Firefly.

The joy was extending down her thighs toward her knees, and up toward her chest. If it did not reverse soon, it would be too late. She had to get through to the firefly!

"A man once took a walk in the country. He was an ordinary man, living alone, and no one paid any special attention to him, but he was a decent sort who would always do a good deed if he had the chance.

"A dog approached him. This was a mongrel cur of no account, hungry and ill-kempt, but of good character. "I see that you are alone," the dog said to the man. "I would like to be your dog, and do for you all the things a dog does for a man, and have you do for me all the things a man does for a dog." The man, seeing that the dog was sincere, agreed, and adopted it, and took it home. He fed the dog, and groomed it, and gave it pills to abolish internal vermin, and the dog grew healthy and robust and became a fine specimen of its breed. In return, the dog served as the man"s companion and guard, so that the man walked safely through even the worst of neighborhoods, and had no concern about being mugged.

"One day as the two walked forth, a horse approached. This was a swaybacked gelding with scars on his hide and stones stuck in his hooves and a tangled mane. "I see you are a good person," the horse said. "But you are without transportation. I would like to be your horse, and do for you the things a horse does for a man, and have you do for me the things a man does for a horse." The man considered, and consulted with the dog, and agreed. He adopted the horse, and led it home, and gave it feed and hay, and pried the stones out of its hooves, and washed and brushed its hide. The horse prospered, and its back lost its sway, and its mane became l.u.s.trous, and the muscles formed and stood out on its body. In return, the horse became a fine steed for the man, taking him wherever he wished to go with dispatch and style, while the dog ran along beside and guarded them both.

"The neighbors marveled to see this. "How is it that this nondescript man has obtained such a fine dog and horse?" they asked. "Indeed, he is not nondescript anymore; he has become a fine figure of a man, surely through no fault of his own."

"Then a woman approached the trio. She was bowed and lean, and her hair hung limply across her face, and she had little or no pride. "I see you are a solid citizen," she said. "You have fine animals, and you look fine yourself. I would like to be your woman, and do for you all the things that a woman does for a man. In return, I would like to have you do for me the things a man does for a woman." The man considered, and consulted with his companions, and they concluded that the house and kennel and barn were somewhat uncomfortable, and the food could be improved, and that a woman might indeed be a suitable addition to the family. So the man married the woman, and turned over his estate to her, and she lost her stoop and stood up straight, and her body filled out and became attractive, and her hair turned lovely and her face beautiful. In return, she cooked for the man, and fed the dog and horse better than before, and came to his bed at night and introduced him to delights of the flesh that he had not before imagined.

"The neighbors were amazed. "How is it that he has now won the loveliest woman in the area, and is so happy," they asked, "while we plod on with our mangy dogs, decrepit horses, and sag-breasted wives?" But they never were able to figure it out, for they were not decent folk, and had no proper understanding of the type."

The rapture had paused again. Now it resumed, extending past her knees and up into her chest. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s began to glow with the delight, the nipples turning rigid. It was like experiencing the s.e.xual embrace of G.o.d.

"But I have more to tell you!" she gasped, for now her breathing was suffering. "Like Scheherazade of the Arabian Nights, I have more tales to tell than you can listen to in years! You must hear them, for in them is the nature of my kind."

The rapture paused again. Something, perhaps, was interested. But it did not slow all the way to a halt.

none struggled to speak, and when that became impractical, she stopped speaking and simply thought through the stories as if she were speaking them. She continued this until the rapture finally reached her brain, and then, with a mixture of sacrifice and joy unknown to any remaining human being, she became one with the firefly.

* 44 - THE FIREFLY COMPLETED the meltdown of the prey and disengaged itself from the bones and material that remained. It collected its ma.s.s, now swollen to double by the addition of the proteins of the prey, and began its retreat. It extended a pseudopod under the door and squeezed it through the crevice there. Then it tunneled its ma.s.s through, until the whole of it was on the other side. It proceeded on back the way it had come.

Now it needed to find a suitable spot to bury its egg. But as it moved, it would a.s.similate the new substance, so that it could be formed into the egg. The meltdown was only the first step; the proteins had to be adapted so as to serve as proper nourishment for the developing embryo.

There was a fierce female griffin ensorcelled to the form of a human woman, as the result of some more complicated story that need not be explored here. It is enough to say that she was a bit player in a scene soon forgotten by the major players. Alone and naked, she wandered to the house of a farmer. She realized that she was virtually helpless in this strange, weak, wingless, beakless, ugly body, balanced awkwardly on its hind legs, so had to suppress her fighting instincts and accept what came, lest she be quickly slain.

So when the farmer came out and spied her, she acted as submissive as she could, merely standing there as if stupid. He spoke to her in the grating human tongue, which naturally she did not understand, so she did not reply. He seemed quite interested in her body, though it was entirely typical of the females of his species: not even any feathers to cover its puniness, and laughably tiny claws on its fleshy fat feet, and distressingly soft mammalian dugs hanging on its front. He took her by an appendage and led her into his den, and she went. He put cloth on her, and she tolerated this unnatural thing because she realized it was the way of this gross species. He put gruel before her, and a flat curved stick in her hand, and indicated that she should shove the stuff in her mouth. She realized that this was his idea of eating; men did not tear living flesh apart and gulp the gobbets raw, as was natural. So she clumsily dumped stickfuls of the stuff in her mouth and swallowed it. Then he took the cloth from her body and also removed his own cloth, and caused her to lie flat on a soft mat, with her legs separated somewhat, and he lay on top of her and poked something into an orifice she had, and she realized that this was the human notion of mating. It was clumsy and dull compared to griffin breeding, but in keeping with the clumsy and dull species.

Over the course of the next days he began making her repeat the crude noises of his language, and she learned the sounds for particular things. As the season pa.s.sed she learned more, until she was able to understand and speak with him. By that time she was gravid with the cub he had labored so inefficiently to plant in her; it had taken him scores of attempts to do it, and even after it was there he continued to stick his puny instrument in her torso every evening, as if not believing it had finally worked. What a waste of energy! Men were strange indeed. A griffin male would have done it only once, in grand and violent style, when she was in heat, and it would have set the cub immediately. But what was to be expected of the human kind, so inferior in every respect?

Winter pa.s.sed, and she grew thick in the torso, and then the man finally understood, and ceased his continual poking inside her. That was a relief. She continued to eat and to do the dull things he demanded, such as cleaning off the wooden bowl and spoon after each use, and wearing the cloth covering when going about in the daytime. It was better than being killed and eaten.

Spring came, and she birthed the cub. It was a perfect little griffin. When the man saw it he was discomfited. "What is that?" he demanded in his crude tongue.

"That is my offspring, a griffin" she replied.

"But how can that be?"

"I am a griffin," she explained. "Our genes are dominant, so my cub is a griffin."

"Why didn"t you tell me you were a griffiness?"

"You did not ask."

Somehow that didn"t satisfy him. "I cant have a griffin for a son!"

"Then change me back to my natural form, and I will take him into the sky with me, where we belong."

But he didn"t seem satisfied with that either. Finally he decided to keep her and the cub, but to pretend that it was a foundling.

Then, amazingly, he started in again, trying in his inefficient way to impregnate her a second time. And indeed, after the second was birthed and explained as a foundling, he tried for a third. So it went for many years, until she began to put on weight, gaining a nice rondure, and then his mating efforts slackened. So at last he allowed her to return to her kind, along with her offspring, and when she did, the transformation finally abated and she was a griffiness again. There was just no understanding the ways of man!

The firefly absorbed the narration. It had not encountered anything like this before. It realized, without understanding how it had come by the realization, that it should learn more about the nature of its prey, or the prey would turn on it and destroy it, as soft flabby men might turn on a fierce griffin. So it accepted the narration, and tried to fit it into its way of existence.

Meanwhile, it proceeded out of the structure by squeezing through another crevice. It knew the importance of maintaining a low profile, for it lacked the natural weapons of attack and defense employed by others. Its strategy was to hide, and use the mating odors when suitable prey was near and isolated, and lay as many eggs as it could before its inevitable destruction. The eggs had to be laid in waterlogged sand, hidden, and forgotten. That was all.

Here"s one you might appreciate, Firefly. There was a maiden who was exceedingly s.e.xy. A kobold desired her, but he was so ugly that clocks went awry in his vicinity, and she refused to have anything to do with him. Angered, he put a hex on her. "You want to be s.e.xy?" he raged. "Then be ultimately s.e.xy!" And he made his spell, and cast it on her, and it enclosed her like an invisible cloud.

She feared that his magic would make her as ugly as he, but it did not; in fact, her mirror informed her that she was if anything even more luscious than before. She feared it would prevent her from enjoying herself with handsome men, but she found that her parts were all in order. Indeed, while before she had amplified her s.e.xiness in order to lure men in and toy with them, now she longed to have them complete the act. She had indeed become more s.e.xy, because what had been pretense had intensified into reality. In fact, she pictured many men coming to enjoy her offerings, one after the other without end. In her mind, she was a nymphomaniac. If that was the worst the kobold could do, it wasn"t all that bad; she expected to enjoy herself!

Soon she espied a suitable young man, one who was tall and muscular and handsome, and whom she had tormented before by her teasing. "Come to me, stud," she called to him, exposing her center of gravity. "I am through with teasing; I want you inside me." Indeed, under her skirt were no panties; she was ready for business.

"Oh-ho!" he exclaimed, and ripped open his trousers as he approached her. His member sprang out, as tall and firm and handsome as he.

But as he came nigh her, something embarra.s.sing happened. His proud member became too excited, and jetted its contents prematurely. The valuable seed fell upon the ground a yard from her, and his member promptly gave up its ghost and became insignificant.

So it was with every man she approached. No one could get close enough to her to complete the act in the manner she desired.

She was doomed to hunger for s.e.x, but to be eternally teased by near-misses.

She pondered. She was not completely stupid, as pretty girls went. She realized that if the kobold could put this hex on her, he could take it off again. She would have to go and beg him to release her from this torture. But she had a fair notion what price he would ask. Well, at this point appearances didn"t matter; she just wanted hot flesh in hers.

So she sought out the kobold. "You have made your point," she told him. "What must I do to lift this s.e.x-hex from me?"

"It is a permanent spell," he replied. "It can be abated only by being fornicated away. With each successful fornication, it will fade a trifle, until at last it becomes too weak to force e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n outside your orifice. Then it will be indistinguishable from the ordinary magic of women, who force men to yield their seed inside their cavities."

"But no one can get into me!" she protested.

"No one except the one who placed the hex," he replied. "That one will be able to hold off the magic until actually inside; then the force of the spell can have its way without spoiling the occasion."

She had rather suspected it would be that way. "How many times will it take to wear off the hex?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps no more than a thousand or so."

"A thousand!" she exclaimed, appalled.

"It is a potent hex."

Literally true, she realized. She sighed. "Very well. Proceed to work it off."

The kobold was glad to oblige. But he had forgotten one detail. Though the hex could not cause him to jettison prematurely, it did excite him s.e.xually, as long as he was close to the maiden. He entered her and squirted his seed, and she was finally satisfied. But the potency of her proximity was such that before he could withdraw, the urge returned, and seconds after the first time, he gushed again. She was similarly affected, her satiation lasting only seconds, so she was glad for the repet.i.tion. Seconds later came a third eruption, and then a fourth, fifth, and sixth.

The kobold was tired, and tried to withdraw, but another detonation caught him and he had to remain. His seed was getting very thin, and indeed the o.r.g.a.s.ms were becoming uncomfortable, but he could not escape. He was not immune to the magic, just to its application outside her body.

The maiden, catching on, clasped her arms around him and hugged him close, and clenched her muscles about his laboring member so that it was trapped. Thus, as the power of the s.e.x-hex gradually faded, the kobold remained, spasming uncontrollably. Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, it continued. The kobold"s flesh melted down to provide substance for the geysering member, and he shrank.

Finally, when the thousandth effort occurred, there was nothing left of the kobold except his p.e.n.i.s. It spluttered out its final driblet of fluid and dissolved into smoke.

The maiden had been freed of the hex. She was sore but still s.e.xy, and soon would be back at her business. It had taken only three hours in all.

Now, isn"t that a tale for your edification, Firefly? This is what you do, placing a spell of s.e.xual desire and performance on your victims, and in the process humiliating them. But there is a catch to it, for you are being swallowed by that very pa.s.sion you have used. Now it is in you, and will govern you.

The firefly continued its slow motion. It was a.s.similating the new flesh-but in the process was also a.s.similating the mind of that flesh. The details of the concepts were confusing, but the underlying feeling was strong. The firefly was faced with intellect and feeling far greater than its own. Because it was equipped to a.s.similate whatever it consumed, and did so automatically, it had no defense against this, and indeed did not understand the need for any defense. The new mind was taking over from the old, and the new feeling was registering where there had been little or none before.

By the time the night had pa.s.sed, the firefly understood human intellect and felt human pa.s.sion. Like the kobold, it was doomed just when it achieved its desire.

For as it sought to hide under the brush and leaves of the forest floor, a man approached it-and instead of lying low, it rose up and made itself known to that man.

* 45 - GEODE FACED THE firefly, seeing it for the first time. It was a brownish lump of protoplasm, amoeba-like in its ability to extend pseudopods and flow into them. It humped up before him, not even trying to hide. Yet it was not generating pheromones, either, for he was having no reaction. It was as though the thing were trying to meet him.

The situation was unreal. No monster had come to the cabin, and there had been no imperative s.e.xual performance; their stakeout had fallen flat. Frank and May had returned to town to catch up on sleep in the wee hours, while Geode had gone back to the house, turned off the alarm during its thirty-second warning period, and come upstairs to release none from her confinement in the security closet.

Now he remembered every detail with stark clarity, and he reviewed the sequence, hoping to find some hint for understanding of the present situation.

There had been no alarm, and no doors had been opened. The security closet remained secure, with just a sliver of light showing under its door. He turned the key in the special lock, deactivating the alarm, and opened the door. He suffered an erection as he did so, he presumed from eagerness to be with her again.

There he found the clothes and bones of none. The lovely gold and gem dragonfly Mid had given her remained pinned to her blouse. The firefly had come and taken her. It had been the lingering pheromones, not his own desire, that had prompted his excitement.

Numbed, he found his way to his room and picked up the knife he had set down. With this he could deal with just about anything. Then he set out on the trail of the firefly. It was in his mind that he would kill it first, and then himself. He knew he should have called Mid, or May Flowers, but he could tolerate no delay; the monster might be just ahead.

In the cool predawn dimness he saw a shape above the house, outlined against the pale sky. He oriented on it: was it the firefly? No, it was only the great homed owl, perched on the top of the television antenna.

"Did you see the firefly?" he asked it.

"I don"t eat fireflies," the owl replied.

"This isn"t that kind. It"s a-thing maybe the size of a man, that maybe crawls along the ground like a big slug."

"Oh, that firefly," the owl said. "Does it make a keening noise as it travels?"

Geode was taken aback. "Does it?"

"It does. It went toward the pond."

"Thank you." Geode walked toward the pond that bounded the southwest section of the ranch. There was no direct access, so he cut through the jungle, his boots and body brushing past the thickly growing palmettos.

His nose and p.e.n.i.s guided him: if he got an erection when he sniffed, he was on the right trail. He tracked the firefly through the thick of the jungle toward the verge of the pond. Progress was slow because it was still dark in here and he didn"t want to lose the scent. He had to backtrack constantly, sniffing again and again, getting down on his belly to put his nose to the ground like a bloodhound, squirming all around, heedless of the briars and roots until he felt the tug of the pheromones.

Even so it was chancy. He found himself near the lake. Fortunately, he encountered a rabbit nibbling on shoots. "Did you see the firefly?"

"Two nights ago I saw one flashing," the rabbit replied.

"I mean the monster."

"Oh, that. It oozed down toward the pond."

That put him back on the track. He reoriented, and caught the s.e.xual smell again. He made his way through the hardwood hammock of laurel oaks, down toward the marshy fringe of the pond.

Now the dawn came with a thin layer of cloud to the east, and island-clouds scattered across the welkin, their bases in shades of gray and their tops in shades of orange, and the huge blazing red ball of the sun striking through the ma.s.sed foliage. In that glory of the new day, near the overgrown sh.o.r.e of the pond that inlet from the lake west of the house, beside a large leaning hickory tree, he found it. There was the firefly, a sluglike glob of substance without eyes, ears, arms, legs, or anything else familiar, just a globular ma.s.s.

He had the knife ready. He knew the thing would die readily if he just cut it open and sliced up the pieces. It looked like a bag of dirty water. But he hesitated. There was something about it.

"You know I have come to kill you," he said to it. "Why aren"t you fleeing me?"

"I cannot flee you," it replied. "I love you."

Geode was numb, and he knew that others, even May Flowers, would think him crazy. none was the only one who had truly understood about the way he talked to animals; May did not challenge it, but didn"t accept it either. But even none might have looked askance if she heard him talking to the firefly, and to hear it say it loved him-!

Was this a dream? It seemed unreal enough to be one.

Hope flared. If this were a dream-maybe none wasn"t dead! He could wake, and she would be there beside him, to love and be loved by him. Or he would wake and find himself still on stakeout by the cabin; he could go and find her in the security closet, and untie her, and she would have proved she was not the firefly, and they could be together forever.

But he seemed awake. That wasn"t good.

He tried again. "If you love me, you should not have taken the woman I love. Now you must die."

"I took the woman who loves you, and now I love you. If you kill me, you destroy her too."

"I saw her bones! She is dead!"

"She left her bones behind. She changed her form, but not her nature. I am her."

Geode felt a cold shiver. none had thought she was the firefly; now the firefly said this was true!

"You cannot be her. I saw her bones! She was human, and she died, and I shall too-and you."

"How may I convince you?" the firefly asked.

"Not by using my own crazy imagination!" he snapped. "I know animals don"t really talk; it"s just the way I relate to them. Anything you tell me is my own imagination. I won"t let you fool me that way."

"I will tell you your name: Geode," it said. "I will tell you hers: none, also known as Jade, as Nymph, as Teensa, as Chloe, as anything she chooses, and now as Firefly. I will tell you anything about her."

"All from my mind, not yours!" he protested. "I tell you, I"m not crazy enough to fool myself about the death of my beloved! You shall not escape my vengeance that way!"

"Suppose I tell you about the plain young woman and the lost child?" it asked.

"I don"t care about anyone else, only about none!"

"The young woman had little or no social life because she was neither robustly endowed nor beautiful of face. She was brown-skinned, which meant her family didn"t have much money. She was a decent person, but men took no note of that, seeing no further than the superficial. This is all too often the way of men."

"I know it is!" Geode exclaimed. "And none was plain until she came to me, and then she was beautiful. But I don"t care about any other woman, plain or beautiful."

"One day she was walking to the store in a tough neighborhood, and she saw a lost child. It was a little brown boy about two years old, bawling, and the other people were ignoring him. The cars were whizzing by, dangerously close; he could wander into them at any time, as he wasn"t looking where he was going."

"I don"t care about someone"s lost child!" Geode said. "This has nothing to do with none!"

"So the young woman, Enid, hurriedly crossed the street, dodging the cars, and caught up the little boy. "What is your name?" she asked him, but he just kept on crying.