Millie’s Rest

Millie closed her pack, tossed her water skin over her shoulder, and was just about to leave their cottage, when her mother’s voice stopped her.

“Have you got everything, Mill?”

She sighed. “Yes, mother.”

“You have the Cellar’s Delt for Mrs. Gunthrey?”

“Yes, mother…”

“And the Templar Lily for Vicar Stronge?”

“Yes, mother…”

“You have your water?”

“Yes…”

“…Your new boots? Those old ones were worn clear through…”

“Yes. And I like those old boots. They were comfortable. These are stiff and give me blisters.”

“They’ll soften in time,” chided her mother from the other room. “You have your knife?”

Millie paused for half a second. “Yes, mother. I have my knife,” she lied. She had left her blade upstairs, but damned if she was going to give the woman the satisfaction of having found something to berate her for. She’d do without.

“Go on then, and be back before sunset.”

“Yes, mother.”

The road to Brenthen Dell was almost untraveled at this time of year. In the winter months, when it was cooler, she would have to share the way with dozens of others. But Millie liked it like this. She enjoyed the solitude, where the only sounds were those of the wind and the birds. Sure, it was hot, and ungodly humid, but that was a small price to pay not to have to talk to anyone for six full hours. She would make her deliveries a bit after noon, do a few personal errands in town, and be heading back by one, two at the latest.

The girl had just stopped for a quick rest, when her ears picked up a new sound. Someone, a male by the sound of it, was singing somewhere on the road behind her.

“Shit…” she muttered. He didn’t sound close, or on key, which left her with a tough decision. In order to hold onto her solitude, she either needed to pull off out of sight and wait for him to pass, or try to outpace him enough to get out of range of his terrible singing. The problem was, she didn’t know exactly how far back he was. He could be mere minutes behind her… or an hour. If she was going to get back before dark, then she couldn’t harbor too much of a delay. Corking her water and pulling her pack back on, she sighed and started down the road again, this time at a more quickened pace.

Twenty minutes later, she was cursing the damn singer under her breath. Not only hadn’t she managed to get out of range of his voice, but he actually sounded closer! She pushed another ten minutes, this time at near a run, before she finally slowed and listened. At first, she thought she had finally cleared him, but then the man’s warble of a voice started up again.

“Son of a bitch!!” she spat, still panting to catch her breath. Outpacing the guy seemed to be a losing game. Her feet were screaming in pain with the blisters her new boots had no doubt formed, and she had pretty much used-up her strength trying to get ahead of her nemesis. Which only left letting him pass by.

Millie looked to the trees. She didn’t like leaving the road proper, but the idea of being there when he finally passed her by was something she just couldn’t bear. She picked a direction and started walking perpendicular to the road. She didn’t want to go too far – getting lost would be far worse than having to put up with bad singing – but it had to be far enough that he wouldn’t see her. After a few minutes, she found a slight rise that would shield her nicely from anyone passing who happened to be looking into the forest, and to her delight, provided a nice grassy slope with a spot of shade against the afternoon sun. It was a perfect place to rest while the man moved on. Once refreshed, she could pick up her pace again in renewed solitude.

Dropping her pack, she took a long draft from her waterskin, kicked off her boots to give her blistered feet a rest, and leaned back against the knoll. It was lovely. The sound of the wind in the trees around her was even loud enough that it seemed to mask out the constant droning of the singer. Soon, Millie’s breathing slowed back down to normal, and her eyelids closed. A few minutes was all she needed. Just a few minutes…

—

“Ahh!” she yelled, snapping out of a dream in which she was being carried by a large bird through the air. The girl sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Something wasn’t right. She looked around at the forest, which seemed different somehow, and when she figured out what it was, her mouth dropped open.

“Oh hell…”

It was the light. The sun was much lower in the sky now. She must have fallen asleep and been out for at least a couple of hours given the shadows. This was bad. Her mother would be furious with her if she had to stay the night in Brenthen Dell. Coming back on the road after dark would be plain stupid.

Resigned, she figured she had better get moving in case it was even later than she thought, and grabbed her pack as she went to stand… and couldn’t.

“What the hells…” she started, and saw that her foot was stuck in a loop of root. Funny that she hadn’t seen it there before. She reached down to untangle her limb when she felt the loop slip tighter. Her heart rate spiked as she grabbed at the sinewy vine and saw it shift around her, winding up around her ankle.

“Catcher vines…” she muttered in fear, and for a few seconds, she panicked and pulled furiously at the tough plant. Her foot was held firm. She tried to remember what to do. Her mother had explained the procedure to free oneself from the fel plants… she just had to calm down and remember.

She took several deep breaths and tried to focus. In her head, she could hear her mother’s voice.

“If you find yourself caught, don’t panic. You’ll just tire yourself out, which is what the plant wants.”

Whoops.

“The next thing to try is to see if it has a firm grip on you yet. Gently try to pry back the leading edges of the vines, being careful not to let them curl around your hands. It’s imperative that you keep your hands free. If it ever gets both your hands, it’s over…”

“Pry them back…” said Millie to herself as she found the end of the vine and tried to pull it away from her ankle. It wouldn’t budge.

“If you can’t remove them gently, then you’re going to have to use your knife…”

Uh oh. She recalled that her knife was back at home where she had purposely left it.

“Once you get aggressive with the plant, it will move much more quickly, trying to trick and trap you before you can escape.”

What the hell did that mean? Not that it mattered. Without her knife, getting free of the roots was going to be lot harder. She reached over for her pack, hoping to find something else sharp she could use to cut her way out, and to her surprise saw it being dragged further away by another set of vines.

“That can’t be good,” she said, swallowing. When she felt something touch her other ankle, she jerked back around. A second loop of living rope was winding around her other leg, and she pulled hard at it, leaning back for extra leverage. For a second she broke free, but then the simple twisting foliage moved like a snake and struck out at her hovering limb, winding itself back around her in a single quick motion.

“Oh… no no no…”

As it pulled her leg back down next to the other trapped limb, she started to see more green-brown tendrils breaking the surface of the knoll around her. Millie barely had time to sit fully upright once again before they were reaching for her.

“…It’s imperative that you keep your hands free. If it ever gets both your hands, it’s over…”

Her mother’s warning echoed in her ears as the new attackers closed in on her helpless body. She couldn’t stop them from reaching around her thighs and waist, but she kept her hands free by lifting them over her head. It seemed that the vines could only extend so far into the air to reach her.

Her fear was quickly growing. She could feel the heavy thump of her own heart pounding in her chest, and her breath was fast and ragged. Her situation was dire, but still, as long as she had her hands, she had a chance.

“That’s right, fucker! You won’t get me that eas… ACK!”

A loop of warm vegetation had come up from behind her and coiled around her exposed neck. It slipped around her several times in just a few seconds, not quite choking her, but certainly getting her full attention. She instinctively brought her hands down to try and pry away the slowly tightening loops, but had to raise them again quickly when other vines reached in to try and snag them.

Judging by the way the fel plant was tightly holding onto her ankles she had no doubt that the evil creature could strangle her if it wanted to, and the fact that it wasn’t caused her a moment of trepidation. She knew that fel plants acted in very unusual ways, but she never considered that they might actually be intelligent.

Millie’s mother told her once that the odd foliage was ‘demon bred’, meaning that it was a work brought to life by the foul magic of night creatures.

*“The fel is always evil, Mill… always,” *she had explained one night after several members of a hunting party had failed to return. “Oh, it’ll try to fool you into thinking otherwise… lure you in with beauty or bedazzle your mind in pretty lights. It might even seem friendly for a piece… only to turn on you when you least expect it. The fel always has a sinister goal at heart, and some of those goals would make death seem a mercy.”

As she sat behind the knoll, watching the fel tendrils slowly winding around her lower limbs, Millie wondered what the ultimate goal of this plant was. If it didn’t mean to kill her right away, then what other evil did it have in store for her?

Suddenly, she felt a new tugging at her neck, and cried out. The Catcher was starting to pull her torso backwards…

“Ah! NO! No… damn it!”

She resisted, but she could already feel her abdominal muscles burning with use as she tired. She knew that the moment she put her hands back to stop herself from being laid flat, they would trap her upper limbs. Frantically, she tried to think of a way out, but there was simply nothing she could do, unless…”

“HELP! PLEASE!” she called out. Perhaps if someone were passing by on the road they might hear her and come to her aid. It was a longshot to be sure, but she had nothing to lose at this point. In a minute she would be pulled back so that her arms would be in range of the waiting vines anyway.

“ANYONE, PLEASE HELP!!”

There was nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees, and Millie began to sob in terror. More tendrils were reaching up out of the ground to stretch across her chest, adding to the pull that was gradually drawing her down. Her strength was just starting to give when she felt something curl around first her left elbow, then almost at once, her right wrist. Whimpering in horror, she knew that her hands had just been captured, and her last hope to free herself was now gone.

Right on cue, her arms were stretched out over her head, giving the creature the leverage it needed to finally flatten her body out on the ground. Now powerless to do more than squirm, Millie could only watch as more and more of the green-brown fingers reached around her from below, fully securing their prize.

With nothing else to do but wait for her own demise, the girl closed her eyes and listened to wind. She could also hear the creature itself, slowly slithering over her body, but she did her best to ignore that. Sobbing again, she found herself distracted by the feel of the evil tendrils that seemed to be moving over her constantly. She wished that they would just choke her and be done with, but instead, they seemed to be interested in just teasing her, as though they knew they could kill her at any time, but were trying to draw out the experience and her fear.

It was no use. The ever present motion all around her was impossible to tune out. She didn’t understand why they were bothering to move now that they had captured her, until she noticed that the tendrils seemed to pay far more attention to certain areas of her body than others. When she finally understood what she was feeling, her eyes flew open and she actually cried aloud.

“Wha… NO! It can’t be!…”

But it was obvious now that she was paying attention. The Catcher vines weren’t just holding her, they were caressing her. She looked down her form and watched as thin fingers slithered between the mounds of her breasts, gently sliding back and forth over the bumps of her nipples, which she noticed in more ways than one, were quite present under the thin fabric of her cotton shirt. Other tendrils were playing with the bare patch of skin at her belly that had been exposed as her shirt had ridden up, and several groups were easing up and down into her lap, flowing slowly over her womanhood, barred but for her simple pants.

Seeing these motions while the rest of the vines held her down convinced her that this was no accidental action. This was clearly an intentional effort to arouse her… sexually. When she at last understood this, Millie blushed from head to toe.

She was no child when it came to the ways of love, having lost her virginity two full seasons ago. Since then she had taken lovers many times, and had experimented with all sorts of ways to arouse and be aroused. This though, was completely different. Not only was it something she didn’t want, and had no way to fight – she knew that it was also born of evil. This was part of the fel seduction that her mother had warned her about.

And it was definitely seducing her… The vines weren’t cold or hard, like those of a normal plant. These were warm and soft, and felt almost like the long tongues of some animal rather than foliage. Their motion was measured. It was light over her nipples and belly, just grazing her, but more firm between her thighs. It definitely knew what it was doing. And to her added concern, it was also working.

Her nipples were becoming rapidly uncomfortable in their hardness, and despite her resisting, she could feel herself grow wet from the sexual stimulation at her apex.

“NO, damnit!” she screamed and thrashed back and forth against the sensations that were being forced on her.

“Let me go!”

But of course, the Catcher patiently let her struggle until she was once again tired and panting, and then resumed its attentions. The unceasing pounding of Millie’s heart was now driven by the erotic foreplay rather than her own exertions. As her body continued to react, she found she was angry with herself for being so easily seduced, and out of sheer frustration, she thrashed around yet again.

It was at that moment that she felt something change. All at once, her back was wet, as though the ground near the knoll was saturated with warm water just under the grass, making the surface jiggle slightly like a bladder.

Millie recognized the feeling, and froze at once.

Back when she was just starting into her teens, she strayed from her mother while hunting for herbs and wandered into a bog. The ground had looked stable enough, and even felt so, until she had stepped out into the middle of a patch to retrieve a rare flower. That was when the motion of her steps caused the change in the bog’s stability. The ground took on the same rolling looseness that it had now, and at the time, she thought it was hilarious… at least until she broke through and started sinking into the thick mud of the mire.

She was nipple-deep in the clay-like ground before her mother heard her screams and rescued her. Another few minutes and the bog would have claimed her for sure. Now, on the knoll, she was reliving that terror all over again. Any motion of her body changed the saturation of the water within the previously stable knoll. If she didn’t want to end up sinking right into the ground, she needed to be as still as possible. To her great relief, she felt the earth become a little more solid under her once she was quiet for a time.

And this, she realized, was the fel plant’s game. If she held still, she would live a little longer, maybe even be rescued somehow. But if she started thrashing around, she would be consumed, literally swallowed up by the earth.

She could do that, she thought to herself. She could be still for days if necessary. And then one of the Catcher’s tendrils slipped past her very hard nipples…

“Ahh! Ughnn…” she gasped, twitching against the sudden erotic stimulation. Behind her, she felt the warm wetness spread for a moment.

“Okay. Maybe this won’t be so easy… mmmm…” she moaned as her crotch was rubbed.

Many minutes passed as the girl continued to resist, though it seemed like hours to Millie. Before long she was shaking slightly, and her breath was coming in broken gasps. The arousal was intense, but so far she had managed to keep the sensations under control. The subtle trembling of her body had loosened the ground some, and her whole backside was soaked in warm wetness, but the earth below her hadn’t gone soft yet. She was just starting to think she might win this little battle when there was a new touch at her chest.

“Hey! Th-that’s not f-f-fair…” she gasped as the girl watched several vines from above her head, reach down her torso and curl under the bottom of her cotton shirt. She swallowed in nervousness as they crept up her bare chest under the fabric. They stopped short of her mounds, and she sighed in relief. But it was a short-lived moment as they then began to tug the garment up her body, exposing her.

“Oh shit…” she commented when she saw what was happening, but she barely had time to protest before the shirt was drawn up over her face and she was blind.

“You cheating filth! Dammit!”

Higher and higher the garment was drawn until she felt a warm breeze on her breasts. A moment later, the shirt was pulled past her face and up her arms. Looking down at her nude torso, she groaned. This was not good. If the fel mound was able to tease her nearly to insanity right overtop her clothes… It was going to be a whole lot harder to resist bare. Things couldn’t get much worse… And then of course, they did…

Even before the tendrils started reaching in around her exposed chest, she felt another new touch at her belly. Looking down, she saw more vines working on the draws of her pants.

“No… NO! Damn you, let me be!!” She was struggling again, but stopped abruptly when the ground below her burbled with liquid. It was warm and wet, but didn’t seem like water. In fact, the strangeness of the bubbling ooze so surprised her that she momentarily forgot about her pants. She could see it on the tendrils that were reaching over her chest… an amber-colored oil of sorts. It was definitely slippery, but it also left a slight warmth and a tingle wherever it was spread on her. When she started to feel the same tingling all over her back, she began to panic.

Was this some kind of digestive acid? Was she being eaten alive even while she was stripped of what was perhaps her less tasty clothing? But the sensations weren’t painful. Not at all… If she were being dissolved, she expected there would be quite a bit of pain, or even numbness. Instead, what she was feeling was pleasure, almost like a lover was gently tickling her back and sides. The tingle was much harder to ignore than the tendrils alone, and Millie found herself twitching and shaking against the new sensations.

While she was distracted, a half dozen of the slippery limbs started working her now loose pants over her hips. She shifted and resisted the best she could, but it was hopeless from the start. The pants, as well as her underclothes, were eased down past her buttocks, and were then quickly removed, just like her shirt. Now there was nothing at all between the evil fel creature and her bare flesh. When the same slippery tendrils began to slide up over her legs and waist, she swallowed hard. The Catcher’s sensual play had suddenly turned far more serious, and it hadn’t even come close to touching her at her apex. She blushed even imagining what that might feel like.

Fully stripped and secured, there were suddenly hundreds of reaching fingers sliding up over her body, as though the fel creature had finally decided to move things along. And every one of those fingers was spreading the tingling, ticklish oil all over her. In less than a minute, she was abuzz from her chin to the soles of her feet, though the evil vines still had not reached down between her thighs… something for which she was exceedingly grateful, since she doubted she would be able to control herself when it did.

On and on the oily coils roiled and shifted around her, teasing her until she was nearly dizzy with lust. She knew it couldn’t have been more than a dozen minutes, but every second was draining away her will to resist.

She tried to keep still, but the constant erotic torture had her twitching and writhing. Below her, she could tell the ground was starting to get mushy in places. Her buttocks were making wet slurping sounds in the oily mud that was softening around her hips. Still utterly helpless to escape or even resist the constantly growing arousal, a conflicting despair crept into her mind. She was horrified at the thought of her life ending in the evil grip of the Catcher vines, but her body was also being literally overwhelmed with pleasure. She couldn’t deny that it felt incredibly good, and there was a strong temptation to simply give in to it completely. Even without the very noticeable absence of the vines at her womanhood, she could tell that her sex was drenched with her own wetness, and her need for release was building rapidly.

Quite unconsciously, Millie let her thighs part ever so slightly… and then gasped when she felt an almost immediate response by the vines as they continued to move her knees apart. Suddenly alert again, her heart raced with new dread as she looked down her body and watched as her legs were very slowly parted.

“NO! Damn you! N-n-no! Let m-me GO!” The girl twisted and pulled in desperation, but could only reach a stalemate with the slippery vines, who, it seemed were unwilling to allow her to close her thighs again. And worse, if she let up her resistance even the tiniest bit, they would take advantage of the slack and draw them wider… and wider.

It didn’t help that the other vines continued to arouse the rest of her body. With every twitch and shudder, she lost focus and her knees were moved gradually apart, until at last she was held wide open.

The once pristine grass at the base of the knoll had seemingly disappeared beneath a slurry of amber oil and the thick mud as a growing depression formed around her nude body. She could feel herself slowly sinking into the mire with each uncontrollable shudder and undulation, the long, warm tendrils of the Catcher never giving her a moment’s rest against the horrible, wonderful, erotic torment.

She was momentarily distracted from her growing need for release, when she noticed something different in the pool of ooze. Like a long red snake, a new tendril slowly slithered between the V of her bent thighs. For some reason she couldn’t place, the new vine frightened her terribly. Perhaps it was the brighter color, or maybe the serpentine way it moved, but Millie was certain that this new thing had nothing but evil intent for her. She watched it move closer and closer, coiling near her inner thighs as though teasing its intention. But it wasn’t until it rose up right before her apex that she gasped.

All along its underside were hundreds of long, thin tendrils, each moving like a crazed worm in the sun. The hair-like mass writhed and shifted in a way that caused the girl’s heart to pound in her chest, for there was no doubt where this new appendage would come to rest… And it occurred to her that the Catcher wanted her to understand this. It hadn’t yet brought its many vines to draw back her neck and head – it was letting her watch her own demise.

“Oh G-goddess… no, p-please…” she begged, still fighting the rising need for release. She once more tested her bonds in vain, and twisted in an effort to close her legs and defend against what she knew was coming. But there was no escape. She could only watch as the red tentacle rolled forward slightly, pushing the writhing mass of smooth, dripping tendrils ever closer, until the most aggressive of them just touched her sex.

“Ah! Stop it! UGHN! N-nooo…”

Lightly, the thinner fingers brushed against the folds of her womanhood, teasing and stroking her with feathery caresses. Like the other vines, these too were quite warm, and with the amber slurry coating them, they slipped along her flesh with erotic ease. Trembling, Millie gasped at the new waves of pleasure that washed up from her pelvis and belly. The wriggling fingers of the new vine weren’t aggressive, but neither did they ever stop moving over her most sensitive flesh. Like a gentle lover, the fel plant was gradually growing her passion, just teasing her with sensuous kisses and licks so that her own body began to betray her. The girl’s hips started to undulate in a rhythm she recognized all too well, and she could feel the flutter in her abdomen that signaled that her moment was drawing close.

And then it stopped.

Quite abruptly, the long red tentacle drew back just enough to keep the thinner tendrils from reaching her. The other vines, which had been dutifully seducing her without pause for what seemed an eternity, now all froze, not releasing her, but no longer caressing her either.

“Ughnnn!” she groaned in frustration, panting for breath as she stared down her overheated body, frowning. The shock of suddenly having all that stimulation abruptly cease was nearly painful in itself, but it was how her mind reacted that startled her the most. She was feeling regret and anger at having been denied the release she was expecting… that she needed, now more than ever!

“Arrrg! Damn you!” she spat. “Just kill me and be done with, you fucking bastard!”

But that was not to be. Ignoring her pleas, she felt the vines around her body start to come alive again. In a few moments the arousal picked up where it had left off, and the sexual torment resumed. Millie surprised herself at how quickly she fell right back into the drowning pleasure, her eyelids fluttering in near ecstasy only a minute in. In fact, she had so settled into the mesmerizing sensuality, that she almost missed it when the red tentacle moved forward and began its lover’s foreplay on her petals once again. Almost…

“UhhhAHHH!! Oh g-g-gods! Ughnnn!”

Her body tensed and trembled as the slippery fingers played all along her slit, some even gliding just within her gates for the briefest of moments. The pleasure was driving her insane almost at once, but the constant wet cunnilingus just went on and on until she once again felt the rising flutter in her belly…

And just as though someone had blown out a candle, it was gone again…

Millie had trouble breathing for several seconds. When she was finally able to draw breath, she let it out in a wail of grief and anger. The Catcher KNEW what it was doing to her! Somehow, it could tell when she was right on the edge of her moment, and was using that denial as a means of torturing her.

“Noooo…” she sobbed, her body still tingling with her fading arousal. She had been so close. Shaking with need and fury, she stared down her torse at the red vine. It was swaying back and forth just above her sex, as though mocking her helplessness. Crying out, she thrashed back and forth until her own exhaustion caused her to collapse, and panting, she stared up at the cloudless evening sky. The sun would be setting soon. Her mother would probably start to worry, but would assume that she had to stay the night in Brenthen Dell for some reason. She wouldn’t even consider sending someone to look for her until late tomorrow. She’d be long gone by then…

As if to prove her point, she felt the tongue-like vines wrapped around her body start to come alive again. Whimpering, she didn’t even have the strength to put up a token resistance as her flesh was quietly seduced all over again. It took even less time than before, and with this iteration of torment she felt the thinner tendrils slipping right into her honey, their warmth was like fire inside her tunnel, causing sparks of white-hot pleasure to crackly up her spine. As her clipped breathing grew louder and louder, she wondered if perhaps this time the evil fel plant might actually let her come. Lifting her head, she eyed the red tentacle. She could die in peace if it would just let her…

<FLOOP>

Millie’s eyes went wide as the snake-like appendage settled right over her sex in a single quick motion, the hundreds of smaller tendrils smooshing around and into her flower. The wet heat covered her completely, with many of the filaments sliding into her depths as a pulsing, undulating mass. The tentacle curled under her, letting even more slimy digits press along her perineum, and even into the sphincter of her anus. Up higher, the flat tip of the red tentacle engulfed her clitoris, and to Millie’s added shock, began to vibrate like a nest of mad hornets.

She came at once, her whole body arching as a violent orgasm snapped her head back and forced the air from her lungs in a scream of pure ecstasy. And it went on and on… Eventually, her pleasure-tortured body crashed back down into the slurry pool, but the coursing, pulsing sexual overload continued. It was the red vine. It followed her, wrapped around her apex like an octopus. The thin tendrils were going crazy, no longer lazily caressing her, but rather smothering her womanhood in a wild erotic attack. The tendrils within twisted and reached into her deepest recesses, pressing right up against the door of her cervix. And that tip… The buzzing warmth settled around the bud of her clit and undulated in a way that caused it to suckle the blood engorged nub into a blazing inferno of lust.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. There was only wave after endless wave of terrifying orgasm and the shuddering convulsions of her bound naked body, drenched in the thick amber slurry. Minutes passed, or possibly hours. Millie had long lost the passage of time, but eventually, her mind was able to reassert itself and bring back consciousness. Her eyes re-focussed only with considerable effort.

She was once again staring down her nude form, but she could tell something was wrong. When she understood what it was, she started weeping again between her continuing jolts of pleasure.

Her wild motions had finally caused the ground to loosen completely under her bottocks, and her pelvis and much of her abdomen had slid right into the heavier mud below. Her thighs were rapidly disappearing as well, and only her knees remained above the surface when her descent finally slowed. Now well out of sight, the red tentacle reminded her that they were still coupled, and she felt her body responding on cue. It wouldn’t be long at all before she was lost in orgasm yet again. At least her suffering would be over soon, she told herself. In a few minutes her face would sink into the mire and she would drown in her own ecstasy. Even now, as her breathing started to lapse into the sharp gasps of approaching bliss, she watched as the slippery warm mud crept up her wrapped torso and took in her breasts with a quiet burble. The feel of the slurry sliding over her nipples was the final sensation that pushed her over the edge again.

“UGHNN! AHHH! AHHH! UGHNN!!”

The Catcher held her shuddering body for another impossible time, and to her surprise, she again came back to reality in dizzy stages. She had expected that the orgasm would be her last, but the fel creature had other plans it seemed. Instead of sinking to her doom, the evil plant had let her lower form drop from view, but had stopped her sinking when only her head and bound arms remained above the surface. Below, nothing had changed. The vines continued to seduce her while the thicker red tentacle undulated itself against her apex to keep her arousal simmering. When she understood the implications of the erotic hell she was trapped in, she shook her head back and forth.

“No… no… ughmm… please, just let me die!… No… ahhh…. ahhh… AHHH!”

The mass within her depths pulsed to life as the tip of the red vine continued to suckle her jewel. Millie moaned in frustration. Try as she might to resist, she could not help it as her pelvis very slowly started to undulate against her will, humping the demonic creation under the mud in a deepening cadence. Consciously, she understood that she had to stop the deadly motion of her hips, that she was fucking herself into oblivion, but the Catcher had fully seduced her body. There was no going back now. Even as she felt the stirrings of new ecstasy in her belly, she knew there would be no quick escape in death for her. The fel plant would go on torturing her with pleasure for days, until there was nothing left of her mind or soul…

—

“Awake I see,” said a male voice above and to her left. Millie’s eyes didn’t seem to want to focus. There was a flickering light nearby, she guessed from a fire.

“Wh… what? Where a-am I?” she asked. Her voice sounded terribly horse.

“Whoa there,” he replied and placed a hand on her chest when she tried to sit up. “I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. You’re safe. I made camp well off the road to give you a chance to recover without having to answer too many questions from any other travelers.”

“The Catcher!…” she croaked as her eyes went wide in fear. Again he placed a hand between her breasts to calm her. The pressure brought a rush of color to her cheeks, and caused the soft wool blanket that was spread over her to run sensuously over her nipples. Swallowing in near panic, she held her breath for a moment, expecting the pleasure to blossom and overwhelm her… but to her surprise, it faded back to a low simmer and she was able to breathe again.

“Relax. I got you out. I gotta say, you were a right mess. I wasn’t at all sure you would wake up. My name’s Stev, by the way.”

Millie turned her head and looked around as her eyes finally cooperated. Sure enough, she was laying on solid ground near a small campfire. The man sitting next to her had long tied-back hair and was clean shaven. He looked to be in his late twenties, but the firelight was casting odd shadows on everything. He was also shockingly handsome, and she had to swallow a second time as her nipples perked up again under the blanket.

“What happened? How did you even find me?” she asked.

“Well, that’s an interesting coincidence. You see, I was coming back down the road from Brenthen Dell, when I heard an odd sound. That in itself was unusual, because I tend to sing while I walk. I sing off key to keep other travelers away, preferring the solitude. I once had a guy decide to join me on a trip to Pol-Whens. He talked my ear off for twelve straight hours. Never again… Anyway, I hear this odd sound in the distance, like maybe someone crying or calling. It was off the road, so I went to investigate. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized what I was hearing was the sound of a woman in, er… well, having a moment, if you understand. I was about to turn around and mind my own business, when it just didn’t sound right. Thinking that I was about to walk in on a couple in an intimate moment, you can imagine my surprise when I reach the top of a small rise and find you, right up to your neck in a bog. With your arms all tangled and bound over your head I figure out that this is not some ordinary patch – it’s a Catcher. And boy did it catch you…”

Millie was only barely able to follow the man’s story, but her whole body tingled when he mentioned the Catcher vines, and she blushed again.

“I could tell by the sounds you were making,” he continued, “what that thing was doing to ya, so I grabbed my knife and went to work.”

“You rescued me?” she asked, incredulous. “By the goddess, how?!”

“Like I said, my knife.” He held up a gleaming blade before resheathing it. “It’s iron. The fel things don’t like iron much. I only had to cut away a few vines before it let you go. Getting you out of the muck was a trick, but mostly because you passed right out. There was a creek not to far away, so I carried you to the water and gave you a wash. Not knowing what else to do, I dropped camp and tried to make you as comfortable as possible. Er… I’m sorry I didn’t have clothes for you. I tend to travel light. Whatever clothes you might have had on are long gone I suspect.”

She looked down at the blanket and laughed softly, her face turning inexplicably red again. Suddenly something he said clicked, and she sat abruptly upright…

“Wait, you sing off key while you travel?… IT WAS YOU!”

The man looked quite startled. “I, er… what?”

“YOU! You were the whole reason I left the road! I couldn’t stand your singing!”

“Well, that’s sort of the point… But, why didn’t you just let me pass?”

She was red faced, but in anger this time. “I was trying to! I stepped away from the road to do just that, when I… sort of… fell asleep… on a Catcher…” Millie noticed that the man was trying not to look at her. “Well??”

“Uh…” He pointed at her chest.

Suddenly she realized that in sitting up, the blanket had fallen away exposing her bare breasts. She was about to say something completely unladylike, but instead took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Stev?”

“Yes, miss?”

“I assume that I was naked when you rescued me.”

The man looked flustered.

“Well, sure, but…”

“And when you took me to the creek, you no doubt had to rub your hands, um… everywhere, in order to get that mud and goo off of me?”

“Uh… Yes, miss.” He looked like a dog that had just been caught in the larder.

“Right. Given that, and the fact that I almost certainly owe you my life, I’m probably not going to worry about whether or not you can currently see my tits.”

“Yes, miss.”

“And my name is Millie.”

He smiled, and her heart skipped a beat. Goddamnit, why did he have to be so beautiful…

“It’s nice to meet you, Millie.”

“I suppose, it was my very good fortune to have met you… Stev.”

“Indeed.”

“So… you like solitude on the road as well?” she asked a little awkwardly.

“Most of the time, yes.”

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to escort me back home in the morning?”

“Uh… is your home Trent?”

She frowned slightly. “Yes? Is that a problem?”

“Oh, no. It’s just, well given your state of apparel, it might be better if I took you to Brenthen Dell instead. You’re already three-quarters of the way there.”

“You’re kidding…”

“Not at all. Once there, I can get you some clothes and a room so that you can be fully refreshed to return to Trent when you’re ready. I don’t think you realize just how far gone you were when I found you…”

Actually, the tingle she still felt in her middle gave her a pretty good idea, though when she thought about Stev’s smile, she wasn’t sure it was entirely the result of the Catcher.

“I guess that would be okay,” she replied, cursing her own libido, which was imagining ways in which she could ‘thank’ Stev more intimately in a nice comfortable room with a bed. “But on one condition…”

“Oh, what’s that?”

She gave him a half smile. “No singing.”

He laughed. “You don’t like my voice?”

“You’re voice is just fine… But you’re singing almost killed me the last time.”

He tilted his head slowly forward in a way that caused her nipples to crinkle.

“I don’t have to sing off key, you know…”