X is for Xylem

Moments later, it again quivered, then shook in ecstasy as it poured it's fluid into her waiting mouth.

"Feed it! Feed it! Feed it!" the creature repeated.

Twice nearly vomiting, Stacy scrambled over towards the clump that now sat on one of the tables. Opening her mouth, she allowed the dark thick sap-like fluid to pour from her mouth over the clump upon the table. She continued to spit until she was sure she had every ounce of fluid out of her mouth, even then grabbing the hose she'd been using to water the plants with, using that to rinse with until she could no longer sense or feel any residue.

"Are you ok?" Danny asked her.

"Yes, you?"

"I'm sorry," came his only response. "Was it bad?"

"Not really, no," she admitted. "Tasted a lot like maple syrup," she confessed though still wiping at her mouth with her tee shirt even though she'd fully revealed her breasts in doing so.

"Great, now I'll never be able to eat pancakes again," Danny stated, trying to make light of the moment.

"You and me both," she told him a bit more seriously.

But they both knew without saying it, now there were two.

#

The following day, Danny had stood by watching poor Mrs. Stevens as she knelt on the floor in front of the creature sucking it off. In a sick-twisted way, he had stood in awe of what he was seeing, disbelief, yet a sick pleasure at watching, his own prick becoming aroused, so much so that he had finally had to turn away until the beast was finished. Leading her towards the small clump still sitting on the table, Mrs. Stevens deposited the thick golden sap over the small lump until Danny was sure she'd spit most if not all of it out. He had then stood, dabbing at the inside of her mouth with a paper towel, the whole time poor Mrs. Stevens standing there glassy-eyed, zombie-like while he did.

"God, I just hope she doesn't ever remember doing this!" he thought silently to himself. Minutes later, he was escorting her out front where she kept licking her lips curiously.

"Funny," she had actually said. "I had eggs benedict this morning for breakfast, but I have this aftertaste like having had pancakes with maple syrup instead!"

Danny merely smiled, saying good-bye and thankfully watched her leave. "I'll be in the back," he told Stacy. "Now it wants me to water it too."

"You want me to help?" she asked knowing how much Danny hated doing this.

"No, I'll manage," he told her. "Just keep an eye on things up here, hopefully it won't take too long."

Though he hadn't experienced that particular little nasty himself, he could almost taste maple syrup in his own mouth as well. Grabbing a coke from the machine, he walked into the back taking a big healthy swig from his drink, and then stumbled on the hose that he'd left carelessly laying on the floor in front of him. Reaching out with his free hand, he just managed to catch the edge of the table steadying himself, and keeping himself from falling. His coke unfortunately spilled, throwing out a streamer of fluid, which fell directly on the creature as it sat anxiously waiting for him to begin watering it with his semen.

The cry of pain that suddenly filled Danny's mind wasn't his own, but the creatures! For a millisecond, he stood in stunned surprise as the areas where the coke had accidentally sprayed suddenly blackened, a good several inches in every direction from the direct impact of that, the leafy-feathery portions turning a sickly brown color instantaneously. Danny placed his thumb over the opening of the coke bottle and began shaking it, releasing it seconds later, spraying the creature and simultaneously screaming out for Stacy.

She was there in the room within a heartbeat after he had. "What?"

"Coke! More coke!" he was screaming at her. "Hurry Stacy hurry!"

It was like dissecting the thing with a laser. Everywhere he or Stacy sprayed coke, great clumps of the creature fell, each blackening, then dissolving into complete and utter nothingness. They had gone back to the coke machine, making several trips until they had expended and used every single coke that the machine had even contained. There wasn't a single solitary trace of anything remaining, except for the small little meteorite that now sat solitarily all by itself in the middle of the now enormously looking cart which stood before them.

Danny poured the last half of the last remaining coke over the small tiny lump still sitting on the table. Both he and Stacy smiled as they watched it dissolve also into complete and utter nothingness.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now we get rid of the rock," he told her. "Just in case!"

#

They had dug a deep hole around back of the shop, filling it with cement. Danny had also taken his fire-proof box that he'd kept all his important documents in, placing the small meteorite down inside a small plastic container, they then filled it up with coke, setting the entire contents of that down inside the box, pouring cement over that before locking and securing it. They then placed the box inside the still wet cement, pouring another two feet over the top of that, covering it with dirt, obliterating any sign that the now deeply buried box even existed.

"So how did all of this happen anyway?" Stacy wondered.

"I've actually been giving that a lot of thought," Danny told her. "I think it was the intense heat of the fire at my grandmother's place that really started it. Sort of like how forest fires are actually needed to begin new growth, start the process of rejuvenation? After that, whatever was either inside that rock, or on it...just needed a little moisture to really get things started. Then, after it had, like any small child beginning to learn, the creature through self-discovery and it's own methods of trial and error, began finding its way, learning speech, understanding, not to mention coming into the sense of it's own peculiar desires and pleasures. Not sure we'll ever fully understand what happened, but all we can do is try and take whatever necessary steps that we can to see that it never happens again!"

#

In time, Stacy and Danny married. Most everyone in town came to the wedding, including Ms. Brown, though Danny and his new bride referred to her privately as Mr. Brown, never telling anyone otherwise. Two weeks after the wedding, news came down that Mrs. Stevens had been killed in a traffic accident. She'd swerved her car in an attempt to avoid hitting a deer, crashing head-on into a tree. She'd been killed instantly.

"It was a nice funeral," Stacy had commented after they had both arrived home.

"Yes, it was. And I'm really going to miss her too. She was one of our best customers!" he added. She had also been the most 'used' customer too, but neither of them mentioned that. Just as neither of them ever again mentioned the creature or the events of the past that had for a while, dominated their every waking minute.

Danny stood fondly smiling at his young bride as she strolled through their shop, kissing each and every one of the new budding roses with the tips of her nipples.

#

Janet Stevens rowed her family canoe out as close to the middle of the small lake as was possible. "Well mom, here we are. Just as you asked." Janet removed the lid from the box containing her mother's ashes, dumping them into the lake. "Ewe!" she exclaimed suddenly looking inside. A small patch of greenish looking moss clung gingerly along one edge of it. Janet glanced quickly about, she was lone. She finished dumping the rest of the contents from the box into the water, and then tossed the box as far away from herself as she could.

"Bye mom!" she said one more time. "I'll miss you!"

And the lake rippled as though in answer to her.