Note - I wrote this one for a good friend and superfan. I meant to have this ready for Halloween as it was an attempt to combine a Samantha Storm tick-fic with some horror elements. The character of Dr Fang (aka Lavender) belongs to PeterVincentTGVK and is used with permission.
Infiltrating the laboratory had been surprisingly easy for Samantha. It was a two storey greenhouse with intersecting catwalks and a spiral staircase connecting it to the main house, a Gothic mansion hidden behind high stone walls. The walls were old and weathered and were an urban climber’s dream. Once she was at the top of the wall, she used a tree on the either side to descend.
She had been surprised at the lack of security on the greenhouse. Some quick work with a tension wrench and a feeler pick had conquered the lock. It shouldn’t be this easy, her awareness kicked up a notch
After the cool night air, she could feel perspiration prickle at her hairline. The atmosphere was thick with the heady aroma of a florists. Ultrasonic humidifiers and wet wall evaporative cooling pads kept the humidity between 60 and 90%. Radiant hot water piping kept the temperature at 70 degrees fahrenheit. She could hear the low hum of fans and HEPA filtration systems. This had all been in the file.
Samantha wasn’t prepared for how exotic and alien the plantlife looked up close. She knew a couple of the variants like the Tongue Orchids with their thick, fleshy petals and the outlandish corpse flower with its enormous, bulbous interior; but there were rarer, modified species straight from sci-fi movies. She saw serpentine lengths of Chokevines and Hookvines, a Stalker Cactus flexed its yellow spines, like darts eager for release, a Gibbering Pitchflower’s violet bell trembled, its stamen throbbing wetly as if waiting to feed. Glistening and translucent Slime Stalks nestled between the triangular iridescent blue Pulse Blooms with their black veined leaves. They almost seemed…aware.
One of the Ribbon Tendrils seemed to curl toward her before the air from a fan stirred it back. Samantha told herself it was just the ventilation. “If Zack Snyder remade Little Shop of Horrors…” she thought grimly.
She was clad in a black shirt and pants and carried minimal equipment. She was there on a sneak and peek. If all went to plan no-one would ever know she had been there. She thought back to the briefing two days prior, in Director Fox’s office.
“What do you know about bioacoustics?” Director Fox asked.
Samantha shrugged. “Skimmed an article in Nat Geo once. Something to do with how plants react to different frequencies. Apparently they thrive if you play Mozart but don’t like Heavy Metal.”
“In a nutshell,” Lydia Fox said. She passed Samantha a manila folder with red and black security chevrons.
Samantha tucked her raven hair behind her ears and opened the file. She saw a surveillance photo of a young Asian woman with high cheekbones. Her hair was styled in a sharp purple bob.
“Dr Fang Zhou-wen,” Fox began, “biochemist at Tsinghua University in China. Did her doctorate in phytochemistry and genetic editing at Cambridge. She was part of a group working a modified wheat strain which could be grown in most soil conditions. Their aim was to cure world hunger.”
Samantha glanced up. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“Funding was pulled. She didn’t take it well. She left academia and published fringe papers which were largely ridiculed on plant communication and secondary metabolites as psychoactive agents. She dropped off the grid for a couple of years and then reappeared due to her links to a radical eco-terror cell called The Green Watch.”
“The group who took out the CFO of a Swiss pharmaceutical company?” Samantha said.
“Among other things. That was their most public success though. They abducted him and dosed him up with plant based psychotropics. He spends his days muttering at shadows only he can see. I hear he wears adult diapers and needs round the clock care.”
Samantha flicked through the folder and raised an eyebrow at a photo of Dr Fang cutting an alluring finger in a purple leather catsuit. “This is a bit theatrical.”
“Mm-hmm,” Fox agreed. “A bit like your friend, Jenni. I hear she has hit it off with Angela Blaze.”
“Yeah,” Samantha muttered. She remembered the time she had foolishly agreed to a poker night with the two of them and the forfeits she had suffered.
“For now we just want to get a look at her work up close. She’s working out of an old estate in Southern Germany. Her research is of interest to certain parties.”
“A plant-based arms race?” The corners of Samantha’s mouth curled up.
Fox regarded her over steepled fingers. “We understand a foreign power sent some particularly unpleasant people to render Dr Fang and steal her research but the operatives never returned.”
Samantha repeated one of the director’s own aphorisms. “We don’t deal in rumours.”
The director smiled at her operative. “Trust but verify, Samantha. Trust but verify.”
Samantha took a small, black box from her pocket. Part of Samantha’s mission brief was to record the way the modified plants reacted to different frequencies. She crouched between the rows of foliage. A tiny dial glowed blue as she rolled it with her thumb, and she pressed the transmit button.
100 hertz. A slow, thrumming bass note vibrated through the glasshouse floor. At first nothing happened—then, almost imperceptibly, a cluster of Ribbon Tendrils turned their iridescent tips toward her. The movement was too deliberate to be coincidence. Samantha felt a trickle of sweat at her temple. “So you do hear me,” she whispered.
She nudged the dial higher. 500 hertz. A row of Chokevines along the lattice quivered, their ropy lengths tightening as if flexing invisible muscles. Spines emerged from hidden seams in the stalks, glinting yellow in the dim light. The shift was small but unmistakably hostile. Samantha eased her breath, thumb poised to drop the signal.
She twisted the dial. Two kilohertz, barely audible. A bell-shaped Pitchflower jolted open, its petals snapping apart as if yanked by strings. From its pulsing stamen, a puff of violet dust hissed into the humid air. Samantha flinched back, covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve. Even without breathing it in, the pungent sweetness clung to her tongue.
“Different,” she murmured, her pulse quickening.
One more test: ultrasonic. The hum was inaudible, but the effect rippled through the greenhouse like a shiver. Several vines that had been twisting toward her abruptly froze, their tips curling inward in confused spirals. A jointed Stalker Cactus flexed in her direction but then drooped, its spines failing to launch. Samantha let out a slow exhale.
Samantha powered the device down and slipped it back into her pocket. The plants relaxed but she knew she wasn’t alone in this place, not really. The greenhouse was listening.
Something brushed her boot. A slender vine had looped around her ankle, tightening with the slow patience of a snake. She crouched to pry it loose. She knew some climbing species behaved this way but the vine resisted every tug. She withdrew the knife clipped to her pocket. She pressed the stud and the blade snapped open.
Before she could bring it down, another vine twined around her wrist, pulling her arm taut. Could the plants sense a threat..?
She closed the knife. “Message received.”
The vine slackened slightly but didn’t let go. She needed to get her free hand to the frequency device. An ultrasonic burst should get her out of this.
A girlish giggle sounded above her. Footsteps clicked against the spiral staircase as a figure descended.
“Bravo,” a voice purred, smooth and accented. “Most intruders panic by now.”
Samantha tilted her chin toward the descending figure, the vines tightening fractionally.
“Dr. Fang Zhou-wen, I presume. Or do you prefer, Lavender?,”
Lavender emerged from the gloom. She wore a white blouse and purple leather pants. The leather choker at her throat had a glowing purple gemstone that matched her hair.
“So you know who I am? Then let me tell you what a delight it is to welcome the great Samantha Storm, even if you are an uninvited guest. Let’s have a proper look at you. Please, make our guest welcome.”
Just as Samantha registered that Lavender was talking to the plants, the greenery rippled and surged. Vines snaked up her limbs, coiling tight. Another slid wetly around her throat, pressing against her pulse before tugging upward, forcing her onto her tiptoes.
She snapped her knife open with a click but the vine coiled there constricted with brutal force. She gasped with pain as her fingers spasmed open. The blade clattered to the tiles.
The vines shivered as if in amusement. Petals, leaves and stamens writhed, casting eerie shadows.
“Silly girl,” Lavender purred as she descended the last step, heels clicking in a slow, deliberate rhythm. She didn’t need to raise her voice; the vines moved in time with her gestures, like marionettes tugged by invisible strings.
At her subtle tilt of the head, the vine at Samantha’s throat flexed tighter, just enough to make her vision spark at the edges. Then, just as she gasped for breath, it loosened, the release almost sensual. A second tendril slithered up her side, curling across her ribs with a disturbingly human curiosity before slipping around her wrist and wrenching it higher.
“You see?” Lavender leaned close enough that Samantha caught a trace of violet perfume. “They can hurt you, or they can hold you. It depends on how well you behave.”
A fleshy blossom unfolded from the shadows; a Pitchflower, its petals slick and velvet-veined. Its stamen pulsed, swelling, then gave a sudden twitch. A hiss of pollen sprayed across Samantha’s face. The sweet, heavy scent invaded her nose and mouth. She coughed, her head swam. She could feel the pulse in her neck crashing against the vine.
The end of the vine around Samantha’s neck slithered up to trace the outline of her ear, causing her to jerk her head away.
“We don’t usually get such pretty guests. I think they like you,” Lavender giggled. “Hold her tight my lovelies.
Samantha felt herself stretched out by the vines as Lavender began to search her thoroughly. She could feel the woman’s breath on her neck as her hands explored thoroughly, lingering where they shouldn’t.
“You could buy me a drink first,” Samantha muttered.
Lavender ignored her. She dug into Samantha’s pockets and fished out the electronic device. “Oh what’s this? A frequency emitting device? I don’t think you’ll be needing that anymore.”
She tossed the device on the floor in front of a thick stalked plant whose long, red petals were spotted with yellow. “Deal with that, my precious.”
The leaves spread to reveal a throbbing black stamen, moist with sap. The viscous liquid dripped onto the frequency emitter and it began to hiss and bubble. Samantha looked on in horror. That thing was dripping acid! What kind of monstrosities had Lavender created here?
Samantha forced herself not to flinch as the acid hissed through her only means of manipulating the plants. The emitter dissolved into a bubbling smear.
“My darlings and I can get a little bored sometimes but if what I’ve heard about you is true, then you should provide wonderful amusement.” Lavender’s fingers traced the lightning bolt on Samantha’s belt buckle. The vines flexed in unison, tugging Samantha’s limbs wider.
“Then you know how those stories end. Always outnumbered, never outgunned. Consider this a final warning.” Samantha’s blue eyes were chips of ice.
Lavender laughed lightly, a sound that made the leaves around them tremble, the gemstone twinkled at her throat. “Always so sharp. We’re going to enjoy this.” Her hand drifted lower, trailing over Samantha’s hip. “Maybe I’ll prune you. Or mould you into something else…”
Lavender ran her fingertip inside the collar of Samantha’s shirt. “I think they like you,” she said softly.
The vines tightened again, their textures varied: some coarse as rope, others slick with sap. The petal-tipped tendril at her ear fluttered, almost affectionately. Samantha bit down the instinctive shiver. “Wish I could say it was mutual.”
The vines didn’t simply restrain her now, they lifted her. Samantha’s boots scraped against the damp floor before losing purchase entirely. She felt her stomach lurch as the coils around her torso and thighs tightened, hoisting her upward.
“Careful, my lovelies,” Lavender cooed. “Don’t break her… yet.”
Samantha’s shoulders strained against the pull, but the plants moved with eerie coordination. The coils around her wrists and ankles guided her forward, carrying her across the greenhouse. She realized with a shiver that they weren’t simply reacting, they were obeying.
Her eyes darted ahead. In a clearing of foliage stood a massive marble block, its polished surface gleaming beneath the greenhouse lamps. The edges were stained a faint brownish-red, and faint grooves scarred the stone, suggesting she was not the first to be taken here.
“No,” she whispered, her voice catching. The vines ignored her.
They lowered her with unnerving gentleness, stretching her lengthwise across the slab. Her back pressed against the cool, unyielding surface, the temperature bleeding through her thin shirt.
Vines slithered into place with cruel artistry. Her wrists were drawn above her head, pinned flat against the stone, while her ankles were splayed and anchored to the corners. Another coil wrapped across her waist, tightening just enough to arch her spine, forcing her chest upward.
A broad petal unfurled from one of the Pitchflowers above, lowering until it hovered just above her face, like a living mask poised to descend. Samantha could smell its syrupy sweetness dripping into the air, its bulbous stamen twitched, seeking. Every instinct screamed at her to turn her head away.
Lavender leaned over the slab, her silhouette framed in violet light. She traced Samantha’s ear, with a fingertip.
“Did you know plants react to music? I’m keen to see what kind of music your body makes when we press the right keys.”
Samantha was no stranger to dangerous situations and dangerous people. In her unusual career she had found herself bound and restrained using a variety of methods and in a range of uncomfortable positions but this was the first time she had found herself at the mercy of sentient plants.
“Congratulations, Dr Fang. I don’t know what’s more impressive, your ability to genetically modify plants or your skill in controlling them.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she replied, admiring the sight of Samantha writhing on the slab, “and please, call me Lavender. No need for formality.”
“OK then, Lavender, I’m authorised to make a generous offer for your research and your talents. But perhaps we can discuss that in a more comfortable setting.”
Lavender pressed her fingertips against the pulse on Samantha’s throat. “You’re not easily rattled, I’ll give you that. But I’m not really interested in your offer.”
“We’re willing to pay very well.” Samantha said
Lavender’s fingertips trailed into the open collar of Samantha’s shirt and traced the edges of her collarbones. “Even if I believed you I am not swayed by money.”
“Perhaps we can find something that’s more compelling?” Samantha said, trying to bargain while ignoring the slick vine wrapped around her throat. The tip of the vine drifted up her neck and stroked her earlobe.
Lavender looked down at her with a gleam in her eye. “What could be more compelling than the beautiful Samantha Storm. And if the stories I’ve heard are true…” She walked to the foot of the slab and ran her hands over Samantha’s ankle boots before tugging down the zippers.
“Oh shit,” Samantha muttered.
The purple-haired botanist muttered something in Mandarin and two vines snaked out of the gloom, allowing themselves to be guided to Samantha’s boots.
Samantha knew exactly what Lavender had planned now. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch.
The vines began to wrap around her boots and began to pull this way and that.
“That’s it my darlings, you’ll figure it out.” Lavender said softly.
One of the vines slipped inside the open boot and began the shudder as it tried to pull the boot from her foot. Samantha shuddered at the alien intrusion and bunched her toes, aiming to keep the boot in place but the vine was winning.
The other vine wrapped itself around the edge of Samantha’s bootheel and slowly increased the pressure as it tugged the boot from her foot.
Lavender squealed with delight as the boots were pulled free and clattered to the floor. “See? My pretties are first learners.” She hooked a fingertip into each of Samantha’s grey ankle socks and jerked them off, baring her exquisitely shaped feet.
“Oh, Samantha, what have we here? Smooth, shapely and sensitive.”
Samantha flinched as Lavender plucked an imaginary lint from the pad of her big toe.
“It would appear you are as sensitive as the tales suggest,” Lavender giggled.
She beckoned forth three vines, the width of fingers; they moved towards Samantha’s right sole with a serpentine grace.
Samantha looked up and hissed through gritted teeth, “Get those things away from me.”
Lavender’s eyes gleamed with a sadistic cruelty. “But, Samantha, how will they ever learn?” Without further ado, she seized Samantha’s left foot by the big toe and ran a manicured fingernail along her high, pink arch.
Samantha groaned and tried to relax her muscles. This was not her first rodeo, she had survived these ordeals before and she could survive them again.
Lavender added more fingers and began a feather light scribbling on Samantha’s sole.
The Section Seven agent clenched her stomach muscles reflexively and tried to control her breathing. She had almost forgotten about the writhing vines when she felt a damp probing on her sole. She tried to wrench her foot away but the vines wrapped around her ankle reacted to any struggling by tightening their grip.
She shuddered as she felt with thick, wet tips of the vines probe her sole.
“Like this, my pretties,” Lavender said, she flexed and curled her fingers against Samantha’s sole. The vines responded rubbing their lengths against the smooth flesh before dextrously curling to stroke with the tip.
Samantha’s toes bunched and her sole wrinkled. She cursed under her breath. The damn things were learning! Lavender was teaching her plants how to tickle her!
Lavender reached across and ran her fingertips across the stems of Samantha’s toes, coaxing the vines to imitate her. There was a wet rustling as they moved to copy her. “Look, Samantha, see how fast they learn.”
Samantha’s cheeks were flushed, “Nothing a little weed killer couldn't sort out.”
The Doctor’s fingers stopped and she turned with an icy smile, the purple gemstone glinting at her throat, “Now that wasn’t very nice, Samantha. I think we’ll have to teach you a lesson.”
She began to prise Samantha’s toes apart and tickle the stems. “Like this, my pretties. Hold her toes apart. It will make it so much more unbearable.”
As if on command, slender bright green vines, no thicker than a shoelace appeared to wrap around her toes on both feet and pull the toes apart.
“That’s it,” Lavender grinned. “Now go between the toes, softly, not too hard. The skin here is very sensitive, right Samantha?”
Thicker, hairier vines between to thread between her toes, gently sawing back and forth in an obscene mimicry of their mistress.
Samantha growled deep in her throat, pressing her lips together. She knew she couldn’t hold out much longer and soon the dam would break. She had found herself in this position more times than she cared to think about but she still hadn’t decided whether it was better if she held out as long as possible or whether she should just give in to the laughter and wait for a chance to escape.
“Tickle, tickle tickle, the naughty little spy is going to laugh.” Lavender chanted as her nimble fingers continued to stroke Samantha’s helpless toes.
“Screw you!” Samantha growled.
“Such a flirt!” Lavender giggled, “go on, let that laughter out.” She bent her head to Samantha’s foot and took her big toe into her mouth, she licked around the vine and then began to nibble the flesh of Samantha’s toe with her teeth.
That did it. Samantha let out a short bark of laughter. Lavender sucked another toe into her mouth, nibbled gently and Samantha erupted.
The purple-haired scientist now took all of Samantha’s toes into her mouth while tickling her soles. “Mmm, tasty tootsies,” she teased as she coated them in saliva.
Taking their cue, A selection of crimson-hued flowers with pulsing stamens slithered towards Samantha’s other foot. The thick, wet petals enveloped each of her toes in turn and their wet stamens approximated tongues as they began to explore.
Samantha looked up in horror. It was bad enough to see Lavender’s head bobbing up and down over her left foot but now she was confronted with the unholy sight of myriad vines and flowers assaulting her right foot. The petals sucked, the hairy vines sawed gently and iridescent green vines held her foot immobile.
In her career she had endured all the dangers and indignities that her opponents could throw at her but this was so bizarre and alien she thought she might lose her mind. This couldn’t be happening! Perhaps the pollen was psychotropic? Maybe she was imagining all this?
She was laughing and cursing with abandon now. Lavender’s infuriating giggle reached her ears and she refocused on the task at hand: take whatever she throws at you and wait for your opportunity.
“Is this it?” Samantha said in between peals of laughter, “you’re training your plants to act kinky? You sure you don’t take your work home with you?”
Lavender’s lips popped as she released Samantha’s big toe. “Be thankful I haven’t unleashed the hookvines or the Venus beartraps. They don’t play so gently, as you may yet discover.”
So she had weaponised these things with offensive capabilities. Samantha filed away that tidbit of information as the tingling feelings in her feet went all the way up her legs and beyond.
Lavender’s mouth returned to her toes, her nibbling teeth and serpentine tongue had an electric effect on Samantha’s feet and she shook with silent laughter.
“Come, darling, let us hear that lovely, musical laughter. Don’t hold back.” Lavender giggled as she sucked and slurped on her big toe.
“Omigod…” Samantha wheezed before descending into another bout of hysterics. She bounced her bum up and down on the marble slab in frustration.
“You see, my darling little spy? The plants are almost part of me, they are extensions of me and they do my bidding and in return I show them such love.” She tapped Samantha’s sole. “Here my lovelies, you know what to do.”
Samantha was breathing hard and fighting to talk between her bouts of laughter. “Well if bioterrorism doesn’t work out for you there’s always OnlyFans. I bet no-one is doing this yet…nnngh…” She gasped as probing vines and thick petals descended on her left foot. She looked up to see them writhing and snaking against her soles. She half-wondered if the psychotropic pollen was making her hallucinate and there were really just a pair of horny lab assistants playing with her feet.
“I admire your spirit, Samantha. It makes it all the sweeter when I finally break you. No one defeats the garden.” Lavender squeezed Samantha’s ankles and began walking her fingers up towards Samantha’s knees. Vines and flowers swam into view, curious and eager to learn.
The twisted botanist curled her fingers into lobster claws and began to rapidly squeeze the firm muscle about Samantha’s knees. The ticklish jolts were amplified by the vines and stamen tickling her feet and the helpless operative let out an anguished squeal of laughter.
Samantha cursed inwardly. Lavender had caught her by surprise now. The purple-haired doctor leaned forward, opened her mouth as wide as she could and bit Samantha above the left knee.
That was worse than the lobster claw and Samantha screamed with laughter. But the more she struggled, the more the vines held her in place so their mistress could take her pleasures.
Lavender hopped up on the slab and as her hands lobster clawed up and down Samantha’s sleek right thigh, her mouth tormented her above the left knee. To add insult to injury, Lavender made munching noises as if she was enjoying a delicious meal which, in a way, she was.
“You remind me of a pretty, little lab assistant I had once,” Lavender purred in between munching Samantha’s knees. “If she made a mistake I’d punish her with tickles and for some reason her knees were a real weak spot. Now, she was really very good and rarely made mistakes so sometimes I’d just make things up so I could tickle her.” She laughed to herself before subjecting Samantha’s thighs to another munching and clawing.
Samantha could do little more than wiggle her hips and whip her head from side to side. The marble slab was no longer cold through her shirt and she could feel sweat prickling on her skin. Her ribs ached. Get free, Samantha, she told herself. You’ll get a window of opportunity. Think, dammit!
“You know what?” Samantha panted, “I’m beginning to doubt your scientific process here.”
Lavender looked up in amusement. “Oh really?”
Samantha shrugged as much as her bonds would allow. “You’re dressing this up as an experiment but we both know what’s really going on here.”
“Well, you’d know.” Lavender squeezed Samantha’s lithe thigh and ran her hand upwards. “In fact, good as you are, it seems to me that you end up in these situations a little too often.
Samantha tried to disassociate and ignore the touch of the scientist’s hands. She began multiplying double digit numbers in her head.
Both of Lavender’s hands were rubbing Samantha’s inner thighs now. “In fact I am not sure you don’t enjoy this a little too much yourself.” She stroked a fingertip over the zipper of Samantha’s pants.
13 x 17… 24 x 31… 18 x 79…
“Cat got your tongue? Tell me truly, Samantha. Are you getting a little hot and bothered down here. Are your tits getting a little perky?”
“Sorry, you just don’t really do it for me.” Samantha replied. 14 x 21… 52 x 25…
A muscle twitched in Lavender’s cheek. “Maybe I should take a little peek, just to make sure you aren’t lying to me.” The purple gemstone at her throat glinted in the half-light. “It’s your turn my lovelies. Let’s unwrap our little gift.”
Samantha heard a rhythmic clicking and saw a series of dark green ropy vines loom into her vision. Each vine was lined with black thorns that made her think of shark fins.
She cursed under her breath. She’d read about the hook vines, needled tipped and razor sharp and the only way she’d want to encounter them would be at the end of a flamethrower.
“Gently my pretties. Peel her like a banana but don’t damage her.”
A vine appeared by the right side of her face, which made her flinch. It almost seemed to vibrate with anticipation as it snagged the collar of her shirt and began to pull. There was a soft tearing sound and then a button popped free and skittered across the marble slab.
Caught in a mix of horror and fascination, Samantha watched as the thorns pulled and tore at her shirt. She felt cool air hit her upper chest as another button pinged across the slab. The vines worked in concert, tearing Samantha’s shirt open and shredding the fabric with little problem.
“They’ve done this before.” Samantha breathed.
“They’re not usually to gentle,” Lavender murmured. “I’m making an exception for you.
The raven-haired agent could do nothing to resist as her shirt was reduced to shreds by the eerie methodical vines.
“Oh you are a treat indeed,” Lavender said, gazing at Samantha’s sleek, bare torso. Samantha hissed through her teeth as Lavender gently squeezed her breasts through her sports bra.
“They’re real! How delightful.” Lavender squealed.
“Pervert.” Samantha muttered.
Lavender sat on the slab, her legs dangling off the side. Her fingertips brushed across Samantha’s bra and she grinned knowingly. “Stop complaining, we’re both going to enjoy this.”
“I’m open-minded but a hot date with the triffids isn’t exactly on my bucket list.”
“I love your attitude,” Lavender ran a fingertip down the middle of Samantha’s taut belly and began to idly trace flowery patterns. “But my babies have to learn. You’re not the first person we’ve had here and you won’t be the last.”
“Out of interest, what happened to the others?” Samantha said.
“I could tell you, but it will be much more fun to show you.” Lavender spun around and in one smooth move was straddling Samantha’s thighs. A wet vine, thick as a thumb snaked out of the darkness and stroked her cheek, like a dog licking its owner. Other vines appeared and began to caress her affectionately. “I think you need to loosen up a little first though.”
The purple-haired scientist curled her fingers towards the gloom of the greenhouse and a large crimson petaled flower on a thick stem loomed into view above Samantha’s head. The petals had a damp, rubbery look and framed a thick, pulsing grey stamen with yellow spots . A weird mixture of sickly sweet perfume and rotting vegetation hung around it like a cloud.
The thing seemed to sense her, the petals flexing, the stamen twitching. The hideous flower began to descend.
Samantha felt a wave of panic. “Get that damn thing away from me.”
Lavender continued to run her fingertips across Samantha’s waist and belly. “He just wants to say hello.”
The petals sealed around Samantha’s face. She let out a muffled gagging sound as the stamen explored her face. She screwed her eyes closed and closed her mouth as tightly as she could. She felt the stamen, shudder and expand and then with a hissing sound it released a cloud of pollen. Samantha felt the pollen on her cheeks and in her nose. A woozy sensation followed by pins and needles washed through her body.
She was arching up off the table, shaking her head to try and dislodge the flower. The hands exploring her body were the last of her problems as the stamen hissed again. The feelings within her body intensified. She couldn’t concentrate, now she felt a pleasant rush of warmth.
Lavender’s work had gone further than Section Seven had imagined. Samantha was giddy as more pollen found its way into her nose and ears. With a growing sense of dread she understood that the plant had been modified to become a delivery system for a psychotropic agent. She was being drugged by the garden!
Still trapped by the unnatural bloom, and despite the red warning lights flashing in her head, Samantha began to giggle.
Lavender explored the rim of Samantha’s belly button with a fingertip. She watched as her genetically modified plant pulsed and bloomed, the petals of its insidious flower wrapped around her face. “He likes you.”
Samantha heard Lavender’s voice as if underwater. She could feel the texture of the petals affixed to her skin. The scientist’s fingertip left a trail of unquenchable fire as it lazily traced across her skin.
Think, Samantha, what is she dosing you with? Truth serum? Poison? Something else? It’s a stimulant… Of course!
While she was battling to understand what was happening to her, the petals detached from her face and the flower rose up to hover overhead.
Samantha blinked hard. She could hear blood crashing in her throat, her vision was pinprick sharp and her skin registered every subtle change in the airflow. The textures of the vines holding her in place were as individual as fingerprints.
And above her Lavender sat resplendent, her leather pants gently creaking as she straddled Samantha’s hip.
“I’ve been gentle with you up to now,” Lavender said, “but this is where I really start to have fun with you.” She leaned forward, the purple gemstone at her throat catching the light. She blew gently on Samantha’s bicep and continued the thin stream of breath into her armpit.
To Samantha it felt as tangible as a finger. So that was the purpose of the stimulant. It magnified the sensations experienced by the body; pleasure or pain.
“I knew it.” Samantha’s mouth felt dry as cotton and she licked her lips. “All this, behind all the angry ideology and hard science this is just a way for you to indulge your kinks.”
With surprising speed and strength, Lavender pinched Samantha’s nostrils closed with her left hand and clamped her fingers over her mouth with her right. Her thumb dug into her jaw to keep her mouth closed. Her face was inches from Samantha’s, eyes unblinking as she watched her pretty captive start to struggle for air.
“You know, Samantha, after I’m done with my ‘indulgences’, I think I might make you my masterpiece.” She fished a small device from her pocket and clicked it twice. Two gnarled trees, thick with vines and vegetation were illuminated under spotlights.
Samantha twisted her head to look. At first she couldn’t make out what she was looking at. Her eyes widened as the horrific tableaux came into focus. There was a man encased in each of the trees, stretched, mottled and engulfed. Thick vines protruded from their mouths dripping sap. Their skin was a sickly mixture of green and yellow and most disconcertingly their eyes were open. It was the stuff of nightmares.
“Man came from the earth and returned to the earth.” Lavender said.
One of the twisted figures appeared to blink slowly.
“Oh my God, they’re alive.” Samantha breathed.
“They came to take me,” Lavender said. “I know what kind of men they are and who they work for. I would have been mercilessly tortured for my secrets and then I would have been killed. But I showed them mercy and now they are part of the garden.”
“That’s a hell of a form of retribution you have there.” Samantha said. Her mind was still clouded
by the psychotropic pollen but she knew she had to find an opening and take it decisively and without hesitation. She could not let herself become part of Lavender’s twisted experimentation.
“You should have thought of that before you poked your pretty little nose where it wasn’t wanted.” For emphasis Lavender leaned forward and licked the tip of Samantha’s nose. “But first, we’re going to make you sing.”
She curled her hands in the air and talked to her plants. She told them what to do.
The vines at Samantha’s feet renewed their assault on her soles. They were tentative at first but soon grew in confidence. The vines at her neck began to flutter along the length of her throat and tease her ears. With the stimulant coursing through her bloodstream, Samantha dissolved into fits of girlish giggles. Her ribs already ached from laughing and the unwelcome soreness was another reminder of her predicament. And all the while, Lavender sat astride her, hands on his hips and gloating with the scent of victory.
The vines began to branch out. They followed the path of Lavender’s breath and ran along her upper arms and into her armpits, They probed her knees and explored her inner thighs with uncomfortable familiarity.
“The garden is learning, Samantha. I can tell from your reactions. And while they busy themselves with your beautiful feet and smooth underarms, I shall take advantage of your succulent ribs and tight belly.”
Samantha heard Lavender’s words through her own laughter as she blinked back tears. She choked down a wave of panic as the ticklish sensations racked her body. There had to be a way out of this, there had to be.
Lavender began tickling and kneading Samantha’s ribs. She counted aloud as she did so. “Stop wriggling so much, I’ll have to start again now. One…two…”
“Screw yoooo!” Samantha growled as she buried her face into her upper arm. All this did was expose the other side of her neck to more hungry vegetation which beg to lap and rub against the sensitive skin.
“Could do this all day,” Lavender said, her voice thick with sadistic lust. She squeezed Samantha’s ribs hard and then began running her fingers up and down her sleek sides and across her waist.
Samantha shook her head from side to side. She tried to bite a vine snaking towards her ear but it recoiled instinctively and took another path.
Lavender’s fingers slid under the elasticated sides of Samantha’s sports bra, exposing her glistening skin to the cool air. “Feels so much with fingers on skin, don’t you agree?”
Samantha arched up off the slab. Every time she moved to try and find a slight reprieve, the vines would follow and take advantage. They were everywhere. Her nerve endings were being overstimulated to such an extent she thought she might pass out.
She dug her fingernails into her palms and gritted her teeth through the hysteria. She could get through this. She could escape. She had to!
Lavender changed tack. She tightened her knees against Samantha’s hips and began to unleash a volley of pokes on her athletic stomach. “I’m typing a message, Samantha. Can you guess what it says?”
Samantha wrenched her head aside to dislodge a thin vine that was tickling the delicate shell of her ear. She was tuning out Lavender’s words. They were a distraction, they were irrelevant.
“I’m writing to your handlers. I’m saying, ‘Dear handlers of the lovely Samantha Storm. She no longers works for you. She is now my property and I will do with her as I please. Love and Kisses, Lavender.’ Isn’t that funny?” She giggled, the gemstone at her throat seemed to flicker with her laughter.
Samantha glared daggers at the purple haired scientist.
“Ooh, still a little fight left in you.” Lavender said. She tweaked Samantha’s nose. “Well you wouldn’t be living up to your reputation if you broke too quickly and we have lots of time.”
Vines slithered along the edges of both of her ears now. When she jerked her head away from one, she left the other one vulnerable to attack. She groaned with frustration. A thick, sinewy vine wrapped around her leg, its tip began to probe her inner thigh, moving higher and higher.
“Oh, Samantha, it seems they really do like you. You’ll note they are quick studies and they like to follow my lead.” She pressed her lips to Samantha’s quivering belly and planted a wet kiss. She moved closer and closer to Samantha’s belly button.
Samantha had been tickled by multiple people at the same time before but it was nothing like this. Her stomach muscles clenched as Lavender licked and nibbled. The nerve endings around her belly button were on fire with anticipation.
She groaned as Lavender licked a circle around the shallow depression and then sealed her lips over it to blow and blow.
Samantha threw her head back with laughter. She had a love hate relationship with belly blowing, it got her every time. The twisted scientist nibbled and blew and then licked her navel. Before blowing again and again.
The vine between her legs rubbed back and forth at the crotch of her pants. At her shoulders, thinner vines probed the straps of her sports bra.
“Is that what you do with your plants when no-one’s looking?” Samantha growled.
Lavender looked up in amusement. “I think someone’s a little frustrated. Have you been walking on eggshells for a bit? Not getting any? Don’t worry.” She licked a path up Samantha’s belly, between her breasts and up to her neck. She tried to kiss Samantha on the lips but she turned her head away. Lavender settled for nibbling her neck. “We’ll take care of you.”
Samantha could see the scientist’s eyes were wildly dilated. She looked closer at the gleaming gemstone at her throat and realised it was blinking.
Was that some sort of control device. She looked closely at the leather of the choker and saw it was imprinted with micro-circuitry. So that’s how she does it!
For a moment Samantha was duly impressed. The frequency emitter the technical session had given her for the mission was almost stone age technology compared to the wearable around Lavender’s neck. From a distance it looked like a normal leather choker. Ingenious! A plan started to form in Samantha’s mind.
The vine between her legs was now applying a maddening pressure as it rubbed back and forth.
“It’s like a living crotchrope,” Samantha groaned.
“Not your first time, is it?” Lavender said.
Samantha exhaled and blew air out of her cheeks. “How is it doing that?” She murmured. Her hips began to move as she tried to grind against the thick, quivering tendril.
“The charms of the garden can be hard to resist.” Lavender fluttered her fingertips along Samantha’s neck and ears. She bent forward and replaced her fingers with her tongue.
“Nnnngh…” Samantha bit her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood.
“Just give in,” Lavender whispered.
“Ok, stop, stop… whaddaya wanna know?” Samantha rasped, her eyelids fluttered.
“We want to know what makes you feel good. But you don’t need to tell us, we’ll find out.” Lavender placed kisses along Samantha’s collar bones as her fingertips swirled gently in her armpits.
Samantha’s moans, the smacking of Lavender’s lips and the rustling of the seething vegetation created an eerily sensual soundscape in the greenhouse. Lavender didn’t ask any more questions. She delighted herself by tormenting her beautiful captive with her fingers and her mouth. Her plants joined her, rubbing, exploring, flickering across Samantha’s body.
Samantha lost track of time and giggled and murmured at the sensually ticklish onslaught. She looked up to see another thick vine had wrapped itself around Lavender’s leather clad thigh and was now throbbing against her crotch. Her tormentor groaned with pleasure. “Feels so good.” She squeezed Samantha’s breasts, “Are you ticklish here too?”
“Don’t,” Samantha said weakly as Lavender peeled open her sports bra.
“Don’t what?” Lavender asked innocently. Her fingernails skated around the contours of Samantha’s breasts before closing in on her pink nipples. She stroked and pinched the rapidly stiffening buds as Samantha’s hips began to twitch
“Don’t.” Samamtha murmured, licking her lips. “Don’t… stop…”
Lavender grinned, “Ah, I think the super-cool secret agent is getting a little overheated. You’re enjoying this aren’t you.” She continued to tease and stroke Samantha’s nipples and blew in her ear.
The thick vine between Samantha’s thighs had learned the shape of her and was pulsing and shuddering. Thinner vines brushed every inch of exposed skin they could find, igniting the helpless operative’s nerve endings.
Samantha turned her face into her upper arm to muffle a giggle. Lavender took advantage and ran the tip of her tongue along the sleek muscle in Samantha’s neck before nibbling her ear.
“Quit it.” Samantha giggled. Probing blooms explored her ribs and teased the sides of her breasts.
“No,” Lavender said. “Because you don’t want us to.”
A vine the thickness of a finger explored Samantha’s belly button and then began to push at the waist of her pants.
Lavender was sucking wetly on Samantha’s neck now as her hand moved down her body. She began tugging on the buckle of Samantha’s belt.
“I think you’re ready for this.” She breathed. She unbuckled Samantha’s belt and unzipped her pants.
Samantha groaned and reached up to kiss Lavender’s cheek.
The scientist looked at her pleasant surprise. “Oh my, Samantha, perhaps you need to release a little pressure.”
Samantha ignored the vine probing her open pants and locked lips with her tormentor. She moaned into the kiss.
Lavender continued her soft tickles on Samantha’s exposed skin as their mouths sought each other’s skin. Samantha kissed her jawline and flicked her tongue along her throat. “You should have said something earlier,” Lavender giggled.
Samantha looked at the glowing diode in its golden lattice. A single word flashed into her mind: NOW!
She lunged forward and locked her teeth around the lattice.
“Samantha, what are you…” Lavender began.
Samantha bit down hard. The lattice work surrounding the diode deformed and then crushed the electronics. She ignored the taste of ozone and the hot sparks in her mouth. She turned her head aside and spat the remnants of the device across the slab.
Lavender reared up shrieking, clutching at the ruined choker at her throat. “What have you done?” She shrieked.
The vines loosed around her in confusion. This was the opening Samantha had been waiting for, she pulled her wrists and ankles free as the vines flailed and tangled around each other. A hook vine lashed out at puff blossoms excreting clouds of pollen.
The scientist recovered quickly. The stiffened edge of her right hand flashed towards Samantha’s neck.
Lavender might have been a world-leading botanist and gene splicer but when it came to hand to hand combat she was outclassed by Samantha.
The operative easily parried the blow, using Lavender’s momentum so she ended up twisting with her back to Samantha. She locked her legs around Lavender’s hips and reached up, to unclip the ruined choker from the scientist’s neck.
She then rolled the pair of them off the slab where she made sure to land on her tormentor, knocking the wind out of her.
Samantha looked around the greenhouse and fixed her sports bra. The plants had been worked up into a controlled frenzy by Lavender but now there was no control.
“Time to get the hell out of here,” Samantha muttered to herself. She stuffed the remnants of the choker in her pocket, pulled her pants up and buckled her belt on the run. She batted a probing vine aside and grabbed her boots and then charged for the door.
“Stop her!” Lavender screeched, but without her control device the plants’ careful coordination descended into chaos.
A hideous purple bloom rose up before Samantha preparing to hiss a cloud of pollen. She punched it on the run and then ducked below a vicious hook vine that whipped out at her throat.
She crashed through the door into the cool night air. She pulled her boots on and scrambled up the tree to the top of the wall, ignoring the scratches she was taking from the tree branches. She dropped to the other side, sprinted to her vehicle, pulled the key fob from the wheel arch and drove away. She resisted the urge to put the pedal to the floor and focused on putting distance between herself and the laboratory of Doctor Fang Zhou-wen.
Samantha had been through some ordeals in her career but she couldn’t begin to think how she was going to explain this one. At least she had salvaged the remnants of Lavender’s choker, maybe Tech Services could do something with that. Gradually, she brought her breathing under control.
…
One week later Samantha sat in the Director’s office. Lydia Fox looked immaculate as ever as she closed the manila folder in front of her. Slouching against the wall was Wyatt, the wiry veteran operator of the Direct Action section. He appeared to be scowling over his bandito moustache but Samantha knew this was just his regular expression. His teachings had saved her life more than once.
“Doctor Fang was clearly much further along in her research than we imagined.” Fox said, she tapped her fingernails on the folder. “You had quite an ordeal, how are you feeling?”
“All good, no ill-effects.” Samantha said, perhaps with a tad more confidence than she felt.
“That’s good. Medical has given you a clean bill of health.”
“Did the Tech Section get anything useful from my clothing or the choker I took from Fang?” Samantha asked.
“Their work is ongoing.” Fox said with a smile. Translation: above your pay grade. “When you made contact we understood that the timeline had been compressed. Wyatt and his team were deployed to secure the target location, and anyone present.” Fox said, she looked at Wyatt.
“By the time we got there Dr Fang was gone and the local fire brigade was looking at smouldering remains. The place had been sanitised beforehand. Looks like every plant was moved, root and stem.”
“I think it’s fair to say Dr Fang had serious backing and resources to call upon.” Fox added.
“Must have been quite a job, they only had a small window of time to move. I bet that really pissed them off. Then again you have a knack for pissing people off.” Wyatt’s grin was shark-like.
“I had a good teacher.” Samantha said
“Thank you, both.” Fox said, signalling that the meeting was at an end. “Samantha, excellent work as usual.”
Wyatt followed Samantha out of the director’s office and back to the area the operatives nicknamed the bullpen. Angela Blaze was perched on the corner of a desk belonging to a dark-haired sniper called Jarod, one of Wyatt’s doorkickers. The pair of them appeared to be enjoying a private joke.
Samantha rounded the corner to her own desk and saw the punchline.
“Welcome back, Sam,” Wyatt stifled a laugh.
Her colleagues had covered her entire workstation with plants and flowers. Her desk, chair and computer were completely obscured under foliage. Behind her she heard Angela and Jarod burst out laughing.
Despite herself, Samantha smiled. “I hate you guys.”
Samantha Storm versus the Green Horror
by Suikoden
by Suikoden
Infiltrating the laboratory had been surprisingly easy for Samantha. It was a two storey greenhouse with intersecting catwalks and a spiral staircase connecting it to the main house, a Gothic mansion hidden behind high stone walls. The walls were old and weathered and were an urban climber’s dream. Once she was at the top of the wall, she used a tree on the either side to descend.
She had been surprised at the lack of security on the greenhouse. Some quick work with a tension wrench and a feeler pick had conquered the lock. It shouldn’t be this easy, her awareness kicked up a notch
After the cool night air, she could feel perspiration prickle at her hairline. The atmosphere was thick with the heady aroma of a florists. Ultrasonic humidifiers and wet wall evaporative cooling pads kept the humidity between 60 and 90%. Radiant hot water piping kept the temperature at 70 degrees fahrenheit. She could hear the low hum of fans and HEPA filtration systems. This had all been in the file.
Samantha wasn’t prepared for how exotic and alien the plantlife looked up close. She knew a couple of the variants like the Tongue Orchids with their thick, fleshy petals and the outlandish corpse flower with its enormous, bulbous interior; but there were rarer, modified species straight from sci-fi movies. She saw serpentine lengths of Chokevines and Hookvines, a Stalker Cactus flexed its yellow spines, like darts eager for release, a Gibbering Pitchflower’s violet bell trembled, its stamen throbbing wetly as if waiting to feed. Glistening and translucent Slime Stalks nestled between the triangular iridescent blue Pulse Blooms with their black veined leaves. They almost seemed…aware.
One of the Ribbon Tendrils seemed to curl toward her before the air from a fan stirred it back. Samantha told herself it was just the ventilation. “If Zack Snyder remade Little Shop of Horrors…” she thought grimly.
She was clad in a black shirt and pants and carried minimal equipment. She was there on a sneak and peek. If all went to plan no-one would ever know she had been there. She thought back to the briefing two days prior, in Director Fox’s office.
“What do you know about bioacoustics?” Director Fox asked.
Samantha shrugged. “Skimmed an article in Nat Geo once. Something to do with how plants react to different frequencies. Apparently they thrive if you play Mozart but don’t like Heavy Metal.”
“In a nutshell,” Lydia Fox said. She passed Samantha a manila folder with red and black security chevrons.
Samantha tucked her raven hair behind her ears and opened the file. She saw a surveillance photo of a young Asian woman with high cheekbones. Her hair was styled in a sharp purple bob.
“Dr Fang Zhou-wen,” Fox began, “biochemist at Tsinghua University in China. Did her doctorate in phytochemistry and genetic editing at Cambridge. She was part of a group working a modified wheat strain which could be grown in most soil conditions. Their aim was to cure world hunger.”
Samantha glanced up. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“Funding was pulled. She didn’t take it well. She left academia and published fringe papers which were largely ridiculed on plant communication and secondary metabolites as psychoactive agents. She dropped off the grid for a couple of years and then reappeared due to her links to a radical eco-terror cell called The Green Watch.”
“The group who took out the CFO of a Swiss pharmaceutical company?” Samantha said.
“Among other things. That was their most public success though. They abducted him and dosed him up with plant based psychotropics. He spends his days muttering at shadows only he can see. I hear he wears adult diapers and needs round the clock care.”
Samantha flicked through the folder and raised an eyebrow at a photo of Dr Fang cutting an alluring finger in a purple leather catsuit. “This is a bit theatrical.”
“Mm-hmm,” Fox agreed. “A bit like your friend, Jenni. I hear she has hit it off with Angela Blaze.”
“Yeah,” Samantha muttered. She remembered the time she had foolishly agreed to a poker night with the two of them and the forfeits she had suffered.
“For now we just want to get a look at her work up close. She’s working out of an old estate in Southern Germany. Her research is of interest to certain parties.”
“A plant-based arms race?” The corners of Samantha’s mouth curled up.
Fox regarded her over steepled fingers. “We understand a foreign power sent some particularly unpleasant people to render Dr Fang and steal her research but the operatives never returned.”
Samantha repeated one of the director’s own aphorisms. “We don’t deal in rumours.”
The director smiled at her operative. “Trust but verify, Samantha. Trust but verify.”
Samantha took a small, black box from her pocket. Part of Samantha’s mission brief was to record the way the modified plants reacted to different frequencies. She crouched between the rows of foliage. A tiny dial glowed blue as she rolled it with her thumb, and she pressed the transmit button.
100 hertz. A slow, thrumming bass note vibrated through the glasshouse floor. At first nothing happened—then, almost imperceptibly, a cluster of Ribbon Tendrils turned their iridescent tips toward her. The movement was too deliberate to be coincidence. Samantha felt a trickle of sweat at her temple. “So you do hear me,” she whispered.
She nudged the dial higher. 500 hertz. A row of Chokevines along the lattice quivered, their ropy lengths tightening as if flexing invisible muscles. Spines emerged from hidden seams in the stalks, glinting yellow in the dim light. The shift was small but unmistakably hostile. Samantha eased her breath, thumb poised to drop the signal.
She twisted the dial. Two kilohertz, barely audible. A bell-shaped Pitchflower jolted open, its petals snapping apart as if yanked by strings. From its pulsing stamen, a puff of violet dust hissed into the humid air. Samantha flinched back, covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve. Even without breathing it in, the pungent sweetness clung to her tongue.
“Different,” she murmured, her pulse quickening.
One more test: ultrasonic. The hum was inaudible, but the effect rippled through the greenhouse like a shiver. Several vines that had been twisting toward her abruptly froze, their tips curling inward in confused spirals. A jointed Stalker Cactus flexed in her direction but then drooped, its spines failing to launch. Samantha let out a slow exhale.
Samantha powered the device down and slipped it back into her pocket. The plants relaxed but she knew she wasn’t alone in this place, not really. The greenhouse was listening.
Something brushed her boot. A slender vine had looped around her ankle, tightening with the slow patience of a snake. She crouched to pry it loose. She knew some climbing species behaved this way but the vine resisted every tug. She withdrew the knife clipped to her pocket. She pressed the stud and the blade snapped open.
Before she could bring it down, another vine twined around her wrist, pulling her arm taut. Could the plants sense a threat..?
She closed the knife. “Message received.”
The vine slackened slightly but didn’t let go. She needed to get her free hand to the frequency device. An ultrasonic burst should get her out of this.
A girlish giggle sounded above her. Footsteps clicked against the spiral staircase as a figure descended.
“Bravo,” a voice purred, smooth and accented. “Most intruders panic by now.”
Samantha tilted her chin toward the descending figure, the vines tightening fractionally.
“Dr. Fang Zhou-wen, I presume. Or do you prefer, Lavender?,”
Lavender emerged from the gloom. She wore a white blouse and purple leather pants. The leather choker at her throat had a glowing purple gemstone that matched her hair.
“So you know who I am? Then let me tell you what a delight it is to welcome the great Samantha Storm, even if you are an uninvited guest. Let’s have a proper look at you. Please, make our guest welcome.”
Just as Samantha registered that Lavender was talking to the plants, the greenery rippled and surged. Vines snaked up her limbs, coiling tight. Another slid wetly around her throat, pressing against her pulse before tugging upward, forcing her onto her tiptoes.
She snapped her knife open with a click but the vine coiled there constricted with brutal force. She gasped with pain as her fingers spasmed open. The blade clattered to the tiles.
The vines shivered as if in amusement. Petals, leaves and stamens writhed, casting eerie shadows.
“Silly girl,” Lavender purred as she descended the last step, heels clicking in a slow, deliberate rhythm. She didn’t need to raise her voice; the vines moved in time with her gestures, like marionettes tugged by invisible strings.
At her subtle tilt of the head, the vine at Samantha’s throat flexed tighter, just enough to make her vision spark at the edges. Then, just as she gasped for breath, it loosened, the release almost sensual. A second tendril slithered up her side, curling across her ribs with a disturbingly human curiosity before slipping around her wrist and wrenching it higher.
“You see?” Lavender leaned close enough that Samantha caught a trace of violet perfume. “They can hurt you, or they can hold you. It depends on how well you behave.”
A fleshy blossom unfolded from the shadows; a Pitchflower, its petals slick and velvet-veined. Its stamen pulsed, swelling, then gave a sudden twitch. A hiss of pollen sprayed across Samantha’s face. The sweet, heavy scent invaded her nose and mouth. She coughed, her head swam. She could feel the pulse in her neck crashing against the vine.
The end of the vine around Samantha’s neck slithered up to trace the outline of her ear, causing her to jerk her head away.
“We don’t usually get such pretty guests. I think they like you,” Lavender giggled. “Hold her tight my lovelies.
Samantha felt herself stretched out by the vines as Lavender began to search her thoroughly. She could feel the woman’s breath on her neck as her hands explored thoroughly, lingering where they shouldn’t.
“You could buy me a drink first,” Samantha muttered.
Lavender ignored her. She dug into Samantha’s pockets and fished out the electronic device. “Oh what’s this? A frequency emitting device? I don’t think you’ll be needing that anymore.”
She tossed the device on the floor in front of a thick stalked plant whose long, red petals were spotted with yellow. “Deal with that, my precious.”
The leaves spread to reveal a throbbing black stamen, moist with sap. The viscous liquid dripped onto the frequency emitter and it began to hiss and bubble. Samantha looked on in horror. That thing was dripping acid! What kind of monstrosities had Lavender created here?
Samantha forced herself not to flinch as the acid hissed through her only means of manipulating the plants. The emitter dissolved into a bubbling smear.
“My darlings and I can get a little bored sometimes but if what I’ve heard about you is true, then you should provide wonderful amusement.” Lavender’s fingers traced the lightning bolt on Samantha’s belt buckle. The vines flexed in unison, tugging Samantha’s limbs wider.
“Then you know how those stories end. Always outnumbered, never outgunned. Consider this a final warning.” Samantha’s blue eyes were chips of ice.
Lavender laughed lightly, a sound that made the leaves around them tremble, the gemstone twinkled at her throat. “Always so sharp. We’re going to enjoy this.” Her hand drifted lower, trailing over Samantha’s hip. “Maybe I’ll prune you. Or mould you into something else…”
Lavender ran her fingertip inside the collar of Samantha’s shirt. “I think they like you,” she said softly.
The vines tightened again, their textures varied: some coarse as rope, others slick with sap. The petal-tipped tendril at her ear fluttered, almost affectionately. Samantha bit down the instinctive shiver. “Wish I could say it was mutual.”
The vines didn’t simply restrain her now, they lifted her. Samantha’s boots scraped against the damp floor before losing purchase entirely. She felt her stomach lurch as the coils around her torso and thighs tightened, hoisting her upward.
“Careful, my lovelies,” Lavender cooed. “Don’t break her… yet.”
Samantha’s shoulders strained against the pull, but the plants moved with eerie coordination. The coils around her wrists and ankles guided her forward, carrying her across the greenhouse. She realized with a shiver that they weren’t simply reacting, they were obeying.
Her eyes darted ahead. In a clearing of foliage stood a massive marble block, its polished surface gleaming beneath the greenhouse lamps. The edges were stained a faint brownish-red, and faint grooves scarred the stone, suggesting she was not the first to be taken here.
“No,” she whispered, her voice catching. The vines ignored her.
They lowered her with unnerving gentleness, stretching her lengthwise across the slab. Her back pressed against the cool, unyielding surface, the temperature bleeding through her thin shirt.
Vines slithered into place with cruel artistry. Her wrists were drawn above her head, pinned flat against the stone, while her ankles were splayed and anchored to the corners. Another coil wrapped across her waist, tightening just enough to arch her spine, forcing her chest upward.
A broad petal unfurled from one of the Pitchflowers above, lowering until it hovered just above her face, like a living mask poised to descend. Samantha could smell its syrupy sweetness dripping into the air, its bulbous stamen twitched, seeking. Every instinct screamed at her to turn her head away.
Lavender leaned over the slab, her silhouette framed in violet light. She traced Samantha’s ear, with a fingertip.
“Did you know plants react to music? I’m keen to see what kind of music your body makes when we press the right keys.”
Samantha was no stranger to dangerous situations and dangerous people. In her unusual career she had found herself bound and restrained using a variety of methods and in a range of uncomfortable positions but this was the first time she had found herself at the mercy of sentient plants.
“Congratulations, Dr Fang. I don’t know what’s more impressive, your ability to genetically modify plants or your skill in controlling them.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she replied, admiring the sight of Samantha writhing on the slab, “and please, call me Lavender. No need for formality.”
“OK then, Lavender, I’m authorised to make a generous offer for your research and your talents. But perhaps we can discuss that in a more comfortable setting.”
Lavender pressed her fingertips against the pulse on Samantha’s throat. “You’re not easily rattled, I’ll give you that. But I’m not really interested in your offer.”
“We’re willing to pay very well.” Samantha said
Lavender’s fingertips trailed into the open collar of Samantha’s shirt and traced the edges of her collarbones. “Even if I believed you I am not swayed by money.”
“Perhaps we can find something that’s more compelling?” Samantha said, trying to bargain while ignoring the slick vine wrapped around her throat. The tip of the vine drifted up her neck and stroked her earlobe.
Lavender looked down at her with a gleam in her eye. “What could be more compelling than the beautiful Samantha Storm. And if the stories I’ve heard are true…” She walked to the foot of the slab and ran her hands over Samantha’s ankle boots before tugging down the zippers.
“Oh shit,” Samantha muttered.
The purple-haired botanist muttered something in Mandarin and two vines snaked out of the gloom, allowing themselves to be guided to Samantha’s boots.
Samantha knew exactly what Lavender had planned now. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch.
The vines began to wrap around her boots and began to pull this way and that.
“That’s it my darlings, you’ll figure it out.” Lavender said softly.
One of the vines slipped inside the open boot and began the shudder as it tried to pull the boot from her foot. Samantha shuddered at the alien intrusion and bunched her toes, aiming to keep the boot in place but the vine was winning.
The other vine wrapped itself around the edge of Samantha’s bootheel and slowly increased the pressure as it tugged the boot from her foot.
Lavender squealed with delight as the boots were pulled free and clattered to the floor. “See? My pretties are first learners.” She hooked a fingertip into each of Samantha’s grey ankle socks and jerked them off, baring her exquisitely shaped feet.
“Oh, Samantha, what have we here? Smooth, shapely and sensitive.”
Samantha flinched as Lavender plucked an imaginary lint from the pad of her big toe.
“It would appear you are as sensitive as the tales suggest,” Lavender giggled.
She beckoned forth three vines, the width of fingers; they moved towards Samantha’s right sole with a serpentine grace.
Samantha looked up and hissed through gritted teeth, “Get those things away from me.”
Lavender’s eyes gleamed with a sadistic cruelty. “But, Samantha, how will they ever learn?” Without further ado, she seized Samantha’s left foot by the big toe and ran a manicured fingernail along her high, pink arch.
Samantha groaned and tried to relax her muscles. This was not her first rodeo, she had survived these ordeals before and she could survive them again.
Lavender added more fingers and began a feather light scribbling on Samantha’s sole.
The Section Seven agent clenched her stomach muscles reflexively and tried to control her breathing. She had almost forgotten about the writhing vines when she felt a damp probing on her sole. She tried to wrench her foot away but the vines wrapped around her ankle reacted to any struggling by tightening their grip.
She shuddered as she felt with thick, wet tips of the vines probe her sole.
“Like this, my pretties,” Lavender said, she flexed and curled her fingers against Samantha’s sole. The vines responded rubbing their lengths against the smooth flesh before dextrously curling to stroke with the tip.
Samantha’s toes bunched and her sole wrinkled. She cursed under her breath. The damn things were learning! Lavender was teaching her plants how to tickle her!
Lavender reached across and ran her fingertips across the stems of Samantha’s toes, coaxing the vines to imitate her. There was a wet rustling as they moved to copy her. “Look, Samantha, see how fast they learn.”
Samantha’s cheeks were flushed, “Nothing a little weed killer couldn't sort out.”
The Doctor’s fingers stopped and she turned with an icy smile, the purple gemstone glinting at her throat, “Now that wasn’t very nice, Samantha. I think we’ll have to teach you a lesson.”
She began to prise Samantha’s toes apart and tickle the stems. “Like this, my pretties. Hold her toes apart. It will make it so much more unbearable.”
As if on command, slender bright green vines, no thicker than a shoelace appeared to wrap around her toes on both feet and pull the toes apart.
“That’s it,” Lavender grinned. “Now go between the toes, softly, not too hard. The skin here is very sensitive, right Samantha?”
Thicker, hairier vines between to thread between her toes, gently sawing back and forth in an obscene mimicry of their mistress.
Samantha growled deep in her throat, pressing her lips together. She knew she couldn’t hold out much longer and soon the dam would break. She had found herself in this position more times than she cared to think about but she still hadn’t decided whether it was better if she held out as long as possible or whether she should just give in to the laughter and wait for a chance to escape.
“Tickle, tickle tickle, the naughty little spy is going to laugh.” Lavender chanted as her nimble fingers continued to stroke Samantha’s helpless toes.
“Screw you!” Samantha growled.
“Such a flirt!” Lavender giggled, “go on, let that laughter out.” She bent her head to Samantha’s foot and took her big toe into her mouth, she licked around the vine and then began to nibble the flesh of Samantha’s toe with her teeth.
That did it. Samantha let out a short bark of laughter. Lavender sucked another toe into her mouth, nibbled gently and Samantha erupted.
The purple-haired scientist now took all of Samantha’s toes into her mouth while tickling her soles. “Mmm, tasty tootsies,” she teased as she coated them in saliva.
Taking their cue, A selection of crimson-hued flowers with pulsing stamens slithered towards Samantha’s other foot. The thick, wet petals enveloped each of her toes in turn and their wet stamens approximated tongues as they began to explore.
Samantha looked up in horror. It was bad enough to see Lavender’s head bobbing up and down over her left foot but now she was confronted with the unholy sight of myriad vines and flowers assaulting her right foot. The petals sucked, the hairy vines sawed gently and iridescent green vines held her foot immobile.
In her career she had endured all the dangers and indignities that her opponents could throw at her but this was so bizarre and alien she thought she might lose her mind. This couldn’t be happening! Perhaps the pollen was psychotropic? Maybe she was imagining all this?
She was laughing and cursing with abandon now. Lavender’s infuriating giggle reached her ears and she refocused on the task at hand: take whatever she throws at you and wait for your opportunity.
“Is this it?” Samantha said in between peals of laughter, “you’re training your plants to act kinky? You sure you don’t take your work home with you?”
Lavender’s lips popped as she released Samantha’s big toe. “Be thankful I haven’t unleashed the hookvines or the Venus beartraps. They don’t play so gently, as you may yet discover.”
So she had weaponised these things with offensive capabilities. Samantha filed away that tidbit of information as the tingling feelings in her feet went all the way up her legs and beyond.
Lavender’s mouth returned to her toes, her nibbling teeth and serpentine tongue had an electric effect on Samantha’s feet and she shook with silent laughter.
“Come, darling, let us hear that lovely, musical laughter. Don’t hold back.” Lavender giggled as she sucked and slurped on her big toe.
“Omigod…” Samantha wheezed before descending into another bout of hysterics. She bounced her bum up and down on the marble slab in frustration.
“You see, my darling little spy? The plants are almost part of me, they are extensions of me and they do my bidding and in return I show them such love.” She tapped Samantha’s sole. “Here my lovelies, you know what to do.”
Samantha was breathing hard and fighting to talk between her bouts of laughter. “Well if bioterrorism doesn’t work out for you there’s always OnlyFans. I bet no-one is doing this yet…nnngh…” She gasped as probing vines and thick petals descended on her left foot. She looked up to see them writhing and snaking against her soles. She half-wondered if the psychotropic pollen was making her hallucinate and there were really just a pair of horny lab assistants playing with her feet.
“I admire your spirit, Samantha. It makes it all the sweeter when I finally break you. No one defeats the garden.” Lavender squeezed Samantha’s ankles and began walking her fingers up towards Samantha’s knees. Vines and flowers swam into view, curious and eager to learn.
The twisted botanist curled her fingers into lobster claws and began to rapidly squeeze the firm muscle about Samantha’s knees. The ticklish jolts were amplified by the vines and stamen tickling her feet and the helpless operative let out an anguished squeal of laughter.
Samantha cursed inwardly. Lavender had caught her by surprise now. The purple-haired doctor leaned forward, opened her mouth as wide as she could and bit Samantha above the left knee.
That was worse than the lobster claw and Samantha screamed with laughter. But the more she struggled, the more the vines held her in place so their mistress could take her pleasures.
Lavender hopped up on the slab and as her hands lobster clawed up and down Samantha’s sleek right thigh, her mouth tormented her above the left knee. To add insult to injury, Lavender made munching noises as if she was enjoying a delicious meal which, in a way, she was.
“You remind me of a pretty, little lab assistant I had once,” Lavender purred in between munching Samantha’s knees. “If she made a mistake I’d punish her with tickles and for some reason her knees were a real weak spot. Now, she was really very good and rarely made mistakes so sometimes I’d just make things up so I could tickle her.” She laughed to herself before subjecting Samantha’s thighs to another munching and clawing.
Samantha could do little more than wiggle her hips and whip her head from side to side. The marble slab was no longer cold through her shirt and she could feel sweat prickling on her skin. Her ribs ached. Get free, Samantha, she told herself. You’ll get a window of opportunity. Think, dammit!
“You know what?” Samantha panted, “I’m beginning to doubt your scientific process here.”
Lavender looked up in amusement. “Oh really?”
Samantha shrugged as much as her bonds would allow. “You’re dressing this up as an experiment but we both know what’s really going on here.”
“Well, you’d know.” Lavender squeezed Samantha’s lithe thigh and ran her hand upwards. “In fact, good as you are, it seems to me that you end up in these situations a little too often.
Samantha tried to disassociate and ignore the touch of the scientist’s hands. She began multiplying double digit numbers in her head.
Both of Lavender’s hands were rubbing Samantha’s inner thighs now. “In fact I am not sure you don’t enjoy this a little too much yourself.” She stroked a fingertip over the zipper of Samantha’s pants.
13 x 17… 24 x 31… 18 x 79…
“Cat got your tongue? Tell me truly, Samantha. Are you getting a little hot and bothered down here. Are your tits getting a little perky?”
“Sorry, you just don’t really do it for me.” Samantha replied. 14 x 21… 52 x 25…
A muscle twitched in Lavender’s cheek. “Maybe I should take a little peek, just to make sure you aren’t lying to me.” The purple gemstone at her throat glinted in the half-light. “It’s your turn my lovelies. Let’s unwrap our little gift.”
Samantha heard a rhythmic clicking and saw a series of dark green ropy vines loom into her vision. Each vine was lined with black thorns that made her think of shark fins.
She cursed under her breath. She’d read about the hook vines, needled tipped and razor sharp and the only way she’d want to encounter them would be at the end of a flamethrower.
“Gently my pretties. Peel her like a banana but don’t damage her.”
A vine appeared by the right side of her face, which made her flinch. It almost seemed to vibrate with anticipation as it snagged the collar of her shirt and began to pull. There was a soft tearing sound and then a button popped free and skittered across the marble slab.
Caught in a mix of horror and fascination, Samantha watched as the thorns pulled and tore at her shirt. She felt cool air hit her upper chest as another button pinged across the slab. The vines worked in concert, tearing Samantha’s shirt open and shredding the fabric with little problem.
“They’ve done this before.” Samantha breathed.
“They’re not usually to gentle,” Lavender murmured. “I’m making an exception for you.
The raven-haired agent could do nothing to resist as her shirt was reduced to shreds by the eerie methodical vines.
“Oh you are a treat indeed,” Lavender said, gazing at Samantha’s sleek, bare torso. Samantha hissed through her teeth as Lavender gently squeezed her breasts through her sports bra.
“They’re real! How delightful.” Lavender squealed.
“Pervert.” Samantha muttered.
Lavender sat on the slab, her legs dangling off the side. Her fingertips brushed across Samantha’s bra and she grinned knowingly. “Stop complaining, we’re both going to enjoy this.”
“I’m open-minded but a hot date with the triffids isn’t exactly on my bucket list.”
“I love your attitude,” Lavender ran a fingertip down the middle of Samantha’s taut belly and began to idly trace flowery patterns. “But my babies have to learn. You’re not the first person we’ve had here and you won’t be the last.”
“Out of interest, what happened to the others?” Samantha said.
“I could tell you, but it will be much more fun to show you.” Lavender spun around and in one smooth move was straddling Samantha’s thighs. A wet vine, thick as a thumb snaked out of the darkness and stroked her cheek, like a dog licking its owner. Other vines appeared and began to caress her affectionately. “I think you need to loosen up a little first though.”
The purple-haired scientist curled her fingers towards the gloom of the greenhouse and a large crimson petaled flower on a thick stem loomed into view above Samantha’s head. The petals had a damp, rubbery look and framed a thick, pulsing grey stamen with yellow spots . A weird mixture of sickly sweet perfume and rotting vegetation hung around it like a cloud.
The thing seemed to sense her, the petals flexing, the stamen twitching. The hideous flower began to descend.
Samantha felt a wave of panic. “Get that damn thing away from me.”
Lavender continued to run her fingertips across Samantha’s waist and belly. “He just wants to say hello.”
The petals sealed around Samantha’s face. She let out a muffled gagging sound as the stamen explored her face. She screwed her eyes closed and closed her mouth as tightly as she could. She felt the stamen, shudder and expand and then with a hissing sound it released a cloud of pollen. Samantha felt the pollen on her cheeks and in her nose. A woozy sensation followed by pins and needles washed through her body.
She was arching up off the table, shaking her head to try and dislodge the flower. The hands exploring her body were the last of her problems as the stamen hissed again. The feelings within her body intensified. She couldn’t concentrate, now she felt a pleasant rush of warmth.
Lavender’s work had gone further than Section Seven had imagined. Samantha was giddy as more pollen found its way into her nose and ears. With a growing sense of dread she understood that the plant had been modified to become a delivery system for a psychotropic agent. She was being drugged by the garden!
Still trapped by the unnatural bloom, and despite the red warning lights flashing in her head, Samantha began to giggle.
Lavender explored the rim of Samantha’s belly button with a fingertip. She watched as her genetically modified plant pulsed and bloomed, the petals of its insidious flower wrapped around her face. “He likes you.”
Samantha heard Lavender’s voice as if underwater. She could feel the texture of the petals affixed to her skin. The scientist’s fingertip left a trail of unquenchable fire as it lazily traced across her skin.
Think, Samantha, what is she dosing you with? Truth serum? Poison? Something else? It’s a stimulant… Of course!
While she was battling to understand what was happening to her, the petals detached from her face and the flower rose up to hover overhead.
Samantha blinked hard. She could hear blood crashing in her throat, her vision was pinprick sharp and her skin registered every subtle change in the airflow. The textures of the vines holding her in place were as individual as fingerprints.
And above her Lavender sat resplendent, her leather pants gently creaking as she straddled Samantha’s hip.
“I’ve been gentle with you up to now,” Lavender said, “but this is where I really start to have fun with you.” She leaned forward, the purple gemstone at her throat catching the light. She blew gently on Samantha’s bicep and continued the thin stream of breath into her armpit.
To Samantha it felt as tangible as a finger. So that was the purpose of the stimulant. It magnified the sensations experienced by the body; pleasure or pain.
“I knew it.” Samantha’s mouth felt dry as cotton and she licked her lips. “All this, behind all the angry ideology and hard science this is just a way for you to indulge your kinks.”
With surprising speed and strength, Lavender pinched Samantha’s nostrils closed with her left hand and clamped her fingers over her mouth with her right. Her thumb dug into her jaw to keep her mouth closed. Her face was inches from Samantha’s, eyes unblinking as she watched her pretty captive start to struggle for air.
“You know, Samantha, after I’m done with my ‘indulgences’, I think I might make you my masterpiece.” She fished a small device from her pocket and clicked it twice. Two gnarled trees, thick with vines and vegetation were illuminated under spotlights.
Samantha twisted her head to look. At first she couldn’t make out what she was looking at. Her eyes widened as the horrific tableaux came into focus. There was a man encased in each of the trees, stretched, mottled and engulfed. Thick vines protruded from their mouths dripping sap. Their skin was a sickly mixture of green and yellow and most disconcertingly their eyes were open. It was the stuff of nightmares.
“Man came from the earth and returned to the earth.” Lavender said.
One of the twisted figures appeared to blink slowly.
“Oh my God, they’re alive.” Samantha breathed.
“They came to take me,” Lavender said. “I know what kind of men they are and who they work for. I would have been mercilessly tortured for my secrets and then I would have been killed. But I showed them mercy and now they are part of the garden.”
“That’s a hell of a form of retribution you have there.” Samantha said. Her mind was still clouded
by the psychotropic pollen but she knew she had to find an opening and take it decisively and without hesitation. She could not let herself become part of Lavender’s twisted experimentation.
“You should have thought of that before you poked your pretty little nose where it wasn’t wanted.” For emphasis Lavender leaned forward and licked the tip of Samantha’s nose. “But first, we’re going to make you sing.”
She curled her hands in the air and talked to her plants. She told them what to do.
The vines at Samantha’s feet renewed their assault on her soles. They were tentative at first but soon grew in confidence. The vines at her neck began to flutter along the length of her throat and tease her ears. With the stimulant coursing through her bloodstream, Samantha dissolved into fits of girlish giggles. Her ribs already ached from laughing and the unwelcome soreness was another reminder of her predicament. And all the while, Lavender sat astride her, hands on his hips and gloating with the scent of victory.
The vines began to branch out. They followed the path of Lavender’s breath and ran along her upper arms and into her armpits, They probed her knees and explored her inner thighs with uncomfortable familiarity.
“The garden is learning, Samantha. I can tell from your reactions. And while they busy themselves with your beautiful feet and smooth underarms, I shall take advantage of your succulent ribs and tight belly.”
Samantha heard Lavender’s words through her own laughter as she blinked back tears. She choked down a wave of panic as the ticklish sensations racked her body. There had to be a way out of this, there had to be.
Lavender began tickling and kneading Samantha’s ribs. She counted aloud as she did so. “Stop wriggling so much, I’ll have to start again now. One…two…”
“Screw yoooo!” Samantha growled as she buried her face into her upper arm. All this did was expose the other side of her neck to more hungry vegetation which beg to lap and rub against the sensitive skin.
“Could do this all day,” Lavender said, her voice thick with sadistic lust. She squeezed Samantha’s ribs hard and then began running her fingers up and down her sleek sides and across her waist.
Samantha shook her head from side to side. She tried to bite a vine snaking towards her ear but it recoiled instinctively and took another path.
Lavender’s fingers slid under the elasticated sides of Samantha’s sports bra, exposing her glistening skin to the cool air. “Feels so much with fingers on skin, don’t you agree?”
Samantha arched up off the slab. Every time she moved to try and find a slight reprieve, the vines would follow and take advantage. They were everywhere. Her nerve endings were being overstimulated to such an extent she thought she might pass out.
She dug her fingernails into her palms and gritted her teeth through the hysteria. She could get through this. She could escape. She had to!
Lavender changed tack. She tightened her knees against Samantha’s hips and began to unleash a volley of pokes on her athletic stomach. “I’m typing a message, Samantha. Can you guess what it says?”
Samantha wrenched her head aside to dislodge a thin vine that was tickling the delicate shell of her ear. She was tuning out Lavender’s words. They were a distraction, they were irrelevant.
“I’m writing to your handlers. I’m saying, ‘Dear handlers of the lovely Samantha Storm. She no longers works for you. She is now my property and I will do with her as I please. Love and Kisses, Lavender.’ Isn’t that funny?” She giggled, the gemstone at her throat seemed to flicker with her laughter.
Samantha glared daggers at the purple haired scientist.
“Ooh, still a little fight left in you.” Lavender said. She tweaked Samantha’s nose. “Well you wouldn’t be living up to your reputation if you broke too quickly and we have lots of time.”
Vines slithered along the edges of both of her ears now. When she jerked her head away from one, she left the other one vulnerable to attack. She groaned with frustration. A thick, sinewy vine wrapped around her leg, its tip began to probe her inner thigh, moving higher and higher.
“Oh, Samantha, it seems they really do like you. You’ll note they are quick studies and they like to follow my lead.” She pressed her lips to Samantha’s quivering belly and planted a wet kiss. She moved closer and closer to Samantha’s belly button.
Samantha had been tickled by multiple people at the same time before but it was nothing like this. Her stomach muscles clenched as Lavender licked and nibbled. The nerve endings around her belly button were on fire with anticipation.
She groaned as Lavender licked a circle around the shallow depression and then sealed her lips over it to blow and blow.
Samantha threw her head back with laughter. She had a love hate relationship with belly blowing, it got her every time. The twisted scientist nibbled and blew and then licked her navel. Before blowing again and again.
The vine between her legs rubbed back and forth at the crotch of her pants. At her shoulders, thinner vines probed the straps of her sports bra.
“Is that what you do with your plants when no-one’s looking?” Samantha growled.
Lavender looked up in amusement. “I think someone’s a little frustrated. Have you been walking on eggshells for a bit? Not getting any? Don’t worry.” She licked a path up Samantha’s belly, between her breasts and up to her neck. She tried to kiss Samantha on the lips but she turned her head away. Lavender settled for nibbling her neck. “We’ll take care of you.”
Samantha could see the scientist’s eyes were wildly dilated. She looked closer at the gleaming gemstone at her throat and realised it was blinking.
Was that some sort of control device. She looked closely at the leather of the choker and saw it was imprinted with micro-circuitry. So that’s how she does it!
For a moment Samantha was duly impressed. The frequency emitter the technical session had given her for the mission was almost stone age technology compared to the wearable around Lavender’s neck. From a distance it looked like a normal leather choker. Ingenious! A plan started to form in Samantha’s mind.
The vine between her legs was now applying a maddening pressure as it rubbed back and forth.
“It’s like a living crotchrope,” Samantha groaned.
“Not your first time, is it?” Lavender said.
Samantha exhaled and blew air out of her cheeks. “How is it doing that?” She murmured. Her hips began to move as she tried to grind against the thick, quivering tendril.
“The charms of the garden can be hard to resist.” Lavender fluttered her fingertips along Samantha’s neck and ears. She bent forward and replaced her fingers with her tongue.
“Nnnngh…” Samantha bit her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood.
“Just give in,” Lavender whispered.
“Ok, stop, stop… whaddaya wanna know?” Samantha rasped, her eyelids fluttered.
“We want to know what makes you feel good. But you don’t need to tell us, we’ll find out.” Lavender placed kisses along Samantha’s collar bones as her fingertips swirled gently in her armpits.
Samantha’s moans, the smacking of Lavender’s lips and the rustling of the seething vegetation created an eerily sensual soundscape in the greenhouse. Lavender didn’t ask any more questions. She delighted herself by tormenting her beautiful captive with her fingers and her mouth. Her plants joined her, rubbing, exploring, flickering across Samantha’s body.
Samantha lost track of time and giggled and murmured at the sensually ticklish onslaught. She looked up to see another thick vine had wrapped itself around Lavender’s leather clad thigh and was now throbbing against her crotch. Her tormentor groaned with pleasure. “Feels so good.” She squeezed Samantha’s breasts, “Are you ticklish here too?”
“Don’t,” Samantha said weakly as Lavender peeled open her sports bra.
“Don’t what?” Lavender asked innocently. Her fingernails skated around the contours of Samantha’s breasts before closing in on her pink nipples. She stroked and pinched the rapidly stiffening buds as Samantha’s hips began to twitch
“Don’t.” Samamtha murmured, licking her lips. “Don’t… stop…”
Lavender grinned, “Ah, I think the super-cool secret agent is getting a little overheated. You’re enjoying this aren’t you.” She continued to tease and stroke Samantha’s nipples and blew in her ear.
The thick vine between Samantha’s thighs had learned the shape of her and was pulsing and shuddering. Thinner vines brushed every inch of exposed skin they could find, igniting the helpless operative’s nerve endings.
Samantha turned her face into her upper arm to muffle a giggle. Lavender took advantage and ran the tip of her tongue along the sleek muscle in Samantha’s neck before nibbling her ear.
“Quit it.” Samantha giggled. Probing blooms explored her ribs and teased the sides of her breasts.
“No,” Lavender said. “Because you don’t want us to.”
A vine the thickness of a finger explored Samantha’s belly button and then began to push at the waist of her pants.
Lavender was sucking wetly on Samantha’s neck now as her hand moved down her body. She began tugging on the buckle of Samantha’s belt.
“I think you’re ready for this.” She breathed. She unbuckled Samantha’s belt and unzipped her pants.
Samantha groaned and reached up to kiss Lavender’s cheek.
The scientist looked at her pleasant surprise. “Oh my, Samantha, perhaps you need to release a little pressure.”
Samantha ignored the vine probing her open pants and locked lips with her tormentor. She moaned into the kiss.
Lavender continued her soft tickles on Samantha’s exposed skin as their mouths sought each other’s skin. Samantha kissed her jawline and flicked her tongue along her throat. “You should have said something earlier,” Lavender giggled.
Samantha looked at the glowing diode in its golden lattice. A single word flashed into her mind: NOW!
She lunged forward and locked her teeth around the lattice.
“Samantha, what are you…” Lavender began.
Samantha bit down hard. The lattice work surrounding the diode deformed and then crushed the electronics. She ignored the taste of ozone and the hot sparks in her mouth. She turned her head aside and spat the remnants of the device across the slab.
Lavender reared up shrieking, clutching at the ruined choker at her throat. “What have you done?” She shrieked.
The vines loosed around her in confusion. This was the opening Samantha had been waiting for, she pulled her wrists and ankles free as the vines flailed and tangled around each other. A hook vine lashed out at puff blossoms excreting clouds of pollen.
The scientist recovered quickly. The stiffened edge of her right hand flashed towards Samantha’s neck.
Lavender might have been a world-leading botanist and gene splicer but when it came to hand to hand combat she was outclassed by Samantha.
The operative easily parried the blow, using Lavender’s momentum so she ended up twisting with her back to Samantha. She locked her legs around Lavender’s hips and reached up, to unclip the ruined choker from the scientist’s neck.
She then rolled the pair of them off the slab where she made sure to land on her tormentor, knocking the wind out of her.
Samantha looked around the greenhouse and fixed her sports bra. The plants had been worked up into a controlled frenzy by Lavender but now there was no control.
“Time to get the hell out of here,” Samantha muttered to herself. She stuffed the remnants of the choker in her pocket, pulled her pants up and buckled her belt on the run. She batted a probing vine aside and grabbed her boots and then charged for the door.
“Stop her!” Lavender screeched, but without her control device the plants’ careful coordination descended into chaos.
A hideous purple bloom rose up before Samantha preparing to hiss a cloud of pollen. She punched it on the run and then ducked below a vicious hook vine that whipped out at her throat.
She crashed through the door into the cool night air. She pulled her boots on and scrambled up the tree to the top of the wall, ignoring the scratches she was taking from the tree branches. She dropped to the other side, sprinted to her vehicle, pulled the key fob from the wheel arch and drove away. She resisted the urge to put the pedal to the floor and focused on putting distance between herself and the laboratory of Doctor Fang Zhou-wen.
Samantha had been through some ordeals in her career but she couldn’t begin to think how she was going to explain this one. At least she had salvaged the remnants of Lavender’s choker, maybe Tech Services could do something with that. Gradually, she brought her breathing under control.
…
One week later Samantha sat in the Director’s office. Lydia Fox looked immaculate as ever as she closed the manila folder in front of her. Slouching against the wall was Wyatt, the wiry veteran operator of the Direct Action section. He appeared to be scowling over his bandito moustache but Samantha knew this was just his regular expression. His teachings had saved her life more than once.
“Doctor Fang was clearly much further along in her research than we imagined.” Fox said, she tapped her fingernails on the folder. “You had quite an ordeal, how are you feeling?”
“All good, no ill-effects.” Samantha said, perhaps with a tad more confidence than she felt.
“That’s good. Medical has given you a clean bill of health.”
“Did the Tech Section get anything useful from my clothing or the choker I took from Fang?” Samantha asked.
“Their work is ongoing.” Fox said with a smile. Translation: above your pay grade. “When you made contact we understood that the timeline had been compressed. Wyatt and his team were deployed to secure the target location, and anyone present.” Fox said, she looked at Wyatt.
“By the time we got there Dr Fang was gone and the local fire brigade was looking at smouldering remains. The place had been sanitised beforehand. Looks like every plant was moved, root and stem.”
“I think it’s fair to say Dr Fang had serious backing and resources to call upon.” Fox added.
“Must have been quite a job, they only had a small window of time to move. I bet that really pissed them off. Then again you have a knack for pissing people off.” Wyatt’s grin was shark-like.
“I had a good teacher.” Samantha said
“Thank you, both.” Fox said, signalling that the meeting was at an end. “Samantha, excellent work as usual.”
Wyatt followed Samantha out of the director’s office and back to the area the operatives nicknamed the bullpen. Angela Blaze was perched on the corner of a desk belonging to a dark-haired sniper called Jarod, one of Wyatt’s doorkickers. The pair of them appeared to be enjoying a private joke.
Samantha rounded the corner to her own desk and saw the punchline.
“Welcome back, Sam,” Wyatt stifled a laugh.
Her colleagues had covered her entire workstation with plants and flowers. Her desk, chair and computer were completely obscured under foliage. Behind her she heard Angela and Jarod burst out laughing.
Despite herself, Samantha smiled. “I hate you guys.”
