Parasite, A Love Story
By Helotage
CHAP 3: When Is a Fantasy Not a Fantasy?
She often went out for drinks with Dr. Fell’s wife, Penny. Penny was a good deal older than she was but much younger than Dr. Fell, probably about 40. She was lithe and vivacious, a lot of fun to be around. She was in great shape, had beautiful blue-green eyes, and was a natural blond. Penny was tall, thin, and gorgeous and would be just her type if she were even remotely attracted to women. She and Penny hung out about once a week and never talked of Dr. Fell. She now wondered if their get-togethers gave him an opportunity to sleep with his Fox News blond. She did consider telling Penny of her husband’s affair with the blond student or maybe telling the school. Surely, this sort of behavior was frowned upon. Still, she was no snitch, so she kept it to herself.
Penny, a meticulous dresser, also took an interest in her young friend’s wellbeing and appearance. More than once she caught Penny looking at her in a way that made her think Penny had a little thing for her especially given that Penny had once confided that she was bisexual. Penny finally convinced her that she was spending way too much time in the lab and needed to get some exercise, so she started going to the campus gym early in the morning a few times a week. Quickly, she developed muscle tone, which she was proud of, but she still dressed like a frump, rarely combed her hair, and never wore make up. It was good to get away from the lab, though.
Eventually, she hit an impasse in her research, and Dr. Fell was now too busy playing with his dyed-blond paramour to consult. She was on her own. The problem stemmed from the limited information regarding the effect of the worms’ neurotoxin. Although she had a steady supply of neuroworms in her lab, the only such supply in the world, which she nourished with cow and hog brain tissue from the local butcher, she could only do so much with them. Field observations and her experiments on rats told her a great deal about the neurotoxin’s effect, but there was still much missing. She learned that once she place a worm anywhere on a rat, the rat would suddenly become rigid as the worm’s stinger struck, then would convulse violently, and then would be almost perfectly still for hours while remaining conscious. It could move its eyes spasmodically, twitch its nose, and blink a little slower than normal. Otherwise, it was perfectly immobilized, stiff. Even its tail. Of course the lungs still worked and the heart, but their activity was suppressed and very slow. It was like a living, wakeful death.
As soon as she placed a worm on a rat, the worm instantly injected the neurotoxin, which made sense given its imperative to enter a brain to feed. It did not matter where she put the worm. The worm would immediately use its stinger to deliver the paralytic and then to hang on while its victim slashed uncontrollably. When the victim was still, the worm would leave the stinger behind and slowly slide toward the animal’s head. Somehow, it was always oriented toward the brain no matter how she tried to redirect it. Once the worm reached the animal’s head, it would navigate toward an orifice, almost always a nostril but sometimes an ear or even the mouth, depending on the distance. After the paralytic wore off, the rat would sleep for hours and, upon waking, seem fairly normal. Then strange behaviors would ensue, particularly concupiscence. It was fascinating to watch a rat try to copulate with objects in its cage when no other rats were around. Both the males and females did this. When there was another rat, the host rat would continually attempt to mate even with rats of the same sex. The infected rat would last a matter of days before enough worms had hatched to consumed its brain. All her observations matched the reports from the field in the Amazon regarding cows and frogs as well as a very few humans.
Her research focused exclusively on the neurotoxin, though, and a key question remained. What was the experience like of being stung and injected? What was it like to be awake yet paralyzed? Although it was not pertinent to her research, she also could not resist wondering what it was like to experience the neuroworm’s first attack on the brain? Could the host sense the establishment of the neuralweb or detect the first enjoinments of the worm colony? The few humans known to have experienced it all died before anyone realized that they harbored brain parasites, so there was no first-hand information.
She reasoned that the neurotoxin was not what caused fatality, but she needed to conduct experiments on larger mammals, such as primates, to advance her understanding considerably. Human experiments would be ideal but were out of the question. Unfortunately, science grantors were uninterested in neuroworm research, which was too controversial. She had already tapped out all available funds, so she did not have the resources to perform experiments with anything larger than lab rats. She was stuck with no mentor to consult.
Meanwhile, her personal fixation on the neuroworms was growing stronger. She thought about them constantly, fantasized about being in their power, about submitting herself as a neuroworm host. Not that she ever would, of course. What was it like to be controlled, though? Did you know that you were doing their bidding, or were you oblivious and think you were making your own decisions? Were you mindless, like a zombie? Did you just not care and would submit with absolute indifference? Her fantasies addressed every possibility. It was madness to contemplate, she knew, but she could not stop. The mere thought of allowing herself to become a slave to a colony of parasites always ignited a flutter in her heart and a tremor of longing in her abdomen. It simply turned her on.
Her fantasies grew even wilder. She imagined purposely exposing herself by releasing a neuroworm into her nose to experience its control and the sexual unleashing it would initiate. She conjured all sorts of sexual adventures ensuing. She fantasized about sex with men in every combination, her favorite being three men who each use a different orifice—this from a woman whose wildest sexual adventure to date involved an old boyfriend and a can of whipped cream. Now, she reveled in the idea of total surrender to her lust and to the lust of men who could use her as they want.
As wild and intense as her fantasies had become, she knew that to do so, to expose herself to a worm, would mean sure death. There was no way to remove a tiny worm once it penetrated the brain without destroying substantial brain tissue, and the worm colonies themselves would continue to feed on the brain until its tissue necrotized. She was not so desperate or so horny as to be suicidal. Still, she loved the fantasy. It preoccupied her when she was not in the lab, and she now spent almost every bedtime with her fingers deep in her panties as she dreamed of being taken by the worms and the sexual abandon it would awaken in her. The thought of having her mind altered, freeing her of all inhibition and turning her into a depraved slut, was intoxicating. Some mornings she would wake with her fingers still embedded under the waistband of her panties.
She may not have been desperate, but her thoughts were increasingly reckless. Eventually, she began to hatch a dangerous plan. One night, alone in the lab as she often was, she finally put it into action. She had tested the equipment she assembled, which consisted of common items, and she was convinced her plan was foolproof. She knew that she could never allow herself to experience what it was like to be controlled by the worms, not, at least, without sacrificing her life. But, she could experience the neurotoxin’s effect, which would certainly give her the key insights she needed to advance her research. There was no way yet to deliver the venom except through the worm’s stinger, and she could not let anyone know what she was doing in case they tried to stop her. Therefore, she devised a way to have herself stung by a worm while being protected from infiltration by the worm. She readied herself for the experiment by stopping her ears with form-fitting earplugs backed up by duct tape, creating a tight seal over her nostrils with more duct tape, and using even more tape around a snorkel that she had inserted into her mouth. As a further precaution, she thickly slathered the outside of the snorkel with petroleum jelly so that worm could not traverse its length and gain entrance to her mouth through the tube. Finally, she put on swim goggles that had a suction seal, which she supplemented with even more duct tape. She inspected her work using her phone camera. She may have looked idiotic, but her equipment was perfect. She thought of everything. She even strapped herself to her chair so that she would not fall and dislodge the snorkel. The idea was that she would allow a worm to inject her so that she could experience the paralysis, which would take most of the night. By the time her movement had returned, the worm would be dead or near-dead from starvation and not a danger. Her plan was superb and her execution flawless.
She had set up a digital camera to record the experiment. Trepidatiously, she extracted a neuroworm using her special tweezers and dropped it onto her bare foot. She wanted the worm’s progress toward her head to take as long as possible just as an added precaution. Almost instantly, she felt a warmth grow from the spot where it landed. Instantly, it hurt, badly. Her foot muscles tensed and stiffened, followed quickly by her calf muscles and her thigh. Immobility ensued in seconds. The warmth followed by the excruciating pain spread into her torso and down her other leg, into her shoulders and arms and up her neck into her face and head. The agony was worse than anything she had felt or imagined. It was as though every bit of flesh, every muscle large or small, was on fire, but she could not make a sound as muscles seized up. The convulsions then commenced and were far more violent than anything she had witnessed with the rats or anticipated for herself. Though strapped at the waist to the chair, she involuntarily stood halfway up and then fell to one side. She was now paralyzed. She had hit the floor hard, and as the pain from the venom subsided, the pain from the fall became more evident, particularly on the side of her head that lay against the floor. She could blink, but only involuntarily, and it was possible though difficult to move her eyes. But, that was it. Even the rats got to twitch their noses, but not her. She was fully paralyzed.
Lying there, helpless, knowing that a neuroworm, an actual neuroworm, was making its inevitable progress toward her head was terrifying and thrilling. It also was thrilling to be so vulnerable, such a turn on really. She could feel dampness in her panties, and her flesh was flush with desire. Helpless and prone as she was, her sexual excitement was growing. Nonetheless, she was keenly aware of her surroundings. Through her earplugs, she could still hear the ambient hum of lab equipment, and she could see enough within a limited frame to realize she had fallen out of the view of the camera. She felt a bruise swelling on her arm from the fall, and her face was sore. Otherwise, she was there just helpless and trapped in her own body. If someone walked in, she would be at their mercy, which was also terrifying and thrilling, another turn on. She had never been more aroused in her life. Just her luck. It was a catch-22. She couldn’t move, which both made her unbearably horny and prevented her from masturbating.
She fantasized again about having her mind taken by a worm. If only it weren’t fatal! If only she could experience the total relinquishing of control, freeing herself from all concerns, compunctions, and inhibitions. She wondered what she would do if she knew she could be a neuroworm host without dying. Would she willingly expose her brain to one? Would she let it take her mind, let it permanently rewrite her? It was maddening not to be able to plunge her fingers into her panties at that moment.
She had to distract herself by returning to business. Knowing she would be there for hours, the plan was to make as many observations as possible, which she did to keep from dwelling on her unfulfillable sexual longing. When she had observed all she could, which was not much, she figured she’d sleep, but while her eyes continued to blink involuntarily, she could not will her eyes closed. She lay there, wide awake and defenseless. She wished she were naked. She wished that the camera could record her dilemma. She could imagine herself watching the recording for hours while playing with herself. She wished there were someone else in the room to keep her company, maybe someone with no scruples about taking advantage of a young woman’s helplessness. It was just her, though. Her and the worm.
Every now and then she would notice a slight tickle on her skin. First on her calf, then her thigh, and then her hip. It was the worm, she knew, and her only way to mark time was to observe the worm’s inexorable trek to her face. It was interesting that the worm did not travel over her clothing but stayed close to her flesh. There must be something to that. The tickle of the worm passed her waist and then moved along her torso. It was briefly on her breast, which filled her with an overpowering longing that, in her condition, ached more agonizingly than the worm’s venom itself.
Then she noticed something that had escaped her before. When she forced her eyes to look sideways and down toward the floor, she could see where the goggles were slightly dislodged from the tape and her cheek. It must have been the result of the fall. It was not a big gap, but the seal was broken. In a panic, she made every effort to move, to shift her head a bit, to raise a cheek muscle, anything. It was no good. The eyecup was open, her eye exposed to the smallest of gaps. With her rats, she had observed worms entering nostrils, ears, and mouths, but never an eye, she told herself. Maybe it would not matter. At the same time she knew that there was no reason a tiny worm could not fit through that gap, slip behind the eye, and follow the optic nerve to the brain. It may not be a preferred route, but it was certainly a route.
The worm’s tickle was on her neck. She started to cry. She regretted her fantasy about being taken by the worm. It was just for fun! She didn’t really want that! She didn’t want to die! How fucking stupid could she be! Tears filled the eyecups, and she saw them puddle in the gap between her cheek and the cup near the floor. It was too small for them to drain right away. Maybe the tears would keep the worm out. Maybe they would seal the gap. Maybe the worm would drown. She kept crying until she could cry no more.
The worm slid past her sealed mouth. It circled the duct tape over her nose, its favorite entrance, before heading toward the ear that faced the ceiling. She could feel it slowly circling, looking for an entrance, but it was futile. As luck would have it, her ear against the floor was now completely inaccessible. The plan was working! Her preparations had thwarted the worm!
She soon recognized the stupidity of her hasty optimism as the neuroworm, persistent to the last, began following the edge of the tape along her cheek below the goggles. This whole time, as the worm minutely explored her face for an entrance, she could do nothing to hinder its progression. Even her tears had dried. In this situation, she began to understand what it was to be utterly without hope. She had known she would be helpless after being stung, but there was no substitute for the actual experience of lying perfectly still for hours, not being able to scratch an itch or twitch a muscle or relieve the pain of lying on one side. Not being able to gain sexual release. Not being able to stop a parasite from entering your brain to feed, breed, and take control.
Then, before she even realized what was happening, she saw the worm enter the tiny space beneath the goggle cup. How did it get there so fast? It lingered just on the edge of her vision like a tiny, unwelcome intruder. Her mind raced. Were there any options? No. No. No. No. No. She was at the end as the worm drew closer. She felt it moving alongside her eye, its soft touch an agony. She tried harder than ever to close her eyes tight, but no luck. The worm was tickling the corner of her eye. Oh my god, she thought. It is in. She experienced simultaneously a sickening despair and an intense arousal. She would soon be a slave.