"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
-- H.P. Lovecraft
1
The turgid, spongey tentacle invaded Amanda's mouth. She tried to push against it with her tongue, but it was too slick with slime and ooze to be held back. She tried to suck in one last gulp of precious air, before it pressed itself into the confines of her throat, pressing her windpipe closed. How? How had this situation gotten so out of hand? She'd had her whole life figured out. She had graduated with honors a year early from high school. She had rode scholarships and bursaries through an illustrious university life, and walked away with a doctoral thesis that was on track to become required reading for future scientists in her field. She was a botanist, for Christ's sake, not some primitive beast's brood sow.
The twitching thing in her mouth flexed, and she could feel it blossoming in her throat. Thick, viscous slime invaded her, its heat making her head spin. This feeling, this inexorably alien feeling of her body being invaded by another organism, it could never feel normal. It felt sick, and wrong, and filthy, and Amanda loved it.
Amanda slapped Burt's thigh, and pulled her mouth off of his penis. She gulped down the load of cum in her throat, and looked up through her smeared mascara at him. Burt looked like he belonged in a place like Deep Station Four. He was just shy of six feet tall, and his torso was shaped like a kidney bean, with fat pooling around his hips, belly, and behind his arms. What he lacked in appearance, he more than made up for with enthusiasm and endowment. He had cum three times today, and even running on fumes, his cock had nearly nine inches of length with over two and a half inches of girth. It had actually scared Amanda when she had first seen it, but watching him use it on Ruth and Carolyn had convinced her that she needed to experience it for herself. He had been in great shape, once, maybe, but a career spent in laboratories had taken that athletic edge away from the fifty-four year old. Amanda wondered if his age was something that she found attractive, or if she had sex with Burt in spite of the age gap. He was, as it stands, just a year younger than her own father. Maybe it didn't matter. She climbed up onto the couch, and nestled into Burt's side. He wrapped one of his thick, powerful arms around her, giving a brief squeeze to one of her small, firm breasts, before sliding down her flank and resting on the swell of her hip. Amanda wrapped a hand around the now half-chub of her lover's deflating member, and massaged it casually.
Burt may have been an ugly man with a rod of gold, but Amanda could have had her pick of men. At thirty one years old, she stayed trim and toned by working out on an elliptical trainer instead of simply sitting when she watched TV. It was strenuous, but it kept her fit, and a vitamin-conscious diet kept her caramel skin free of blemishes. If she was self-conscious of anything, it was her bust. Like a horrible latina stereotype, she had a tremendous ass, perfectly round, and pitiable little cones for tits. She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear, and surveyed the rest of the rumpus room.
Ruth was a thick-bodied redhead with enormous Double-D breasts and emerald-green eyes. She looked like she was still in her twenties, despite approaching forty. She straddled Warren, who lay on his back on a futon that otherwise served as a couch. Warren was a wiry, elderly black man with silver hair and a thick moustache. His physique made Amanda think of an ostrich. Behind Ruth, slowly spearing her anus with his long, broomhandle prick, was Kevin. Kevin was middle-aged, but wore it well, and had a firm barrel-chested physique that was only beginning to soften. Carolyn had her back pressed up against a wall, held aloft by Martin. Carolyn was all skin and bones, her ribs visible on her sides, her elbows slightly wider than her upper arms. Her body (and the deep purple bags under her eyes) told of a lifetime spent working late hours and living on a diet of coffee and not much else. Martin paid his way through university with a football scholarship, and it showed. He was a veritable wall of muscle, with hands the size of catcher's mitts, and the cardio needed to hump for hours. Andrew, five foot four and one hundred pounds of tiny blonde twink, perched on the kitchenette counter and rubbed at his implausibly long cock with both hands. His member might have been over a foot long if fully erect, but in a cruel jest, his tiny frame couldn't supply enough blood to inflate it that far, and so it was never more than half-mast. A pool of lubricant and oozing jizz had accumulated on the floor between his feet.
Ruth, Carolyn, Amanda, Warren, Kevin, Martin, Andrew, and Burt. Amanda mused over it in her head. They were scientists, academics, each of them at the forefront of their respective disciplines. Put them all together under one roof, and watch the sparks fly.
"How did it end up like this?" asked Amanda, turning to Burt.
"Well, ah damn, that's good. Well, I think it's sort of like the Olympic Village Problem."
"Mm?" hummed Amanda. "How so?"
"Well, this is a recurring problem with the athlete villages at the Olympic Games. Every minute the athletes aren't on the field competing, they're dashing from room to room, fucking every other athlete they can find. Basically, there's a non-stop orgy going on just off-camera, and the custodians have to clean up thousands of condoms when the event is through."
Amanda squeezed Burt's cock, pulling thin rivulets of semen out of his head and watching them roll down over her fingers. "Do you mean to tell me any time you put a bunch of people together, they turn into us?"
"Well, imagine you're an athlete," said Burt. "You've dedicated your whole life to pursuing perfection in your event, and you're suddenly dropped into a massive complex filled with hundreds of people who've done the same. You're all the best of the best at whatever your chosen sport is, and you suddenly find yourself surrounded with others like yourself. So there's a sort of kinship as soon as you meet, and it just clicks."
"Burt, we're not athletes. You and Ruth jiggle like jello, Carolyn looks like she'll blow away in a strong gust of wind, and the most exercise I get is watching schmaltzy sitcoms for an hour a day."
"It's not the athleticism, it's the common ground and the isolation. We're all working in different fields, but we've all worked our asses off to get as far as we have, and the same general academic path led us all here. You're the botanical equivalent of a gold-medal winner. You've got how many papers published?"
"I've lost count."
"We all have."
Amanda gave a dismissive "mhm," and stood up. She leaned over Burt, and licked the last drooling threads of seed from his manhood, then walked toward the kitchenette. She looked at Andrew, whose face was flushed red with arousal, and answered his pleading stare by saying "sorry, I'm tapping out for today." Amanda poured herself a cup of coffee, grabbed a terry-cloth robe from the floor, and walked out of the rumpus room.
2
Katie turned against the howling wind, trying to put the hood of her yellow raincoat between her face and the harshest of the torrential shower. It was no use. The sea may have been relatively calm, but the sky was angry. She looked at the skipper, who stood behind a tiny windscreen at the rear of the skiff, and shouted a question at him. "How much longer until we get there?"
Her voice was, even at full volume, too weak to be heard over the roaring of the squall. The skipper shouted back "what?"
Katie took a deep breath, and yelled with all her might. "WHEN ARE WE GOING TO LAND?!"
The skipper just stared at her, and fidgeted with some controls. Just as Katie was sucking in the air she would need to yell again, she got her answer. The boat bumped, gently, on its port side. The skipper bounced out from behind the wheel, and threw a length of rope around a post on the small pier.
Katie tried to give directions about what boxes should be moved first, and how carefully to set things down. Her squeaking voice couldn't rise over the sound of the wind, the rain, and the waves on the shore. The skipper grabbed the young woman, his arms lifting her up from beneath her armpits like he was hefting a small child, and swung her over the side of the boat, planting her rubber boots on the wooden planks of the pier. Before she could thank him, he was already unmooring the boat, and reversing it away. Katie picked up the first of her boxes, and looked up in time to see the skiff disappear into the dark murk of the storm. She turned away from the sea, to find her new workplace.
Deep Station Four was built on a narrow, rocky island, about sixty five miles East of Cape Cod. A lighthouse stood in the center of the island; Its operation was now automated and powered by solar panels, so its interior was mostly co-opted for storage. The rest of the station was a new steel building, slapped together from prefabricated panels. It looked like an outbuilding on a ranch, or a heavy industry machine shop, rather than some sort of cutting edge laboratory. The building butted up against a cliff, and Katie could see a steel catwalk extending from its rear, reaching out over the ocean, and connecting to a platform that made her think of an oil rig in miniature. She marched up the asphalt path to the steel building, leaning forward into the wind.
Katie pushed the front door open, balancing her box on one knee so she could turn the handle. Inside, the coat room was dark, with the various gear all seeming to be bone dry. Only an idiot would go out in weather like this, she thought to herself, and smiled. There were doors on the walls to either side, just past the boot and coat racks, but the door at the end of the hall had a thin line of warm yellow light peeking out from under it. Knowing she would need help to get her equipment inside in a reasonable time, Katie set her box down. She marched to the door, and threw it open.
Seated at one of the plush executive office chairs surrounding a great round conference table, was a naked woman with straight black hair that flowed around her shoulders. Her skin was a creamy hazelnut colour, and her eyes were a shimmering amber. In front of her sat a large coffee mug, and a small bottle of deep brown liquor. Katie briefly thought the woman might be a stripper, before remembering where she was.
"Oh, fuck!" said the naked woman, as she quickly clutched at the edges of her open robe to cover herself. "We didn't think you were getting in until Thursday."
Katie looked away, scanning the room to avoid staring at Amanda. "It, um, it is Thursday."
"Damn," said Amanda. "Goddamn Kevin and his goddamn Tequila, we're all a day behind."
Katie tried to say "it's fine, really," but never got past "it's..." The enormous display screen to her right, taking up nearly the entire wall, must have been ten feet high and almost twenty feet wide. A video sharing site was open in its browser, and playing a compilation of dogs falling into swimming pools. The video shocked Katie, because she expected it to be pornography. If the moaning and swearing weren't coming from the TV, then where was it coming from?
Amanda pointed a thumb over one of her shoulders at a door in the far corner. "We, uh, we were having a bit of a party. You need help getting your stuff inside?"
"Yes, please, if it's not too much trouble," said Katie.
Amanda groaned as she hefted herself onto her feet, and took a deep pull from the brown bottle in front of her. She walked to the door where those wet slapping sounds were coming from, and kicked it open. "Drop your cocks and grab your socks! We have company!"
3
