The Metal Maiden Collection

by Piers Anthony

  This was the aspect Mona didn’t like. It wasn’t that she objected to sex with Brian, but she hated teasing him when she was pregnant. But it had to be done.

  They stripped, boarded the boat, and took their places. Elasa stood at the prow. Brian mounted the pedals, while Mona sat on the padded stool before him. She spread her legs and carefully took him in. They held each other for balance. They were ready.

  Elasa loosed the mooring rope. Brian started paddling. The paddle-wheel turned. The boat moved slowly into the sea.

  Now Mona suffered a spot siege of apprehension as she looked past Brian’s torso on either side: would the vamps really appear? Or would the three people turn out to have exposed themselves to embarrassment for nothing? Certainly no vampires were in evidence. The water was calm, with the only ripples being those made by the wake of the boat as it moved.

  Then small white balls of mist formed just above the surface. They floated there, expanding, drifting toward the boat.

  “Oh, my!” Brian said.

  “What do you see?” Elasa asked.

  “Breathtakingly lovely nude girls,” he said. “Exactly as described: high-breasted, wasp-waisted, with marvelously flowing tresses. Some are brunettes, some blondes, some red-haired. They are walking on the water, or maybe floating just over it. Every movement of their bodies is magic.”

  Indeed, Mona felt his member swell within her. He was reacting to the vamps, who evidently reached into his mind to read and then project images of his ideal sexual partners, along with pheromones to guarantee his reaction.

  “What do you see?” Brian asked somewhat breathlessly.

  “Blobs of mist,” Mona said.

  “I will answer later,” Elasa said, sounding surprised. “I will say it is not what I expected.”

  The mist balls floated close. Brian reacted further.

  “We can’t see what you see,” Mona said. “Tell us.”

  “One is coming close now,” he said. “She has jet-black hair to her waist, like Mona on Earth. She says her name is Lova, and she is to be my playmate of the hour.”

  Mona saw the mist almost touching him, but all she heard was the gentle swish of a passing breeze. She was flattered that the image of his ideal woman was herself in her original body.

  “She’s going to kiss me.” Then he stiffened, against her and in her.

  “Cover his mouth,” Elasa rapped. “Their kisses are dangerous, because of the pheromones.”

  Mona put her face up to his, displacing the mist, and kissed his mouth. Gradually his body relaxed. The vampire was no longer infusing him. She might look like mere mist to Mona, but her impact was obvious.

  She eased up on the kiss. “Is she gone?”

  “No. She’s floating just above me, spreading her legs wide, using her fingers to pull apart her—her labia, to expose her—her--”

  Mona knew he was searching for a polite word. “Cleft.”

  “Yeah. Now she’s trying to get close to me in front, but you’re in the way. She’s mad.”

  Mona felt the light brush of mist against her back. “I’ll bet. Tell her to go fuck herself.”

  “She heard that!” he said. “She’s furious!”

  “Good.”

  “Is there anything else yet?” Elasa asked.

  Mona looked around. “Oh, my!” she breathed, echoing Brian’s first comment.

  “You see her?” Brian asked.

  “Not her. Him.”

  “Who?” Elasa asked.

  Mona described what she saw. “One supremely handsome man, a virtual Adonis, lean and muscular, with the world’s most formidable member. Oh, how I’d like to get that inside me!”

  “Oh, you would?” Brian asked, nettled.

  “Sorry. Must be the pheromones. There’s just this enormous sexual urgency.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “No. Just saying that now I appreciate what you are experiencing. The sight of pure sex appeal and damn the consequences.”

  “I don’t see anything but a waft of gray mist, where you’re looking.”

  “You’re not female,” she retorted.

  “Greetings, fairest damsel,” the male said. “I am Magnus, the most virile lover you will encounter. But there seems to be a lumpy obstruction. Get rid of it so you can welcome my passion.”

  Mona realized that now Brian’s body was shielding her the way hers was shielding him. Such was the power of the pheromones that she wanted to separate from Brian so she could enjoy the complete attention of Magnus. But she did know better. “Sorry, Magnus; I can’t oblige.”

  “You’re talking with it?” Elasa asked.

  “Am I ever! This guy is passion incarnate. He’s got the most beautiful member I’ve ever seen.”

  “The first male vampire,” Elasa said, satisfied. “I am activating my pheromones and the other.” She faced them, striking a pose, her breasts high, her legs spread, hair flaring out behind her. She had one of the world’s finest figures, by no accident. “Magnus! She’s occupied. But I’m not. Come to me.” But would the vamps take her for a living woman?

  “Well, now,” Magnus said appreciatively as he sniffed the air. He left Mona, to her peripheral disappointment, and moved toward Elasa.

  Elasa was not at all coy. She opened her arms and enfolded the male. Mona saw his huge erect penis orienting on her cleft as if prehensile, as might be the case. It found the place and pushed in, slowly and deeply. Mona suppressed her jealousy; she had wanted that divine member sliding into her channel. In an instant he was thrusting vigorously, surely spurting his illustrious elixir of love. And Elasa was taking it all in, exclaiming with rapture. “Oh, Magnus! What a stud you are! Where have you been all my existence?”

  Mona was disgusted. Elasa was using her faked fembot charms that any person could see through. As if mere penetration evoked divine rapture.

  The copulation continued for minutes. Mona could see that member pulsing as it continued to slide in and out. It seemed that his ejaculation was not the mere spoonful that a human man could muster, but a cupful or more, coursing steadily through that hot conduit. Elasa took it all in, endlessly ecstatic. How could Magnus fall for that act?

  “I feel you reacting,” Brian said.

  “As I felt you,” she agreed. “He is delivering the world’s most voluminous charge of semen.” And it could have been hers, if only.

  “All I see is a waft of mist up against her front. She’s pushing into it as if it’s alive. Ridiculous!”

  “Asked and answered.” He simply could not see the Adonis.

  At last Magnus finished. He drew out his fine long member and floated blissfully away. Immediately the next handsome male came, embracing Elasa, thrusting into her open channel, as virile as the prior specimen. And she welcomed him as she had the first, fickle as she was. She seemed to want every drop of his liquid passion.

  This one, too, took several minutes while Elasa exclaimed in continuous delight. They certainly didn’t stint their delivery! Brian and Mona, mutually unsatisfied, watched it all, though knowing they were seeing two different things.

  In the course of half an hour Elasa went through half a dozen eager males. It seemed she had exhausted them all. Only then, with the pheromones fading, did Mona remember: those were vampires. They had not been delivering semen, but sucking blood. That was why it had taken longer; they did transfer a cup rather than a spoonful, in the other direction. Such was the power of the pheromones and illusion that Mona had blanked out the reality she knew. Talk of denial!

  “I don’t feel well,” Magnus said. Indeed, he looked ill, and in moments sank down into the water. The poison was taking effect!

  Before long the others followed. “They’re dying!” Mona exclaimed.

  “So I see,” Elasa agreed.

  “You see them? I thought you couldn’t.”

  “I couldn’t see what you saw, but I did see the reality. It was amazing. Fortunately I was prepared, and the poison was effective. I feared
it would not be.”

  “The sheep approved it,” Mona reminded her. “They knew.”

  “So they did. It paid to trust them.”

  “Now let’s get off the water. The females are still after Brian.”

  “Oh, yes,” he agreed, albeit it with a tinge of regret.

  Brian pedaled and Elasa steered. Soon they were back on shore, safe from the vampires. Mona carefully disengaged from Brian. Their connection had worked, and they had protected each other, but it was not at all the way she would have preferred it.

  Well back from the shore, when they were dressed, Mona followed up on her question. “What did you see, Elasa?”

  “I’m not sure you really want to know. Maybe it would be better to accept that we have dealt with the male vampires and safeguarded the crossing for the next batch of ewes.”

  Mona exchanged a glance with Brian. “We do want to know. We saw pretty girls or handsome men, or blobs of mist, depending on relative genders. We were largely overwhelmed by the pheromones. You, we gather, unaffected by the pheromones, saw neither. But you did see something. In fact you had copious sex with them. That must have been the true form of the vampires. We want to know exactly what they are.”

  “You will not accept my conclusion that you would rather not know?”

  “We will not.”

  Elasa sighed. “Then I will tell you. The vampires are not human, or animal, or misty astral beings. They are carnivorous plants.”

  Both Mona and Brian were startled. “Like the Venus Flytrap?” Mona asked.

  “Yes, to a degree. They use pheromones to attract prey, the way some plants do. Buttressed by evocative illusions. Then they suck the blood.”

  “That much we knew,” Brian said. “But plants? How can they have sex with people, even vampirish sex?”

  “They grow under the water. They extend feeding stalks up above the water.”

  “We saw no stalks,” Mona said.

  “You saw projected illusions,” Elasa said. “The plants tuned into your minds and either fogged out the stalks, or converted them to seductive male or female images. The combination of pheromones and illusion is deadly effective.”

  “You say stalks,” Brian said. “How can plant stalks have sex, regardless of pheromones or illusions?”

  “In the case of the male illusions, which I suspect are much the same as the female ones, all that is real as far as the prey is concerned is the penis. That penis enters the vagina, locks in, and sucks out blood. I provided that blood, giving six males good meals. It is just as well there were not any more; they took most of my supply.”

  “They poked their stalks into your vagina,” Mona said. “And sucked your blood. As they would have sucked mine. You’re right; I’m not comfortable knowing that.”

  “The females,” Brian said. “How do they do it?”

  “I believe that their stalks are thicker, at least at the end,” Elasa said. “So they form a hollow, a sheath that the penis can fit into. Similar to a masturbatory device; the rest of a female is not required, other than illusion. They take in the penis, clamp on it, puncture it, and suck its engorged blood.”

  Brian looked as if he wanted to guard his penis with his hands. “Right again; I’m not comfortable with that knowledge. But I think it is better that we know it.”

  “I’m still having trouble visualizing it,” Mona said. “I don’t see how simple stalks could accomplish so much. I should think they would bend, or break off, or something.”

  “No, they are strong and supple,” Elasa said. “But maybe I can show you.”

  “We already saw you having sex with them!” Mona said.

  “Yes, lethal sex, reversing the ploy,” Elasa agreed. “I am thinking that if I capture one, and tame it, you will be able to see it as it is.”

  “Tame a vampire?”

  “In a manner. If we can find a young one, amenable to domestication, it may be possible.”

  Mona was dubious, yet also curious. It would be interesting to see a vampire not as a mock man or a patch of mist, but as itself. Whatever it might be.

  They approached the water, cautiously. “There’s one,” Brian said, pointing. “Young, barely nubile, virginal, with lovely red hair coursing around her breasts. Immensely appealing. She’s beckoning to me.”

  Mona looked and saw a small ball of mist. “Don’t touch her!”

  “I wasn’t going to,” he said insincerely. “Even though Venus says she wants me to be her very first lover.”

  “Venus?” Mona asked sharply.

  “Maybe she drew that name from my memory, telepathically,” he said. “You know, the morning star.”

  “The goddess personifying sexual attractiveness,” Mona said shortly. In that moment, her pregnancy annoyed her. She simply could not compete.

  “But nevertheless a plant,” Elasa said. “Growing at the shallow edge. I’ll need a pot.”

  “Go make a pot,” Mona told Brian, who was staring at the mist with entirely too much interest. It was evident that even a young, virginal vamp who did not resemble Mona’s body on Earth had the pheromones to do the job.

  Reluctantly he walked away, looking for the makings.

  Elasa doffed her clothing again and got into the water. She felt down under the mist. “Not much of a root system. They really need the blood to fill out their diet. Good. But I’ll need Bunky’s advice before I try to pot it.”

  “Bunky’s advice?” This interesting project had become uncertain in Mona’s mind. This was a new aspect. “How so?”

  “I will want to take Venus back to Earth with me, to study her telepathy. I need to be sure it’s possible. Otherwise I’m wasting my time.”

  “How could Bunky know that?”

  “The precognition of the sheep can extend to Earth, as we know. Ask him if this will work.”

  Mona walked back to where the Lamb was grazing, not far from the Ewe. He did more of that each day, though it was still far from enough to sustain him. She put her arm around him. “Bunky, Elasa wants to take Venus to Earth,” she said, speaking slowly to be sure her thoughts were focused. “Is this feasible?”

  He looked at her. Then he looked at the Ewe and bleated. She responded with a bleat of her own. He looked at her and said “Yes.”

  Mona almost fell over. Then she realized that he had not actually spoken in her language. He had bleated while projecting the thought of affirmation, and she had heard it. She realized further that he had done the same thing with the Ewe, bleating to get her attention, projecting the question, receiving her answer, then relaying it to Mona. Just as Bunky still needed his mother to feed him, he still needed her to buttress his fledgling power of precognition. That had probably been the case with the HiLo warning. In time the Lamb would achieve his full powers, but at present he was still learning.

  “Thank you,” she said, squeezing his shoulder affectionately.

  She returned to Elasa. “The sheep say it is feasible, but with a caution.”

  “That’s a relief!”

  “You want to study telepathy the way I want to study precognition,” Mona said.

  “Yes, that’s part of my reason to come here. I would have helped you regardless, but projective telepathy may be as important as precognition. We need to study both. This way we can.”

  “The Lamb and the Plant working together?”

  “Exactly. Both here and on Earth.”

  “But--” Mona stopped, disliking the thought.

  Elasa looked at her as she climbed from the water. “What is it?”

  “Bunky won’t be a lamb forever. He’ll grow up.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “This is not the time.”

  Mona didn’t get it, but was annoyed. “I’ll see how Brian is doing.”

  Brian had made fair progress; he was after all a farm boy. He had gathered pieces of fallen wood and lashed them tightly together with vines to make a crude but effective pot. “It
won’t last forever, being organic,” he said. “But a few months should do.”

  “Excellent!” Elasa said when she saw it. “Now I think I need Vulture and Python.”

  “What for?” Brian asked.

  “My memory banks say that on Earth, Venus Flytrap plants don’t bother to go after flies if their soil is rich enough. So I need fertilizer, so that Venus won’t go after you.”

  “That makes sense,” Brian said. “I know she’s a carnivorous plant, but when she comes on to me she’s almost irresistible. I’d almost be willing to feed her, just to have her favor.”

  “That is the danger,” Elasa agreed. “There’s just the one of her, and she’s small, so she wouldn’t take a lethal amount of your blood. But it’s better to avoid the vampire aspect if we can. She’s not the sweet innocent sexy girl you see.”

  He laughed appreciatively. “Are any of them? I mean even the human girls?”

  Elasa smiled. “Sexy? Yes. Sweet? Maybe. Innocent? No. We all practice our wiles for a purpose. You saw me play-acting for the males, didn’t you?”

  She was flirting with him. Mona did not like that either. Elasa was too physically attractive, and still naked. Mona knew she was reacting like a jealous shrew; maybe it was the stress of this expedition getting to her. She suppressed it.

  She went back to the Lamb. “Bunky, we need fertilizer for the plant, a special kind. Can Vulture and Python help?”

  The Lamb walked to the edge of the water, where the vampire grew. Mona was alarmed, then remembered that he was too young to be affected by the pheromones. He sniffed the edge of the mist. Then he walked back.

  “You got the specification?” Mona asked. She wasn’t sure how either precognition or telepathy could relate, unless it was a matter of glancing at the plant’s future to see whether it survived.

  Bunky bleated. Vulture took off, flying into the forest. Python slithered rapidly in the same direction. They evidently understood the Lamb’s request.

  “It is lovely the way they interact,” Elasa said. “The sheep are the unifying force; the rest of us are merely accessories.”

  Soon Vulture returned. Then Python, carrying what appeared to be a rotting bone in her mouth. The bird had evidently located it for the snake to carry. They went to Elasa.