Big Banana

Author's note: This brief story is mostly fictional (the SlugFest is real). All sexual activities involve only humans over age 18, or adult non-humans. Details of gastropod sexual anatomy and activity may be glossed-over. Language effects and irony are intentional; don't freak out. For reader convenience, non-Anglish and non-human communications are presented in loose Anglish translation. Remember, it is just a STORY.

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===== The Big Banana =====

"Well dear Annika, are you ready for our big adventure?" I looked squarely into my younger sister's ruddy face.

"Ja ja, Lukas, this is so thrilling! To finally see California! I have waited all my life for this!" She nearly hyperventilated with giddy excitement.

"Oh, it is just another place, probably not too different from Bayern and the Tyrol and Tuscany," I teased. "And anyway, your little life has not been so long yet."

Annika stuck out her young tongue at me. "You are just being terrible for fun! I will not allow this. I will have my revenge. I know where you sleep! I know all your secrets! And anyway, you are only little older."

"But that is a very important interval, that makes all the difference between being childish, and being an adult. Why, in this time, you might even look something like a woman!"

"Well, at least I won't look like a fellow who has been stretched on the torture rack! Your ankles and wrists stick out from all you cuffs. You are the string-bean boy!" She stuck out her tongue again, then licked the end of her nose to spite and taunt me.

We loved these verbal sparring matches. Papa and Mutti just laughed at our inconsequential little tussles. They knew our squabbles merely adorned our mutual affection.

And now we were about to embark on great fun and learning. Our entire family would soon fly from München to San Francisco to spend two full weeks closely looking at the glories of North California!

We had of course made lists of scenes we must view: the volcanoes of Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta; the North Coast and its redwoods; Yosemite and its sequoias and High Sierras; mystic rocks and fogs of Big Sur; people walking naked around San Francisco Civic Center; and more. We had a carefully-planned itinerary.

The day of our departure came. We kissed our friends and cousins good-bye and climbed onto the airport shuttle. We were soon loaded into the Airbus jet for our Lufthansa over-the-pole direct nonstop flight. Papa and Mutti slept most of the way. They would certainly need all their strength when we arrived.

Annika and I were too excited for sleep -- we chattered quietly for hours.

"You are a girl. Of COURSE you want to see the clothing collections in the museums. MY big thrill will be to see the Stanford Linear Accelerator Complex, the high-energy physics laboratory. That is a truly masculine place."

Annika pinched me. "And of COURSE you won't be looking at the pretty lab assistants in their short skirts and tight tops, now will you?"

"Someday you will probably fill a tight top too. Then I won't have to look at them, will I? But will you remember your big brother then?"

"How could I ever forget my poor little big brother? With his poor little Schniedelwutz flopping around? Of COURSE I will remember!"

To be truthful, late-blooming little Annika was already starting to "look something like a woman" and "fill a tight top". She had grown a little (well, maybe not so little) and had sprouted mature hairs. Before long she would be the very image of Mutti, and that is not bad.

After many long hours in the air we finally landed in late morning, local time. A rattling American limousine shuttle carried us to the Hilton Hotel at Union Square, a somewhat cheap place but not too bad as far as America goes, I guess. At least this downtown hotel had a swimming pool.

We checked into our room and unpacked. The room contained two king-size beds, one for Papa and Mutti, and one for Annika and me to share. This will be our first time in a bed so large!

We ordered a fast room-service lunch of sandwiches and fruit. We then took stock of ourselves. Our parents turned to us.

"Children, Mutti and I are very tired from our flight and we need to take a rest before we all venture out into the city," Papa said.

Take a 'rest'? Annika and I knew what THAT meant! We grinned at each other.

"Well Papa, we certainly do not want to keep you from your 'rest'. We will go to the rooftop pool to swim away our travel fatigue," I said. Annika nodded.

"Just be sure to wear your bathing costumes, kinder. Do NOT swim in your skin here, as we would at home. These crazy Americans have primitive and sometimes psychotic ideas of the human body. Remember, they are all insane, like we see on television," Mutti warned us.

Annika and I sobered at this admonition. Yes, we must always remember that we are in a foreign land with strange, crude customs.

=====

Annika and I swam and lounged at the heated rooftop pool sixteen floors above Union Square. I had worried that young men would stare at little Annika in her skimpy bikini. But apparently, young men could not afford to stay here. All the other bathers were older, and fairly fat. Yes, the men DID stare at Annika, even after I glared at them.

Annika and I were basking in the last rays of the afternoon sun when Papa and Mutti appeared by the poolside in their swimming suits. They jumped into the water and each swam several laps. Some of the fat old men REALLY stared at Mutti's splendid figure. Papa did not even bother to glare at the obnoxious swine-boys.

We all dried off and returned to our room and dressed. We followed our plan for the evening, of course. We walked around Union Square and all its crazy and homeless tramps. We walked through the Dragon Gate on Grant Avenue into Chinatown, just like in Flower Drum Song and Big Trouble In Little China, and nobody shot at us. We strolled past a great density of shops selling tourist scheiss. Annika and I giggled at the foolish people buying the stuff.

"Look at these trinkets! These are just the cheapest possible plastic. They will deteriorate soon," I proclaimed.

"And those dresses! They look flashy, but they will fall apart very quickly. What lousy rubbish!"

"Do you see who buys this güsel? Only Americans, not Chinese. They know better than to waste money here."

"They say Americans are only rich because they charge each other so much."

"Yes, and the Swiss are only rich because they charge EVERYBODY ELSE so much!"

"Ah, we already knew the Swiss are smarter than Americans. I guess the Chinese are, too. Those who are here, anyway."

We walked up the stairs into the EMPRESS OF CHINA restaurant to dine. We children politely ate all we were served, as we had been taught. I think one of the dishes contained worms. At least they did not wriggle much.

After dinner we walked through Chinatown and up to the area called North Beach which was famous for lewd Beatnik poets and vicious Italians. We did not see any Beatniks with berets and bongos but there were many more crazy homeless tramps wandering about. They were sad to see. Such a poor country!

We all rode a famous Cable Car back to our hotel and settled in for the night. We all slept well. Papa and Mutti were especially well 'rested'. We heard them 'resting' again during the night. Annika and I giggled silently into each other's faces.

We took a tour bus around the city the next day. We saw Fisherman's Wharf and Coit Tower and the view from atop Twin Peaks, overlooking much of the Bay. We saw Ocean Beach and areas with small mansions and the very long Golden Gate Park and its bison. We saw Hippies on Haight Street and Mexicans on Mission Street and Negros all over. I think we felt some flavor of the city, which people here call The City, as if no others exist. Such arrogant Americans!

We ate lunch at the clean Cliff House restaurant overhanging surf-battered rocks. The view was better than the food. After lunch, we took another bus tour, this one across the Golden Gate Bridge to a local mountain and the forests around it. We saw giant coast redwoods in Muir Woods Park. They really are magnificent! The groves are like huge cathedrals.

We stood with our heads cranked back, looking upward in rapture. A man saw us.

"You think these trees are great? You should see some of the other redwood parks! There are some awesome groves just a little ways north," he enthused. "You should buy the Save-The-Redwoods League guide book at the visitor's center. You'll be glad you did!"

A passing woman heard the man talk to us and joined in.

"Oh yes, there are groves along the Russian River, and the Navarro and Eel Rivers, and more. These are all holy places. The spirit of the Earth shines so brightly there."

We had already included more redwood parks in our itinerary. We were ready.

We returned to our hotel to freshen up, then went to a nearby hofbrau haus for a dinner of real food. We went back to our room, watched television on a large screen, and prepared for bed. Papa and Mutti 'rested' again during the night. We were accustomed to this by now.

Papa rented a car for us the next day, a nice E-series Mercedes sedan. We drove north along the Pacific coast as was our plan. We saw many nice rocks and cliffs and trees and homes. As planned, we turned inland a bit north of Bodega Bay (made famous by Alfred Hitchcock in THE BIRDS) and followed the Russian River east through hilly farms, villages, and forests.

This river was once famed for Russians and grizzly bears. We saw neither.

We saw a golfing course in a redwood grove. How beautiful to play the stupid Scots game there! Nearby, we stopped in a town with many homosexual men and women on the streets. We knew this to be so because our guidebook said so. From this town, we turned north to a redwood grove, Armstrong Woods Park.

This was also magnificent, but rather different from Muir Woods, where everything seemed closed-in. The grove here was spacious and quiet. Or it would have been quiet, if not for the sudden thunderstorm that developed around us.

Our nature guidebooks mentioned curious creatures that live in the coastal redwood ecosystem. Many are shy and reclusive, or stay in specialized sub-environments. So we did not see river otters, bobcats or pumas, or other fairly large animals.

In Armstrong Woods we DID see amazing specimens of a large gastropod mollusc, Ariolimax columbianus and maybe Ariolimax californicus, the California banana slug. These great muscular creatures may be 25cm / 10in long and are bright yellow. How fascinating! Almost the world's largest! My Schniedelwutz will probably not grow that long, even when fully erect. I could never be a pornography star.

We read that these molluscs are simultaneous hermaphrodites. Each bears both male and female genitalia. When mating, they impregnate each other at the same time, but an individual cannot mate with itself. That perversity would be much worse than masturbation!

I had brought with me Greatgrandpapa's old (1930) Kamerawerk G&T Patent-Etui 6x9cm folding camera with its Meyer Anastigmat Trioplan 105mm f/4.5 lens and a modern tripod. This was a fine tool for MAKING pictures, not TAKING pictures, as each shot required a careful setup, metering, and patience.

I made several precise exposures of the natural scenes around us. We examined wonderful plants associated with these giant coast redwoods. As we did, we heard a low rumbling and felt static electricity discharges, and smelled ozone in the atmosphere. We knew from these signs a lightning strike was imminent.

Papa and Mutti felt secure where they were in the grove, but Annika and I thought to seek a safer spot away from the trees which would of course act as natural lightning rods, not the type invented by your Benjamin Franklin, that clever fellow. I secured the camera and tripod and we scurried up a slope to a natural clearing in the tall forest.

I saw and felt a tremendous flash, felt an overpowering BOOM!

And all went black.

=====

I slowly woke, feeling very strange. I cannot really describe it. I just felt so wrong, so out-of-place, so disconnected from myself. I could barely move. I could barely even think.

My sensations gradually returned along with my muscles and my memories. The flash! The boom! Had dear Annika and I been struck by a thunderbolt? What had happened to us?

My eyestalks extended and my vision cleared. I gasped! Or, I would have gasped, had I been able. I could not gasp because I could not force air into or out of my lungs. I wasn't sure I even HAD lungs now!

I gasped, or tried to, because what I saw made no sense in my mind. The giant trees had disappeared! In their place was a crazy visual scene of woody fragments and huge weedy plants, strange rocks and great clots of earth, enormous insects -- and beside me, a banana slug the size of a whale! You would have at least gasped also, would you not?

I waved my eyestalks around and looked at my own body. I would have SCREAMED, were I able! I no longer possessed my familiar fast-growing boy's body. I was no longer dressed in my traveling clothes. I was a bright yellow banana slug!

A cacophony of thoughts and images raced through my mind. I exercised firm control, the utmost discipline, to keep from panicking. I would NOT allow myself the refuge of insanity. No, I would THINK, and reason-out what had happened, and what might happen next.

A suspicion arose in my brain. Had the thunderbolt transformed me? What about my dear little sister -- had she been transformed also? Was this giant banana slug next to me my own Annika? I somehow smelled her, and she somehow smelled familiar. Annika, is that you?

In our human childhoods, we had played many games together, and worked on many projects of our common interests. We were both fascinated with communications, especially radio and telegraph and data transmission and reception. We were both proficient in ITU-standard International Morse Code.

I saw the giant banana slug beside me move its eyestalks in and out in a regular pattern. I observed the 'blinking' pattern -- and saw that letters were being spelled out! I read:

L-U-K-A-S - I-S - T-H-A-T - Y-O-U?-?

I was overcome with emotions! With joy, and fear, and love, and despair! Yes, my loving little sister still lived! And I still lived too! But we were no longer human! What would become of us? What could we do?

Again, I controlled myself, clamping-down on my raging feelings. I 'blinked' a message back to my sister:

Y-E-S - A-N-N-I-K-A - I - A-M - H-E-R-E - H-O-W - A-R-E - Y-O-U -?-?

She replied: O-H - L-U-K-A-S - I - A-M - S-O - S-C-A-R-E-D -!-!

I blinked back: S-O - A-M - I - B-U-T - W-E - M-U-S-T - B-E - S-T-R-O-N-G -!-!

We tried to reassure each other with our telegraphed messages. Those were conscious signals, generated by our human minds. But we also sent stronger signals, not from our human core, but from our gastropod essence.

I moved toward her, rubbed against her, mixed her mucous layer with mine, trying to give her comfort. And I noticed things about her. I saw that she was sleek, and strong, and sexy, in ways that I had never seen or felt before. Annika was beautiful beyond belief.

And we were adults of procreational age. I could tell that we were still siblings, even as 'hatchmates' born of the same mollusc egg sac. As such, I naturally felt a repulsion -- I should only mate with my own kind from other parents. But this was my Annika! I loved her so much!

Our thoughts and emotions and instinctual drives battled for supremacy. They all won.

L-U-K-A-S - I - F-E-E-L - S-O - N-E-E-D-F-U-L -!-! - I N-E-E-D - Y-O-U - S-O - M-U-C-H -!-!

I knew just how she felt. The same powerful currents of need coursed through me.

Y-E-S - A-N-N-I-K-A - I - F-E-E-L - T-H-E - S-A-M-E -!-! - I - N-E-E-D - Y-O-U - T-O-O -!-!

Our gastropod instincts positioned us perfectly, head to tail, in a 69 ring. The everted penis in my head sought out the vagina in her tail, as she sought mine. We slowly penetrated each other. Oh, what bliss! This was so much better than all the human sexual intercourse we had seen in videos or when we had sneaked views of Papa and Mutti 'resting'.

My penis delved deep into my little sister's amazing gastropod body. Annika probed just as deeply and thoroughly into me, striking all my nerve bundles. We moved in unison. Our long simultaneous orgasms left us writhing in ecstasy as we fired our love-darts into each other.

We lay exhausted together for a timeless time. Our eyestalks were retracted in post-orgasmic bliss now, thus we could not telegraph words; but our biochemical signals of pheromones, and our muscle-language dialogs, were quite eloquent. Our love was immortal.

But our mollusc drives took over. Others of our kind approached us. We mated with them also. The bliss was lesser than we had felt together, but our instincts would not let us turn aside, nor turn them away, no matter that they did not share our empathy. Even so, they were much less satisfactory.

Annika and I crawled away from the others and resumed our own mating. It lasted forever!

Later, we crawled further. We came upon a strange huge object. We slimed our way over and around it, puzzling at its artificial shape and texture. We soon realized it was Greatgrandpapa's camera! Alas, I would never photograph anything again.

We moved on, and nestled together comfortably under an oxalis leaf, and dozed.

And then we were swept away.

=====

"Okay folks, live from the third annual Russian River Poison Oak Festival and SlugFest, this is Doubtful Dave here, your favorite afternoon D.J. on KCUF radio in Santa Rosa, California, bringing you ALL the highlights of this great community event! As you know, proceeds and donations go to the Women's Shelter in Healdsburg, a really great cause, so be generous! Call in your pledges at our hotline: 1-800-FUCK-ALL!

"We've already had the Sasquatch costume competition, and the unicycle race down Highway 116 with surviving contestants trying to dodge beer bottles thrown by the smelly drunks at Club Forestville, and the famous Poison Oak sensitivity contest. First aid was generously provided by the Hacienda 4-H Veterinary Society -- thanks, gals!

"But now, the main event! Get ready for the Great American Banana Slug cook-off! And this year, we have a first! Besides the usual entries of slugs stewed with psilocybin mushrooms, one of our dishes will be LIVE SLUG PIE! Yes, that's right folks, LIVE banana slugs in a pie crust, covered in whipped cream! And our volunteer taste-testing judge is none other than my esteemed colleague, Kimmy Kommando, your morning rush-hour hostess. Yes, that's right, Kimmy will be the first known human to VOLUNTARILY eat LIVE banana slugs!"

Lukas and Annika struggled against the thick whipped cream, but to no avail. They could not even blink G-O-O-D-B-Y-E to each other. What a damn tragedy!

Kimmy Kommando smiled tightly after finishing her pie. She quickly ran backstage to vomit. Oh fuck, why had she ever agreed to this shit? She just HAD to find a new job, somewhere far away. Maybe she would take that offer in Tucson. There were no fucking banana slugs anywhere around Tucson. She just hoped she wouldn't have to eat a live Gila monster.

___

Author's note: Your thoughtful feedback is appreciated. Story started at Lake Tahoe, CA; completed in Portland, OR; edited wherever. Yes, banana slugs were harmed during the production of this tale. Life is always a tragedy, especially when you're struck by lightning. And whipped cream is bad for you. Don't try this at home, kids.