Purity
The quick rush hit her and ended so quickly it could almost have been
her imagination. But she had been in this same spot her entire life;
she knew every faint movement of the tides. She feel of currents and
storms and faint breezes telegraphed down to her depths, their
repercussions echoed in her sensitive skin.
But this was different, and for the first time in many current
changes, new. She sent every available sensing cell rushing to the
site of the feeling, creating a red patch that would have attracted
the sperm cells of a mate, if she had had one, but she didn't care.
She waited anxiously for another hint of that quick, intense new
sensation, but nothing came. She waited and waited, but nothing came.
Little by little her extra sensing cells were called off to other
duties until only a few remained, the faintest hint of a memory of
sensation.
It returned without warning, and in a flurry. First there were repeats
of the first sensation, a quick, passing current, and then there were
new sensations. New, intense swirls, nothing like the faint
disturbance of far away storms. At first every new feeling came from
above her, as new feelings always had; then something changed below
her.
All of her sensing cells had been shifting rapidly around her limbs in
a desperate and futile attempt to capture each sensation. But this
thing was entirely new: her inside lit up as though she had discovered
that her mate had been hiding there the whole time. And then a shocked
sensation. A touch, followed by a moment of... Nothing. She didn't
even have a word for this new feeling. Every inch of her body, every
moment of her life, had been feeding her input. However brief, these
moments of nothingness were the most terrifying and original sensation
in her existence. And it happened again, in a steady stream: touch,
empty; touch, empty; touch, empty. It would stop and start, often
along with the quick haphazard flutterings of that first new
sensation.
Then yet something else. If she could have, she would have warded off
this new thing. Because it was already enough. She had hundreds of new
feelings now, and each one needed to be proceeded, examined, and
eventually, carefully, shared. This new experience felt like too much.
But she could not stop it. Her exquisitely sensitive skin, her entire
being, was designed to soak in feeling, not reject it. So when
something began to... manipulate her limbs, all she could do was
accept it, take in the sensations, and record each one with as many
special cells as were not already occupied. There was pressure: first
light, gentle, stroking out from one point, then two, them five. Five
evenly spaced somethings. Perhaps like her limbs, she realized, and in
a flash of insight imagined something out there. But this thing could
somehow make its own currents, bring its limbs together to create this
sensation that's was still running through her, over her, her sensor
cells bleeding from point to point, straining to take in every minute
feeling, and she felt her self building inside, becoming something
like in touch with this imagined thing outside, felt herself expand
out to the extreme limits of her perception, felt a sort of blockage
in the currents near her that she had somehow missed in the
excitement, tried to find the shape of this new outside thing,
strained and pushed until every fiber of her already sensitive being
was searching, looking. An orgy of perception unlike any she had
known, or even heard about. This was a new new thing. No one had told
a new new thing in her entire life.
She felt the diver go, but if she had had ears, she would have heard
is assessment, radioed to his crew: "Well, that was a weird plant.
Useless though. Guess this planet is a bust."
her imagination. But she had been in this same spot her entire life;
she knew every faint movement of the tides. She feel of currents and
storms and faint breezes telegraphed down to her depths, their
repercussions echoed in her sensitive skin.
But this was different, and for the first time in many current
changes, new. She sent every available sensing cell rushing to the
site of the feeling, creating a red patch that would have attracted
the sperm cells of a mate, if she had had one, but she didn't care.
She waited anxiously for another hint of that quick, intense new
sensation, but nothing came. She waited and waited, but nothing came.
Little by little her extra sensing cells were called off to other
duties until only a few remained, the faintest hint of a memory of
sensation.
It returned without warning, and in a flurry. First there were repeats
of the first sensation, a quick, passing current, and then there were
new sensations. New, intense swirls, nothing like the faint
disturbance of far away storms. At first every new feeling came from
above her, as new feelings always had; then something changed below
her.
All of her sensing cells had been shifting rapidly around her limbs in
a desperate and futile attempt to capture each sensation. But this
thing was entirely new: her inside lit up as though she had discovered
that her mate had been hiding there the whole time. And then a shocked
sensation. A touch, followed by a moment of... Nothing. She didn't
even have a word for this new feeling. Every inch of her body, every
moment of her life, had been feeding her input. However brief, these
moments of nothingness were the most terrifying and original sensation
in her existence. And it happened again, in a steady stream: touch,
empty; touch, empty; touch, empty. It would stop and start, often
along with the quick haphazard flutterings of that first new
sensation.
Then yet something else. If she could have, she would have warded off
this new thing. Because it was already enough. She had hundreds of new
feelings now, and each one needed to be proceeded, examined, and
eventually, carefully, shared. This new experience felt like too much.
But she could not stop it. Her exquisitely sensitive skin, her entire
being, was designed to soak in feeling, not reject it. So when
something began to... manipulate her limbs, all she could do was
accept it, take in the sensations, and record each one with as many
special cells as were not already occupied. There was pressure: first
light, gentle, stroking out from one point, then two, them five. Five
evenly spaced somethings. Perhaps like her limbs, she realized, and in
a flash of insight imagined something out there. But this thing could
somehow make its own currents, bring its limbs together to create this
sensation that's was still running through her, over her, her sensor
cells bleeding from point to point, straining to take in every minute
feeling, and she felt her self building inside, becoming something
like in touch with this imagined thing outside, felt herself expand
out to the extreme limits of her perception, felt a sort of blockage
in the currents near her that she had somehow missed in the
excitement, tried to find the shape of this new outside thing,
strained and pushed until every fiber of her already sensitive being
was searching, looking. An orgy of perception unlike any she had
known, or even heard about. This was a new new thing. No one had told
a new new thing in her entire life.
She felt the diver go, but if she had had ears, she would have heard
is assessment, radioed to his crew: "Well, that was a weird plant.
Useless though. Guess this planet is a bust."