Trail Mix: Amoeba

by Piers Anthony

  Veee banged him on the shoulder. Tod realized he was staring at the females, all of whom were well formed and healthy, like Vanja. Veee wasn’t jealous, merely letting him know she knew. He put a hand on her bottom and squeezed reassuringly.

  Vanja stroked upward. Others pursued her, but she had the advantage of surprise and a head start. She reached the surface, transformed again, and flew into the air. The others followed, but she maintained her lead as she fled toward the trail.

  She made it. The others collected around the terminus, baffled; Vanja seemed to have disappeared into air.

  Vanja came up to Tod. She still carried the little kit, its string in her mouth, hooked around a fang. She flung her arms about him, and dissolved into sobbing.

  What could he do but hold her? He released Veee’s buttock and embraced Vanja. “We love you too,” he murmured in her ear.

  She began to recover her poise. “Did I say that? I thought I was going to die.”

  “We’ll keep your secret,” Veee said, smiling.

  Vanja turned Tod loose and embraced Veee. At this point Tod wasn’t certain which of them Vanja liked better.

  “What possessed you to go in there?” Wizard demanded. “You had already ascertained that the androids did not come from your frame.”

  “If you’d bothered to scry, you’d have known. I had to get the kit.” She unhooked it from her tooth and efficiently bound it into her hair, out of sight.

  “You are crazy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re batty in your belfry,” Tod said.

  “For wanting you,” Vanja agreed.

  “The entire courtship routine seems somewhat insane to me,” Bem said.

  “Thank you,” Vanja said again. Then they all laughed.

  They returned to the village. “Now it seems to be my turn,” Wizard said. “This should be routine, but won’t be.”

  “Something will go wrong?” Vanja asked.

  “My scrying indicates that Gianna is watching. The moment I leave the trail, she will intercept me.”

  “A woman!” Vanja said, smiling. “That’s surely mischief.”

  “There are details about my frame I may have neglected to mention before. It is governed by the giants. We normal sized people do their bidding lest we annoy them and get stepped on, literally. Because my abilities are valuable, I had no trouble, and they catered to my lifestyle. But when they sought to remove me from retirement—well, that was when the trail sought me, and I took it. I thought that would be the end of it. But if I must return, however briefly, I may have difficulty extricating myself from Gianna’s embrace.”

  “Now this is getting more interesting,” Vanja said. “Your wife died, but there’s another woman?”

  “A giant?” Veee asked, also intrigued. “How big is she?”

  “The giants are about ten times the height of normal folk, and a thousand times the mass.”

  “They must be made of squeezed lead!”

  “No, it’s the normal square cube ratio,” Tod said. “If the proportions are similar. Ten times the height, ten times the width, ten times the depth. Ten cubed, or a thousand.”

  Vanja looked at Veee. “Does this make sense to you?”

  Veee concentrated, working out the concept. “Yes, I think it does. But it must require magic to prevent them from having elephant legs.” She had learned about elephants from Tod, who had confirmed what had become legends in her tribe.

  “So if such a creature treads on you,” Bem said, “The pressure is quite strong.”

  “It is,” Wizard agreed. “I might fend such an action off briefly with my magic, but then they would have gone after my family. As a general rule, one does not say no to a giant.”

  “Yet you were not satisfied to continue serving,” Bem said. “Was the duty onerous?”

  “Not at all. They used me mainly for scrying difficult situations. I enjoyed the work.”

  “Then it must have been something about Gianna,” Vanja said.

  “Yes. After my wife died, Gianna took a more personal interest in me. At first I thought she was merely ensuring that I would scry well. Then I scried her, and learned that she was intrigued by me personally, despite my age and size. It seems she has an obscure hankering for novelty.”

  “She wants to have sex with you!” Vanja exclaimed, delighted. “Ten times your size! That’s novelty all right.”

  “Novelty,” Wizard agreed wanly.

  “Is that possible?” Veee asked. “Your whole body would fit inside her, well—”

  “It is a talent of giants to revert to the size of their ancestors, for a while,” Wizard said. “For long enough. So that aspect is feasible.”

  “Afraid you won’t perform?” Vanja asked. “Is she ugly?”

  “No, she’s beautiful. “That’s how she achieved power among the giants: by seducing any male who challenged her.”

  Vanja nodded, unsurprised. “Will she demand disgusting things, like coitus interruptus or kissing her dirty toes?”

  Tod kept his amusement to himself. Ejaculation into any female orifice was fine with the vampire, but doing it on the ground was an offensive waste. Similarly it was the dirt, not the portion of the body, that bothered her. Vanja was scrupulously clean.

  “No, she likes it the old fashioned way.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “She will want me to scry things I prefer not to. It’s a matter of professional ethics.”

  “And if you tell her no?”

  “She’ll seduce me until I can’t deny her. She’ll corrupt me. Then her will will be mine.”

  “Well, of course,” Vanja said. “It’s a woman’s way.”

  “And then when I am of no further use to her, having done her dirty work, and advancing age diminishes my magical powers, she’ll step on me.”

  “And that’s a ruler’s way,” Tod said.

  “Point finally made,” Vanja said. “You can’t go home.”

  “But I can’t verify the android presence without stepping into my frame, however briefly.”

  “You’re the strategist, Tod,” Veee said. “Tell him how to navigate that challenge.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “Do it, or I’ll seduce you and then step on you,” Vanja said. “With my dirty toes.”

  That actually gave Tod a notion. “Maybe there is a way. She will catch you right at the edge of the trail?”

  “She can’t see the trail, but she knows where I disappeared, and therefore where I must reappear, and when. She has had a lesser scryer identify the place and time. She will be right there.”

  “You can’t poke your head out, sniff for androids, and pull back?”

  “She will catch me and push me away, blocking the access so I can’t return.”

  “Then you must welcome her embrace,” Tod said.

  “That is folly!”

  “No. Let me explain.” Tod explained. Veee, Vanja, and Bem agreed with his logic.

  Wizard sighed. “My scrying agrees too. I shall have to do it, albeit it with misgivings.”

  “Misgivings?” Vanja asked. “Consider sex with her a peripheral benefit.”

  “I don’t like lying.”

  She looked at him cannily. “Is it really lying? You have had a hankering for her all along, haven’t you?”

  “I was married!”

  “And now you’re free.” She fixed him with a challenging stare. “Admit it: the reason I was able to seduce you was that in a small way I resembled her. You pretended I was her.”

  Tod saw the Wizard’s look of dismay that indicated she had scored. Vanja tended to do that when she focused. “But will she believe it? She is a woman scorned.”

  “She’ll believe what her vanity chooses to believe. Women can be utter fools when their pride is in question.”

  Tod saw Veee nod.

  Wizard shifted the subject. “My scrying does not guarantee success, it merely indicates that it is feasible
provided I don’t, as you phrase it, screw up.”

  “Screw her, not up,” Vanja agreed. “Better go naked, so as to be sure there’s no impediment.”

  “You are merciless.”

  “I’m a cynical woman like your giantess. I know how you must handle that type.”

  “I will not go naked. I must seem not to be expecting her. So she thinks she has caught me unaware.”

  “Good point,” Vanja agreed reluctantly. “She has to believe she has outsmarted you. That will make her overconfident.”

  Veee nodded again. Women naturally understood female psychology. “But let your robe accidentally fall open when your member stirs, so she knows she is arousing you.”

  “Flash her,” Vanja agreed.

  “It is good to have such competent instruction,” Wizard said dourly. Both women smiled.

  They went to the end of the trail. Tod saw a modest living chamber with a bed, desk, and clothing rack. But no giantess. “Maybe she’s not watching right now,” he said.

  “She is there, merely masked by the illusion of invisibility. Minor magic via a canned spell so she doesn’t have to show her nakedness to lowly personnel who don’t deserve to see it.”

  “I am almost getting to like this woman,” Vanja said. “She has good instincts.”

  “Do not try to emulate her,” Wizard warned. “You are similarly cynical, but she has depths of viciousness you lack.”

  “Maybe I merely conceal them better.”

  “No.”

  Vanja shrugged, not displeased, and kissed him. “Get going, lover.”

  Wizard adjusted his robe, for the moment opening it so his torso showed, practicing the maneuver. His body was old and frail, unsurprising at his age.

  “And get it up when you see her,” Vanja reminded him. “Can you do that?”

  “I’m not sure. She looks like a lovely woman, enhanced as she is by illusion, but I know her awful power and unscrupulous nature. That is daunting.”

  “I’d better help you. Will you accept?”

  Wizard glanced down as if appreciating his unaroused state and sighed. “Perhaps I should.”

  So she had bitten him before, to facilitate his potency. That explained that aspect.

  Vanja bent her head down and grazed his throat with a fang. “That’s minimal; it will last you about fifteen minutes. Do it before it expires.”

  Wizard looked down again, as if his member were stirring. She had delivered a drop of potency potion.

  “Thank you.” He stepped through. “No android odor,” he murmured.

  “Aha!”

  Wizard turned to see Gianna, nude, standing between him and the trail terminus. The rest of them saw her too, now that she had doffed her invisibility. She must have stood behind the terminus, let him pass, then stepped forward to block his return. It was smart management.

  Apart from that, she was one stunningly beautiful nude woman. Her proportions were spectacular, like Vanja’s only more pronounced; her face was innocently lovely; her hair was a serpentine coil around her torso that managed to enhance rather than conceal anything of interest. Even her feet were sculptured marvels with no dirt at all. A man could kiss them with no shame. Many surely had.

  Vanja knocked Tod’s his shoulder, much as Veee had before. “You’re appreciating her too much, jerk.”

  Tod put his left arm around her and closed his hand on her left breast. “Fortunately I can’t touch her.”

  “That’s better.” She took a deep breath so that her breast pressed against his fingers.

  Veee came to his other side and set his right arm around and on her similarly. “That stiffness you’re getting had better be for us,” she murmured.

  “Fascinating ritual,” Bem said.

  “Oh, shut up, or we’ll start putting our meat against you,” Vanja said.

  Bem was amused but silent.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Wizard said insincerely to Gianna.

  “Really? And so you hid from me?”

  “You have tempted me for years. My wife would not have understood.”

  “You bet! And if I’d taken you, she would have suicided and you would have blamed me, of all things, and been virtually useless thereafter. So I let you be; you were too useful to dispense with at the time.”

  “I appreciate your discretion.” The irony was deliberately naked. They were playing a high-stakes game.

  “However, you did not come to me after she died. Instead you vanished into whatever magical hinterland you have access to. You were avoiding me. What paltry excuse do you proffer?”

  “Would you believe I was in mourning?”

  “Only with difficulty.”

  “Nevertheless, I needed time.” Wizard took a deep breath, preparing to speak the big lie. “I took that time. Then I realized that I craved your company.”

  She laughed. “Try again, liar. You know what a huge bitch I am.”

  Wizard let his robe fall open, flashing her. “I was attempting to be discreet. Your personality is as big a horror as your natural size. But your body—that is what I crave.” Now his member was rising, thanks to Vanja’s injection. “I want to plumb it before I die, just as I dreamed of doing all those years.”

  “Now that is more like it,” Gianna said approvingly. “Realistic desperation. And you shall have it. Of course you know there is a price.”

  “I prefer not to pay that price.”

  “As if you have a choice. First you must scry for me; then I will reward you in my fashion.”

  Wizard’s member was now almost fully erect. “I can’t wait. I must have you now.” He advanced on her.

  Gianna eyed the member, intrigued. “That’s a better elevation than you got for your wife.” Which hinted how closely she had been observing him.

  “You’re a sexier bitch than my wife ever was.” He threw his arms around her.

  She could readily have thrown him back, but yielded to his urgency. “I’m flattered. Maybe this once, then the scrying before you get any more. Kiss me.”

  He thrust his face at her as he thrust his groin at hers, pushing her back. Pleased, she used a hand to make sure of his placement, then let herself sink backward as he entered. It was obvious she had control, and liked catering to his desperate need. She knew that he knew she was a vicious bitch, yet couldn’t help himself, overpowered by her sexual allure. The girls were right: women could be as great fools as men, when their vanity was on the line.

  And as the penetration progressed, Wizard passed the threshold and got on the trail.

  Gianna was left lying on her back, naked, empty, legs spread, arms clasping nothing. The prey had escaped.

  “DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!” she swore, catching on immediately. Her body exploded into its natural size, tenfold in every direction.

  “Wow,” Tod murmured as Vanja and Veee went to help Wizard to his feet. For the giantess remained visible, her body occupying the space where they stood, overlapping them like an illusion. In fact Tod himself was standing where her monstrous lifted thighs came down to expose her giant cleft; he was chest deep in it. Indeed, a whole man would fit inside there, if properly angled. She might even have used men that way, for novelty or punishment.

  Then Gianna sat up, her breasts swinging over Tod’s head like gargantuan wrecking balls, and lurched to her feet. She was way too big for the chamber, which burst around her much as the thin tower had when Vanja transformed. But she wasn’t satisfied. She squatted, providing Tod another compelling view of her elephantine flexing juncture, and used her immense fists to pulverize what remained of Wizard’s abode. Then she stood again and stomped the fragments into splinters. Tod was now standing directly under her, looking up, absolutely fascinated by the scene as she lifted one leg, then the other, and made her flesh rock with each impact.

  “Hell hath no fury...” he murmured.

  “Better quit before your eyes pop out of their sockets,” Vanja said.

  “Or something else does,” Veee added.r />
  Tod realized that his erection was straining to break out of his trousers. He simply had never before seen such a display, so close and active.

  “Shame to waste two such fine erections,” Vanja said, glancing at both men. “Why don’t we pause to—”

  “This is too close to the edge,” Veee demurred. “Someone might roll back off the trail and be caught by fury incarnate.”

  “You’re too damned practical,” Vanja said. “But also right, unfortunately.”

  The girls hustled Tod and Wizard back along the trail, each man bemused in his own fashion.

  “Fascinating demonstration,” Bem remarked. “The woman’s concluding anatomy was impressive.”

  They had to laugh.

  “There was no odor of android there,” Wizard said. “We have eliminated three prospects.”

  “Then it must be my turn,” Veee said.

  “Are you ready for a similar experience?” Bem asked.

  “No. But my frame should be relatively quiet. It’s the most primitive one. The day is not done. I want to get this over with.”

  They went back along the trail Veee and Tod had come along. Now Tod saw Veee’s home frame, a lightly forested region. That was likely the Middle East, as it was 50,000 years ago, in a temperate period.

  “If there is mischief,” Vanja warned Veee, “come right back to the trail. We don’t want to lose you.”

  Veee kissed her and stepped out. “I do not smell android,” she announced.

  “Where did you come from, Veee?” a man’s voice asked. He was a tall, muscular man, not unhandsome, wearing a kind of breechclout.

  Veee whirled. “Hooo!” she exclaimed, recognizing him.

  “I was coming to take a poop, and suddenly you appeared. Where have you been these past few days? Where were you hiding?”

  “I was tacitly banished because of that sand painting I made,” she reminded him. “So I had to look for some other tribe that might want me.”

  “Oh, yes. You had no business messing with sand. But how did you appear out of nothing just now?”

  “Maybe you weren’t paying attention.”

  “I’m a hunter! I always pay attention. You appeared like a spook.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Have you become a ghost?”