#kinda sorta?

I’d been clambering through the dense underbrush of the forest for hours, an empty satchel bouncing against my hip as I scanned the ground for the plant I’d read about in an old herbalist’s tome: the garnet thrumflower. Cuttings of its aerial roots were said to have a variety of potent alchemical properties, and I'd kept getting requests for them with nothing to offer my very particular and impatient clients.

Typical wizards...

So there went I, traipsing about on a mountainside looking for pretty wildflowers in the dense vegetation.

"A mesmerizing sensory-reactive bloom known for its silken red petals and gentle, tingling aura," the book had said. Useful identifying information, if a bit... flowery, so to speak. The book had also warned of its “enticing nature,” but I hadn’t quite understood to what extent. In my experience, the authors of these things were, at best, prosey and inaccurate, and at worst hyperbolic liars.

My heart did little giddy flips when I finally found it in a tiny clearing. The plant's deep red satin flowers sat atop sturdy but flexible segmented stems. The base of the blooms was shrouded in a low gathering of broad heart-shaped leaves, their tops a dark purple-green with a subtle shimmer that resembled a cockerel's tail feathers. I set down my wide-brimmed straw hat, gathered up the long braid running down my back into a bundle, and set to work. Squatting down in search of the aerial root stalks that should be just underneath the leaves at its base, I began gently parting the loose soil.

Even after a few minutes, the roots were proving to be as elusive as the plant itself, to the point where my calves ached in exertion. I forced myself to rise from my stooped position and stretched my back with a few pops and a groan. When I felt a faint patter on my ankle, I looked down and was greeted with a delicate webbing of pale green moss-like material reaching from the foliage and latching onto my calf.

The corners of my mouth turned up with a brief twinge. "Hello there," I gently greeted it, as though the thing had ears. It must have been attracted to my body heat like the literature detailed.

The tendrils continued undeterred up my lower leg and under my skirt, so I lifted one edge and fed the pinched fabric through one of my leather skirt hikes to watch with curiosity. Once they passed above my calf-high boots, a small rusty brown nub emerged from the tip of each mossy tendril, resembling the buds of a willow. Well, weren't those curious...

My wonderment didn't last long when it slid its winding way past my knee, under my hiked skirt, testing and prodding at my flesh. At each point of contact the nubs left a powdery residue, like kisses in lipstick. It began subtly, but I noticed a mild stinging warmth building where my skin was bared to the thrumflower's mossy tendrils.

"Not going to let me go so easily, are you?" I murmured, my breath hitching as the green lattice spread more densely around my knee and up my lower thigh, its surface brushing against my skin in a way that sent shivers up my spine.

I hesitated to go for my knife to cut the things away. I didn't exactly want to pull away too hard from the fragile vines, they looked very easy to snap, and I had no intention of damaging the thing. It stood to reason that the red nubs might be its anthers, the pollen-bearing male parts of many plant species. This was the thrumflower's method of pollination, according to the book; attract creatures to it to transfer the pollen to its stigma, the female part. I wasn't going to fault a plant for just trying to get itself laid.

"You and me both, little buddy."

Briefly, I amused myself with the image of acting as a little worker bee for this plant, when another ripple of growing pleasure rolled through me. A near itching was building in my core, and I was reminded of the section on the thrumflower's application as an aphrodisiac. Well, shit. I couldn't very well get those root clippings like this, I thought. Gingerly, I tried to move my leg, but the plant's webbing held fast to me.

By now the tendrils had reached mid-thigh, the velvety texture of its tips sending more waves at each touch. Goosebumps blossomed and slowly traveled up my outer thighs, to my hips, up to my chest and shoulders, finally up to my scalp and the ends of my tapered ears indicative of my elven heritage. Heat flushed across my cheeks like I was suddenly struck with fever, and my nipples began to pique, each sensation echoing through the shockwave.

The book had mentioned a tingling sensation like a mild allergic reaction if it made direct, prolonged contact with skin, but this? This was far more than a tingle, I thought as my pulse fluttered.

I let out a soft sigh, my body betraying me as my legs bowed just a little wider, inadvertently giving the thrumflower more room to explore. It took the invitation without hesitation, spiraling higher, until its budded tendrils brushed against the already sensitive apex between my thighs. Moments later, the sensations that had been ricocheting around my body quieted as the warmth in my sex shifted into a pleasant prickling that made me pulse and ache. It reminded me of a salve I'd seen used in a brothel once, for magnifying sensitivity of the clitoris. I wondered now about that salve's ingredients.

By now, more anther-topped filaments had joined the first few, their movements synchronized in a way that would have felt deliberate in a sentient creature. Still below my skirt, they wrapped around my hips, my waist, sliding up to gently cradle my sex. I let out a low moan, my back arching as the delicate vines tightened their grip. My own movements made my nipples brush against the rough fabric of my tunic, and the moan pitched up into a pithy whine. Gods, how much more would this thing do to me?

I couldn't take the abrasive texture much longer.

Every ragged breath, every heave of my chest, caused friction against my tunic that felt like daggers. Like they would slice open the fabric concealing them at the slightest brush. I barely registered the way my hands lifted to my blouse and made quick albeit fumbling work of the buttons holding it closed. Open went the shirt and down came my linen breast-band underneath.

"Ff-uck," I sighed as I sank to my knees, my full, aching breasts now exposed to the cool mountain air. Finally, some semblance of relief.

And then— Oh Gods... I had spoken too soon. It found my clit, swirling around it in torturously chaotic circles that made me cry out and fold onto all fours, my hands fisting in the dirt as I fought to keep myself grounded.

My body convulsed as the pollen took full effect, every nerve now alight with a desperate need for release. Even the tips of my ears burnt coal-red.

Through the pheromone-soaked fuzz intoxicating my brain, I barely scraped enough of myself together to try and remember the book. Okay... So this plant used creatures that got too close to it as pollinators. That's what the red anthers were brushing against my slit for. So it stood to reason, even horny reason, that the aim was to get the pollen from the thrumflower's male parts to its female parts. Basic reproduction.

With concentrated effort, I looked around for one of the fully opened blooms and quickly identified its pistil. Easy enough, despite the fog of make-love-not-war pulsing through my nervous system. A white stalk stood tall and proud from the center of another deep red flower, a slight swell at its top.

I grimaced at myself. "Okay, Clove, you're about to have your way with a fucking flo-- ahgghh!" I gasped as another jolt of pleasure shot straight to my core as it teased me, coaxing me further into this strange, intoxicating encounter.

Fuck it, my inhibitions weren't that strong at the best of times.

I reached for the flower blindly, my fingers trembling as they closed around its unabashedly phallic center. Without hesitation, I hiked my skirt over my waist and positioned it along my needy slit, and with one hand rubbed its nubbed length along myself in one fluid motion.

I quickly fell into a grinding motion with the flower held fast against my sex. I had been absolutely soaked. My own natural lubricant mixed with the pollen to coat the flower's pistil, spreading the powdery red material along it. The plant responded quickly to our contact, its tendrils tightening and pulsing around me, matching the rhythm of my own movements. I milled myself against the spongy, bulbous end of the pistil with abandon, but with nothing for my core to grab onto, the burning in and between my thighs only built to agonizingly delicious heights.

It wasn’t long before I was teetering on the edge, my breaths coming in shallow gasps as the thrumflower continued its relentless assault on my senses and better judgment.

The words flashed in front of my eyes about the Thrumflower's aphrodisiac pollen, how it could overwhelm the mind with desire if you weren’t careful. Another thrust of my hips sent my clit bumping against the pistil's enlarged tip, sticky with my own nectar. I was far past careful.

And still somehow, it wasn't enough, I realized with another whining howl as I broke into a sweat. Too much, this was just too damn much. Edging much more in this indignity was going to drive me insane.

Nothing left in my mind but desperation and needing impossibly more, more, more stimulation, my free hand found its way to my breast and palmed it roughly. As I rolled it, my still-erect nipple got caught in a pinch between my first and middle finger, the lascivious sensations all fitting together perfectly to cue the perfect feeling.

I came undone in the way that one usually only achieves in complete and total isolation.

My body shook with the force of my orgasm as it tore through me, and if anyone else had been in this little neck of the woods some distance from the beaten path, they would have heard a roaring scream more befitting of a bugbear than an elf. Although still empty, my walls clenched in wild pulses, each sending more waves of ecstasy through me and leaving me wrung out and gasping for air. That must have been enough pollination, because the lattice-like vines loosened their grip almost immediately, releasing me as I collapsed onto the forest floor. My still-bare chest heaved as I rolled onto my back and tried to catch my breath.

The flower catapulted up from its position pinned under my body and settled upright as it had been, as though running away from our dalliance like a lover caught cheating. The whole plant finally stilled, seemingly sated, though its pistil now glistened in the afternoon light.

As I lay there, spent and trembling, my refocusing gaze fell on my original target: the thrumflower's aerial roots, hiding at the base of the plant beneath its broad, iridescent leaves. The little motherfuckers must have been uncovered as I was thrashing about trying to find my release, I thought with a flare of indignant fury. I stared at them while I regained the feeling in my muscles and the slickness between my legs cooled. When I finally sat up, the ringing subsiding from my ears, I gathered a handful of the root fibers, being careful not to arouse more of the stamen-tendrils from emerging from the foliage. Without further incident, I put them in my satchel, smoothed out my clothes, and made my quiet way back down to civilization.