Chapter 1

Amy, Kelly, and I were usually full of friendly chatter and conversation as we went about our days at New Gaia PolyTechnic, but about a month ago this one xeno-biology lecture definitely made an impression. We met at the door in wide-eyed silence as we exited the classroom lab, and even after exchanging nauseated expressions it still took a couple moments until anyone spoke up.

"Damn, Kelly," said Amy at last, "you were right. That shit is soooo fucked up."

"I know," replied Kelly, "and it's just a fucking plant, you know what I mean? How creepy is that?"

"And that shape," added Amy. "What possible reasons could a plant have for growing a piece that looks exactly like a human dick, anyway?"

"Fungus," I said softly as I followed my friends down the hall.

"What?" Kelly asked.

I just kept walking, staring at my feet and not quite realizing Kelly had asked me a question.

"Wendy. Yo," she said, finally catching my attention. "What do you mean, 'fungus'?"

"Nothing, sorry," I replied. "It's just ... it's not really a plant — biologically, it's more like a fungus." I had a work-study job as a Teaching Assistant in the xeno-bio department, but I usually tried not to bore my friends with details about pistils and stamens and the like.

"Plant, fungus, whatever. It's fucking disgusting. And could you believe that shit about 'psycho-sexual reactions'?" Kelly asked, rolling her eyes for effect. "What a crock. She wishes, the old perv..." Blonde and stunning, Kelly saw most things through a prism of sexuality because that's how most people saw her.

"She did say it was a myth," added Amy.

"Yeah right, a myth she gets off on every time she's up in that lab all alone doing 'research.' Sicko..." Kelly didn't really mind the leers she got from her professors, including Walters. Actually she rather enjoyed all the attention, even when it came from women. Kelly certainly wasn't opposed to the occasional girlfuck and Walters kept herself in nice enough shape and everything — she had a gorgeous pair of breasts, in fact — but, still, Kelly had a serious boyfriend at the moment, and besides, Walters had to be at least, like, 40 in terran years. Eww.

"It is kind of amazing, though," continued Amy. "You get so accustomed to thinking only animals can exhibit that kind of predation, but competition is competition, right? So by definition, any native species that survived the pre-colonial terraforming would have had to be the ones that adapted and found ways to continue to propagate. And think about it, lots of parasites alter the behavior of their hosts, this one evidently just altered things a little more ... profoundly."

As bouncy and bubbly as her short brunet curls, Amy was the friendly one among us — and her heavy, delectable breasts and full, ripe hips made her a very nice friend to have. None of us found it particularly hard to attract lovers, and together we were basically the apex predators of the social food chain at PolyTech.

"Yeah, whatever. Save it for finals, brainiac." Kelly got almost all A's, too, but never missed a chance to tease Amy for being the smartest. "Look, I'm going to have to skip the coffee shop today, girls — I've done next to nothing for that Orbital Mechanics test on Friday, so I'm going to hit the books instead. Kisses!"

After a quick wave in reply, Amy and I headed off as a pair, but after only a couple steps I pulled up short. "Shit," I said, patting my pockets. "I, ummm ... Shit, I think I left my, uh, commlink back at the lab — Ames, you go ahead and get us a table, I'll catch up. Order me a latte, okay?"

"Oh. Well, ... okay," said Amy forlornly as I hustled off back the way we came. "Bye."

I've always had a knack for little white lies, but even to this day I still cannot believe I pulled that one off. The way my heart was racing, I barely made it out of the lab without having a heart attack — or more likely, given the circumstances, collapsing under a tidal wave of orgasms.

Even as aroused as I had gotten during class, though, I truly didn't intend to act on it until Kelly begged off our traditional post-class coffee break. With her gone, I knew I could misdirect Amy, so as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I guess I just found myself going for it without really having made up my mind about it.

Like a lot of Asian girls, I'm pretty small and firm up top, so I often just skipped the bra. Today was one of those days so now with each step I took back toward the lab my swollen, sensitive nipples sizzled back and forth delightfully against the inside of my shirt. "I'm only going back to look at them," I promised myself. "Only to look. Look but don't touch." My naughty little pussy was fairly squishing with anticipation.

I still wasn't convinced my friends hadn't caught onto anything, but they sure hadn't seemed to; and truth be told, in the state I was in, I didn't really care very much either way. In fact, I had been in a frenzy ever since old lady Walters unveiled the specimens for the day's xeno-bio lecture: Lovelock spores. Real ones. Right there in front of me. Hundreds of years old, and long since dead and dessicated, Walters had insisted, but even during the lecture — as soon as I saw the close-ups on the hologram projector — I knew Walters was wrong.

In fact, I bet no one on Gaia knew as much about Lovelock spores as I did — obviously not Walters, who must have learned everything she knew about the spores from other scientists. To be fair, Walters' lecture had focused not so much on the mechanics and biology of the spores as on their history and mythology, and and she'd largely gotten the historical context exactly right.

The story among some of the colonists was that the whole planet was a cohesive system; one which affirmatively managed the balance between its resources and inhabitants through seemingly unplanned variations in things like the location and amounts of rainfall and the spread of vegetation. The Lovelock spores fit into this story in a fascinating way: the spores were said to be parasitic, and used humans to reproduce not only the spores themselves, but ultimately also other humans, in a sense.

Once grotesquely and painfully impregnated, the history books said, women would reportedly spawn several new spore pods first, before eventually giving birth to nightmarishly mutated human/fungus hybrids with poisonous blood that spit fire and ate children, or something like that. There were no reports of the spores being implanted in men.

The professional scientists among the colonists debunked these reports, considering the spores to be just an unusually well-adapted form of incompatible local flora, and listed the spores among the other native species that were to be eradicated as the colonists themselves completed the final terraforming by hand.

I, however, had spent countless hours reading through the settlement's archives. I focused on the first-hand reports in the original wikis, not just the digests prepared by the Gaian authorities for the history books.

Dozens of those reading sessions had ended with my panties bunched up around an ankle and my fingers strumming myself through one soul-shaking come after another as I read about women from the original settlements losing themselves — or, more accurately, eagerly and ecstatically volunteering themselves — to the enchantments of the soul-sucking "demon fungus."

Some of the descriptions were incredibly, almost reverently detailed, and I had a long mental favorites list of the archive addresses for the really good ones. Over time, I'd learned about how the spore pods could go dormant in order to survive droughts, floods, radiation storms — just about anything, really; and I read about how the original settlers eventually figured out how to tell the dead ones from the dormant ones and eradicated them.

Or so they thought. Within 10 seconds of looking at the pods Walters had brought into class, I was positive they weren't dead — and I couldn't help getting steadily hotter and creamier thinking of creative new ways to bring them out of dormancy.

By the time I arrived back at the door to the lab, I was fit to be tied. Taking out my TA key and pausing for a second, I took a deep breath and let myself in.

I could hardly believe my own irresponsibility. I had no idea how I could ever explain it, but who knew if I'd ever have an opportunity like this again? I was so close, and besides, the whole lab building was nearly deserted by mid-afternoon anyway. It's not like there would be any witnesses.

I also wasn't totally sure it would even work: I had found a big-ass textbook that I thought might do the job, but the book wasn't particularly hard, just heavy. On the other hand, the display case didn't appear to be all that strong...

At the time, the sound the case made when it shattered seemed deafening, but to my relief and incredulity, even after waiting through several breathless moments no one seemed to have noticed. I held my breath in equal parts panic and arousal, but no one rang in over the classroom commlink, no fat campus security guard came puffing up to the door. The pods weren't exactly protected like a bio-hazard, but why would they have been? Long dead fossils were no threat, right?

"Just gotta take one out to get a really good close look," I thought, as I put down the book, "then I'll put it right back."

The ferocious surge of arousal that hit me when I first felt the heft of the first spore case in my hand was like nothing I could ever have imagined. This was no dried out, ancient relic; this had mass and purpose and vitality. I trembled and felt beads of sweat lining up on my forehead as I gently withdrew the alien object through the broken glass and held it in front of my face.

"Gods, it's beautiful," I thought, staring intently at the spore's outer shell and cradling it reverently in my hands. It was roundish and oblong, a little smaller than a rugby ball, with a smooth, rippled, slightly translucent surface. It seemed coated in some kind of hard, shiny enamel — but just underneath, the skin shimmered with wild, deep swirls of colors. Midnight blues, forest greens, inky, dark browns; all interweaving above, through, and underneath each other.

I was transfixed. I found what she thought may have been a small crack in the top of the casing, and lightly ran my fingertips over it as I would the skin of a lover.

"So smooth ... and so pretty..." I moaned softly to myself. "Gods, there are Lovelock spores right inside here, right in my hands. Real spores just like the ones that took all those women back when Gaia was first colonized. Ohh, Gods, just imagine the enticement, the surrender, and then the sensations of being seeded by a..." Sighing, I caught myself sliding a hand towards my crotch.

"NO, stop it," I commanded myself, snapping out of my reverie just before my fingers made it underneath my skirt. "Just stop. This is getting out of hand," I thought, taking a deep breath. "This fetish is gonna get me busted."

Taking another look around the lab, I promised myself, "Just check out the others, really quick, then they all go right back in the case. And then I head back to the dorms and spend the rest of the day jilling off like a maniac..."

My face and neck must have been downright fluorescent as I locked the classroom door behind me as quietly as I could and quickly hustled across the hall to the women's bathroom. There was no way I'd be able to keep up the facade if I ran into anyone now, my thinking was that one quick wank session couldn't take more than a couple minutes. Honestly, I felt like I could come any second already. "Hello?" I asked, with a quakey, wavering voice as I walked through the bathroom door.

My mouth was parched and I had to clear my throat before speaking again. "Anybody in here?" Sighing with lust when I heard only silence in response, I put my bag down on the floor of the handicapped stall and walked back to the door.

"One quick come, just so I can get my composure back," I thought to myself. "Just take a few minutes here in private, have the best come of your lifetime, and then they all go right back to the lab." I turned the deadbolt with shaking fingers, caught a guilty glimpse of myself in the mirror over the sink, and then hurried back to the stall where I left my bag.

My panties were soaked nearly to the waistband, and practically dripped as I pushed them down my legs with my skirt. I kicked off my shoes but kept the socks, and turned in place to sit on the toilet seat. My skin and blood sparkled as though electrified as I reached between my legs for my backpack.

The sensation of cool air against the soaking heat in my crotch and the cold, hard seat just under my steaming pussy reminded me of some of the best cums of my life — back in high school, during slumber parties at a girlfriend's house, when after a spirited round of spin the bottle I would similarly sneak into the bathroom to rub one out.

It was comical how eager my girlfriends and I were to use the game as a pretext to make out for hours, even though none of us was willing to be the one to take things beyond "kissing practice." Still, though, there were usually at least two or three bathrooms around, so I always managed to find some private space to cum in. I'm pretty sure we all did.

Here in this bathroom, though, my breath was caught in my throat as I lifted the biggest pod out of my bag. It felt warmer now than it did in the lab, but maybe it was just me. Warmer or not, though, it had definitely changed. The surface seemed less like enamel, and somehow softer. It was still shiny, but it had kind of a give to it more like patent leather. I nearly panted as I turned the case around in my hands, looking for the crack I'd spotted moments earlier in the lab.

I had another flash of recollection when I found it, something I had read about ending the dormant period of the spores. "Heat and moisture," I thought feverishly, and then with a gasp raised the spore to my mouth and extended my tongue.

The taste was strong, and spicy, and I shuddered through a mini-orgasm when I considered how much it tasted like pussy. "More like Amy than Kelly," I thought, thinking fondly about the more overt lovemaking I shared from time to time with my college girlfriends. Spin the bottle had given way to spin the dildo — and although we all had boyfriends and none of us identified ourselves as lesbians, for straight girls we sure did eat a lot of pussy.

When I went back to lick the crack again, I felt the skin of the case shudder just a bit under my tongue, which startled me enough I nearly dropped it.

Staring intently at the spot I just licked, I noticed the skin of the pod unmistakably cracking open a little. Leaning in for a really close look, I noticed that the swirls just underneath the enamel were actually leaves — leaves which were sliding apart from each other and spreading open ever so slowly.

Inspired, I reached down to touch myself for a moment, shuddering as I wet my fingertips in the puddle between my legs and then brought those dripping fingers back up to gently caress the broadening gaps in the outer layers of the pod.

It jumped again when my pussy-slicked fingers made contact, and then began a subtle, rythmic pulsing from base to top. I watched, fascinated, as each pulse steadily opened up the pod like a blooming flower. There were more delicate petals just underneath the larger, tougher leaves on the surface, and with a quick glance down I could watch my own petals spread wider and thicker, mirroring the alien petals I held in my hands.

I gasped again when the very tip of the stamen — the dick-shaped sex organ Professor Walters had illustrated to Amy's fascination just hours earlier — revealed itself between the innermost labia of the pod.

It raised up steadily and inexorably under my gentle caresses, growing up and out towards full erection like a slow motion hard-on. "This can't be random," I thought, "it's like this was intentionally molded to appeal specifically to humans..."