The Futanari

Fumi trembled and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the eraser tip poke around one stiffening nipple, then the other.

/ / /

Mikio spit the last of her bile into the running sink, then brushed her mouth twice to clear the aftertaste. Cold water on her face and the back of her neck revived her some, but the shaky feeling stayed.

Fumi had not come once to check on her, not once, the idiot. Mikio went to her own room, intending to sit until she felt steady. Instead, she climbed into bed without undressing, thinking she might become uncomfortable later, and fell asleep before her head hit the pillow.

/ / /

Fumi woke her without turning on the light. She looked to Mikio like a frayed silhouette in the dark.

"Did you fuck yourself stupid?" Mikio said.

"Don't say that, Miki," Fumi whispered. "You're right, it's alive. It's weird."

Mikio sat up, saying, "Let me see you."

"I need the dark. My eyes are sensitive. I'm hyper-sensitive everywhere right now."

"You're unbelievably depraved."

"When you left the room it held on to me."

"No. No, no, don't say things like that."

"Those creepy things wrapped around my wrists and held me."

"I'm terrified as it is, Fu, don't mess around making things up."

"It's the truth. Feel my skin here." She brushed Mikio's fingertips over the welts that encircled her wrist. "It held me in front of it, Miki, and it did things to me. It played me."

"My god, what does that mean?"

"It's kind of perverted."

"It's alien, do you understand? It's the jinn."

"It knows people. It likes sex."

"Did you have sex with it, Fu? Did you?" When Fumi didn't answer, Mikio said, "We have to kill it."

"Why? Why do we have to do that?"

"It could kill us!"

"With sex?"

"With disease and poison. With corruption."

"You haven't met it."

Mikio jumped from the bed and switched on the light. Fumi looked asleep on her feet, slowly raising her hands to shield her eyes.

"Are you insane? Met it?"

"Turn the light off, it hurts. Please, Miki. Don't shout." Mikio flipped the switch and the dark silhouette of Fumi said, "You owe it the chance to communicate."

Mikio whispered to herself.

"I heard that as if you'd sang it," Fumi said.

"Fumi, I am so scared, so fucking scared. Please don't go all schizo on me like this."

"If you had three ... three ... gut crushing orgasms ... and still felt horny ..." Fumi climbed onto the bed, crawled forward and crashed her face into the pillow. "... you'd act crazy too."

"Are you falling asleep?"

"Hmm ... so worn out ... dreamin' of you ..."

\ \ \

Mikio grabbed her flashlight and the sharpest knife in her kitchen. From the hallway, she tracked the beam across the floor of the room to the foot of the bed, where the rug was wet. The yellow pencil lay in the middle of the spot.

She brought the beam up and saw the jinn, like a weird anemone, rooted to the footboard. It had been sagging in the dark, but when touched by the light it stirred.

She witnessed its movement in a warp of slow time. First the smaller tendrils, those emanating from the bulb at the base, lifted, as if sniffing the air. The stamen elongated and thickened, losing its downward curve and rising to an angle above horizontal. Then, in a fantastic display, the larger tendrils coiled themselves like fiddleheads and quickly unrolled. At full extension they softened rather than snapped, and hovered for a moment with the motion of floating kelp. Abruptly, they coiled back into fiddleheads and repeated the sequence.

Mikio became most disturbed, however, when the erect stamen curved in her direction, as though observing her.

/ / /

"It likes people."

Mikio jumped. Her hand hit the door jamb and she dropped the flashlight.

Before she could speak, Fumi said, "I haven't fucked it yet."

"You scared the shit out of me," Mikio said. "I have a knife."

"Why? You have nothing to fear."

"After what it's done to you? It's fucking predatory!"

As Mikio bent to retrieve her flashlight, Fumi nudged her off balance, into the room. Mikio spun around and raised the knife.

"I'm going to kill it," she said.

"No, Miki," Fumi said, "you can't do that."

Mikio turned to the jinn. Fumi struck her hard, a blow to her spine. It sent Mikio sprawling onto the rug, one hand landing in wetness. She lost the knife. Fumi's weight pressed down on her back.

"I won't hurt you," she said, "but I will protect it."

She pulled Mikio's arms behind her and bound them together with a belt.

"Fumi, this isn't you."

"Shhh, Miki. It doesn't like fear, so just stay calm."

"Then let me go."

"Would you like a closer look at it? I'll introduce you."

"Fuck, don't you dare! I'll kill you both then."

Fumi pulled Mikio to her knees and led her, shuffling, to the door.

"It's possessed you!" Mikio said.

"Out you go, into the hall." With her foot, she toppled Mikio onto her side. "I know what to do now. Wait for me," she said, then stepped back into the room.

\ \ \

Mikio worked her arms to wriggle free. The belt loosened.

The bed was creaking, eh-eh, eh-eh. Fumi's every shudder and moan reverberated. Her murmurs came from deep within. They had the tones of ravishment.

My god, it's in her, Mikio thought. She's fucking it.

/ / /

Mikio freed her hands and rolled onto all fours. Fumi was recovering, steadying her breath.

"Miki?" she said. "Can you come in?"

"What've you done, Fu? What filthy things have you done?"

"It's a little hard for me to move right now. This'll take some getting used to. Can you come in, please?"

Mikio rose to her feet and, leaning against the wall, peered into the room. The beam of her flashlight cut a diagonal across the floor. Fumi was sitting on the bed, hunched, her legs partially illuminated. The jinn was no longer on the footboard. It wasn't in sight.

"Where is it, Fu?"

"I told you I'd protect it."

"I'm not coming in," Mikio said, then she saw it, the knife, in the periphery of the beam, near the corner of the room.

"Don't try it," Fumi said. "I told you I'm hyper-sensitive. I'll be able to walk in a minute. I'll come out to you."

I'll burn the cottage down around it. I'll get her out and put a match to this whole horrid thing, Mikio thought. She said, "I'm going outside, Fu."

On her way through the kitchen, she turned the oven dial on full, leaving the hiss of unignitied gas.

\ \ \

Once out the door, she circled the yard, thinking, Bad move, bad move, Miki. Computer, books. How to light the gas? Stupid! How to save Fumi?

The stridulations of cicadas and katydids filled the night. She looked up, and in the wide gap between rows of trees, she saw Orion and Pleiades.

Breathe, she thought, breathe to think, and in the brief calm that followed a few cadenced lungfuls of air, an unexpected sense of the constellations' beauty blossomed like a tiny flower in her heart.

She ran back into the kitchen and turned the oven gas off. The air was thick enough to sting her sinuses. She threw the windows open.

Fumi called from down the hall. "Miki, I'm ready. Come and see."

Mikio looked into a blinding glare. Fumiko was shining the flashlight straight ahead.

"I can't see with that in my eyes," Mikio said.

"Close your eyes."

"Oh, for fucks sake, Fu."

"Just close your eyes. You won't believe this. It's incredible."

Mikio obliged. "Okay, they're closed."

"Now look," Fumi said.

She had turned sideways and was pointing the flashlight down, spotlighting her tilted loins. Mikio couldn't comprehend the transformation. Fumi had an erection. The jinn was a part of her now, the stamen jutting from her vaginal ... place.

"It's so sensitive," Fumi said, "so excited."

Mikio remained flatfooted with disbelief.

"Me too," Fumi said, "excited, like I'm in this accelerating state of arousal." She took a step toward the kitchen.

"St-st-stay where you are." Mikio backed up a step.

"You're upset. I understand. But, there's no pain, Miki. I don't feel invaded."

"It's an abomination, Fu."

"Yeah? How many of the eight billion people on the planet do you think get to experience something like this?" She sounded agitated.

"There's no way of knowing."

"We can confirm one. Just one. And it's me. It's a miracle, and it's happened to me."

"What is it doing, Fu?"

"It's exciting the fuck out of me. I can feel what it feels too, the both of us, in this kinda loop of excitement."

"How does it stay in?"

"Shit, I haven't even thought about it. I feel a little pressure, that's all. It's pleasant now. Maybe it's something guys feel. It's a hell of a dick, don't ya think?"

"It's alien, Fu. It'll want to reproduce."

"Good luck with that. My eggs are fried."

"I don't think it needs your eggs."

"I'm fascinated by the biology of this! I mean, isn't it an incredible life form?" When Mikio didn't answer she said, with an edge, "Aren't we supposed to celebrate diverse life forms?"

"I'm concerned for your safety, Fu. I love you."

She was stepping backward. Fumiko was shuffling toward her.

"How did it get this fucking big on air and moisture alone? I'd like to know," Fumiko said. "Do you think it was like a sponge, a spore, so compact, so ... compressed, so ... like on a subatomic ..."

Compressed to be-be size.

The thought led Mikio to think of meteorites. Hounds . . .

The government knows.

Fumi isn't the first.

"Damn," Fumiko said, seizing the jinn in her fist. It seemed to blaze under the flashlight. "All I want to do is fuck!"

\ \ \

Animal reflex took over and Mikio fled the cabin for the second and last time that night. She stumbled toward the sandy path, trapped in her mind between the impact site and the menace inside. An old row of brush and trees grew between the cottage yard and the open field beyond. She found the break and walked through it into the tall grass.

It was the night of a new moon. Only starlight, the blazing arc of the Milky Way, lit the field. Fear drove her forward through the dark. Fear and horror and self-recrimination for what she didn't report, didn't kill.

Have I killed Fumi?

Deep into the field, she stopped and bent backward to look up. Satellites grew brighter, then fainter, in their steady trajectories. People grow bright, then die. On the distant side of the field was a flickering glow. Firelight under the treeline. Hounds, camping.

She sat at that spot. In the dark, she could rest and hide and think of what to do. The camp was distant enough that she could hear voices, but not the words. Leaning back, she hardly had to count to twenty before seeing another light streak briefly across the stars, another fragment drawn toward Earth to burn. Mikio remembered, Some seeds need fire to germinate. Then she thought, The Hounds will sweep through here in the morning.

/ / /

She hardly slept. Facing Polaris, she saw the constellations wheel throughout the night around that central star. Orion tipped on his side, then dived backward below the horizon, Pleiades, the Sisters, fleeing before him. She returned to the break prior to first light, peed before going through, then bravely entered the yard. Halfway there, tremors of weakness struck her knees. This time sucking air couldn't keep the rubbery feeling from spreading through her legs. She stopped and bent forward, hands on knees. In the pause between exhalations, she heard Fumi plaintively call her name from inside the cottage, hoarse and exhausted.

As Mikio looked up, Fumi opened the cabin door.

/ / /

She looked ragged, even worse than before, and stepped unsteadily down the two wooden stairs to the grass. She held up something tubular. In the pale light it resembled a threadbare luffa sponge.

Her face was ashen. Her bloodshot eyes brimmed with tears.

"It's dead," she said. "I had a fever. The fever burned it up. Look. It's just —"

She crushed the skeletal fibers.

"It's as brittle as dust. Like it can crumble by itself."

Mikio said, "Where is the rest of it, Fu?"

"It's all gone from inside me. I don't feel anything there. The only thing is, I'm tight, like glued shut. It feels really dry."

"Fu, we have to make sure it's gone."

"Okay, sure. In a minute."

Fumiko showed Mikio a papery bulb, something like a lantern flower.

"This is all that's left," she said.

She held it to Mikio's ear and shook it. The bulb rattled.

"What's inside?" Mikio said.

Fumi crumbled the shell in a fist and blew the pieces off her palm. Two very small, black stones remained.

"Is that what it looked like when you found it?"

"A little bigger. But only one." Mikio looked clearly at her haggard friend. "It took something from you to make these, Fu."

"Can we keep them?"

"Give them to me," Mikio said. "Go in and shower now. Rest."

"What'll you do?"

"What I should've before." There were Hounds nearby. She had two impact sites to dig and tracks to hide. "We have alien life, Fu. It's already part of us."

End