“I’m sure,” Cassie said, eyeing the slime oozing from the cap of the enormous toadstool with disgust. “What’s that one?” She pointed to a tall, graceful looking flower with four or five brilliant scarlet blossoms sprouting from a single orange stalk. The petals of the blossoms all had interesting-looking black leopard-type patterns on them.
“Oh, I must ask you not to touch that, Mistress!” Dr. Sslwx hurried over to interpose himself between Cassie and the mysterious plant. “That is an Amaryllis Fatalis.”
“What does that mean? What does it do?” Cassie asked.
“It is a most unusual species—quite deadly if used the wrong way,” the insect doctor assured her. “The petals themselves are poisonous—see these black markings?” He pointed to the leopard spots on the crimson petals and Cassie nodded. “They contain a rare toxin that causes instant, painful death when ingested,” he said.
“So it kills people? Why would you want to grow that?” she demanded.
“Why because, when you boil the petals down in a solution of amyl-nitrate and ketagin sap, you are left with a serum that—when injected into a subject—causes the most intense craving for sexual intercourse!” Dr. Sslwx exclaimed. “In fact, the more you inject, the greater the chances that the subject will, in fact die, if she does not immediately engage in coitus and receive a healthy amount of male seed.”
“So it’s a fuck or die plant?” Cassie asked flatly. “And it only works on women? Bravo, Doctor—you’ve found a species that’s homicidal and sexist.”
“But the subject does not actually die if she is, in fact, inseminated,” the insect doctor protested. “Although, the semen itself causes a whole new set of problems.”
“Besides getting her pregnant, you mean?” Cassie raised an eyebrow.
“Well, yes,” Dr. Sslwx admitted. “You see, though she craves the male’s semen desperately, the female subject will experience his seed inside her in a very different way.”
“Very different how?” Cassie demanded.
“Well…” Dr. Sslwx cleared his throat nervously. “It will burn like hot lava inside her. It will not actually physically burn her of course,” he hastened to explain. “It will only feel like she is burning—it’s pain by nerve-induction, you see.”
“Ugh—that’s horrible!” Cassie exclaimed. “So you give her this stuff that forces her to have sex but when she actually does, the guy’s, uh, ‘seed’ inside her feels like molten lava. Yet she has to have it, because only his seed inside her can save her from the Amaryllis Fatalis’s poison. Have I got that right?”
“Essentially, yes.” The insect doctor nodded eagerly, his antennae twitching. “His Slimefullness feels it will make for some extremely interesting vids—especially at the moment of climax, if the female who has been injected does not have prior knowledge of the plant’s properties and does not know what to expect.”
“Right, I’m sure that will be extremely interesting if you’re a freaking sadist,” Cassie muttered. What an asshole Gozeriam was! She hoped he drowned in his own slime.
“What might this be, Mistress?” Stone spoke up for the first time and Cassie saw that he was pointing at a sapling tree about four feet tall. It had ebony-black bark and leaves and the fruit growing from it was a bruised, rotten-looking purple.
“Oh, we are most proud of this!” Dr. Sslwx said, rushing over to the small sapling. “This is our Pain Fruit plant! A rare variation of the Bonding Fruit grown by the Twin Kindred.”
Bingo, Cassie thought.
“How interesting,” she said, moving over to stand in front of the sapling. She leaned forward, pretending to examine it while blocking the insect doctor’s view of what Stone was doing. “And what does it do?”
“Oh, well, it makes the subject who is injected with it long for pain instead of pleasure,” the insect doctor told her. “It has already been tested successfully and when the tree produces a few more fruit, we will begin using it on a regular basis—especially in The Cave.”
Oh no you won’t! Cassie thought, but didn’t say aloud. Instead, she distracted the insect doctor by asking him about another plant while Stone was unobtrusively infecting the Pain Fruit plant with the evil little mites he had brought.
As soon as her partner was finished, he gave her a tiny nod that said, mission accomplished!
Cassie nodded back and smiled at Dr. Sslwx.
“Do you know, this has been the most fascinating tour, Doctor? But I’m afraid I’m all worn out now. It’s getting so late.”
“You did not seem to think it was late earlier,” the insect doctor objected. “Are you certain you do not wish to see the rest of the lab? I have thousands of other plant species to show you.”
“Thank you but I believe I’ll come back later to see all those,” Cassie said. She manufactured a yawn. “Goodness, I’m simply dead on my feet! Thank you, Doctor, for your time. I’ll see you later.”
“Very well. Good night, Mistress. Let me show you out of the lab.” And Dr. Sslwx led her and Stone out of the laboratory courteously.