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They lay together afterwards on the floor.

"That was good," said Sam, looking into his eyes lovingly.

"Really good," said Jack. "But you know, I also have a bed," said Jack.

Despite everything, Sam laughed. But then she looked down at her vagina. It was oozing a greenish-white fluid.

"What is that?" said Jack.

"I'm not sure, sir. The plant seems to be adding something to your sperm," said Sam.

"Has it done anything to you?"

"Not that I can tell, sir." She looked at him. "I mean, Jack," she smiled.

After that, a precedent was set. Without saying a word, they would get together every day at lunch to have sex with each other, and the plant. As they were thrusting against the plant for their fourth encounter, Jack said, "You know, Sam, I couldn't help but notice that stuff that's getting squirted into you every time we do this." He had to call it "this". He couldn't bring himself to call it sex, even as he thrusted into the plant mere inches from her vagina.

"I noticed it too, sir," said Sam, feeling the phallus wonderfully expand and contract within her.

"What's it all about?" Jack asked, as he kept up the momentum.

"I haven't analyzed it, but it looks like your sperm, sir. I mean, Jack," she said hastily. "Your sperm, modified with some chemicals of the plant." She rotated her inner walls against the phallus as it thrust into her again. It felt so good! "I think it's trying to get me pregnant with something."

"Well, we can't let that happen," said Jack. Sam noticed his hairy chest was starting to perspire. She loved that.

"No, sir, we can't." At time she still called him sir. She couldn't help it,

"So you should pull out, right before I... you know, explode."

"Me, sir?" said Sam, sweating as the phallus thrust into her again.

"You're the recipient," said Jack, thrusting harder. He felt his organ approaching the point of no return.

"And you're the sender," said Sam.

"My penis outranks your vagina," said Jack, gritting his teeth.

"I don't think rank extends to our genitals, sir."

"Pull out now, Arden," said Jack, thrusting furiously. "I'm going to blow any second now!"

"I can't," said Sam. The pleasure was too great. Her brain wouldn't let her stop. "You pull out!"

Jack, breathing heavily, shook his head. "I can't stop either." He felt the head of his penis tightening. "You pull out!"

"You pull out!"

And then Jack cried out, and exploded into the plant. His essence was mixed with alien chemicals, and then suction shot it out the plant phallus, into Sam's body.

"Oh, oh, oh," Jack cried, as he felt each orgasmic pulse from the head of his penis, and then into Sam, with additives.

Jack sank to the floor once he finished. So did Sam. He put his arm around her. "Did I pull out in time?"

"I don't think so, sir," said Sam ruefully, touching the entrance to her vagina, which was dripping with the greenish white fluid.

During the following three sessions with the plant, they tried to encourage each other to pull out, until Sam finally said, "No, Jack."

"No?" said Jack, panting as he thrusted faster. He was once again rapidly reaching the point of no return.

"No," said Sam. "I don't want to avoid it." She looked him in the eye. "I want you inside me. I want everything you have to give to me."

Her words and her gaze were so sexy, that they drove Jack prematurely over the edge. He cried out, and shot pulse after pulse into Sam.

After that, there was no more talk of pulling out early.

All Sam could think about now was Jack, and the plant. 'Jack and the Beanstalk' she sometimes thought ruefully. They gave each other secret smiles in the hallways, and their hands grazed each other when they thought no one was looking. It was like she was having an affair with Jack.

Was she? She excused it all because of the plant. So did Jack. They both used the plant as an excuse to... to do what they always wanted. Sam realized that now. She had always wanted Jack. The plant had just given her a way to get him.

But what about Gavin?

For two weeks she had gone to Jack's apartment at lunch to make love to him. Unapologetically now. They even kissed and hugged each other sometimes, before or after. It was impossible to tell where the plant's influence ended, and their own feelings took over.

And now she had become completely unattracted to Gavin. Sam suspected it was the influence of the plant. It had conditioned her to be uninterested in normal sexual intercourse, to only be interested in sex through it.

And so she let Gavin made love to her, but only dutifully. Perhaps he noticed, because he started giving her searching looks, but he didn't say anything.

And then, after two weeks, something changed. After having sex for the umpteenth time, and lying in Jack's arms, Sam said, "Ow!"

"What?" said Sam.

"I feel something moving. In my belly."

Their eyes met. They both knew that the purpose of the plant was to interrupt the human reproductive process. But to interrupt it with what?

Sam's belly started to grow bigger. By the fourth day her belly was so big that she could no longer fit onto the plant's phallus without her belly getting into the way. Jack still had sex with the plant, but after he was spent, he would lovingly hold her in his arms, never talking, just staring at her, with love clearly in his eyes.

Mercifully, Gavin had left three days ago, for another consulting trip in Great Britain. This would be impossible to explain to him.

The first two days of her pregnancy, Sam wore the baggy work shirts she often wore at HomePlanet Security. Jack remarked that this is the first and only time he was glad that she wore those baggy shirts. His comment made her smile and blush.

After that, she took sick days. She didn't know how many she would need. But on the seventh day of her pregnancy, she felt her belly rumbling, and knew it was time. She called Jack.

"Where shall I take you? To Doc Whistler? The hospital?"

"No! The garden center," Sam cried.

Margie was very unsurprised to see them again. She knew this was the natural consequence of giving them a plant. She welcomed them, and directed them to her "delivery room", a greenhouse full of heavily pregnant mothers.

Sam was stunned. On this day alone she could see a dozen other women, each with big bellies. Whatever was being reproduced inside her, it was being done on a grand scale.

Sam was urged to remove her clothing, and she was given a clean sheet to lie on. She saw another heavily pregnant woman, crying out in pain as she grabbed her belly.

"I'm scared, Jack," she said, feeling the rumbling in her own belly.

"I'm here for you," he said, holding her hand.

That made her feel better.

When the time came, Sam was the first to know. She felt something trying to emerge from her womb. She felt the sudden impulse to push.

"Jack, I think it's time!" Sam cried. She spread her legs, and Jack got between them, seeing if he could help. For a moment, she reflected how far she had come. A few weeks ago the thought of Jack seeing her naked would have made her cringe with embarrassment. And now here she was, totally naked in front of him, her legs obscenely spread, and ready to let Jack put his hands inside her vaginal canal as she prepared to give birth. What he was doing with her now was far more intimate than anything she had ever done with Gavin.

Sam felt something dropping from her uterus into her vagina. She started to push. Grunting with all her might, she pushed a small thing wrapped in white out of her vagina. Jack grabbed it and gently put it on the ground.

Then Sam grunted and pushed another one out. But the third one proved difficult. It seemed to get stuck.

"It hurts, Jack, it hurts!" she cried. Jack held her hand, and desperately told her everything was going to be all right, and he wiped her brow, and he kissed her, and he told her he loved her.

That startled Sam more than anything, and it gave her new drive, and she resumed pushing, until the fourth one came out. And then a fifth, and a sixth.

Finally, panting, exhausted, and sweaty, she lay back. "I think that's the last one."

Jack held up one of the white coated things. The white exterior rapidly fell away, to reveal a sapling.

"It's plants. You gave birth to more plants," said Jack, trying to understand it.

"And six of them!" said Margie, coming forward and scooping them all up, including the one in Jack's hand. "That's more than most women ever produce! You're very fertile, Sam. Both you and Colonel Sullivan are to be congratulated."

"Wait!" said Sam, as Margie took the saplings.

"Don't worry, my dear. You will produce many, many more of these. I'll see that each one gets a good home with a loving couple. A very loving couple," she winked.

Sam looked at Jack, horror clearly written in her eyes. Suddenly, she realized what they had just done. They had let the plant hijack the human system of reproduction, to produce more plants. Sam looked around at the other women, all women who would never again produce human babies, only plants. Once all women had been seduced by this plant, the human race would end, in a generation.

And she was cheerfully cooperating in the destruction of her own species. Sam, her vaginal lips still spread obscenely wide, looked up at Jack to say something, when she heard a new voice.

"Samantha. There you are. I leave you alone for just a few weeks, and look what happens to you," said a familiar voice.

Sam looked up.

It was Dunlop 4.

It was Dunlop 4, and he was staring dispassionately at her wet, sweaty titties, and her equally wet vaginal lips and spread legs, apparently totally without emotion.

But Margie had a reaction, and she screamed.

Dunlop whirled around and fired his blaster rifle.

Only it wasn't really a blaster rifle. As Sam had learned, it was operated by thought control, and seemed to have a wide variety of modes.

The mode that Dunlop activated was fire.

Within seconds half the greenhouse was on fire. In their minds, they could hear the alien plant scream. It was deafening.

"Come on, we have to get out of here," said Jack, pulling her up. Sam tried to reach for her clothes but Jack yelled, "No time!"

He pulled her out of the greenhouse. They ran into the parking lot which was filling up with panicky people, all in various states of undress. In moments they could see that all the greenhouses were on fire. In their heads they could hear an alien shriek, loudly at first, a lot of them. As the fire raged, they died out, one by one.

And then several military air cars and air jeeps pulled up, disgorging Survey Service soldiers. In moments, the area was secured.

"So let me see if I can understand this correctly," said General Henderson. "You, Colonel Sullivan, and you, Major Arden, and you, Dunlop 4, suspected that this particular garden center in Cantonsville, Maryland, was growing the alien plant we had been looking for."

"Yes, General," said Jack.

"When your suspicions were confirmed, you asked Dunlop 4 to call in for reinforcements."

"Yes, sir."

"Why didn't you call in yourself?"

"Well, General-"

"Wait, it gets better," said General Henderson. "According to several eyewitnesses in the field, Major Arden was completely naked. Can you explain that, Colonel?"

"I believe I can," said Dunlop 4.

"Please," said General Henderson.

"We suspected this agricultural facility contained the parasite we were looking for," said Dunlop 4. "But some of the agents of the parasite grew suspicious of our presence, and they took Major Arden prisoner. Colonel Sullivan had a decision to make. He could attempt a rescue or call for reinforcements. He decided to do both, by going into the garden center himself, while directing me to call for assistance. That is why I made the call, General, and not Colonel Sullivan."

"Really," said Henderson. "And why was Major Arden naked?"

"The agents of the parasite removed her clothes and were in the process of trying to get her addicted to the plant's influence. Part of the process involves rubbing bare skin against the plant. But Colonel Sullivan was able to rescue Major Arden before she was compromised," said Dunlop 4.

"Really?" said Henderson. "Is that what happened, Major Arden?"

All eyes were on Sam. She paused, took a deep breath, and said, "That's exactly it, sir. I got caught. I didn't realize that they had become suspicious of me. The Colonel rescued me just before they started addicting me to the plant."

"I see," said Henderson. He looked down for a moment, drumming on the top of the conference room table. Then he looked up. "Major, I want Doctor Whistler to give you a full examination."

"Yes, sir," said Sam.

"And I want written reports from all of you by 0800 tomorrow," said the General. He got up and left the room.

"Do you think he believed us?" Sam asked, in a small voice.

"He wants to believe us. That's all that matters," said Jack. He turned to Dunlop 4. "Thank you."

"No! I should be the one thanking Dunlop," said Sam quickly.

"Neither of you need to thank me," said Dunlop 4. "It is no fault of your own that you were compelled by the Krions. You should not take the blame for it, Samantha. Neither should you, Colonel Sullivan."

"Dunlop... the feelings we developed for these plants...."

"Given the short term of your exposure, the effects should dissipate in a few days," said Dunlop 4. He looked at Sam. "And your feelings of attraction towards the males of your species should return in that time."

Sam gave an exaggerated sigh of relief.

"You weren't attracted to men?" Jack asked.

"Not exactly, sir. Men with plants, yes. Men without plants, well, not so much." She smiled sheepishly at him.

"Your work has been invaluable, and has given us the information we need to destroy the remaining Krions," said Dunlop 4.

"It was? We did?" Jack asked.

"Now we know what the current form of the Krions looks like, and now we know what the plant calls itself. It is a simple matter of querying greenhouses all over your planet to see if they have any of this... Saskatchewan Wild Moss Plant," said Dunlop. "Agents can visit greenhouses and know what to look for."

"And what about people who have these plants in their homes?"

Dunlop smiled. "You have a planetary information network, do you not? Simply put message out on it, offering people special fertilizers for Saskatchewan Wild Moss Plant. Infected subjects will contact you. They will be unable to resist revealing themselves."

"Dunlop, you're brilliant!" Sam reached over and gave him a hug. Jack studied the floor.

Dunlop got up to go.

"Dunlop, one last thing," said Sam. "How did you know? And how did you know where to find us?"

"When I returned from my ranging trip to your European continent, all it took was one look at you Sam, one look to know," said Dunlop. He turned and left.

"He's creepy, but in a nice sort of way. I like him," Jack decided. He took a deep breath "So we're in the clear, except for one thing. I don't think you can hide your pregnancy from ole Doc Whistler."

"Let me handle Janice," said Sam. She put a hand over his. "What about you?"

"What about me?" said Jack, pulling his hand away.

"We became awfully... intimate, all of a sudden," said Sam.

"The plant," said Jack, his face suddenly impassive. "You said it was all the plant. The plant wanted us to mate, so it made us-"

"Fall in love," said Sam. Her eyes widened. "I mean, it made us fall in lust, not love," she said, clearly remembering when Jack told her he loved her. "It was all the work of the plant."

"So we can go back to being the way we were, even after all we did...." Jack didn't finish. He didn't need to. They had seen each other naked. They had had sex, sort of, exactly nine times. They had shared an intimacy usually reserved for lovers.

"Sure we can," said Sam brightly. "I mean, I can, if you can."

"Oh, I can, if you can too," said Jack.

"Then... we both can... right?" said Sam.

"Right," said Jack. He looked at her with concern. "Right?"

"Right!" said Sam again. She looked at him nervously. "Right?"

"Right," said Jack. Again.

They both felt very embarrassed. Finally, Jack said,

"You'd better see Doc Whistler."

"Right."

"I'm happy to announce, you're in perfect health, Sam," said Doctor Whistler, as Sam pulled up her khaki green Survey Service work pants.

"Perfect health?"

"Oh, there are a few minor question marks on your brain scan, as if certain parts of your brain have been especially... stimulated over the past few weeks," said Janice, raising her eyebrows. "But that can be explained away. What is harder to explain is the fact that over the past few days, you seem to have been pregnant." She looked inquiringly at Sam.

"Janice, I can explain."

"And not any ordinary pregnancy," said Janice, raising a finger. "I took DNA swabs, and here is what I came up with." She pressed a holo, and the image of a plant appeared floating around them.

"Janice, I--"

"Unfortunately, just as my examination was concluded, my analyzer malfunctioned, and all I got was this," said Janice, pressing another button, revealing a blank oval. "So I have nothing to report."

"Janice-"

"You don't have to say a thing," said Janice. "Dunlop 4 came by."

"He did?"

"Um hm. He told me everything. He told me that you had suffered enough."

"I don't know if suffering is quite the right word," said Sam uncomfortably, recalling the passionate lovemaking she had had. The image of Jack's contorted face of pain and pleasure as he climaxed, pumping into her, through the plant, was burned into her mind. The way his ass pumped back and forth as he plowed into the plant, his firm legs, his handsome face and eyes... it would all be with her for a long time.

Janice came over and put an arm around Sam. "You love him, don't you?"

Sam pulled away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Janice nodded. "I know."

Three days later, Jack stopped by Sam's office. "How you doin'?" he asked.

"Fine, sir," she said. Jack. He had asked her to call her Jack. But that was another time, another life, one now totally gone. In a way, she felt a loss.

"You're not feeling any... inappropriate urges, are you?" he asked, hintingly.

"You mean, do I want to go back to your place and have sex with you and a giant plant? No, I don't feel the urge for that any more, sir," said Sam, blushing even as she said it.

"Hey, lower your voice," he said, looking out into the hall. "It carries."

"Sorry, sir."

"Are you and Gavin... all right?" Jack asked.

"I... uh... yeah," said Sam. Much to her relief, her sexual interest in Gavin had started to return. Last night she had made love to him, and she had worked to put so much enthusiasm into it, that he had even commented on it approvingly.

"You didn't tell him... about us... of course."

"Of course not, sir. It was classified."

"So it is," said Jack. He appeared to hesitate. "You're not feeling guilty because you chose me over him, are you?"

Sam's head immediately looked down.

"You're tearing yourself up because you think you were unfaithful to him."

Sam nodded.

"But it wasn't your fault," said Jack. "In fact, choosing me was probably your way of being faithful to him."

"Come again, sir?"

"You were protecting him," said Jack. "The plant controlled your mind, partially, but even then you were still trying to protect Gavin. So you reached out to me, the next available handsome guy, to spare Gavin from being controlled by the plant."

"The next available handsome guy," said Sam, trying to keep herself from smiling.

"I mean of course, if your husband is not available, who else do you know well enough here to... you know," said Jack, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course," said Sam, trying to keep a straight face.

"So the way I see it, you used me in order to protect Gavin."

"I'm not sure Gavin would see it that way, Sir."

"Only because he doesn't understand the twisted nature of our work," said Jack. He looked inquiringly at her. She could see that he was earnestly trying to help her, to help her ease her feelings of guilt.

"Then I guess in that case I should apologize to you, sir," Sam said.

"For what?"

"For using you so callously, in place of my husband," said Sam, her eyebrows raising. Now she was flirting with him.

"Oh, Arden, it's all part of the job. I would do the same for any... friend," he said, and then as Jack smiled at her, Sam got chills down her back.

He paused again, and then said, "Would you have lunch with me, Major?"

"Just lunch, sir?" She inquired.

"Just lunch. No sex with a monster plant, I promise."

"Sounds great, sir," said Sam, reaching for her jacket.
The End
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