Indicum Vernum (Indigo Spring)

Author Note: This is not insta-spank-bank material. It is surreal and somewhat dense material, requiring an attention span greater than twitter post. There are several scientific words, you might need a dictionary, I know I did, but the resulting word-porn was delectable. Praise in public, criticize in private - your feedback is appreciated.

*****

A Study in Botanical Reproductive Systems

They called it the Greenhouse out of earthly habit. In exoplanetary truth, it should have been cobalt but that didn't have the same ring. Nevertheless, blue was the atmosphere on Kepler-10b. This was predominately due to the metal levels in the surface composition. The light from the sun-star that managed to filter through the gaseous whorls, reflected the bruised indigo hues of iron infused lava rock.

Dr. Markel Jenner's job as an extra-terrestrial botanist, was to develop indigenous, alien plant-life. Not such an easy task living below the craggy surface. Above temperatures were untenably super-heated. Even during the night half of the planet's cycle, it would scorch any bio-matter to a cinder.

Under the pervious rock, the subterranean troposphere was perpetually cerulean. The cooler climes of moonrise informed his senses that it was time to get up. He stretched his arms wide, all bodily muscles tensing then relaxing.

In the galley, he paused to slurp down a blueberry bagel extract. Better than plain, still unappetizing after eating them for the better part of an Earth year. There were only so many choices on the breakfast menu in his dietary supplements. Ah, space-food.

After gulping down his daily nutrients, he cleaned his hands with an anti-bacterial gel that left his hands smelling like a hospital. Even with the humidifier artificially moisturizing the air, the disinfectant evaporated off the doctor's skin visibly. He had actually tried observing it when he first arrived on the exoplanet, amazed at the natural time-elapse effect.

Pausing at the adjacent Greenhouse door, Markel plucked his favorite water-spritzer from the shelf and held it to a spigot embedded directly into the wall. Behind that very wall, a series of piping spread like roots into the pores of black basalt. Lined with a hyper-spongy sort of skin, they collected the gasses that became trapped underground, cooled, and condensed them into thin rivulets of water.

He shut the tap off when the precious liquid reached the top, and screwed down the pump. It was old-fashioned, this bygone garden tool, but he used it anyway. The careful attention to detail that was required for its use had fostered in him an empathy for his plants. To nurture them was a masterstroke - like Michaelangelo, through Markel's touch these plants had life.

A glowing red button beckoned his palm and the door circulated, swiveling open. Markel stepped in, watering can in hand, and the door spun as if to deposit him in a darkroom. If anything, the longhouse that opened before him fluctuated between a pale seafoam and deep oceanic blue. It depended on the temperature of day.

The botanist closed his eyes, drawing in a breath. Even in the arid desert, one could not mistake the smell of organics. It was the scent of life, of wonder. Slowly exhaling, he allowed his gaze to open upon row after row of plant-beds. Stepping onto the gravelly floor, he ran his hand over the tall blades of bluegrass, letting them tickle his palm with a smile.

Photosynthesis on Kepler-10b primarily processed the emerald greens and ochre spectrums of light, causing the plants to take reds, blues and purples. Spritzing the bluegrass, he moved to the next aeration tray, surveying the plant-pod with care. Her flavonoid biosynthesis produced a sort of bilberry skin-tone.

Markel's brow knit closer as he noted a newly dried up layer of plum epidermis. It had gathered around the base of the bulbous plant like a disheveled garment. Inscrutably, he felt particular affection for the alien beauty of this plant and fussed over her health .

Perhaps it was the pale-blue of her prickled dagwood skin, with its elaborate latticework of heliotrope veins that captured his fancy. Or maybe, he thought as he gently pinched free the old layer, maybe it was the elegant curvature of her multiple stems which swept upward into unopened leaves of mulled wine.

"Day 273, angiospermae indicae remains more finicky than an orchid, refusing to bloom." He swiped at his brow. The heat of the night was heralding the onset of Spring season. "Water levels provide for adequate subsistence, yet she is either incapable or unwilling to yet show herself."

The plumage of his Indigo Plantae was a mystery yet unsolved. He only knew that there were magnificent discoveries secreted within her omphalos, and it was his job to coax them forth. Stroking a textured leaf between his forefinger and thumb, Dr. Jenner soothed the micro-hairs reassuringly.

Astonishingly, the scarlet plume began to unfurl. The extraterritorial botanist stood enrapt. Before his very eyes, the blade widened, flattening into his palm. Heart pounding, he waited patiently, a thin sheen of nervous anticipation upon his skin.

Soon, the crimson leaf relaxed and floated from his palm to drape buoyantly from her stem. Markel waited a good five minutes before he dared move from her presence. This was a development requiring immediate documentation and he made a beeline for his office lab.

****

The botanical scientist reclined in an armchair, sipping at a shot of chilled H2O. It was guilty pleasure that he allowed himself once a week, and this one in particular. For seven consecutive days now, his lovely Indigo had unfurled a new, intoxicating leaf into his palm until they were all prettily displayed.

To be positive that it was his touch she responded to, he waited one morning, quietly watching. Her merlot plumage remained tightly cloistered until he could resist no longer. Deftly, he caressed the velvety spindle until it gracefully unfolded into his cupped palm. His pulse hammered. It was as if she were holding his hand, lapping at the beads of moisture.

It was a peculiar behavior that he had not yet decoded. Indigo seemed to thirst for his perspiration as if she were parched. Once however, with his rudimentary knowledge, he had overwatered her and she wrinkled like an enormous blue raisin. He'd laid under her table for an hour with an air-blower, trying to dry as much of the wet soil before she drowned. It had been a close call.

Now he sat staring at a wall-sized diagram of Darwin's "Geological Succession of Organic Beings". Was sentient plant life possible? The scientist in him dismissed the frivolity in favor of ruminating over the change in conditions. If she had enough hydration, why his hands?

From the ceiling, a rude banshee wail caused Markel's glass to startle against the end-table.

"What the...?" It was a question that he already knew the answer: the atmospheric modulator alarm. He leapt to his feet and hurried through the kitchen toward the revolving door. Emerging on the other side, a waft of bone-dry air threated to chap his lips on impact.

Dr. Jenner popped open the face of the control panel and stared in disbelief at the reading. Absolute humidity: zero.

How was that even possible? He checked the stats on the central humidifier. All was in working order. Turning to survey the room, there he saw her. Indigo had ballooned from the size of a pomegranate into a giant, oval beach ball.

He hurried over as fast as his slippers would allow him. Roots dangled through the mesh of her nest bed, broad leaves wafting contentedly in the stale air, of their own volition. They shimmered with a thin layer of gelatinous film. She was consuming the ambient moisture in the air, clever girl.

The bluegrass to her left and the stag-eye nettle to the right had both shriveled of sudden dehydration. He was going to have to move her into a ground level plot to accommodate this growth spurt. Immediately.

Dr. Jenner cursed under his breath; he was still in his pajama pants for crying out loud.

Hustling back over to the atmospheric controller, he cranked the humidity up. The coolant kicked in and started pumping moisture into the air once more. Grabbing the utility cart from the janitorial closet, he steered it toward his sky-blue beauty.

With the surgical skill of a doctor of plants, he took up a trowel and began to uproot the swelling, alien pod. For all he knew, she could burst at any moment, emitting a poisonous toxin. Instead, she had a very different reaction: her leafy tendrils began to caress his skin as he worked.

It was an awkward sensation, the pleasurable little massage as the margins of her leafy hands felt their way up his arms. Every inch, her jellied leaves absorbed the damp evidence of his labor. By the time he had successfully dislodged her from her tray, all seven vines had wound about his arms, waist and chest, soaking up his perspiration.

Quickly, he moved toward the far end of the greenhouse. Indigo grew fuller in his hands with every step. Sprouting from her pert, calyx mouth centered upon her crown, was an elongated pistil, ready for collection. That had not previously been there...had it?

His arms burned with her burgeoning weight and he reluctantly allowed the ovoid plant to lean against his chest. Her petiole arms and legs shot around him, feathering across his bare back, embracing his neck and waist, sponging his skin.

The sensation was eerily human, and his primal flesh stirred against her. He'd taken this mission after being estranged from his ex-wife and, until this moment, had been content in his monastic assignment. Suddenly he found himself reminded of the lustful force of manhood.

The fuller she budded, the slower his pace became. His breath came in labored huffs. Droplets of sweat gathered at his hairline, now plastered to his face. Drawn in by the pheromone scent of testosterone, Indigo's swollen pistil flagged, sweeping across his brow and swabbing up every last salty molecule.

Salt. Oh, it was so plain now. Just like humans, she needed the salt of electrolytes to actually absorb the water that he fed her with maximum proficiency. The cyan omphalos was voraciously consuming his every bodily juice.

Markel's mind didn't have a chance to follow that to its conclusion. He stumbled, train of thought abruptly derailed by a coiling sensation that wound through the buttonhole in his pajama pants and around his cock. White knuckles tightened, ensuring he wouldn't lose his grip on the plant.

Indigo's stamen had encircled his erection, in a double-helix of massage, endlessly swirling around his shaft like a window spinner cradling giant baubles. If not for the distraction of carrying her elongating form toward her new bed, he might have doused her then and there. Somehow, he managed to press on, pulled and led by the shapely alien in his hands.

Reaching the thatch of soft dirt, Indigo slipped from his hands to take root like some anthropomorphic ghille-dhu. He caught himself, arms braced against the wall behind her, unable - unwilling - to disentangle himself from her cerulean sweetness.

She spiraled snuggly around his thick member until he throbbed in the grasp of her stamen. Only then did she unfurl around him; a voluptuous, blue calla-lily of a blossom into which he slid flawlessly. Markel groaned, fully penetrating the foreign sex-organ. Her single, feminine petal was slick with the moist salve that he now understood was her arousal, driving him to push into her open slit. Fuck. She was seducing him.

He ached to feel her spherical curvature and let one hand slip down her rounded backside, urgently groping her fleshy pelt. The swelling of her body had transformed her veins into an attractive purple cross-hatch pattern over her skin. Indigo was beautiful beyond imagination.

The doctor wished he could kiss her, and a pistil slipped across his mouth and asserted itself between his lips. She was toying with his tongue, tasting him every bit as much as he was savoring her. Her crimson vines tightened around him, pulling him into her. He urged against her with renewed enthusiasm, feeling the charge deep within his loins pulling his balls up tight.

Her limbs enveloped him bodily, as if thighs and arms and long legs were entwining him. She caressed his every limb, tangling around his thighs and calves. Brushing across his nipples sending a shockwave of sensation through his body. His cock flexed inside her; that pretty little flower was massaging him toward release. Markel gasped as the silky end of her stigma glided around his bulging spearhead and just teased the eye, causing him to drench her with semen.

Indigo drank it all in leaving him breathless. Relentlessly, she tightened and teased around his prick until he irrigated her with thick, white streams a second time. Markel gasped as he released himself, shaking biceps barely holding him in place. He didn't trust his legs to move as he felt her tap the last few drops of moisture from his bacchanalian member.

*****

Rising the next evening, Dr. Jenner hurried through his eatery; he did not grab breakfast. Swift steps carried him straight to the angiospermae indicae at the end of a long row of unearthly botanicals.

During the day, she had flowered an abundance of petite delphinium blossoms, varying from indigo to azure. Clusters of violet berries gathered under her magenta leaves. Markel plucked a fruit, rolling it in his fingers.

Just as he had watered her with his seed, now she was sharing her juices with him. The flesh punctured easily under his teeth, gifting him the first human taste of alien plant life. It was the most succulent berry to ever touch his lips.