#othertypeofache

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.

"Hullo, hullo!" I chimed with exaggerated brightness, poking my head into the threshold of the enchanter's tower. The oppressive humidity I'd been melting in for days dissipated pleasantly from my skin as the interior's cool air breezed past me through the cracked doorway. Enticing. All but beckoning me inside. I stepped in and shut the door softly behind me, and called out again.

I let a minute pass, but still no one answered my greeting. Strange. Usually spell casters were showy creatures; to not even have a simulacrum or mage hand about felt… uncharacteristic. Most would have wards or an alarm at the entrance to their dwellings, at the very least.

I wasn't one to do house calls, but I'd heard word of a potential new client: a promising newer graduate of the arcane institutes of higher learning. And as much disdain as I had for wizards, I had to admit that they made for highly valuable patrons.

The former master of the tower had been a crotchety old human with a reputation for dismissing all but a few long-standing suppliers. After their death, the building had sat dormant for a few years. The successor was chosen by their alma mater, and the new inhabitant had converted the lower chambers into a shop of sorts.

A shop that would undoubtedly need supplies in the future.

So now was the perfect time to go cast a line.

The wizard's tower had been visible for miles. An older construction, its masonry and wooden elements looked weathered and rounded on the edges, and, to the untrained eye, abandoned. But the inside…

The ground floor was crowded with a wealth of curiosities. Shelves sagged beneath the weight of brass instruments whose purposes I couldn’t begin to guess. On the near wall sat an ornate astrolabe and cages of silver wire containing only dust. Glass jars lined another display case, each filled with wet specimens ranging from serpent eyes to auroch tails; one bookshelf was piled high with powders in layered shades of red and gold and curled scrolls of parchment, yellowed and wrinkling under their own weight.

I set down my straw hat and wooden apothecary pack next to a rack of staves by the door, some tipped with crystal, others with assorted skulls. Toward the center of the room and backed against yet another bookshelf, a scatter of books spilled across a low counter top, their spines cracked, pages crowded with notes in the margins that were scribbled in at least three separate hands.

Everywhere I looked, the place breathed with secrets. Some forgotten. Others abandoned. Treasures or traps, depending on the buyer’s wit. For once, my fingers did not urge me to inspect anything with my hands, instead opting to hold them behind my back while I perused.

A towering suit of armor on the far wall caught my eye in particular. It was a stunning piece of plate mail, intricately etched with scrollwork across its steely surface. The helmet was sculpted in an armet style and topped with a proud plume of purple feathers, more for ceremony than for the strain of battle. However, the armor's beauty, its craftsmanship, was undercut by a sizeable protrusion at the waist. Ye gods, they made articulated armor for that, too?

The fauld strapped to its waist split in the middle to make way for a broad, sculpted codpiece, exaggerated and brazenly decorated similarly to the rest of the armor. It was polished to a mirror sheen, ridged and standing proud like the bow of a ship. I estimated that it was a little longer than my full hand span, and thicker than some prize-winning root vegetables I'd seen. I got distracted at the thought. Of the things that never changed, men and war and strange displays of virility never disappointed.

Tearing my attention away from the suit, my gaze landed on the various displays of bottles and potions arranged in chaotic groups across the shelves. I still knew better than to touch, but I did note that this young wizard was indeed low on many common ingredients that I knew other spell casters kept in stock. My instincts had been correct, and I started making a mental list of what products I could suggest they invest in.

I had just taken a step toward the unit behind the main counter when something convulsed beneath my boots, like I'd stepped on an animal. A wave of the red and blue carpet surged up and swept my legs out from under me. I cursed aloud in the tumble before I was laid flat and the wind was knocked out of me.

Before I could get my bearings, thick wool overtook me, winding about my body like a python. It folded around with startling speed, edges wrapping tight around my ribs and arms and pinning them to my sides. I twisted. Each layer coiled and pressed in until every breath came shallow and hard-won. With every panicked movement I made, it pulled tighter, harder. My boots scraped uselessly against the stone as I tried to find purchase, but the angle was wrong, so my knees remained splayed wide.

Exhausted and panting, I finally stilled with my head pointed down the aisle between the bookshelf and counter. The carpet stilled too. Its fabric was coarse against my skin and reeked of dust, magical oils, and something faintly acrid. In the chaos, my skirts had twisted and gotten caught over the edge of the rug around my waist. I grasped at them with my exposed fingers, to no avail. I was thoroughly trapped. On my knees. In a rug.

Tentatively, I attempted to move again, and found that If I tried so much as shifting my weight, it still squeezed around me with its vice grip, holding me firmly in place.

Maybe I could--

"INTRUDER DETECTED."

My head whipped around to no avail, the carpet effectively acting like horse blinders. The shuffling of metal sheets rattled behind me in a leaden pace. I froze as a tall shadow fell across the floor.

The armor was animated.

Of course it bloody was.

Panic returned, and I began to squirm again. I was helpless like this, and gods knew what it would do to me after trespassing into its master's shop. I didn't even remember if it had had weapons in its hands. Not that it would need them. It was big enough that it could probably crush me with a single blow.

The shadow sank, and a corresponding metallic clatter came from directly behind me. And then…

I gasped as the armor knocked my legs wider apart, and a pair of leather and metal palms grabbed my hips. I felt something solid brush against my backside.

A wash of something like trepidation overtook my half-prone form. A single image leapt into my mind and the back of my neck prickled. The codpiece. Cold metal pressed against me. I recalled in near horror how big the thing looked standing to attention in the corner. Did I even have the dimensions right? Fuck. Would I be able to survive taking all that? It began to rub what I assumed to be its tip against my slit. To my surprise, it glided smoothly along my folds.

I gulped– legitimately gulped– as a twinge of sick curiosity echoed deep in me. How would taking all of that feel?

I jumped slightly as it prodded into me with a testing nudge. Lucky for me, it didn't try to hit home all in one stroke, instead opting to start with shallow yet smooth motions to open me up. It took a minute until it fully breached, and I hissed as the steel member parted me wide in a steady press.

And it kept. Sinking. In. I whimpered at the unending torture of each slow inch. Once it met too much resistance, the armor pulled back with a creak of metal and leather, only to carefully drive further into me, lubricated with my own arousal. My subdued body yielded to it in such a way that had me wondering if a love potion had broken open in the commotion. A look around with what little field of view I had left said no, no potion. Only the needy responses of a touch-starved woman.

Each extraction the codpiece made was accentuated by a rippling feeling inside me as my walls morphed around it. My legs quaked. Whoever made the suit, I thought, was a master of their craft. Perverted, but masterful nonetheless. Each plate joined in a streamlined smoothness, and I found myself keening in short breaths at each and every delightful ridge. Like it was made to fuck only me.

The armor's motions, on the other hand, were not attuned to my own. I must have shifted at one point, arched my hips up, because when it dove back into me, it hit a wonky angle somewhere in my pelvis. A sharp cry leapt from my throat before my body could decide whether it liked it or not. The following quickening of my pulse and a thrum in my core said it did.

I barely registered the threatening high-pitched whining sound, like something mechanical charging up, and a voice from the armor echoed, "SILENCING INTRUDER." A sharp sting exploded on my hindquarter as steel met flesh. I yelped again, the pain bringing a blush to both sets of cheeks.

"SILENCING INTRUDER," the tinny voice repeated. Again, another slap to my ass. Another yelp. Another strike. Another in near-comical repetition. Soon I was gritting my teeth and despite the unpleasant scent, I buried my face into the rug and bit it to stifle myself. The armor carried on its steady rhythm, but the shock of the first strikes had warmed my insides enough with embarrassing pleasure that I couldn't help but relish the filling stretch of my walls.

With each new thrust, a soft squelching sound grew louder from the other side of the carpet holding me captive. The sounds escaping my throat evolved into softer grunts. I thanked whatever gods were watching me, likely with amusement, that my noises didn't register to the armor as something to be quieted, and it went on uninterrupted.

I sighed in relief, my stinging cheeks finally having a semblance of reprieve, soothed by the cool cellar-like air of the room. The armor's codpiece was now hammering away. Every shunt into my wet, helpless pussy sent the rest of my body jolting forward. With no limbs free with which to catch myself, I was soon being shoved face first into the stone floor. Ridiculous as this was, the unyielding pressure of the rug around my torso wasn't nearly as unpleasant as it first seemed. It was nearly comforting, now that the fight in me was depleted.

"Let it happen," my deepest thoughts soothed with sensuous longing.

It was true, my journey out here had been a lonely one. I didn't stick around adventuring parties for very long, but usually one of them had some kind of muscular fighter or lithe rogue among them that wouldn't think twice about sharing a bed with the "exotic sensuality" of a female elf. I'd been alone nearly a week. I needed this.

Experimentally I tilted my hips back up. If I angled it right, the tip of the codpiece brushed against the spot that had made me cry out earlier. Carefully controlled, however, and it made me shiver and moan with each thrust.

Soon my thighs burned as I held my position as still as possible while the armor railed into me. This was perfection. A familiar coil of tension wound itself deep inside me, I choked out another cry as I began cresting over the edge of an orgasm. The first shuttering pulse of my walls came, and--

"What in…" said a tenor male voice. Then, with urgency, "Oh dear gods! Cease! Halt! Er, vekrol! Vekrol!"

The metal inside me withdrew with a rude "pop" that made me gasp, and the thick carpet binding my body unfurled to deposit me face-up on the stone floor. Still mentally one step behind, I growled angrily at the sudden loss of fullness and pressure.

I propped myself up with my arms, and when my head finally stopped spinning, I looked up into the face of a younger man with dark curly hair and a complexion nearly as red as his long robes. His mouth hung agog, speechless. Beside him, the armor stood to attention— double, even— silently awaiting its next orders.

I followed the man's gaze to my lower half, my aching, vacant pussy on full display, and covered it up in one motion with my outer skirts. His mouth snapped shut as if he remembered himself. Barely emerging from my lust-filled haze, I blinked hard and shook my head to clear it. "Are you… Aurelio Klasp?" I asked with a dry swallow and ragged breath.

Don't let it ever be said that I don't try to be professional.

A long pause preceded a blink back into his own functional consciousness ."Yes," he answered, then remembering propriety, "Miss…?"

"Clove," I finished for him. I dusted myself off and readjusted my clothes to more modest measures, but did not rise from my seat on the floor. "I take it that this armor is yours," I huffed, pointing. "Are you the one who enchanted it?"

"No," he said, still bewildered. "Mistress Cray did. Er, my predecessor."

"Mist--" I stopped. "Mistress Cray? A woman?"

He nodded. Rapidly.

Well. Good for her.

"What— what exactly happened here, Miss? I saw the feathers moving and heard, well—" Aurelio sputtered. "I thought the armor was supposed to, well, you know, guard the place."

I nodded, smiling fiercely with pursed lips as he helped me to my feet. "Did Mistress Cray ever marry? Have much company over?"

"Not that I know of."

"Mm. I thought so," I nodded. "That," I pointed again to the suit of armor, who stood taller than the both of us, "was definitely not created to be a guard."

"Oh…" Aurelio said, then, with recognition, "oh." He might polymorph into a tomato if he got any redder. "I-I'm sorry, Miss Clove, I—"

"Listen, Mister Klasp," I interrupted, "judging from the tent pole rising from your robes, I take it you are a warm-blooded male like any other: interested in women. Do I have that right?"

"Yes, Miss," he answered carefully, now adjusting the front of his clothing.

"And did you at all enjoy what you saw when you got here?" I held his gaze. "Do not tell me what you think I want to hear."

I could see the cogs turning in his head so fast it should have been raising steam. "You are…" he paused, "a very alluring woman, Miss Clove."

I nodded approvingly. "Just 'Clove,' Aurelio. You've seen enough of me for that. Now, if you don't mind, I would like some kind of quid pro quo for the inconvenience I've been through this afternoon."

I held out my hand, which he stared at blankly for a second before reaching for a heavily-laden pouch on his belt.

"No," I scolded gently, "Put that away. I am not asking for money." He seemed puzzled at this. "But," I continued, "I just spent the last week making my way out to this tower of yours, without anyone to keep me warm at night. And then when I got here, I received the unexpected but not unpleasant experience of being rutted by a suit of animated armor. Only to be interrupted before I can bloody finish." The unhinged smile flashed on the edges of my mouth. "I am… beyond frustrated, Mister Klasp. If you catch my meaning."

Finally the man paled a little bit.

"Therefore," I drew out, "I would very much appreciate it if you made it up to me for stopping that hunk of metal before I could get off. So, take my hand, an— there we go." I softened my expression as I deftly closed the gap between us. "You can do that by taking me upstairs to your bed— please tell me you have a normal, unenchanted bed, Aurelio."

"I-I do," he answered, the blush returning to his thin cheeks.

I nodded gravely, gratefully, " —where you are going to show me a very good time." Another step forward and my chest was flush with his, his erection pressed between us and radiating heat like a furnace. "And then after, we can discuss the matter of magic supplies, like I came here to do in the first place." I willed the flame in my eye to turn smoky. I could feel his heartbeat pounding through half a mile of thick fabric. "Do we have a deal?"

"Right. Yes, of course," he breathed, already entranced.

I gave his hand one solid squeeze before letting go and turning toward the staircase behind us.