Blattella Lophiidae

Chapter 2 – Feeding Time

In her dream, Lara’s body was surrounded by a thick blanket. It was wrapped so tightly around her that she could barely move, yet it was also comforting in an oddly maternalistic way, like swaddling clothes.

In the darkness surrounding her she heard a clicking sound, almost a scuffling. It was the sound of a hundred tiny canes tapping on a stone floor in a complicated repeating pattern. She couldn’t see what was making the sound, but the tapping scared her anyway. It was a bad sound; it was death… and it was coming closer.

Awakening was like forcing herself up from the bottom of a pool of gelatin. Her mind was filled with conflicting images, sensations, aches and discomforts, but she finally pushed through and opened her eyes.

It was dark, or mostly so. There was a faint blue-green glow in front of her, but she was having trouble focussing her eyes. She was also having trouble moving, and when her vision adjusted well enough to see why, she began to panic.

Looking down at herself, she could see that her entire body was wrapped in fine silky strands – almost cocooned actually. Her legs had been bound into a bent position, folded up behind her and spread wide. Her arms were raised up over her head and were completely encased in the spider-like webs, which she also saw were supporting her a meter or so above ground.

The form-fitting way the unnatural bondage conformed to her body left little doubt that she was completely naked, and slowly, Lara started to remember.

“Oh… no no no… oh god…” She whimpered, recalling her seduction and rape by the insectoid defender of the temple. She also remembered the feel of little pea-sized eggs being implanted in her womb and with a profound sense of dread, she looked down at her belly. She didn’t really need to see the slight distention of her abdomen to know what was now growing inside her. She could feel them.

Moaning and cursing, Lara pulled at her bonds, desperate now to escape. She would have ripped open her own body and extracted the vile embryos herself if she were able, but her hands might as well have been wrapped in steel bands for all the good her struggles did. Finally, exhausted, she slumped in her bindings, sobbing as she considered her fate.

The creatures she had been impregnated with were not human children. She felt no maternal instincts to protect them, just the opposite in fact. She knew that these were the offspring of the giant cockroach horror that had caught and ravaged her. She had no way to know what would happen when they matured, but she seriously doubted it would end well for her.

As if to confirm her dread, she finally started noticing the smells around her. There was the ever present mustiness of the temple, but with it, the obvious stench of death and decay. Following her nose, she turned and looked deeper into the darkness. Now that her eyes had fully adjusted to the dim light, she could see she was surrounded by dozens of hanging shapes. It took little imagination to know that they were the skeletal remains of past victims, each having been bound much as she was now. There were even skeletons of large jungle animals among the macabre showcase.

She groaned, realizing that as bad as things seemed now, the worst part was apparently still to come. Then she heard the tapping from her dream, and her heart just about burst from her own chest.

It sounded a bit off still, the clacking rattle echoing in the halls around her, but it was definitely closing. Lara couldn’t help but renew her struggles again. Just like her dream, she was absolutely convinced the sound was the coming of death.

It was no good. She couldn’t break free. She couldn’t even find a single weakness in the creature’s bondage that she might exploit to defend herself. She was just considering whether she might be able to bite any of her bonds when there was a change in the tone of the tapping. Looking up, she almost missed the creature as it slithered into the room on the ceiling. Apparently, that was how it always traveled, and she marveled its ingenuity at a professional level. With the dim light diffusing the shadows, it would be damn hard to spot if it didn’t want to be seen. Now though, with the lower ceiling, she had her first real look at the monstrous insect in its entirety… and immediately wished she hadn’t.

It was enormous. Lara figured the massive beast to be at least a half dozen meters long, and from the look of it, a good 60 stone. It was lengthy and armoured like a centipede, but had legs and a head similar to a cockroach. It used all but its most forward legs to grip the ceiling, but the ones closest to its head flicked around in front of the beast, almost as though it were reading the way by touch. This is what created the tapping sound, as each leg briefly made contact with the stone roof. Aside from that small bit of noise, the creature was virtually silent when it moved. Quite the feat for something of such bulk.

She watched it slither into the room, her heart rate climbing with each second. It came in from the side and then showed her yet another little trick. Turning around like a sort of train, the creature placed itself so that its back end was nearly directly above her. Then, with an amazing display of dexterity, it curled under itself while still holding to the ceiling. The result was that it front rose up right before her, with its underside exposed. In this manner, it never touched the floor. No tracks, no trails, and it still had a quick getaway if needed.

“Very clever.” She said aloud, her voice breaking slightly in fear. “You did that from behind to capture me, didn’t you? With your little hypnotic light thingy…” She couldn’t see the bulb-ended tendril in the creature’s current position, but she knew it was there somewhere. Hearing her own voice was mildly comforting, and gave her what was perhaps a false sense of intellectual superiority over the vile organism, which at the moment appeared very menacing indeed. At this range, the nearly constant motion of the larger front legs was mesmerizing, but Lara was careful not to let herself be so easily intoxicated this time. What she was hoping to see was some sort of vulnerability that she could exploit… if she were somehow able to free herself from the sticky trap.

“Your large size aside, you definitely appear to be a cousin of the cockroach.” She said, trying to calm her terrified mind. “Of course, a rather larger cousin… And with your light bulb trick, I think I’ll call you… Blattella Lophiidae. Yes, that seems appropriate. ‘Lolly’ for short.” If the creature even had ears to hear her, it made no indication, save to reach out with its long antennae and lightly touch her in short, quick little caresses that caused her to jump.

“So, Lolly.” She continued. “What can we tell about you, eh? You lay eggs it would seem,” she said, looking down at her abdomen, “but no egg cases. From the feel of them going in, small and round. Not your typical elongated larvae. Not sure what that m-means. Ughnn… Th-those antennae of y-yours are just a tad d-distracting.”

Even through the layer of spider-silk, every whip-like touch was as though someone were taking a feather and slipping it over her bare skin. Done rapidly enough, it was the erotic equivalent of a hundred feathers all at once. When the caresses continued for several minutes without pause, and were overtly focused on certain key erogenous zones, Lara understood that the creature had to be doing it with the sole purpose of arousing her sexually. And damned if it wasn’t working.

“Ughnn…” she exclaimed, through gritted teeth. “You b-bastard.” She felt herself growing wet, and her nipples were hard points visible even under the webs. “You’ve already imp-p-pregnated m-me, what m-more to you want!? Ughnnn…” But the insect seemed to pay her no mind, continuing its erotic torture without pause or change. It wasn’t the kind of stimulation that would ever get her off, no matter how long it continued, but it was definitely enough to drive her nearly mad with need.

“Oh g-g-god! Why are you… ughmmm… doing this to m-me!? Ahhh! Do you just like t-t-to torment your victims? Ughnn! I don’t underst… Oh shit…”

Abruptly, the monstrous form of the creature had moved closer. At the same time, she saw a slit open in the soft belly and a glistening appendage slip out. Lara figured that it had to be the phallic appendage that had impregnated her earlier. What it wanted now was pretty obvious, based on the previous foreplay with its antennae, and she shivered in horror.

“Nooo…” She begged, her eyes fixed on the trunk-like tentacle. It was reaching out for her, heading straight for her exposed sex. thrashing and straining at the webs wrapped around her, she made one last violent attempt to break free, but just like before, she only succeeded in tiring herself further. She could struggle, but the stretchy silk held her firm. When she looked up, it took everything she had not to scream out in terror. The creature’s head seemed to be splitting open as it came close enough that she could see herself in its large eyes. A three-way jaw spread wide in a slight rain of mucus, and out of that horrible maw extended a number of long, pale, smooth tentacles, which reached for her face.

The nightmarish vision strained her constitution to its maximum, and she cringed back as much as she possibly could in disgust and near panic. She expected that the fleshy fingers might be to draw food into its mouth, and although they wrapped slightly around her head and pulled her forward so that she was literally staring down the foul insect’s gullet, it seemed to be waiting for something. A second later she found out what it was.

A warm, slippery-wet pressure settled abruptly over her flower, and she gasped in shock. At that very moment, as her mouth was open, there was a spray of slime and something long and moving very fast darted into her mouth. It was rigid and wide enough that she couldn’t bite it, but obviously made of muscle fiber. The end of the tube-like structure expanded behind her teeth, effectively locking it in place. At the same time, the phallus in her lap was slowly wriggling its way inside her sex where it started a rhythmic thrusting, and again, she instinctively resisted. Suddenly, there was a familiar tingle at her temples and everything changed. The tube in her mouth was temporarily forgotten amid an overwhelming rise in pleasure from her hips. In the span of a few very fast heartbeats, she was set right on the edge of ecstasy, and though she wanted to resist, she found herself relaxing her inner muscles and allowing the phallus to ease fully into her.

It was the brainwashing. Somehow, the massive insect was able to manipulate her mind. Like before, it was using the pleasure to influence her emotions… It was making her want it. The worst part was how easily she was giving in now. It took only seconds before she was moaning and writhing with arousal, and her body was already hungering for the deeper, inner phallus that she knew was coming. Right on cue, as she humped her hips against the long tentacle, she felt a soft warmth begin to reach into her. At the same time, there was something slowly dripping from the tube in her mouth as well. It was a sweet, honey-like nectar that almost immediately caused her to salivate and swallow. Some small part of her mind was repulsed in the extreme, but that part was drowned under the rising lust in her belly. For the next few minutes, she was helplessly fucked to the very edge of insanity, and all the while, she gulped down the vile liquid. Finally, she felt the monumental relief of orgasm flow over her, and to her surprise, the phallus once again released something beyond her cervix. A stream of liquid flowed into her womb, causing her to shake with ecstasy and pump her hips uncontrollably against the trunk-like penetration.

And as quickly as it had begun, the creature was gone. It just slipped out of her and slithered away, leaving her panting and dizzy with fading pleasure. But without the neural manipulation, reality slowly returned, and with it, the realization that she had just been raped again… and more. She wanted to vomit up whatever the creature had regurgitated into her, but something prevented her from doing so. That part of her was still being manipulated at an unconscious level.

“AHHHH!” She screamed, in frustration and disgust, twisting and thrashing in her hanging bondage. “Kill me and be done with, you ugly shit!” Finally, she once again sagged into exhaustion, the helpless futility of her situation beginning to break her will. She needed to focus; to concentrate on the problem… But it all seemed so pointless.

“Come on, Croft. Pull yourself together and think, damnit.” She took several deep breaths. “Keep talking… Work it through.” She tried to put the external distractions and her fear to the side. “No egg casings means it’s viviparous. It’s laid live embryos inside you, but to what end? No, maybe it’s not such a good idea to go there. We know how this ends… With those little buggers using you as their first meal. But this is a reproductive instinct. So why the rape?” She remembered the honey-like fluid it fed her.

“Typical gestation for roach larvae is about thirty days, and these are no doubt a lot more complicated. Feeding me I can understand; you need me to go the distance. I’m no good to you if I starve to death. But I’m not feeding them…”

Then she knew.

“Son of a bitch. You’re feeding them every time you fuck me. Which means, unfortunately, that I can look forward to regular conjugal visits. Shit.”

Lara also considered something more personally frightening, though she couldn’t voice it out loud yet. It was how the creature had managed to override her body’s gag reflex. The brainwashing she could fathom. Pleasure was a powerful motivator, even more than pain when done properly. But to circumvent an autonomic response… that took more than simple conditioning. It meant that the monstrous insect was controlling her body at a base level. If it could do that, it could control her completely, or was well on its way. It wouldn’t be long before it could simply shut off her conscious awareness and leave her nothing more than a meat puppet. When that happened, there would truly be no more hope for her.

With nothing to do but feel the slight wiggling in her abdomen, Lara eventually fell asleep again. She dreamt of the inn where she had spent the night before venturing into the jungle in search of the idol. She dreamed of clean sheets and a comfortable bed… and even more comfortable company. She saw herself on her back, her arms over her head while her lover gently caressed and licked every single inch of her naked body. The muscular Indian man’s skin was dark and slick with oil, an oil that he had liberally used on her as well. Now he moved between her thighs and was softly licking her apex, causing her to shiver in delight with each stroke of his tongue. Before long, she was nearing her moment, and was begging for him not to stop. But his wonderful erotic torment slowed, and he began to pull away.

In frustration, she went to hold him down against her, but her arms were tangled in something. Instead, the beautiful young man slipped up her body until he was face to face with her. Then, looking into her eyes, he kissed her, passionately… deeply. And at that same moment, he shifted himself so that his phallus slipped within her center. But something wasn’t right. He felt wrong, his body was too hard. His member was huge, far too big for a man. His kiss was inside her mouth, holding it open.

With a start, she woke from her dream and launched almost immediately into orgasm. Spasming and gasping for breath, she came so hard that stars formed in her vision, but as they slowly faded, and with them her pleasure, she saw not the face of the young Indian man, but that of the creature as it withdrew the wide tube from her mouth, the taste of its regurgitated nectar lingered. Down lower, she could feel small runnels of some other liquid slowly leaking down her thighs to her knees.

Still trembling in a wash of ecstasy, Lara couldn’t seem to break completely free from the foggy, sleepy bliss. It was nearly twenty minutes later that she finally punched through the catatonic haze, her eyes fluttering back open as she gasped for deeper breaths of air to clear her head. Even still, it was like coming out of deep anesthesia.

“Ugnnn… Noooo….” She moaned.

It was happening. She was losing herself. It had taken everything she had to come back that time. How long would it take her the next time it raped her? An hour? Two? There was no way to know for sure how long the creature waited between “feedings”, but she guessed it to be about four hours. Soon, maybe even the next time it came for her, she wouldn’t wake up at all between its visits, and that would be that. It would keep her unconscious permanently; nothing more than a living vessel to nurture the larvae growing within her, with no way for her to do anything at all about it.

She couldn’t let that happen. There had to be a way, and if she was going to find it, it had to be now. It was very unlikely indeed that she’d get another chance at escape. Even if she did wake up after another visit, there simply wouldn’t be time to do anything. No, now was her chance.

Desperate, she once again checked her bonds… and groaned. Apparently, while she was asleep, her insect captor had fortified the webs around her arms, adding more to her back and sides as well. The new webbing actually relieved some of the strain of her own weight on her arms, which wasn’t much of a comfort under the circumstances.

She tested whether she could create a bouncing rhythm that might cause her bonds to snap, but the configuration was exceptionally adept at absorbing motion, and her efforts only tired her. She briefly considered whether she could snap her own neck, but decided that in the end she couldn’t do it. She was too much of a fighter to give up in that manner.

Looking about the room as best she could, she tried to glean any insights from past victims. If the hanging bones were any indication, there wouldn’t be much left of her once the larvae were finished with her. None of the visible skeletons were in any way intact.

She saw piles of clothes in one corner, and had a brief moment of hope. Her backpack and even her weapons were laying only a half dozen meters away. Of course, they might as well have been in another country for all the good they would do her.

“Alright… Let’s get technical again. What deters roaches? They breath through trachea, which means they avoid soaps and oils, as well as grit between their joints. Bay leaves… garlic… Damnit! This isn’t helping!”

The tomb raider knew that every minute that passed brought her closer to her next, last conscious encounter, and so her panic was slowly increasing. An hour slipped by, then two, with no new ideas. She considered the mental aspects of what was being done to her, and whether she thought she could resist it. She decided that was unlikely, but she would try anyway. She thought about using pain to hold her in the present, perhaps even biting her own lip or tongue. She’d leave that as a last resort as well.

As she entered into the third hour, a severe depression settled over her, as well as fear induced hysteria. She sobbed and struggled, and screamed until she was utterly exhausted, but it was no use. She just couldn’t come up with anything that would save her. She knew that her time was short, that at any moment the beast would return for yet another “feeding” of her and its young.

Finally, resigned, she reconsidered the idea of snapping her own neck. She was fairly certain that if she twisted her head sharply enough, she might just have a chance. It would be better than letting the larvae eat her alive, but she would need to do it before it got its tube inside her mouth. She couldn’t hesitate. As soon as it returned, she would need to…

FLASH!

A bright light snapped on directly in front of her, momentarily stunning her, and for a brief second giving her hope that she had been somehow rescued. Bright colors filled her wide eyes as patterns strobed in rapid succession, completely dazzling her. She had only a moment’s clear thought, and then she remembered. The lure.

Blattella Lophiidae, she had called it; an angler cockroach, for the bioluminescent bulb at the end of a central tentacle. She remembered how it had used that light to paralyze her originally, the patterns reaching into her mind and shutting off the conscious control of her muscles, just as they were doing now.

She was frozen in a posture of pure surprise, her mouth open, eyes wide. She couldn’t move, and couldn’t look away as the odd visual hypnosis gradually took complete control of her mind. Her eyes relaxed and drooped, her breathing slowed. Even the tension in her muscles seemed to drain from her. But her thoughts were hers. She was aware. It wanted her to feel.

And feel she did. She felt the familiar flutter of its antennae on her body, tickling her into arousal all over again. Lara knew that it was too late now. She was trapped not just physically, but mentally as well. She had forgotten about the creature’s primary weapon. It must have slipped into the room behind her, utterly silent, and unwilling to give her a single chance for freedom, even if that freedom was an escape through her death. She couldn’t even scream as she was tortured by the devious foreplay. She felt her nipples harden under their webbed constriction, and the squishy wetness within her apex.

It let her passion grow for much longer than before, almost as though it knew of her plans and was punishing her for such thoughts against its children. On and on the feather-light caresses tormented her erotically, teasing her until she was literally shaking with need.

And finally, it shifted forward, keeping the light just above its opening face. She could see the tube, coming slowly from the dark recesses of its throat. No rush this time to get behind her teeth before she closed her mouth, it eased in. And between her legs, her pelvis began to rock at the first light pressure at her sex, hungrily taking the phallus as it pressed between her folds. It entered her so slowly that she was nearly insane by the time it reached its depth within her. To her horror, the creature resumed its caresses, focussing mainly on her breasts and nipples. It was leaving her no room for resistance, and she already felt the queasy tension of ecstasy flowering in her belly.

A sweetness at her tongue signaled her feeding, and she swallowed without hesitation, a trained animal, perfectly conditioned to respond to stimulus. Her rhythm deepened; her heart rate rising with her pleasure. It wouldn’t be long now. It would make her come. There was nothing to stop it.

And so, with only a final whimpering moan, Lara felt the heat rise up and consume her. Trembling into timeless orgasm, her world faded into a white haze of ecstasy that seemed to go on and on without end…