Author's Note: This story takes place in a future in which everyone can edit their own genomes, in this case leading society to have much more diversity, including much more variety of physical forms. Also, in this story there are no human (or even
humanoid
) male characters. Instead we have an intelligent blob creature.
***
Leilani was exhausted. She had just finished a dance performance, including recording and uploading it. She had danced a total of about two hours (with short breaks in between), as she did most evenings. She was both a dancer and a choreographer, doing most of her choreography in the mornings and afternoons out in her garden where she would soak up the sun's rays, building up energy from photosynthesis to burn by nightfall in her dances.
Leilani's upper body approximated that of a woman, except that she had pale green skin covered in outgrowths of dark green leaves and tendrils of the same color. Each shoulder blade and breast was covered by a large leaf (horizontal above the blades and vertical across the breasts), and the remainder of her torso and limbs were covered in curling tendrils with tiny leaves attached. Her lower body consisted of legs surrounded by a large flower that extended over them, with dark green sepals that circled the outside, between which her inner, white petals could be seen. This flower resembled a water lily, except with a scent reminiscent of jasmine. Leilani was also able to move it: she could poof it out, draw it in, or raise it up. She also produced no wastes other than the oxygen she exhaled. So, she had no urethra and no anus (and no buttocks at all, for that matter). But, at the core of her flower between her legs was a small opening, usually sealed shut unless she chose to open it.
And besides her lower flower, she also had smaller white flowers where a human's ears would be. Though these functioned as ears too, they also seeped nectar at will and when physically stimulated. Leilani also never had the problem of hair getting in the way; instead of hair, her scalp was covered by three large, overlapping leaves that grew from the top of her forehead to the nape of her neck, where they tapered and curled outward. She also had eyes that changed color depending on her mood (they were blue by default when she wasn't feeling any strong emotion) and which bioluminesced along with her flowers (her eyes and flowers were all reticulated by a vast network of bright veins). They could glow at will, which she often used to enhance her nighttime dance performances.
Though she rarely needed to bathe considering that she didn't sweat, bathing was nonetheless an activity she enjoyed, plus she could also soak some water into her body that way by opening the hole within her lower flower (though drinking water through her mouth could also suffice).
Leilani had a jacuzzi-sized bath in a room surrounded by windows and overhanging vines. Sometimes she enjoyed sitting in the bath with a tray propped in front of her for reading books or watching videos on her waterproof tablet, with a waterproof cushion to lounge on.
Speaking of cushions, sometimes her servant fulfilled that role for her. This servant was a bioengineered blob creature known as a slime. He usually had a jelly-like texture (he could adjust this) and was made of a translucent, colorless matrix with strange and colorful organs inside. He also had evenly-spaced receptors on his surface for sensing the environment. There were many slimes like him, all able to change their shapes and inner workings at will. This was so that they could be versatile workers to fulfill the wide variety of potential wants that the widely varying post-humans might have.
Leilani decided to name him "Chrysalis" because she liked to sleep with him wrapped around her body like a cocoon, and because he was butterfly-like in that he drank the nectar from her ear flowers (the sugars of which he metabolized into energy to power his bodily functions).
Chrysalis had already finished preparing the bath for Leilani by the time she arrived. There were petals strewn across the surface and softly flickering candles spaced along the rim. Chrysalis was reclining on the submerged stone bench, patiently awaiting Leilani's arrival.
