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Dendromimus
It looked much like the trees surrounding it. Taller, fatter, but its leaves had the same rounded trident shape, its bark was the same unremarkable brown. Its branches twisted and wove around and into each other, sometimes growing into branches of other trees. He simply picked it because it looked the most inviting, with a cozy hollow to nestle against.
It was a bright late summer day, the air thick with heat vapor and the buzz of insects. He had been walking through this forest since morning, dutifully following the road. He’d brought an extra waterskin along. But even having followed all advice, the humid heat sapped his strength before he reached the next waystation. He had to rest.
He ran a hand through his uneven brown hair, then held his hand out to watch in distaste as collected sweat poured off it.
“Eugh. Yeah, I’m done.” He slung his pack down, then flopped into the little hollow, arms around the exposed roots surrounding it. “I can’t. This is bullshit. What do I look like, a messenger?”
Off came one shoe, then another. He stretched out, feeling his back crack in three different places. “Mmm... that’s better. Fuck this,” he added for good measure, and closed his eyes.
Something rustled near his ear. He lazily waved it away- probably a bug- and let his hand drop. The root felt softer than it had, he noticed, but didn’t place any significance to it.
As he dozed, the tree seeped in. It moved slowly, easing its pseudopods out of bark-shape and letting its prey gently sink, down and back. The young man was lulled into a deeper sleep the more comfortable his resting place became, and didn’t notice how his limbs had become stuck in place. His mouth twitched as it creeped tendrils across his face, spreading slowly just above his nose and mouth... and he only became aware anything was wrong when it slammed down to form a perfect seal, preventing him from breathing.
His eyes snapped open. It was much darker than before, which might have meant he was sleeping longer than intended if not for the bright opening in front of him. His arms and legs were stuck fast, no matter how he struggled. He tried to scream, and it plunged deep into his throat, while something sharp bit deep into the back of his neck.
Just like that, he was paralyzed. It uncovered his nose, and he couldn’t breathe in fresh air fast enough, with his mouth invaded.
It tasted like sap, green and bitter. He retched on it as it tickled his throat, slowly oozing its agonizing way down.
He tried to bite, but his mouth was held too wide, and the thing was too tough to do any damage. It writhed deep, slowly expanding. His anguished groan cut off as it opened his throat, preventing his vocal folds from contracting. The pressure was excruciating and the tears flowing down his face was the only reaction left to him. A shameful wet heat flooded his trousers. There was nothing he could do about it.
Finally, it stopped growing out. Hollowing itself out it grew down, holding his neck immobile from within all the way to his stomach. Little pinpricks of fire blossomed inside his neck even as he found himself able to gasp for breath.
His mouth was fused open. His throat was as paralyzed as the rest of his body. He hyperventilated, futilely attempting to whimper and sob.
The little tendrils in his throat were boring their way outwards, fastening into blood vessels and arteries. One found the outside tendril that snapped his spine, and twined, vinelike, around each other and his exposed spinal cord, fusing together into one.
The tendril invading his mouth pulled back, wringing new tears of pain as he felt all the new wounds down his throat pull at once. With a wet tearing sound, it severed, leaving behind the matter that had fused into his throat. He snapped his mouth shut, and found he couldn’t swallow all the saliva that accumulated during his assault. He couldn’t even wipe away the drool on his face. Nor could he feel his own spit sliding back down his esophagus.
And still, he felt the back of his neck burn. It was as if an ant nest was tearing that one hole apart, thousands of rough scraping nips that gradually widened the hole. It wrapped around every piece of exposed nerve, dissolving bone and hardening into its replacement.
As the young man watched, the outside became a door, then a window... then blackness, with nothing but agony to keep him company.
It was his own piss that gave him the closest thing to a sense of time. It slowly cooled while the monster did unspeakable things to him. It grew clammy, then itchy. He felt a growing pressure at his bowels, and silently pleaded for it to just kill him already.
But it didn’t. Instead, it seemed content to let him lie there like a broken marionette. He suddenly realized that he didn’t feel hungry, or even thirsty- surely that would have happened before he felt a need to defecate. It must be something this monster is doing. There was no other explanation.
It figured out clothes were an issue after the inevitable happened. He was fairly sure it was just trying to humiliate him now, as roots and vines tickled across his legs, feeling nutrients they couldn’t reach. He startled when his arm shot up, smacking the roof of his prison painfully. Of their own accord, his legs stirred. Pain flared anew in his neck as it slowly puppeted his abused body to its knees, and eventually, finally, managed to relieve himself of the soiled garments. They were tossed away, likely never to be seen again. His coinpurse, gone. His lucky stone with it.
He gritted his teeth as the roots brushed against his backside, focusing all his effort on trying to move his arm. It didn’t budge. He kept trying until something pricked into his ballsack.
He would have greatly injured himself if he had control over his body. The tree intercepted the electric surge down his spine, canceling his attempt to recoil. It continued to inject him, corrupting his sperm to carry the reason it didn’t simply dissolve him. It shoved into him its own spores, forcing him to merely endure the torment as each of his sperm became infested.
An indeterminate amount of time later, it withdrew, leaving a blob of resin behind to seal the wound.
His neck was starting to heal around its intrusions, held immobile so it didn’t have chances to tear. The tree continued dripping sugars and globs of dissolved animals into his neck, pumped around the nervous system. Through his own nerves it could feel that his nether regions, however, were growing sores now. This was puzzling. It had been careful, what was the problem?
Clearly, there was something it was missing. It decided to take a risk with its new body part, and relayed his own body movements to his limbs.
At first, its new body didn’t move. It just lay there as it had been for days. The tree had to drill into its hand to get it to yank the hand away, then freeze in place. It felt the body slowly touch itself, then curl in on itself.
This was promising. The integration was flawless.
With that, it opened up the chamber, pushing its body out into the air again.
It was cold outside. Just like when he’d been abducted, the sky was light, but it was the cold brightness of winter. His bare feet made contact with icy ground. His shoes were still in place, he discovered, and wasted no time putting them on. They were wet and squelched distressingly, but it was better than nothing. Then, wearing nothing but his tunic and vest he tried to run away- but slipped on an ice patch and went sprawling. He tried crawling instead, only to suddenly be pulled back by a strange tug at the back of his neck.
What the? His lips mouthed, though no sound came out. He reached up, feeling at his neck, and found a knot of gnarled scar tissue and... root?
It led behind him. Turning around, he could see the long root leading back into his prison.
If his voice still worked, he might have startled birds from the vehemence of his cursing. He pulled at it, then picked up a rock. It froze him once he got close to touching the tether, and marched him right back towards the tree.
The next day, it tried again. He burst out of the hollow, gasping for fresh air. The hollow stunk in comparison. He didn’t leave or try to harm the root again, afraid of losing control.
It was a blessing to finally be able to relieve himself somewhere outside of where he’d been forced to stay. He ended up soaking and using his socks to rub off the caked filth accumulated from his prolonged confinement. They were discarded once he was certain there was nothing further they could do.
The tree was able to clean out the hollow while he was outside of it. He watched it melt and ooze into a writhing thing, scraping at itself until it had destroyed anything left within. Then it settled back.
The cold forced him back inside it before too long. He carried his shoes and bag inside, unwilling to leave them for scavengers. Maybe his shoes could dry out, and hopefully weren’t going to rot too much.
They passed the winter that way. He huddled in its warmth while a blizzard howled outside. His hair grew long. His beard grew out. He resorted to biting and pulling his nails to keep them from getting too long. It let him outside in regular intervals as he became resigned to his new life as a tree’s pet, having no idea what it was or why it had spared him.
Inevitably, spring came. A suspicious pile of objects appeared at the side of his tree; a sword, boots, a book. He collected all three, bringing it back with him. Whatever poor sucker left them would probably want them back, he reasoned. He would never see their owner, though unknown to him he’d already been fed some of the warrior. It still kept him hoping that he might get to meet someone.
He’d had his hands taken away from himself repeatedly for obsessive scratching. There wasn’t much more of this he could take.
He was sleeping outside his tree when she came along. He looked shaggy and lean now, all sharp angles, matted hair and wild eyes. By contrast, she looked like someone who had stepped out of a painting; her red-orange dress was elegantly embroidered, and in contrast made her mahogany skin seem to glow. Her long jet hair was plaited in an elaborate bun, shining with intricate ornaments. She was reading something, reclined on pillows inside a small carriage driven by a tired old man and pulled by an equally tired looking horse, whose ponderous gait was punctuated by heavy hoofsteps.
A root flicked out of the ground and grabbed at the cart, making the horse protest in bewilderment. The man got down, making his way to check the problem.. and the tendril wrapped around his leg, vomiting digestive acids onto him. Both the man and the noble lady jolted at his screams.
“Sunja? Sunja!”
The usually docile horse bucked, kicking at the immobile carriage in a desperate attempt to break free. The noble lady, half outside in an attempt to help her attendant, lost her footing and was thrown to the ground.
The man attached to the tree tried to yell, though of course nothing came out. He nearly stumbled in his haste to get to his feet, running while frantically waving his arms. Seeing a half naked wild man racing towards them, she screamed even louder, kicking and clawing at the root twining around her leg as well.
It took him as he reached her. He stumbled, and it reasserted control. His limbs ached as it walked calmly to her. His eyes were wide, and brimming with tears as his hands grabbed her dress and tugged her back towards the hole.
“No! No! Let go of me! Help!” She screamed, as the tree and tree-puppet forced her into the hollow. The angle kept her from seeing Sunja’s agonized convulsions from being gradually digested alive, and the serpentine rippling of the tendril slurping at his dissolving flesh, but she could hear everything. The horse screaming in panic. Sunja’s own frantic pleas and screams fading into choked gurgles. The slow splintering of the wagon as the tree shoved more mass onto it.
It pushed him in on top of her, and sank them both into itself, sealing the opening.
“What did you do to Sunja? What do you want?! Money? I can give you money! Let me go, please-“
His body was struggling with her. She managed to hit him once before the tree restrained her hands. His body rucked her dress up, pulling her smallclothes down and painfully humped itself against her. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to not harden under the inexpert stimulation, but he could feel his loins stirring. While she screamed for him to not, please, anything but that, his half-hardened cock shoved painfully against her hip, then her thigh, and then-
The horse’s screams outside took on an anguished tone. Her screams melded in an unholy chord with them, punctuated by the carnal drum of their bodies slapping together. He strained, but the tree’s hold was absolute. He could only bear witness to his own body, wishing to whatever deity that might be out there that this would end. Just kill me, he mouthed.
The darkness hid his horror well. She alternated between refusals and pleas for help, and the only reply he could give her was the tears freely rolling down his cheeks, dampening her dress. The most horrible part was how both their bodies responded; the friction was no longer painful, the smack smack smack of his balls against her ass were now joined by a lewd squelching sound.
Suddenly, the sound muffled as it plunged down her throat, spitting nutrients deep enough she couldn’t vomit them up. She made a horrified sound, any chance of words lost.
The man despaired silently as his cock ravaged her. His hands held her hips, violently yanking her plump body to his. She was audibly sobbing while the tree raped them both together, and did not stop even after the wet friction spilled him over the edge and into her.
He mouthed apology after apology, but in the dark she couldn’t see it.
The tree reopened. He scrambled out, and she tried to follow. But it had fused its tendril into an unbroken circle looped around her ankle, and sent her sprawling into the mulch. She lay there, sobbing and pleading for freedom. He looked away from her, shoulders shaking from his own grief and revulsion.
It let them stay out. Understandably, she stayed at the farthest edge it would allow, not letting him anywhere near her. He didn’t try to explain, or apologize again. There was no point. He had no voice, and probably never would again. He curled up on the forest floor, trying to not hear her.
He woke up back inside the tree, buried in the woman again. She was making a high pitched keening sound in time to his body’s thrusts, struggling against the tree’s will. He hated how delicious it felt inside her, but worse still was how even after he came deep in her the tree locked them together. Through the drifting stars of post-coital bliss came pangs of overstimulation. His penis was still inside her, even though he was done.
“Please,” the woman was crying. “Please-“
His body wrapped its arms tightly around her, pressing them both as close as possible. He turned his head away, but there was no escape for either of them. Pain turned to bright burning flares of discomfort; he could feel he was trembling even without the ability to control any of his body. He mouthed words, breathing in the hopes to achieve a whisper. To tell her his name, that he was sorry, that no one was in control. Beneath him she writhed, her attempts to escape both futile and painful for his abused dick.
“Get off me,” she sobbed. “Please, let me go..”
I can’t, he poured his whole soul into trying to tell her. He rested his head against her, sweat-slicked filthy hair clinging to his scalp. The tree wrapped vines around them, cocooning them together. When it returned his body to him, it was too late to pull out.
He couldn’t even let go of her; the vines dug into his arms warningly.
“Why are you doing this?!”
He didn’t know.
“If it’s money you want, I can pay, my father has land. I’m someone. I have a name. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I knew I should have waited for a guard. I thought- I thought it wasn’t going to be that far. Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you want. Please!”
He struggled uselessly against their bonds, then finally fell still.
“Say something!”
He sighed into her long neck, and shook his head helplessly. She’d finally broken her mantra of threats and pleas, but he still had no voice left to him.
“You brute!“
He shrugged, unsure if she could tell the gesture or not. The tree had them now, and toyed with them as its marionettes.
In response, she turned her head and bit down on the top of his ear. The only sound that followed was her spitting his own blood onto his face, and the deafening silence from his inability to scream. The tree retaliated swiftly for him, plunging down into her mouth and stifling further talk into wordless protests and groans.
It knew a little, though this was its first capture. It knew he needed his mating organ to stiffen in order to continue attempting to pollinate the female, but its human wasn’t currently cooperating with that order. It must not be due to any deliberate action on his part, since it had been soft with and without direct control. Thus, perhaps the blame lay on the female, especially since she had inflicted a wound on its human. She needed feeding anyway.
Perhaps during future mating attempts it should keep her mouth filled to prevent more biting.
He didn’t initially realize her new situation, still reeling from the injury. He had no way of knowing what she’d done, and her jerking motions under him were nudging his over sensitive cock in very unwelcome ways. Instead it slowly came to him what it had done… and that there was nothing he could do but accept it.
It let her keep her voice when it finally schhhlucked its slimy way back out her esophagus, leaving her coughing and retching. He couldn’t help but feel a jealous resentment start to rise deep in him. She wasn’t puppeted. She could fight and scream, and her misery was clear to hear. He had been forced to suffer in silence for a year now. There was nothing happening to her that wasn’t also happening to him, he thought, and it was enough to bring fresh bitter tears.
She still felt warm, and inviting. Her cunt fitted around him a little more snugly as his body began to respond with renewed interest in their coupling. She felt it too, from how she froze in place.
“No. No, no, no.” It started as a whisper and rose in volume until she was screaming in his ear for him to stop touching her and get out. He did try, but he still couldn’t. The tree pressed his hips to hers, making it impossible to fully pull out; he was at most half hilted inside her. A new kind of unbearable followed, where he had to stop himself from scratching the growing itch. Anything to stop feeling bad sensations from his dick for a while.
Her screams changed to broken sobs as he pushed back into her, burying his shamefully burning face into her neck. It started in little bits at first; shifting inside her, trying to find anything that was less uncomfortable. But soon enough he was fucking her of his own volition while she wailed denial.
The tree was forcing him, he told himself. It wasn’t his fault. He tried to ignore her screams and just get it over with, picking up pace until he could feel her constrained breasts bouncing beneath her dress, her breath stuttering with each frantic thrust. He imagined palming those breasts, rubbing her nipples. His own breath was panting hot against her skin and he took his pleasure from her because there wasn’t a better alternative.
Or maybe it was because he could. He really couldn’t say. He didn’t even care at the moment, chasing the white heat of completion until it enveloped him.
The tree finally loosened its grip on them both, letting his dick slide out of her dripping pussy. She didn’t attempt to move, or even react when he pulled her dress back down, awkwardly patting her shoulder. He drifted off to sleep in a haze of pleasure while she lay seeping semen from her abused hole and thinking of being anywhere else but here.
Having been given a taste and nothing else to think about, fucking her began to engulf his thoughts. They were nestled together in the hollow, so he spent hours pressed up against her, feeling her thighs on his own, her breath in his ear. It was the only sensory input he had, and it consumed him. He woke up painfully hard the next day, having dreamed about what she looked like under the dress, the tight heat welcoming him in. Biting. the inside of his cheek did nothing to cool his arousal, and the tree was already positioning them together.
“Why,” she begged, sounding exhausted as he penetrated her.
He told himself there was no point to resisting. If he didn’t, the tree would take him over, so he might as well wrap his arms around her, hugging her tightly. He might as well ease in, fucking her as slowly and gently as he could stand. That way he was being kind, he reasoned. He’d try to make it nice.
She clearly was going nowhere. It didn’t matter what happened. He let his hands explore her a little, feeling down her long, slender torso to her flared hips and thick thighs. He held her bare ass in both hands as he used her limp body, and came with a shuddering gasp into her hair.
After he’d sated himself, it opened its window.
Her fierce eyes were now red-rimmed, with dark circles highlighting her puffy eyelids. Fluid seeped steadily from her, leaving a trail of slime behind her. The tree’s tether around her ankle remained firmly in place, though her stiff gait suggested it might not matter today.
He gave her privacy, staying to the other side of the tree. An uneasy feeling churned in his gut. What he had just done was a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. He had willingly - intentionally - raped a stranger. She didn’t give him her name, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to give her his own. Yet he hadn’t even hesitated.
Usually, the tree let them stay out a whole day, but this time he heard her startled yelp at the same moment his muscles seized. It marched him back to his den, and the poor woman was dragged after, marking her with prickles and splinters from the forest floor. Her mouth was stuffed full of root, preventing her from crying out. He could see her cunt on full display, dress hiked up from being dragged by a foot.
Then it tossed her into him, knocking their heads together. Barely a moment passed before he could hear a voice- faint at first, but coming closer- calling out.
“Zuhueli? Lady Zuhueli! Where are you?!”
The woman surged forward with renewed energy, elbowing his face and stepping on his belly to claw at where the door to the outside had been. The root plunged down her throat refused to move further, slowly pulling back. She grunted, frustratedly yanking at the root in a futile effort to pull it out.
“Lady Zuhueli?” The voice grew more distant.
Zuhueli - he assumed - audibly was clawing at the tree to get free, doing her best to scream around the makeshift gag.
“She’s nowhere. It’s like they’ve...” and then he could make out no further words. The tree let Zuhueli claw and hit until she’d gotten bark splinters under her nails and bruised both hands, but it did not let her cry for help, and it did not let her back out until the next day.
She was back to weeping when it finally pulled free, slumped on top of him again. He reached up, awkwardly patting at darkness a few times before he found her shoulder.
“Don’t TOUCH me!” Zuhueli slapped his hand away, screaming at him with enough vehemence that her abused throat broke under the strain, cracking her voice. “Don’t you dare touch me!”
She was still on top of him. There wasn’t much room. He pushed at her to make that point, and she turned her fury to him, pummeling him with her fists and screaming. He let it happen, not raising a hand to protest. The tree didn’t let her abuse him long.
“Wha-“ The hail of blows stopped, though she didn’t sit still. “What are you doing? What is it doing? That hurts! Oh gods, it burns! Please, please I’m sorry I’m sorry! Please!”
Alarmed, he sat up best he could, waving his arms wildly to determine what was happening. She was spasming now, screaming all the while, making it difficult. The best he could tell was the walls of the burrow were closer than before, projecting out two masses that enveloped her outstretched arms up to the elbows. Under his fingers he could feel them pulsing, like a great worm working through soil. Then it crept up a little, swallowing her elbow.
Beneath her screams was a wet sound, like tearing bread dough. A soft rolling crunch. She passed out shortly after that started, swaying as the tree’s projections pulled at her, sucking and slowly gliding up her arms. It worked away at her all night, slurping obscenely. Its seal on her arms was perfect; he couldn’t find a spot to try to pry it loose. Its allowing him to attempt said it didn’t seem to think he could. And it was right.
It slid open to let sunlight in, but for the first time he really wished it hadn’t.
What felt like big, fat cylinders had dwindled down to narrow ropes, thinner than an arm. They reached up to her shoulders, where streaks of brown and green trailed just under her skin like an infection.
The fucking thing had eaten her arms.
She moaned weakly, and didn’t fight it when it pushed its tube-root into her mouth to empty into her stomach. She groaned as it pushed to the limits of her stomach before it withdrew, pulling her dress taut.
Her eyes were haunted, too exhausted to be wild with the fear that laced her voice. “My… my arms.. I can’t feel my arms…”
She met his own horrified stare, then slowly turned her head to see. “No.” She looked to her other missing arm. “No…”
It pulled free that afternoon with a sickening slurp, leaving bright red skin knotted with melted scar tissue, so strange and gnarled it resembled bark in texture. She slumped against the wall, staring at the nothing where her arms were. He reached for her, thought better of it, and left her in the hollow.
She hadn’t moved when he came back in. She didn’t even respond when he used a stone to tear the bottom of her dress, working a strip from it and wrapping it around her wounded shoulders, tying it in the middle. He then tossed the stone back outside and curled up beside her, letting exhaustion claim him.
Shortly after, her menses came. Her whimpering and shuffling around roused him, blinking confusedly in the absolute blackness within their tree. There was an odd smell, coppery, and a little like dead things. He couldn’t place it. The tree apparently noticed too, snaking a pseudopod across his legs and eliciting a pained squeal from Zuhueli. She shook her head against him, pleading with him to get it out.
He felt down for it, followed it across his leg and between her own. It vanished inside her, occasionally pushing farther inside as she kicked the walls. He gave it a half hearted tug, already knowing whatever horrible thing it was doing would continue despite his best efforts. Instead, he pulled her close to him, ignoring her protests, and hugged her tightly while the tree ravaged her insides.
When the tree eventually reopened to grant fresh-smelling air and limited freedom, he tried not to stare. The thing remained buried inside her, blood-stained and as thick as his arm. She tried to get to her feet, but between her lack of arms and the thick root stuck down her channel she only managed to writhe, wormlike, in place. He gathered her up slowly while she gasped and whined, carrying her slowly outside.
“No,” she was whispering, “no, I don’t want to be seen like this!”
Both tree and its pet ignored her. The long tendril merely extended itself, pulling the middle thin to keep its end inside its victim. He set her down on her back, then retreated to his side of the tree.
Her breathy cries and moans went straight to his dick, but the tree didn’t allow him to touch himself. It froze his hands in place when he tried, so he was stuck pacing around with a cock so hard it ached. What was it doing to her?
He never found out. Eventually it brought him back to her, lying exhausted on the ground and staring at the gently waving leaves against the late afternoon sky. It was sucking now, that same sick schluk shluk sound coming from her pelvis. Her dress, merely torn before, was spotted with blood.
“Just kill me,” she told him. Her voice was hoarse and inflectionless. “Please. I don’t want to live like this.”
He knelt beside her, shaking his head. He mouthed apologies - and for once she seemed to notice it.
“You’re not sorry. You wouldn’t rape me if you were sorry. Don’t even pretend you care.”
He shook his head again, then turned his head and tapped the tether fused to his neck. Then he pointed at the tree, stabbing the air for emphasis.
She just laughed, bitter and hateful, cut off by occasional cries as the tree moved inside her. “I don’t fucking- annnh! You want me to believe you? Then stop making me go through this!”
He sat down beside her. She spat at him, but was too weak to accomplish more than getting spit on her own face. He wiped it away with the edge of his tunic, moving over her more when she turned her head away.
“Fuck you,” she managed.
He left her there, kicking the tree hard as he retreated. He spent the rest of the time trying to push past the tree’s resistance, lying on his side and rubbing his erection against a root. It froze his body just before he came, and he slammed his head against the ground in frustration.
He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer. He would never be free. It was part of him; the tree was obviously feeding Zuhueli when it invaded her mouth, but he never felt hungry or thirsty. His whole life would be spent like this, doing whatever that parasite wanted him to. Would he really prefer his voice instead of hands?
The sun set, leaving crickets and darkness in its wake. They were both still allowed outside, so he was still contemplating it when the tree seized his body again, stiffly marching him back towards Zuhueli. She was curled up on her side, knees tucked to her chest. The tree had pulled out of her, leaving only the fused circle around her ankle to leash her.
Roughly his body pulled her over to her back, wrenching her legs apart. She stank of blood and piss, but the tree didn’t care. It had kept him hard and frustrated for easily an hour - long enough for it to start to hurt. And now it was slaking his thirst inside of her.
He couldn’t see her reaction. She didn’t say anything. He merely rutted in her like a dog, coming mercifully quickly. Then it let him fall, surprised it had released him, onto her. She grunted with the impact, hissing a curse.
He scrambled hastily off of her, but couldn’t find his way in the dark. The foliage above was thick enough to blot out the moon, let alone the stars. This was a different kind of void; not the humid claustrophobic kind he’d grown accustomed to. This was the kind that stretched for years into the distance, where a breeze he would have found pleasant during the day took on a sinister undertone, and animal noises in the unknown Beyond made both of them shiver.
He stayed close to her, hugging her body to him, and endured her kicking her heels into his shins and trying to slam her head against his own until she fell still. Gradually, even her frantic breathing slowed.
“I hate you,” she told him.
He was pretty sure he knew that already, and he couldn’t say she didn’t have every reason to. But it still hurt. He couldn’t explain to her what was happening, and he desperately wanted to. To tell her that it wasn’t his fault. That he wasn’t a rapist.
But he was, really. He had fucked her by choice before.
All he did in response was nuzzle into her neck and fail to convince himself there weren’t predators watching them from just outside his hearing.
The night was an uneasy one, but he must have fell asleep eventually. She woke him up by kicking his already bruised shins, making him pull his legs back. Her shoddy bandage had fallen loose, but was glued to her shoulders by dried blood. He decided to leave it alone; it wasn’t like he had anything to wash it with.
“You awake yet, asshole? Then let go!”
He did, rolling onto his back. His arm beneath her was numb.
“Finally.” She curled on her side, then twisted to lie on her belly. He watched her struggle to get her feet under her and stand after a month of inactivity and the loss of both arms, and the venomous glare she gave him was enough to keep him from offering to help.
He picked up a twig, teasing aside leaves to watch startled insects scurry for cover. Then he pushed away the next leaf, stalking a beetle until it burrowed too far to see. He’d spent maybe a year playing like this, finding small things to keep his mind occupied. It was easier now than ever to sink back to it, leaving Zuhueli to rock and wheeze like a flipped turtle. The next beetle he found was colored like autumn, with streaks of gold and brown against its red shell. He caught this one, holding it up to inspect it better. It waved its clawed feet, looking for a surface to grip, and when he set it back on his arm it meandered in that classic bumbling way that made him smile. He walked away as far from the tree as his leash would stretch, then lay his arm on the ground to relinquish it back to its undergrowth labyrinth. This one he could get away from the tree. It was too beautiful to let it die here.
She’d managed to stagger to her feet when he got back. Her hair, normally finger combed the best she could manage, was a thick bush of tangles and twigs. Her dress was a little higher than ideal, having hitched up without her arms to anchor it in place. She turned away from him as he approached.
He pulled a twig from her hair, prompting a fresh round of grief out of her. She let him pull her dress back into place, brush the detritus from her hair. He made it a point to try to treat her as nicely as possible, as long as he was in control.
They stayed leaning against the tree until it pulled them back inside. She didn’t say a word during their daily coupling, and merely gritted her teeth and glared in the dwindling light. But this time, he pressed their lips together and while she didn’t kiss back, she didn’t turn away. She simply lay there, the only sounds the soft suction of repeated kisses and the obscene slickness of sex. He gasped against her lips, shuddering as he came… and it felt a little better this time than it had.
He kissed her the next day, too, and made that the new habit. She apparently didn’t see a point to resisting, though he couldn’t tell if the shivers while he kissed her neck and nipped her ear were arousal or revulsion. The next week, as he wrapped his arms around his unwilling fucktoy, his hands slid across her torso, resting on her breasts.
“Stop that,” she finally managed, but he didn’t. She thought of him as nothing more than a rapist. She wasn’t even wrong. So if he couldn’t avoid it, he’d at least try to enjoy it.
He might not have noticed she was growing rounder as fast as he did were it not for her perfectly fitted dress pulling taut. She was out of breath faster these days, responding to his cock with frantic panting cutting through her usual pleas for mercy. He didn’t do anything about it initially, though once he noticed he found it hard to stop touching her belly, wondering.
“It.. it hurts,” she managed. He knew it wasn’t the sex. He was taking her gently, rolling his hips with as much skill as he could manage, leisurely fucking her while sucking at her neck. “Please, it hurts…”
He didn’t stop claiming her, but he did pull back to look at her. Her eyes were missing much of their previous fire. Her hair was limp, her jeweled ornaments dropping. She’d lost as much of her spirits as she’d lost limbs, not even trying to close her legs now. The tree had triumphed over them both.
“My belly… please, it’s too tight… can you unlace my back?”
He leaned back, pulling her light frame with him. It was just shy of painful, having her weight press down on him, but her gasped curse as her own weight sank her deep on his cock was erotic in itself. His hand drifted to the small of her back, finding the edge of her tattered gown, and began to pull.
It was tight. It clung to her midsection like a second skin, leaving her trembling and gasping against his neck. It took some genuine effort to slowly pull it upwards, and from her pained mewls it was just as uncomfortable as it looked.
She breathed heavily as it pulled free, coughing a few times. He continued to pull it up, over her head, freeing her breasts to the humid air.
“That’s not what I-“ she started, but then his mouth had found her left nipple and she keened under the combined suction and teasing tongue. His other hand kneaded at her right, catching her nipple between fingers and tweaking it.
It was everything he’d wanted, sinking his hands into her soft mounds. She squirmed against him when his curious fingers found her nipples, and he couldn’t resist squeezing. She squeaked, then moaned when he flicked at the other one.
She was practically whimpering with moans while he came deep into her. He continued toying with her body until she shuddered around his cock, squeezing hard and milking the last of his cum from his body.
“Ohh… oh, no, no please gods, why…”
She slumped forward, pressing her naked body close. He held her while she cried bitter tears, even though she’d probably prefer he didn’t. She didn’t protest when he laid her down, curling around her back, tracing the lines of her waist and ruined shoulder.
“You’ve ruined me,” she told him. She was still lying on her side, facing away from him. “My mother would weep to see me like *this*, but she would sooner disown me than greet the child of some awful mute brute. Where will I go?”
He shrugged, not that she could see it, and folded her dress as best he could in the dark.
“Why must you say nothing? For months, not a single sound. You’re horrible and creepy and I can’t believe I’m still stuck here. What kind of man says nothing to his own defense? Do you truly have no pride?”
He shrugged again, and palmed her breast, playing with nipples he’d yet to get to see. But he clearly would.
His wish came the next day, when the tree yawned, stretching its cavity open and blinding them both with sun. She flinched, curling in on herself, and he stared at her outline, tracing her curves with his eye. He couldn’t visually tell anything yet; had he stripped her earlier, he probably wouldn’t know her belly was growing. But since he did, he could scarcely stop staring at it.
He waited until they both had done their morning business to take her again. She struggled, especially now that there was no ounce of modesty left, but his mind had broken past the point of any care. He kissed her fiercely as he pierced her nethers, and to his surprised delight her tongue tangled with his, unable to expel its invader and too trained by force feeding to try. Soft leaves and dirt welcomed her as he pressed her into the soil. Her nipples were stiff under his fingertips. Her breasts soft and inviting, and he played her like a musical instrument.
The tree hadn’t taken his body in a long time. He was doing what he was supposed to, seeding the fertile, rich earth of this beautiful woman that it had caught just for him. She even shuddered under him, keening, before he came this time.
She’d stopped even trying to fight by the time she felt the growing child stretch within her, and grew docile as her belly rounded, lancing her skin with a silver mesh. She let him do as he wished, slaking himself inside her as he pleased. In her eyes shone despair, but her lips were soft and her cunt was an old friend now, as familiar and comforting as a childhood home.
He freed her dark curtains of thick hair, clipping her hair ornaments and clips to her folded dress. She could do nothing about him combing his hands through her hair, just as she could do nothing about her nakedness. She couldn’t stop his hands or his tongue from exploring her breasts, or stop him from exploiting how sensitive the scarred nubs of her ruined shoulders were, making her squirm and whimper by tracing the gnarled knots. She couldn’t feed herself. She couldn’t stop him from kissing her as deeply as his cock so often sheathed into her, claiming her cunt so thoroughly she was now raising his parasite within her body.
So she let him fuck her and kiss her and she whimpered into his mouth as he dragged unwelcome orgasms from her, and she was actually grateful that he did, that there was still a pleasure left to her. She found herself coming to actually enjoy his attentions because she had nothing else to do, and that hurt worst of all.
The utterly humiliating helplessness of her situation had nibbled fraying edges into her sanity.
It started getting hard for her to stand up around the same time she was insisting something was very wrong. She told him her belly ached, that she was sure the child was too still, that it felt too hard. He met that with his usual answer of a shrug and resumed sucking her swollen breasts, teasing out milk. It was the best thing he’d ever remembered tasting, and he pressed his mouth to hers to share her own nectar. It was finally something, after months of tasting nothing at all. Her protests muffled under his mouth, and she was sputtering when he broke away, watching milk dribble down her chin.
She scowled, and bent her head to rub against her shoulder. He went back to her teat, smiling at the noises he could tease out of her.
She didn’t bring it up again until after he’d drained her and fucked her and lay sated at her side in the autumn twilight.
“It feels wrong. I don’t know what’s wrong. Something isn’t right. It’s as if I’ve swallowed a stone, you understand? It hasn’t moved in ages, that’s not right… and it hurts. I’m telling you, something is very wrong!”
She paused for a reply both knew he’d never give. And she shuddered as he gently massaged her taut drum of a stomach.
“I don’t know what to do. I feel that I’m going to die if something doesn’t change! And I know you don’t care. But you can’t - use me if I’m dead, so it’s really in your interest too…”
He sat up, pointing yet again at the cord connecting him to the tree.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s the tree… ungh!” She grunted in a sudden stabbing pain. “Wh-what… agh!”
He hovered over her, looking worried.
“I-“ she gasped “-I don’t suppose you’re any sort of doctor.”
He shook his head. His hand cupped her head as she attempted to arch her back, but her pregnancy made it impossible.
“It’s been getting worse. I- I - help, please…”
He kissed her forehead, her lips, her cheek. He wiped away her tears. He eased her up slowly and leaned her bloated body against his own. Shortly after she leaned to the side, voiding viscous black goop out of her stomach.
“Oh gods… eugh! Ungh… I- is that what it’s been feeding me…? Or is that something else?”
He half lifted her to her feet, guiding her somewhere more pleasant. She staggered, swaying dangerously, unable to find her balance while her belly rebelled. He thought for a moment he felt something poke him, but waved it off.
She leaned against the tree, breathing in rough gasps. And it was then that finally the tree unwound from her ankle, leaving a deep, itchy impression in her skin.
She didn’t notice right away, too caught up in her newest misery, but she noticed it before he did. Her mind raced- she was certain her rapist wouldn’t let her go voluntarily, but she had a chance.
“Help-help me walk around a little,” she begged, not having to play up the desperation in her voice. “I need to walk around.”
The torturer did as she asked, easing her forward and walking with his hands on her shoulders and hip. She walked forward, planning to claim it was away from the smell, but he never made any motion to show uncertainty. She let him walk her to the edge of where they’d ever been allowed, step by agonizing step.. and only when he tried to turn around did she lean her weight into his and lift her heel up and back, straight into his cock.
He didn’t even cry out. He didn’t even wheeze, just exhaled in a weird sigh and crumpled. Zuhueli managed to keep her footing enough to stumble away, and swayed drunkenly towards the road.
“Help! Somebody, help!”
The pressure in her belly was excruciating now. It had been slowly increasing, concentrated to a point around the center. She couldn’t reach her hand down to feel it, and so she missed that there was a tangible bump there, slowly stretching the orb inside her into a cone. She felt it, though, like a spear point desperate to push through her. But from within.
Agony blinded her. She stumbled and swayed, choosing movement over crying for help as she no longer had the energy to do both. She had gotten free, at last, and she couldn’t risk recapture.
One step. Another. Her body felt like some beached sea beast, unable to cope with its own weight. But if she stopped, she knew she’d never start again.
Step. Step. Step- crunch. A branch under her foot twisted, and her ankle, sore from months of tight constriction, buckled. She fell forward, an explosion of pain lancing through her being until it pierced through her core and became her whole identity. She had become the avatar of suffering itself.
Howling, she strained to one side. Streaks of fire painted the back of her eyes with every heartbeat. Her breath came in a wheezing whine, fast and sharp. Eventually she managed to roll onto her back. Anything to make that sharp pain lessen; lying on it was unbearable.
Now, she saw it, and couldn’t even find the energy to scream. Something tented her stomach upwards, and it pushed higher as she watched. She managed an agonized groan as it finally pushed through.
Now that it found access to the outside, the spear grew quickly. A gush of amniotic fluid and blood rushed out the new hole, coating her in her own slime. She writhed, inner reserves feeding a horrific scream.
She felt every centimeter of it, every ridge and splinter, pushing out of her belly. The sapling pushed higher and higher, creaking and ripping her body further open as it shot skyward. Twigs started to branch off from it. Leaves uncurled. And below it lay Lady Zuhueli Sodipe, gasping like a gutted fish.
The sun died before she did. The night was cold, bringing chilled gusts that wrapped over her body and kept her awake in a blanket of icy fire. She could feel the awakening seedling pushing deeper into her bowels, a hundred writhing needles burrowing its way to the ground. And then it was done, rising easily a meter above her, her every breath scraping new wood against her puncture wounds. She could feel it twining into her further, slowly easing tendrils of roots through meat and organs. A new burning made her belly clench in ill-advised reflex as it found her stomach and gorged itself on nutritional jelly pumped there by its parent, leeching stomach acid and using her own enzymes to digest her faster.
By sunrise, she was mostly bones.
By sunset, not even that.