Milk-Heavy, Pollen-Eyed

It was 0300 before sleep, never a close friend, finally deigned to visit Noelle in her quarters. She'd been avoiding it for the better part of thirty hours, but when she dozed off at her workstation and dreamed about finding cryptic messages in the genome she was analyzing, she crossed out the note that read, "TAG A GAGA CAT--Significant?" in a loopy scrawl and stumbled over to the tiny bed in her quarters to at least nap for a few hours.

Noelle hadn't expected to sleep long--she never did when she was working on a project. But even by her standards, she'd barely closed her eyes when the door opened to cast a bar of fluorescent light across her face and interrupt a tangled, unpleasant dream of accepting the Nobel Prize from a giant cat with wide, staring eyes. She rolled over, too groggy to process the intrusion as anything other than unwelcome, when she heard someone speak to her.

"Doctor Heddison," a woman's voice said. "Something amazing's happened."

Noelle rolled back over, still brushing aside cobwebs of dream from her mind. "Vasquez?" she asked. The other woman was silhouetted in her doorway, a shadow in front of the harsh corridor lighting. "What time is it?"

"0400," Vasquez responded. "This couldn't wait. Doctor Heddison, Specimen U-79 sprouted."

That woke Noelle up. C was the designated term for control specimens, E stood for experimental, and U...it stood for 'unknown', but that was a polite euphemism to keep people from getting unprofessional and jumping to conclusions. Specimens designated "U" came from extra-terrestrial sources. Most of them were the barest scraps of self-replicating amino acid chains, a few had been found on spaceships with dubious decontamination protocols and were almost certainly just terrestrial life that had hitch-hiked on a rocket for a few thousand miles, but Specimen U-79...

A team of scientists in the Antarctic had returned Specimen U-79 three months ago from an impact crater, nestled snugly in a tough husk of fibrous material that had withstood the heat of re-entry. They'd taken it back to a research base on an island off the coast of Argentina, where Vasquez' group had been tasked with extracting the material inside the husk and determining whether any viable genetic information could be extracted from it and whether it could replicate in a terrestrial environment. Or, if you wanted the version that would would upend all of existing science and reorient humanity's place in the universe, Vasquez and the rest of them were trying to grow an alien seed from outer space into a living plant.

"What does it look like?" Noelle asked, hearing the excitement flood her voice. "Is there enough to get a sample yet? What nutrients is it responding to? Have you done an analysis on the soil it's planted in?" Adrenalin pumped into her like a gallon of hot coffee, sluicing away her exhaustion and filling her with energy. It was the kind of energy she'd pay for later, she knew, but it would be worth tomorrow's exhaustion to make history today.

"It looked like a vine," Vasquez said, stepping across the threshold and entering Noelle's room. "A bright green vine, roughly a quarter-inch in diameter, with nodules roughly every two inches."

"Every two inches?" Noelle asked, sitting up in her bed. "It's already more than two inches long?"

"It's more than eight inches long," Vasquez said as she approached. "I've never seen a plant grow this fast. I suspect it may be some sort of adaptive behavior, a survival mechanism to allow it to gain a foothold in already-developed biospheres, but it's maturing at a tremendously accelerated rate. It's already blossomed at each of the nodules."

"It's a flowering plant?" Noelle asked incredulously. If it had flowers, then that implied pollination in the species' native environment, which meant that there were other forms of life capable of distributing that pollen. They'd just proved by implication the existence of alien life. Apart from the giant cat, that dream about the Nobel Prize suddenly seemed a lot less implausible.

"More than that," Vasquez said. She was less than three feet away now, still just a dark shape backlit by the hallway lighting. "It's producing pollen. Active, viable pollen." She sounded excited, but more than that--she sounded awed. Like a priest who'd just experienced direct communion with God. "It's trying to reproduce."

Noelle frowned. Something was nagging at her hindbrain, trying to get her attention away from scientific wonder and arrested exhaustion. "We need to double-check our quarantine procedures," she said, her mouth running on automatic while her brain tried to sort out whatever was bugging her. "If it grows that fast and reproduces that quickly, we could have a major invasive species on our hands if we don't keep it in the lab."

It was a smell. That was what her subconscious was trying to get her to pay attention to. There was an odor coming off of Vasquez. The moment she noticed it, she realized the room was thick with it. It didn't smell bad, though. It smelled like...Noelle inhaled deeply. Why did she suddenly think about daycare?

"It's magnificent," Vasquez said, as though she hadn't heard a single thing Noelle had just said. "It's absolutely beautiful. I don't know what I was expecting, but the flowers--they're black, Noelle. Jet black. They smell like wet limestone. It's the most amazing thing I've ever experienced."

Noelle nodded, still trying to place the smell. Not wet limestone--it was organic, like babies. She kept thinking about her cousin, the one who did in-home daycare. Every time she visited, all the babies had a scent like this. Faint, but omnipresent, like it was coming out of their pores. It didn't smell bad, just biological, like--

Noelle rewound Vasquez' sentence in her head. "You smelled it?" she blurted out, her tone somewhere between furious and panicked. Nobody was even supposed to be in the same room with a U-classification specimen without a full biological containment suit and negative air pressure protocols in place. Actively walking in and taking a whiff of an alien flower without a thorough spectrographic, genetic and biological analysis was somewhere between suicidal, homicidal and genocidal.

Vasquez tilted her head slightly. "It was the pollen," she said. She'd gotten close enough that Noelle was getting great drifts of that scent, close enough that Noelle could see her body. Her breasts were larger than normal, perhaps a full cup size. They looked swollen, almost engorged. Her shirt was so wet that it was plastered to her skin. "It's not like terrestrial pollen. It's not like anything terrestrial. It got inside the suit."

Milk. That was it. That was the smell. That was the liquid soaking through Vasquez' shirt. Vasquez was lactating, and she was lactating at an unnatural rate. "I don't know if the particles of pollen were just smaller than what the suit was designed to filter, or if it was somehow able to corrode the material, but it got inside and I suddenly smelled wet limestone. It smelled good, Noelle." She smiled beatifically, her teeth gleaming white in the half-darkness. "It smelled so good."

Noelle reached for the light by her bed. "Doctor Vasquez," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "I have reason to believe that your thought process may have been affected by an alien pathogen. You need to return to quarantine and--" She broke off with a gasp as she turned the light on.

Vasquez' eyes were golden. At first, it seemed like her eyeballs had actually changed color, but after a moment Noelle could detect a slow, rippling motion in the other woman's aqueous humour. "Oh Jesus, Emilia..." Noelle whispered, almost without realizing it.

"I think it's another evolutionary adaptation," Vasquez said, still with that same fixed smile. "The pollen is capable of replicating in the absence of the plant, given the right conditions. Given a host. Or hosts." Noelle was uncomfortably aware of how close she'd let Vasquez get to her, and how hard it would be to get around her without touching her.

"It makes sense, really." Vasquez almost sounded reasonable if you couldn't see her eyes. "All pollinating plants look for animals to transport their genetic material; this plant just found a more efficient way of doing it, that's all. It doesn't hurt. It feels quite pleasant, actually." Now that the light was on, Noelle noticed a second damp patch, this one at the crotch of Vasquez' shorts. 'Pleasant' apparently didn't go far enough in describing it.

Noelle pushed herself as far away from Vasquez as she could get. It wasn't very far. "Doctor Vasquez," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and soothing. "You have to listen to me. You are in the grip of a powerful, alien biological imperative right now."

"I know," Vasquez said, her smile widening. "Isn't it wonderful?" She peeled her soaking wet t-shirt over her head to reveal the largest breasts Noelle had ever seen. "It's the most important discovery in the field of biology and I'm a literal part of it. I can't wait until daylight, Doctor Heddison. The pollen is looking for sunlight and plants to pollinate--I can feel it, like a physical force pulling at my body. And I'll be there when it happens, not just watching but experiencing it."

Noelle slowly stood up on the bed, keeping her back pressed firmly to the wall. She tensed to leap, the adrenaline that woke her now turned to its original purpose--fight or flight. "Doctor Vasquez--Emilia, you have to fight this. You have to resist these urges."

Vasquez took a deep, shuddering breath. The damp spot at her crotch became noticeably damper. "I don't think I can, Noelle. I have to know what will happen. I have a duty to science." She gasped again, her hips shaking in pleasure. "Even if it wasn't making me want this, I'd want it anyway. I'm sure of it." Her hands caressed her tits as she spoke, dribbling milk over her fingers. In the light, Noelle could see that it was tinged slightly amber with pollen.

"Emilia, please," Noelle whispered. She could feel the panic deep down in the pit of her stomach. How much pollen did it take to contaminate Vasquez? How much had Noelle already inhaled just by breathing in her scent? How long did she have before her eyes went golden and her tits started swelling with milk? "Please just let me past, I'll find someone who can help you, we'll solve this together--"

Vasquez sighed with irresistible bliss. "Yes, we will," she said. "It's why I came in here, Noelle. I have to show you what it's like, so you'll understand." Her eyelids fluttered and a tiny whimper escaped her lips. "You'll see once you're a host too." She squeezed her right nipple, sending a jet of amber milk directly at Noelle's face.

Noelle flinched back instinctively, but she was already pressed against the wall. The warm liquid splattered across her lips, dripping down off her chin. She blew air out of her mouth hard, trying to prevent any milk from getting in, but a strangely familiar taste told her she hadn't been entirely successful.

Vasquez twisted both her nipples, sending out a chaotic spray of milk in all directions. Noelle avoided most of it by dropping to the bed, but it seemed like Vasquez had an inexhaustible supply. "Oh god," she panted as she massaged her tits. "Oh fuck, it feels so good, Noelle. You can't imagine how good it feels to do this to you. You won't have to, soon. You're going to thank me for this once you feel what it's like."

Noelle was terrified that she was right. Another jet of milk caught her in the face, and this time she couldn't avoid getting some in her mouth. It tasted sweet and creamy on her tongue, nothing at all like cow's milk, with a malty undertaste that Noelle knew came from the pollen it contained. She spit frantically, trying to get as much as she could out of her mouth, but Vasquez' aim was getting better. Every time she tried to spit some out, more wound up coming in.

Noelle was aware that Vasquez was getting closer, but she had bigger things on her mind. She was being drenched with milk now, great splashes of it running down her face and chin, and she closed her mouth and eyes tightly to try to keep it out. She crawled along the bed, no longer caring about contamination, just wanting to get away, but Vasquez blocked her progress by putting those gigantic tits right in front of Noelle's face.

Noelle felt a nipple rubbing against her lips, as though seeking entrance. She flung herself backwards, but all that meant was that Vasquez could lie on top of her like a dead weight and press her breast to Noelle's face. "It's okay," Vasquez cooed as she rubbed her nipple back and forth along Noelle's lips. "It's alright. Just give in. It tastes good, doesn't it?"

Noelle opened her mouth, desperate to deny it as much to herself as to Vasquez, but she realized too late that panic had made her stupid when Vasquez gushed a jet of creamy breast milk straight onto Noelle's tongue. She pursed her lips back together instantly, but it was too late. The taste was everywhere now, thick and sweet and creamy at the back of her throat. She pressed her tongue against her teeth, trying to force as much of it as she could out through her lips, but she knew she'd swallowed some.

She could still feel Vasquez, holding her head in position and tracing the shape of her lips with stiff nipples that leaked milk all over her face. Noelle struggled, but she couldn't move Vasquez at all. She felt as weak as a kitten beneath the other woman's firm embrace. Even clenching her jaw shut suddenly seemed like a Herculean effort, but every time she relaxed her muscles even for a moment, Vasquez was waiting to spray another jet of warm milk directly into her mouth.

After a few minutes, it had almost settled into a rhythm. Noelle closed her mouth as tightly as she could for as long as she could, then her jaw would slowly relax and her lips would part just as Vasquez squirted warm milk onto her tongue. She'd reflexively swallow some and let the rest trickle down her cheek, and then she'd suddenly remember what was happening to her and find the willpower to close her mouth again for another minute or so. Then it would all happen again.

But every time, Noelle found it harder and harder to seal her lips together. Every time, her mouth hung open for longer and longer, and she swallowed more and more of the warm, sweet liquid. She opened her eyes, trying to look for a way out or even just someone she could beg for help, but they seemed so impossibly heavy that they sank shut again of their own accord after only moments.

She felt Vasquez petting her cheek. "Good girl," she whispered to Noelle. "You like this, don't you?" Noelle wanted to protest that it wasn't true, but then she realized she had her mouth wide open and she was swallowing every drop of milk as it squirted down her throat. She'd zoned out completely, lying there slack-jawed and accepting, and even as she thought that she could feel herself sliding back into that same vacant and open state.

She snapped out of her fugue when Vasquez leaned in, pressing her nipple directly to Noelle's mouth and filling her open lips completely with titflesh. "That's right," Vasquez said softly. "You know what to do now, don't you?"

Noelle tried to shake her head, but she felt the strange lethargy creeping over her again. It felt different from the exhaustion she'd experienced an hour ago, almost pleasant. It felt like floating in the pool on a warm day, feeling the sun shine down on you with lazy heat while the ripples rocked you gently--not to sleep, not exactly, but to the point where you simply didn't want to move. It felt like too much effort to move. All of Noelle's muscles felt limp and rubbery with soft, warm pleasure.

"Good girl," Vasquez whispered, stroking Noelle's jawline. "Suckle for me now, pretty girl." Noelle felt the words as much as heard them, as though they sank into some primal well of emotion that had been conditioned since birth to respond. She pursed her lips, and was rewarded with a gush of warm, thick, creamy milk flowing straight over her tongue down her throat. Once she started, Noelle felt like she couldn't stop. "You're going to be so beautiful," Vasquez cooed to her as she sucked. "You're going to be so happy. I'm so glad I could give this to you."

Noelle remembered briefly what Vasquez was giving her, and her limbs thrashed momentarily as she struggled to free herself. She managed to lift Vasquez a few inches, breaking the seal between her mouth and Vasquez' nipple and splashing warm milk all over her face once again. But then the drowsiness took her again, a wave of slow, dreamy heat spreading out from between her thighs and softening her arms and legs into exhaustion, and she collapsed once more. Vasquez smiled gently and fed the nipple back into her mouth as though nothing had happened.

Noelle began to suckle again, her mind now almost completely swamped with ecstasy. She could feel her pussy getting wet and her clit stiffening as the milk flowed into her belly. "Good girl," Vasquez whispered over and over again, the words now only registering in Noelle's hindbrain. Her eyes fluttered half-open, as though she was too exhausted now even to close them.

"That's right," Vasquez said, petting Noelle's hair as she pulled away momentarily to feed Noelle her other nipple. Noelle heard herself mewling in anticipation, but she was past shame. She understood now. It was good to drink the milk. It tasted good, it felt good, and it did good things to her. She didn't know how she could ever have imagined otherwise.

Her vision slowly took on a golden haze as she stared blankly up at Vasquez. The pollen was translucent, she realized as Vasquez gently eased the nipple out of her mouth. That was how Vasquez could see even after she'd become a host like Noelle. She could see through the amber mist perfectly well. It didn't affect her, not really. She could think perfectly clearly. She just wanted to think what she was being made to want to think, that was all. Being a host didn't change her. It improved her.

Vasquez sat up, allowing Noelle to do the same. Noelle could already feel her own breasts swelling with milk. It would only be a matter of minutes before she started lactating too. "When is sunrise?" she asked. She knew Vasquez would have looked it up.

"0740," Vasquez said. "We have time." She stood up, and Noelle stood up right along with her. They didn't have to speak further; Noelle knew exactly what Vasquez wanted, because she wanted the exact same thing. They both wanted what they were made to want, but they both knew that they would want the same thing even if they had free will.

Over three hours until sunrise. That was plenty of time to visit everyone in the base.

THE END