hand.

I blush and look away. “What’s that supposed to mean, Mistress.”

Her smirk intensifies in a way I can feel. “A demonstration would serve better than an explanation, don’t you think, petal?” She walks back and crouches down in front of me. Vines take my wrist, and she sets a pill and an auto-injector in my hand.

I look up at her. “...what are these?”

“The pill is a counter agent for the Class-C dependency blocker your vet prescribed you. You won’t be needing it anymore.”

“And the syringe?”

She grins in a way no human face ever could. “A good time~”

She takes a seat on the couch, her six eyes focused on me. “If you’re sure about this, take the pill, then the injector.”

I pause for what feels like an eternity. I can still back out. I can slide down off the couch and walk out the door. I can message Val to come pick me up, and to make me forget about any of this, and about Nia-

No.

I can’t.

I can’t do any of that, and there is no other choice.

I pop the pill in my mouth and chase it by slamming my tea.

I set the empty cup down and place the end of the auto-injector against my shoulder. The telltale hiss gives only a moment’s warning before I feel a prick and a cloud of warmth.

Then I feel it.

A wildfire of need alights across my flesh and forces me to gasp. I’ve felt Class-A xenodrugs before, but nothing like this. I start panting. My thighs squeeze together. The low whine of touch hunger that’s haunted me since Nia left becomes a roar, and my mind has room for nothing else.

I lift my head to meet Mallow’s gaze.

“Need something, flower?” she asks, knowingly.

I can only groan in response.

“Then come get it,” she orders, voice low and sultry.

My body slides off the couch, with no regard to my feelings on the matter. I stagger across the gap between my couch and hers, and sink to my knees at her “feet.” Her foliage against my bare arms is heavenly.

“Please.” There are sparks in my belly, and between my legs, and in my chest.

“Please what, pet-to-be?”

The sparks grow tenfold. Any thought of modesty or resistance burns away in the flames.

“Please, Mistress.”

Desire flows across my body, annihilating, ruinous. Desire and submission, hot and sticky and corrupting in a way I never felt with Nia.

Mallow picks me up and sets me in her lap. She grips my chin and tilts it up. Her hunger is plain on her face.

Vines slip inside of my dress, my bra, my panties, and my hosiery, sliding it all off my body. Every brush of vine against flesh is rapturous. I’m dimly aware that I shouldn’t want this, don’t want this. I just met her, and she’s a woman for that matter. But my body craves relief more than my addled brain desires modesty.

I try to throw my naked self against her torso, seeking more contact, but she restrains me. Her skirt lifts where I’m straddling her, and my legs sink into her. Vines wrap around my ankles, and then my thighs, hugging me tight against her skirt. They weave their way up my body, up my tummy, over my ass, around my arms, leaving fiery ecstasy in their wake. Her hand on my chin keeps my gaze on her.

“So impatient,” she teases, and it finds its way directly between my legs. I moan at her.

She answers by pressing her flower petal lips to mine, and the feeling of them pushes everything out of my mind. I need more. Her lips part mine, and a thick twist of vines slides into my mouth. She presses me down, further, pressing her tongue inside me, further. I fall into her eagerly, recklessly. Needily.

The kiss is like nothing I ever had with Nia. It’s predatory. Jealous. Consuming. Not the careful, gentle affection of an equal partner, but a ravenous taking of my being. And I need more.

Another of her hands comes to rest behind my head. I push into the kiss, out of need, and out of some flickering, fading need for control. Mallow smiles and pushes back, overwhelming me. Her tongue presses further, down into my throat. I think I see stars. My restrained hips meekly grind against her lap.

“Oh, you like that,” She says. It isn’t a question.

Her vines dance across my skin, around my thighs, across my chest, between my legs. It’s too much and I need more. The only control I have is over my hips, and so I grind them harder against the domineering temptress’s lap.

The vine recedes from my throat, and her lips depart from mine with a *pop.*

I whimper. I feel empty.

She smirks down at me. “Penny Hart, falling apart in another woman’s lap and loving every moment of it. I wonder what your ‘big strong soldier’ would think of that~”

I look to my right, over at Nia. Her eyes are wide, one hand cupping a breast and the other massaging into her cage. And she’s watching me.

Stars, why does that turn me on so much?

“Frost and flame, but you really are perfect for each other.”

I’m too overwhelmed to even think of propriety.

“But I’m not a- I’m not into-”

“Are you trying to tell me you aren’t into women?” Mallow asks. “I have to say, petal, the evidence I’ve found clearly contradicts your thesis. And not just the fact that you’re literally fucking a woman right now, although, you most certainly are.”

“But we’re not ‘fucking,’ we’re just…” I try to protest, my need for control surfacing again.

“Aren’t we? Oh, but I suppose that means something rather specific to you, doesn’t it? An easily solved problem, that.”

I feel something weave itself together against my backside. Vines lace and tie together into something phallic, and more vines weave in and out of the structure to give it contours. Just against my aching flesh, I can feel its ridges and bumps.

“Oh, does my sweet thing want something?”

I nod furiously. I do want it. It’s so much bigger than Nia’s was, and I desperately need it shoved inside me.

“Then take it,” she orders, her tone somewhere between commanding and barking. It sends another wave of submissive need down my spine.

I obey.

The bindings around my thighs relax just enough for me to lift my hips and allow her cock to settle beneath me. Two hands settle on my ass as I ease myself down onto her. My lower body is a bright, fiery star as she impales me. I moan, long and unconcerned and needy, in a way no man, no other cock has ever made me moan before. My thighs touch her lap once more. My head feels fizzy, like I’m drunk off of the pleasure. I guess I am, in a way.

I need more.

I start to move myself up and down along her shaft, and I whimper and groan and cry from the impossible pleasure of it. Without thinking, I sync my movements to the elegant dance of wriggling vines across my skin. It feels natural.

She adjusts herself to make it easier for me to see her face, and I greedily take advantage.

Greedily.

That’s right. For all that I loved Nia’s old self, I objectified her, reduced her to her anatomy, to her “role” as a strong husband. What she could do for me, to me, with too little thought about what she wanted. I should be better.

“Is it… good, for you, too?” I ask between panting breaths, marshalling my poor brain cells to crest above the waves of submission and ecstasy.

She cups my cheek. “I could watch you lose yourself in me all day long, petal, so yes. It is good for me.”

Something deep inside me bends, from the heat, from the pressure, from her.

She goes in for another kiss. I welcome it like I would welcome my lover after a long day of work, eagerly, passionately, lovingly. My tormentor plunges into me, spit roasting me as her other vines explore every inch of skin. I plunge back down below the waves, further than before.

Her tongue journeys deeper than it did before. My movements become desperate, forceful.

A hand pinches and pulls a nipple, while a vine coils around the other breast and squeezes. I moan openly into her. One of her hands lets go of my ass, gliding up my back to press me into the kiss. Her lips brush against mine, and something blossoms inside me, beneath the pleasure.

I think it’s love.

The start of it, at least. Its first bloom, after the seed is planted and the roots have grown.

I love her.

I find new depths to which I can fall for Her, more that I can surrender. I lose myself in Her eagerly. What a trivial cost for such bliss.

I notice the odd rhythm to which I’m grinding against Her cock. It’s the same rhythm to which Her tongue is moving inside me, and the same rhythm that gave the weird cadences to Nia’s speech.

Oh.

It’s Her.

I must already be far gone, but I don't care, I can’t care.

This might become irreversible if I don’t stop, but I keep going all the same.

I fuck my brains out on Her for longer than I can count, grinding out every scrap of pleasure I can without a care as to the consequences. I feel myself becoming more open. Less rigid. Soft. Malleable.

Eventually She slides me off of her cock, and Her tongue pulls out of me at the same time. My bindings stop moving all at once, leaving me disoriented. It takes several seconds for me to stop my movements. I don’t whine, or cry. I just look up into Her eyes, pleadingly.

“What a good girl you are, already so pliant,” She coos down at me.

I pant.

“You have a choice to make, little Penny.” She picks up the key-shaped pendant She dosed Nia with earlier, or one like it. “You see, there was a Class-N in that syringe, among other things. My favorite kind too, an orgasm blocker. Do you know what that means?”

I try to string two thoughts together enough to answer. My brain is too cooked to manage it.

She giggles. “It means you can’t cum unless I give you my permission. Literally, in fact, since the counter agent is inside this auto-injector.”

I stare at the key-shaped thing with more need than I think I’ve ever felt in my life.

“I can give you relief, or…” She fishes something out of her torso. “I can give you this.”

She dangles a collar in front of me, a narrow band decorated with flowers, and a little name tag. It reads “Penelope Nicaeensis, third floret.”

“You can have relief and your freedom, to go home, to go to your wonderful social worker who cares for you and respects you as a person. Or you can have my collar… and your Nia. It’s up to you.”

As though it’s even a choice.

The things we do for love.

“Please, the collar, I want the collar.” It isn’t a lie, either. I want this. I need this, and more, even more than I need relief.

“I want the collar…” She prods.

“...Mistress.” I feel myself bend even further, further than I think I should, but it just feels too good to stop.

“Please, please collar me, Mistress.”

“Goooo~ood gii~iiirl,” She says, and her entire body thrums with Her approval. Vines gather my hair behind my head. I feel the thin strip coil around my neck, and then *snap* into place.

I feel myself grin impossibly wide, even as tears spill down my cheeks. Something inside me comes undone, like a sand castle swept away by the tide, or a block of ice in warm water. Something important, a core of my being. Its loss feels euphoric.

I break.

My eyes squeeze out a few more tears before I look up into Mistress’s eyes.

God, were they always so pretty?

“Hello, my pet,” She says.

“H-hi.” Her simplest ‘hello’ is enough to give me butterflies. I can barely speak through the fluster.

Then She slides me off of her body and sets me on the other side of the couch from Nia. The lack of skin-to-skin is an ice bath to the senses. Some traitorous voice tells me to take it all back, to tell her off, to run. I look up at her.

She seems to read the emotions on my face perfectly. “It’s okay, my pet. It’s normal to have some mixed feelings at first, especially as you sober up. But don’t worry, we can easily fix those~”

Thank God.

“Some hypnotics and plenty of time together should more than patch them over until it’s time to get your implant in. And after that, it’ll be literally impossible to regret anything I don’t want you to~”

Cognitively, intellectually, I should be horrified. What I feel instead is relief, and a little twinge of desire.

“Alternatively, I could just keep you blisteringly high until your surgery.”

I flush. I think I’d like that.

“Oh, I know that look on a terran. We’ll get you sorted out later tonight. First, though, I have dinner to start making, and a celebratory cake to order~”

She gets up off the couch, and gestures toward Nia, and then at Nia toward me. “You two play nice until dinner is ready later, alright?” She asks with a wink, before slithering off to the kitchen.

I crawl on unsteady legs over to my lover. My pinnate. The one I love, who I thought I’d lost, then found, then feared I’d lost again.

I settle atop her, naked skin against naked skin. My still-sensitive body cries out in relief.

Nia flips me over and leans on top of me. Her wedding ring drops onto my sternum and sets off little shocks of pleasure. The look in her eyes is hungry, playful, and full of so much love. “Hi Penny,” she says, sultry. She smells familiar. My shampoo, I realize with a smile.

I try to match her energy, with what little charisma I can muster. “Hi, Nia~”

She leans down as though to take me in a kiss. Her forehead rests on mine, and I can feel her breath on me. For the first time since she left, my heart is warm.

“Can I kiss you?” She asks, though she already knows the answer.

I love her so much.

“Always.”