Ch7 Spruce Onions: The One in the Suit

A lush green canopy was all he could see when he opened his eyes. His breathing was calm and his ears weren’t even ringing. Everything felt alright until he noticed how naked and exposed he felt.

“Wait a minute…” In a moment, he remembered what had happened: he’d been aboard the God-Given Right awaiting an imminent jump to a safehouse planet when the weeds attacked! Those bastards somehow pulled one over on their dumbass captain and got the jump on them. It all happened so fast, but now he was their prisoner.

He quickly sat up to find himself laying on a Terran-sized bed in an affini-sized room. His expensive black suit felt lighter on him than normal, which was never a good sign. To his horror, rummaging through his jacket, undercoat, shoes, socks, and trousers proved he hadn’t a single tool or weapon on his person; not his two pistols, his five knives, his multitool, his comms unit, his gas mask, his lighter, his coil of wire, or his vial of poison had eluded confiscation.

“No… No! Damn it!” He tried to slam his fist into the bed’s backboard, but was stopped by a single little vine coiling just tight enough around his wrist. “Huh!?” He leapt out of bed and looked all around, but saw nobody else in the room with him. When he glanced back at his wrist, there was no vine to be seen. “Show yourself, weed! I know you’re here!”

“My, my, what a temper~” An androgynous, inhuman whisper echoed from every direction, and from nowhere all at once.

“I won’t play your games! Come out and face me like a man, you coward!” He clenched his fists tight and gritted his teeth.

“Ah, you want a man, do you?~” At that, a waterfall of vines fell from the branches above and coalesced into the most stunningly beautiful man he had ever seen:

The affini was looking down at him with two sparkling violet eyes that could have easily been mistaken for the cosmos themselves. Those big, wonderful eyes were accentuated by what looked like guyliner and stood out against its sleek, dark green face. Rows of sharp thorns akin to shark’s teeth and a pair of big, luscious lips combined to form a wicked grin. Long, wide leaves - which were a similar purple hue to its eyes - flowed from its head as if to mimic wavy locks of hair. Its body (if it could even be called a body) featured broad shoulders and strong, muscular arms. Tiny little pink vines were intertwined in the plant alien’s equivalent of ‘skin’, creating what looked like a series of captivating geometric tattoos running along the lengths of its arms. A shimmering, sleeveless black dress tightly hugged the affini’s alluring Terran-like form, from its flat chest to its flat crotch. Multiple long, stray vines sprouting from its back were floating gracefully in midair as if barely affected by the artificial gravity of whatever damned ship they were on.

“Mhmm hmm hmm, I’d ask if you like what you see, but I already know the answer to that~”

One of its vines gently touched his rosy cheek. Stars, had he been gawking like some damned pet!? No… no, he’d surely been infected by some insidious bioweapon. Nothing else could possibly explain the heat in his face and the stiffness in his pants.

“Get away from me, bastard!” He tried to swat away the vine from his face, but it easily dodged and landed on his other cheek.

“Oh? First it’s ‘face me like a man’ and now it’s ‘get away’? You sure are an indecisive little flower, aren’t you?~” The condescending tone to its voice really pissed him off.

“I know what you are! You think you’re some unstoppable, inevitable force, but you’re too weak to hurt your own enemies! Are you really that afraid of pain that you’d refuse to attack even me!?”

The affini leaned down so its false, simulated face was inches above his own. Its eyes seemingly ignited, burning a fierce swirl of yellows and reds and oranges. “I’d be more than happy to make you feel pain, little one, but you’d have to ask me nicer than that~”

Now it was the Terran’s turn to combust, feeling an intense heat flush his face and a nervous sweat cross his brow.

“Wh-what kind of homo do you take me for!?” He was on the ropes; since when did anyone intimidate him enough to stutter? Such weakness from one of his standing would have gotten him a beating back on Terra.

The affini’s eyes cooled off, as the metallic flames in its eyes died down to reveal the night sky once again. “Come now, petal, don’t you just want to admit what you truly like? Wouldn’t you rather unbottle your feelings?”

“I’m not bottling anything you overgrown houseplant! Now quit playing the therapist and take me seriously already! Or are you too much of a pussy to take me in a fair fight?”

“Oh dear, do you not like my pussy?” The affini feigned offense as it lightly stroked its flat crotch. “Well I can fix that~”

In only a moment, the alien plant shifted its form and somehow swapped out its clothes: its hips widened and shoulders narrowed; its flat chest swelled to simulate a gorgeous pair of breasts; its ‘hair’ leaves receded, halving in length such that the tips almost reached its shoulders; its lithe legs grew thicker in the thighs as its ass became plumpier; a stunning, feminine violet suit somehow manifested around its form; and finally, a big, prominent, luscious bulge appeared in its tight trousers.

As if he wasn’t hard enough, this smoking hot contemptible weed somehow employed the use of shapeshifting! His boner throbbed against his undergarments despite his mind screaming how wrong this was. He thought he’d overcome this! He thought he’d outgrown such… such…! Such deviancy!

Another vine lightly lifted his jaw back up. Shit, was he staring like a fool again!?

 “Mhmm hmm hmm hmm hmm~ I thought you might like this form, too~” His tormentor struck an alluring pose– no, a mocking pose as it tried to seduce him, but it wouldn’t work!

“I don’t like a single thing about you!” He spat defiantly. Finally peeling his eyes away from his captor, he stared at the nearest wall. A mural of a Terran and an affini holding hands under a full moon decorated the room. He told himself it was awful and that he hated it.

“What a silly thing to say! You don’t even know my name, let alone the first thing about me. Speaking of which: I am Caelum Orionis, Twenty-Third Bloom.” It gave a flamboyant curtsey. “Oh, and I use every pronoun, by the way; one might say I’m a collector of sorts~”

“You can’t do that!” He turned back to shout at Caelum.

“And why not?”

“That’s not how that works! You’re either a man or you’re a woman, and anything else is just-! Just-!!” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“It doesn’t sound like you truly believe that, petal. Not deep down in your heart.” There it went condescending him again, even if it almost sounded genuine.

“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t believe! No, you know what, fuck this! I’ve had enough of you!” He rolled up his sleeves, stepped forward, gathered all of his strength, and punched that damn weed right in the leg.

Time froze. He looked up at the affini. It looked down at him. A few vines were displaced, and his arm was now stuck firmly in the woven structure that was Caelum’s leg.

“Are you finished, petal?”

“No! Don’t call me that, you pathetic, condescending dipshit!” He kicked at the beautiful booties Caelum was wearing as he tried to dislodge his arm from the affini’s tangle of vines, but it wasn’t very effective.

Before he knew what was happening, each of his limbs were tied up in vines and his arm was removed from Caelum’s leg. The towering alien effortlessly lifted him up so he came face to face with it.

“What can I call you, then?” The tiny white sparkles in its deep violet eyes shifted in perfect harmony to create the illusion that he was a starship travelling at warp speed through the stars - almost like the opening to that ancient sci-fi show… Stars… Star… Something.

Realising he’d been staring into that weed’s eyes, he looked away again. He refused to answer this thing anymore.

“Well, if you don’t want to speak right now, it’s not an issue. We have all the files from that silly little ship of yours, and it says there your name is–”

“STOP!” He snapped. “I’ll only let my betters call me by that name.”

“You know that the societal concept of ‘betters’ is nonsense, petal.” It stated as if it knew that for a fact.

“I said, don’t call me that!”

“Alright then, take your pick: if you don’t tell me what you’d like to be called right now, then I’ll have nothing else to call you other than ‘petal’ or the name in your files.”

He gritted his teeth. Giving it the silent treatment had immediately backfired. “Suits.” It was the nickname he’d picked up from wearing suits absolutely everywhere he went, without exception.

“Alright then. From this day forward, your name is Suits Orionis, Thirtieth Floret. Welcome to the Affini Compact~”