It was dark when Lily awoke.  The clock said it was 2 AM, and she chastised herself for going to bed so early.  It had only been what, 4 PM?  All she’d done was go for a walk and…

 

She gasped in shock at the memory, the reality of her actions rolling back to the forefront of her mind, the human part of her shuddering into moral panic.  As if to prove to herself that it all was real, she elongated a black, oozing tendril from the center of her back to dangle hauntingly in front of her face.  She quickly poked it as the final confirmation it existed, that it wasn’t all just a dream.  She took a few deep breaths and the shock faded away; she had only done what she needed to do to feed herself.  Well... she had gone a bit beyond what was strictly necessary, but such was her right and privilege as a more evolved creature; something new, something marvelous.

 

She frowned.  That line of thinking was… she searched for the word.  Callous? Arrogant? Frightening? Inhuman?

 

It was all of them really.  She slithered the tentacle back into its recess, hoping that tucking it away might banish it for good.  She needed to get a handle on her new… alterations.  This alien beast that existed within her, alongside her, needed to be tamed.  Subjugated.  Dominated.  Controlled.  Repressed.

 

The next few hours were spent introspecting on her new nature and resolving not to give into it again.  She was a good person; kind if a bit aloof, friendly among smaller gatherings, willing to listen and understand and love anyone for who they were.  She wasn’t a monster, she wasn’t whatever affliction this alien menace had cursed her with.  As humankind had tamed and domesticated wolves into dogs, so too could she tame the feral creature that had merged with her.

 

The hunger began stirring within an hour.  She shoved it deep down into her being, it could wait.

 

Another hour passed and it whined within her.  She furiously devoted herself to painting a small, plastic imp figurine to distract from the feeling.  Trembling hands applied the first coat too thick, the shading unevenly, the highlights too bright.

 

Forty-five minutes later she put the figure down, the hunger yawping in her mind unignorable.   She moved to the couch, turning on the TV.  She scrolled through infomercial after infomercial, the repetitive channel hopping giving her enough to focus on to distract from the hunger for another five minutes.

 

The next time the hunger broke free of her confinement, it refused to be delayed again.  The tentacles flailed outward from under her shirt in protest, a shadow-black voice whispered in consternation through her mind; it was part of her reality now, she needed to feed off sex.  Without it they’d die.

 

She couldn’t do that again though, she couldn’t fuck a person into a mindless thrall; it was wrong on so many levels.  The darkness tried to remind her that they were the same now, that she needed the biochemicals released by the act as part of her sustenance.  She resisted their temptuous whispers, there had to be another way.  The argument went on for ten minutes between the human and alien halves before a compromise was introduced by burbling onyx ooze: what about the human she had already enthralled?

 

It was still wrong, but the damage had already been done.  She needed to feed, they needed to feed, and Maxine would willingly oblige.  Paint the situation however you like, her minds agreed, but if you can’t unring a bell then you may as well enjoy the chime.  They were decided.

 

She searched the house for her phone, the dark rectangle camouflaging itself on her similarly shaded desk.  When she finally found it it was a bittersweet triumph, part of her begging not to call.  She called the number her new slave had entered the previous day, half-hoping she wouldn’t pick up.  On the third ring a sleepy voice cracked through the speakers.

 

“Uhh… hello?”

 

“Maxine, hi!” Lily didn’t really know how to perform a summons for a booty call.  What do you say after hi?  That your alien physiology needs her to feed off of?  Fortunately her voice triggered slavish obedience in Maxine.

 

“Oh, Mistress!” Lily flushed at the term and the sudden eagerness in Maxine’s voice, “My apologies I didn’t look at the caller id.  What do you wish of me?”

 

“I was thinking you could come over and uhh…” She wasn’t entirely sure why she was playing coy with a person who was little more than a brainfucked puppet at this point.  Probably nervousness from lack of practice, “... hang out?”

 

“Of course Mistress.  I’ll be there as soon as I’m dismissed.”  Lily could feel her waiting eagerly for the command.

 

“You’re dismissed?”  

 

If Maxine noticed the questioning tone, she didn’t comment on it.  The phone line went dead and Lily looked in shock around her room.  What the fuck was she doing?  She pushed back on the flood of moral quandaries popping into her head to focus on picking up the scattered detritus of too many hobbies.  The deed was done, she should at least make her domicile… er… house presentable to her thrall.

 

She was ordering her paint bottles by hues in the oft-neglected rack they were supposed to sit in, when twin beams of light skittered across her window.  She took a deep breath and readied herself.  Why was she so nervous?  This woman, slave, prey; she would bow down and kiss her feet if ordered to.  And yet it still felt like the awkward second date, where you didn’t want to push too hard or too fast for fear of scaring the other person off.

 

She dashed out the door, alternating nervously between a brisk walk and slow strut as she approached the car.  It dawned on her why she was so nervous: while the feral parasite wanted Maxine only as a source of sustenance, caring little for her wellbeing beyond her continued usefulness; Lily wanted, needed, to respect her dignity as a fellow human being, even if Lily couldn’t count herself fully human anymore.  To feel some sort of connection with her.  She feared it was too late to fully restore the woman to normal, but even then she could treat her with some amount of respect and dignity, as something more than just a sexual object.

 

Maxine stepped expectantly out of the driver’s side door, velvety maroon flats stirring up a puff of dust as they hit the ground.  Lily felt her heart quicken a beat as she looked over her outfit, miraculously fashionable for being thrown together in, what she assumed was, no more than 10 minutes.  Maroon flats engulfed black stockings, the tops of which disappeared under a flared black miniskirt.  Her short-sleeved, green shirt mediated the perfect complementary tone between the maroon shoes, her red hair, and the deep, dark red of her lipstick.  A denim jacket completed the whole look: cool, cute, and cozy in the brisk morning air.  She stood idly by her car, waiting for Lilly to say something.  After a few moments had passed, she gently prompted:

 

“Are we going somewhere mistress?”

 

Lily snapped out of comparing her own low-effort outfit, paint-covered t-shirt and fraying jeans, to Maxine’s, “No, I don’t think so.”

 

She looked into the car trying to glean anything about this woman’s life, some connection she could form to build a slightly more normal relationship with her.  The passenger’s seat was mostly empty, a scrap of paper (maybe a receipt) trampled into the floor of the car.  The back seat yielded a bit more: a small bag of clothes, a folding garden shovel, and a face-down book.

 

“What book are you reading?” Lily asked, pointing at the item through the window.

 

“Oh umm…” Maxine opened the car door and pulled the book out, turning it face up.  Lily could see the pages were ragged and dog-eared; it must have been flipped through hundreds of times, “It’s not mine Mistress.  A guest last week left it in the coffee shop and I was planning on mailing it back to them when I had the chance.”

 

The title was just barely visible as dawn eeked over the eastern hills: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse.  Lily took the book from Maxine’s hands and opened the soft cover, text had been scribbled by hand on the interior.  The early morning air sent a shiver down her spine.

 

“Let’s head inside Maxine, the light’s a bit better and the weather’s a bit warmer.”

 

“Yes Mistress”

 

They went together, Maxine trying to fall submissively behind Lily’s steps and Lily falling back to meet her again.  It was almost a game, almost cute.  Just before reaching the door Lily gingerly squeezed Maxine’s hand into her own, the redhead adoringly smiled in glee at the gesture.  

 

Once inside they sat on the couch, Lily examining the book again.  Inside the cover was a name and three addresses.  Over a thick layer of white-out the first name “Mae” sat in a void of white, scribbled in different ink than the surname “Young” floating an inch to the right.  Clearly the name of the original owner, or original name of the owner, buried under correction fluid was longer than Mae’s name was now.  Below that were three addresses, two of which were unevenly crossed out.  The last one, and presumably most recent one, listed an apartment in Alterra City, just over the western mountains.  

 

Opposite the addresses and name on the cover flap was something more intriguing.  On the title page, below the block-printed “Steppenwolf” was an odd doodle.  No, it was too careful and purposeful to be a doodle. Some sort of symbol was drawn in the formerly blank space below the title.  It twisted and looped on itself in the center with little, jutting edges shooting off at the extremities adorned with dots, criss-crosses, and circles.  There was a familiarity to it, something recognizable in it but Lily couldn’t quite figure it out.  She pointed it out to Maxine:

 

“What’s with this weird symbol?  It seems sort of familiar…”

 

“I don’t know Mistress,” Maxine’s red hair flowing with her shaking head, “there’s something familiar about it to me too.  Like these parts here almost look like the symbol for Venus but altered slightly, but that’s just a small part of the whole thing.  The owner of this book marked up a lot of it.”

 

Lily flipped to one of the dog-eared pages, a gentle firm crease leaving the page’s corner pointing down into the text.  There she found a number of passages underlined, one in particular drew her eye.

 

“He assigns we fear,” she read aloud, eyebrows knitted in perplexion, “whole provinces of his soul to the ‘man’ which are a long way from being human, and parts of his being to the wolf that long ago have left the wolf behind.”

 

She closed the book and flipped it to its summary on the back, reading silently and intently.  When she was finished she simply remarked: “Seems like an interesting book.”

 

“It is Mistress,” Maxine replied, “although it does get a little weird if I remember correctly.”

 

“I thought you said you hadn’t read it?”

 

“My apologies for any confusion Mistress,” she bowed her head in penance, “you asked if I was reading this book and not if I had read the book before.  I’ll try to be clearer next time.”

 

“It’s okay Maxine, what did you think about it?  Did you like it?”

 

“Sort of,” she cocked her head to the side as if it would help her remember, “I read it as part of a college class, about literary depictions of psychological theories.  Most of the things we read focused on how a number of psychological theories from the 1900s were useful as abstractions for the more affluent and neurotypical, while not accurately depicting the causes of the mental illnesses they had hoped to address.  For this one we focused on the ideas of schizophrenia as interpreted through a Jungian viewpoint versus the repression of parts of the psyche by modern man.”

 

Lily blinked in awe, she knew general information about different psychological theories but apparently Maxine was much more well versed in it.  It seemed a pity that she was working the counter at Laddybucks instead of putting that knowledge to use.

 

“If I remember correctly Harry, the protagonist, believes himself torn between the civilized ‘man’, an appreciator of philosophy and art, and the beastial ‘wolf’ that values base pleasures.  He thinks that all his sorrows come from their quirreling, and then slowly learns that the dichotomy he built is incomplete; that as a person he is more than just man and wolf, that the harmony between his various urges and drives makes him a better person than to pit them against each other.  Something called Jungian integration… or individuation, I don’t remember which.”

 

She shook her head, “There’s some weird stuff about dancing and automobiles in there too, I think.  It’s been awhile since I read it.”

 

Lily stared at her in stunned silence for a few seconds before prompting, “Wow Maxine, I didn’t know you went to college!”

 

“Only for two years Mistress,” her eyes cast a pained glance at Lily, “It was too expensive and the job prospects for a Psych major aren’t great around here unless you go all the way to a doctorate and it just seemed like so much work for so slim of a chance.”

 

There were tears in her eyes now, Lily almost regretted bringing the topic up, “I just wanted to do something interesting, to be part of something bigger.  But I couldn’t even hack that.”

 

Lily pulled her into an embrace, one of warmth and understanding.  She felt tears coming to her eyes too.

 

“I’m sorry Maxine, I’m so sorry.  I feel the same way most days.”

 

“Even you Mistress?” the sobbing was replaced with surprised confusion.

 

“Even me.  I barely squeaked through college and being a civil engineer in a town of a thousand is a far cry from being the inventor at Zenith Corporation I thought I’d be.  If I was gone for fifty years, I doubt they’d miss me here.”

 

“I’d miss you Mistress.”

 

“I know Maxine,” guilt played across her face, “but that’s because I forced you into being an adoring slave; I rewrote parts of you to serve my selfish needs.  Before I forced you into servitude you didn’t want anything to do with me, and I promise that I’ll try to free you however I can.”

 

“Please Mistress, don’t,” the plea was quiet, soft, and slow.  It was Lily’s turn to express shocked confusion, “Before we met, before you turned me into your thrall, I felt empty.  I was searching for anything to fill that emptiness, but too exhausted by it and despondent from it to really look.  I was horrified and terrified when you turned me, I fought against it as much as I could;  but now I have a purpose, to serve you.  The gaping emptiness with no answer I’ve felt for years has been replaced by a simpler one; now I only feel empty when I’m not with you.  And the solution to that emptiness is simple.”

 

“I… but…” Lily stammered out, unsure what to say, “But that’s only because of what I did to you, what this stupid alien lifeform that merged with me, that I’ve become, did to you so it could fuck your brains out and bask in the afterglow.”

 

“I know Mistress, it would make so much sense to be angry at you for it; but if we hadn’t met I’d be just drifting along day after day until the emptiness overcame me.” There was a painful sincerity in her words, her eyes.  In this moment Lily felt like the weaker one, Maxine’s grief buffeting her guilt into silence, “But now I have purpose, I can be part of something bigger.  I know that you’re something greater than just a human Mistress, and not just because it’s programmed into me.  You’re like the superheroines, destined for something great; destined to change the world.  And I am honored to be your first servant, Mistress.”

 

It was too much for Lily, she had no idea how to respond to Maxine baring her soul to her and then placing her on the world’s highest pedestal.  She wrestled with it all in her head, Maxine was obviously being manipulated by the thoughts and commands she had implanted, right?  But maybe part of what she was saying was true, maybe being the first thrall… servant… consort to whatever species Lily now was had given her a chance that would otherwise have never been afforded to her.  But if she was able to deconvert Maxine and then help her as a normal person , wouldn’t that be the better and more moral thing to do?  Shouldn’t she --

 

Her warring mind was suddenly aware of Maxine whispering in her ear: “Please Mistress, I need you.  I need you to plunge your tendrils into my thrall-mind and fill me with your will, with your purpose.  I need it.”

 

Lily felt it too, an emptiness.  No, a hunger.  A hunger and emptiness that was close to hunger and emptiness but not quite either.  An alien feeling trying to express itself through human ones, an alien feeling now shared between them.  It dawned on her that the two of them were connected somehow through their alien physiology, that .  Perhaps it was the “entangled resonance” concept that had been explained to her as a tool of control, perhaps it was more than a one-way street.  The alien neurons chewed on that for a second and admitted that it was possible: that the resonance that gave her control over the people she infested also linked her to them in other ways.  That while she could use that connection to command and control, she could also use it as a way to connect intimately; to join together as something greater.  That they together were part of some greater being… species… civilization, there didn’t seem to be a good word for it.  

 

And then she felt it bubble up from Maxine, from some part of the quandary the other woman felt through the connection.  Gestalt.  They were part of a greater Gestalt.

 

Lily pushed Maxine back slightly, holding her at arm’s length.  Both women bore a look of surprise and excitement, although Maxine’s was more in awe of Lily than of the unspoken connection they had just experienced.  Lily pulled her close again, placing a tender kiss on her thrall’s lips.  Their hands moved slowly and sensuously over each other this time, a stark contrast to the fast and furious fucking in the backroom of the cafe. At every kiss, every caress, every coo; Lily searched for that connection to Maxine, able to find it more and more often.

 

“Maxine,” Lily panted out, feeling her arousal rising fast, “Let’s use a bed this time. And take off your clothes, I don’t want to ruin them.”

 

“Yes Mistress,” she purred back, delighted.

 

The two raced up the stairs, Lily leading the way by just a hair. In the doorway they stripped, heavy breathing mirroring one-another.  Lily was the first to get naked, Maxine fumbling with a clasp on her garter belt. With a lustful gaze at the garment holding up two sexy stockings Lily rasped out: “You can leave that on.”

 

“Yes Mistress.” Maxine managed before a glossy-black tendril pushed her back onto the bed. Excited noises poured from her mouth as her hands ran over the tendrils wrapped holding her by the shoulders and waist. She let out an airy “yeahhhh” as she slid her fingers along the smooth, almost-rubbery surface. Lily buried her face in Maxine’s neck, kissing her hard and fast before moving down to her breasts. Maxine moaned as Lily caressed her left breast in one hand while lightly sucking on the other.  She returned the moan as Maxine’s fingers swept along her needy slit, Lily moving to straddling over her to allow better access.  

 

Another tendril slithered south to tease Maxine’s cunt as well, the finger’s pace between Lily’s leg quickening in excited response.  Lily reached out to the connection between the two and felt what Maxine wanted next, and she was happy to oblige.

 

The two top tendrils eased themselves slowly along her face, taking their time to make Maxine anticipate and appreciate them.  

 

“Yesssssss.” she hissed out as they wound up her cheeks, towards her ears.  Her eyes were already rolling back at the thought of what was to come.  

 

The tendrils gently flowed into her mind, the familiar black ooze of her Mistress’s will pouring over her.  Lily could feel it, her pleasure and comfort at losing herself in the mindless bliss of inky blackness subsuming her.  What’s more, their connection to each other was stronger this way; perhaps not surprising given that Lily was directly pluggedinto the other woman’s mind through two throbbing tendrils.  This time instead of pure subjugation Lily looked for Maxine in the swarm of thoughts and feelings rushing through the both of them.  Somehow she knew when she found her, and on a psychic level she felt them embrace, exchange parts of themselves with each other; become for a moment not mistress and slave, but two parts of one being sharing in the ecstasy of the moment.  Their bodies fucked each other harder, Lily riding on skillful fingers as Maxine bucked against a throbbing phallic tentacle, their minds swirling together in overlapping currents.  They came as one being, one mind greater than the sum of its parts.

 

When the tendrils receded, Lily collapsed beside Maxine on the bed, both of them exhausted.

 

“Did we… in our minds, did that?” Maxine tried to ask a question she didn’t know how to phrase.

 

“Yeah.” Lily’s answer was certain, even if she couldn’t explain why.

 

“Wow…” Maxine sighed, as her eyes fluttered closed.  She fell asleep instantly.  Lily gently cuddled up against her and joined her in slumber.

 

 

She was in a forest, the woods behind her house, running deftly along trails that never ended.  There was something out there in the dark, she could hear it shift through the underbrush from time to time.  No matter how far she ran it was always there; hunting her, stalking her.

 

She tripped over a root and sprawled out on the ground, scrambling to get back to her feet. In the moment of weakness a form pounced from the ever-present bushes that choked the trail. Jet-black, smooth, artificial, fierce; the wolf looked like it was made from rubber but still somehow oh-so-dangerous. She kicked at it, but rather than pushing the beast back found herself caught in it’s viscous hold. It loomed over her, lumbering its gnashing, black teeth up towards her face. Another kick, another limb stuck in the thing. Two punches ended the same way, leaving her struggling to disentangle herself from the nightmare beast. It oozed itself over her, leaving her head for last. She panicked as she sensed the end coming, for this horrible thing to consume her.

 

Then she remembered that she was the beast.

 

The black goo swirled around her at her command, no longer an overpowering presence but an extension of herself. It settled into an outfit of sorts, plucked from sexual fantasies she’d never had; shiny, shimmering latex. It fit over her like a catsuit, flowing and rippling in hypnotizing gleams of light. She and the suit were one and the same: harmonious beauty and sublime revelation.

 

She ran the trails again, but this time she was the hunter. She saw their flames in the distance, the campfires of the lost and broken, clinging to what little warmth they could as they awaited their sorry ends. She swooped in on the first fire, the red-haired woman huddling over a waning flame.  She grabbed her roughly at first, commanding attention but then just as suddenly let go.  She wasn’t a beast pouncing on prey, nor was she like the prey; not anymore at least.  She surpassed both of them, was something greater, newer, better.  She offered the frightened woman her shimmering hand, the promise implicit: salvation from the oncoming night and the freezing cold emptiness, by joining her in the hunt.  Without a word the other clasped her hand, the rubbery darkness flowing over her until she too was covered.

 

They ran together then, following the trails to the lost souls that humanity had left behind in callousness.  They were each themselves but each each other, and as they brought more and more lost souls into their pack they felt each one contribute to their growing understanding and culture.  Most went willingly, and the ones that didn’t were made to see the light, saved from themselves by rippling, black unity.

 

And when they saw no more fires in the freezing woods, they ran to the town to give their gift there as well.  And behind the first door they threw open was Sarah, so well known to them that she was practically part of the group already.  She tried to reject their gift, but they knew she would understand in time.  The black rubber flowed from their hands to her body and --

 

 

The ringing of the doorbell roused Lily from her sleep.  She looked at the clock as the reason for the disturbance clicked, Sarah was here to take her into the city.  

 

“Stay here and keep quiet,” she hissed at Maxine.  She jumped off the bed and hurriedly pulled on yesterday’s clothes.  The doorbell rang again, this time accompanied by a few short knocks.

 

“Just a minute!” She yelled down the stairs ahead of her, pausing as she reached the bottom to check that she had managed to fully cloth herself.  Finding herself presentable she opened the door, hiding her panic behind a friendly smile.

 

“Sarah, sorry I forgot to set an alarm this morning.” 

 

Sarah raised an eyebrow in response and cocked her head towards Maxine’s car sitting in the driveway.  She was wearing a black t-shirt over faded skinny jeans today, cute and casual.

 

“Do you have company over?” She craned her neck, trying to peer past Lily into the living room.  A scene from the dream played through Lily’s mind, rubbery blackness engulfing her friend’s arm.

 

“Oh…” she replied, distractedly, “ yeah.”

 

“Anyone I know?”

 

“I don’t think so.  She’s still upstairs”

 

“Oh,” another raised eyebrow broadcast her question before she asked it, “Well unless you’re showing her the bathroom tiling or the junk in your attic…”

 

“Yeah…” Lily flushed with embarrassment, Sarah knew the house layout and that the only room upstairs another person would be was the bedroom.

 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.” Sarah looked down towards her feet, Lily’s eyes following.  Another vision  flashed through her mind of the white sneakers becoming smooth, sleek rubber; inseparable from Sarah, joined to a greater mind.  She forced herself to look away, casting her gaze over at a potted plant she hadn’t seen before. Sarah continued, “I… I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way Lil, but I thought you were… what do they call it these days?  Ace?”

 

“I am,” Lily alternated her focus between Sarah and the plant, not wanting to stare at any one thing for too long, “I was at least.  I don’t know Sarah, after what happened the other day I’ve started feeling… you know, aroused sometimes.”

 

“Oh.. that’s odd...” an awkward look passed between them for a moment, “Is it… How do you feel about that?”

 

Lily considered her answer carefully while staring at the white, bell-shaped flowers blooming from a central shoot of green, “It’s been weird, like my whole world has shifted.  But not wholly bad?  I don’t know Sarah, I feel like part of me has changed and it’s worrying and somewhat invalidating but also there’s something in these new feelings that’s exciting and novel… and… as I said, it’s weird and complicated.”

 

She ended with a little shrug, allowing Sarah a moment of silence to process the words before changing topics, “So what’s with the plant?”

 

“Oh!” Sarah brightened at the shift in topic, “I was in at Rose’s greenhouse yesterday and she was selling some of the plants on clearance.  I saw this one and thought of you.  I figured you could use another either out in the garden or around the house.”

 

“Rose was putting plants on clearance?” She kept her gaze on the plant, not wanting any more flashes of her friend being coated with alien ooze.

 

“Yeah, she was experimenting with… what did she call it?  Grafting.  Where you take the cutting of one plant and fuse it to another.  She said it was normally done with things like fruit trees for bettering the genetic properties of trees somehow, but she started doing it with flowers.  She said the ones that didn’t outright die but also didn’t achieve the results she hoped for she was putting out for clearance.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Lily hunched down to inspect the plant closer.  She knew a little about graftage from her gardening, having read someplace that farmers were grafting together tomatoes and potatoes to grow both on the same plant.  Tracing her finger down the shoot she found the seam where the upper shoot had been joined with the lower root system.  Two disparate beings fused into a new whole; the universe was slamming her with allegories apparently.

 

“So anyways I saw the flower and asked about it and Rose told me the name and it seemed fitting…”

 

“The name?”

 

“Yeah, lily-of-the-valley.”

 

Lily groaned internally, this was exactly the sort of thing Sarah thought was cute.  A flower with her name and also she lived in Keffler Valley.  Still it was kind and thoughtful and even if the name made her eyes roll she was still happy for the gift.

 

“Thanks Sarah, I’ll find a place for it.”

 

“You’re very welcome Lil.” Her face morphed from bright-and-sunny to somewhat serious again, “So about going into Alterra to get checked out…”

 

“Oh yeah I…” Lily glanced over her shoulder at the staircase, hoping the reason she couldn’t immediately go was clear, “I might need an hour or two.”

 

“Right, right.  I could run errands over in town for a bit and come back with lunch around one?  Gives you some time to, ummm, get ready.”

 

“That sounds great Sarah, sorry to keep delaying.  I must be a huge pain in the ass right now, making you drive out here all these times and not wanting to go.”

 

“No worries Lil, it’s what friends do.  I know you’d do the same for me.  See you in a bit!”

 

Sarah waved a quick goodbye and turned back towards her truck.  Lily was left thinking, would she do the same for Sarah?  A week ago certainly, but now… It wasn’t that she didn’t care for Sarah as a friend anymore, but that her solution wouldn’t be to drive her into the city to be poked and probed by superheroines and scientists.  No.  Her solution would be to make Sarah better by herself; to make her something better than human.  Another vision of shimmering darkness came to her, the onyx ink swimming up Sarah’s neck and into her mouth, nose, and ears.  The shudder and moan of surrender, the bliss of ascendance.  

 

“Oh shoot Lil,” Sarah stopped halfway to her truck, pointing a finger of sudden elucidation in front of her, “Rose also told me that you’ll want to put that flower someplace where cats and kids can’t get at it.  It’s very pretty, but very poisonous.”

 

“Oh, will do.”  Lily eeked out as she braced herself against the doorframe.  Her heart was pounding with excitement at the thought of bringing Sarah into the fold as a shrinking part of her pleaded against it.  Sarah’s gift had been a flower, Lily’s gift to her could be transcendence.  But could she really do that to her friend?  Make her a thrall?  Force her to share in this novel blessing?  The synthesis of thoughts produced their plan: Patience.  Sara would be back in a few hours, the details could be hammered out in the meantime.

 

She watched Sarah swing her way up into the truck and drive off.  The plant she placed in her kitchen window for now, she didn’t have any cats or kids so as long as it was indoors that should suffice for safety.  She glanced at it one more time before heading upstairs, very pretty but very poisonous.

 

Maxine stirred as Lily sat on the edge of the bed, a chorus of voices gibbering in her head.  The discordant strains clashed together at first, but soon the cacophony began to harmonize into something coherent.  If she focused she could pick out the individual pieces. The burbling, black brass urging the music onward in simple, repetitive patterns.  The high woodwinds of humanity, at first shrill with panic, now playing gracefully complex melodies to complement the alien harmony; a small contingent even breaking off into a descant weaving over and around the human melody adding sublime texture.  There were other voices there too, so many others’, things that she could never see or hear before, let alone give a name to.  And when she didn’t try to focus on a single part, when she listened to the orchestra of being as a whole, she could hear the symphony of herself as a whole for the first time.

 

She gasped as Maxine’s touch pulled her out of her mind, a soft hug warming her from behind.  A gentle kiss brushed the nape of her neck as legs wrapped around her torso.  Lily reached back and tenderly brushed through her red locks as pieces bagan to fall into place in her mind.

 

“Maxine, do you trust me?”

 

“Of course Mistress,” the pleasant purr tickled in her ears.

 

“And do you still want to be part of something bigger?”

 

“Yes Mistress,” a restrained hope and enthusiasm echoed in her voice.

 

“Okay.”  Lily broke free of her lover’s embrace, lifting her shirt over her head and throwing it to the floor with one hand.  Maxine’s eyes lit up as the tendrils burst forth from behind her, one hovering inches in front of Lily’s face.  Lily ran her finger along the tip and squinted her eyes in focus.  The surface rippled and roiled, tapering down until it became a small stinger.  Fear and eagerness flickered across Maxine’s face.  Lily reached down into her mind, finding the connection with Maxine assuring her it was going to be okay, as well as gleaning some pertinent aesthetic information.  Lily wasn’t surprised to find that her new hot flashes of rubber and latex were being sourced from Maxine’s desires and wants, her unsaid fetish spilling over into Lily’s new-found sexuality via their shared connection.  It was one of her contributions to their being, their gestalt, and Lily planned on rewarding her for it.

 

Without another word the tendril flashed and the stinger danced from hand to hand, foot to foot, spine to sternum.  Maxine winced at each sting, but remained otherwise still.  They held their breath together, waiting in eager expectation for what came next.  Maxine let loose a pleasured squeal when she saw the shiny blackness start to spread outward from the site of the sting.  She trembled in anticipation as her new form began elevating her further from her previous humanity.  Lily watched in shared glee as the alien toxin made Maxine into something greater; part of a new beautiful being that she had helped design.

 

Very pretty, but very poisonous.