Harsh Oases

by Paul Di Filippo

“No, Spunkwater first!”

  Gallbash showed his fangs, growled and made a short charge. Spunkwater backed off in a surly fashion, glaring. The leader returned to Pinocchia.

  “Now, sex!”

  Pinocchia was baffled. “But, but how—?”

  “Mouth, hands, teats.”

  Spunkwater pranced forward again. “Use her cunt! Use it!”

  Gallbash delivered a thudding blow upside Spunkwater’s head. “No! You mined our old jenny! Split her open! My way only! Everyone!”

  Again, Spunkwater retreated, and Pinocchia was left with no further distraction from her fate.

  She moved slowly beneath the funky-smelling barrel body of Gallbash. Already, just her proximity was causing his massive apparatus to engorge. But when she tentatively laid a hand on the sheathed monstrosity, the manjack’s gigantic prick practically exploded out of its pouch.

  Its veined length matched her forearm. The bulbous head was colored like a plum, and just as big.

  Pinocchia spit into her hands and began to massage the long bobbing tube. Gallbash emitted a weird cry blending his two natures. “More, more! Jenny mouth!”

  Opening as wide as she could, Pinocchia applied her lips to the donkey’s textured cock-head. Pushing forward, her lips slid over the curvature and halted at a widening of the shaft. Apparently this was enough to keep Gallbash happy, as he hoot-brayed again and began to shudder. Pinocchia continued to work the length of his corrugated dick.

  The manjacks orgasm telegraphed itself as a fast-moving peristaltic wave down his shaft. Pinocchia managed to pull her mouth away, but not before receiving at least a quarter cup of cum down her throat. The rest of the copious load splashed across her bare breasts and puddled in her lap.

  Gallbash pranced away like a proud warrior when finished, and Spunkwater immediately took his place.

  “Jenny, suck!”

  Pinocchia wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and began again.

  The manjacks never took very long to come. That was the only saving grace of the whole long, tedious ritual. Nonetheless, by the time she had serviced the final, lowest member of the tribe, her hands were cramping, her arms were shaking, and she was drenched in nutty-smelling ivory jism.

  Pinocchia climbed wearily to her feet. She looked about for some way to clean herself. As if in answer to her needs, the lowliest member of the tribe trotted up with a scratched plastic pail full of chilly harbor water. Pinocchia sluiced off the clots of burro jism as efficiently as she could, then used some leaves which her tether allowed her to reach to dry herself somewhat. Then she retreated to her dirt-floored hut, to cry herself to sleep.

  As Pinocchia drifted off, however, her disconsolate sniffles were replaced by a small smile. For a vision of the Blue Fairy, her first, came to her.

  The Blue Fairy was a handsome nude man, Olympian in build, whose skin was a deep beryl hue. Naked, alluring, he extended his hands out as if beckoning Pinocchia to come to him.

  But in the morning, of course, she awoke still chained on Donkey Island, to a breakfast of half-cooked seagull.

  Each day of the next week proceeded in identical fashion. Pinocchia had to service the manjacks twice a day. The rest of her time was her own, which she could use to ponder her sad fate and unwise impulsiveness. If only she had not alerted Tom Geppi to her new sentience. If only she had not run away from home. If only she had not given in to her lust in Splicetown. How much better her life might’ve been!

  But all those errors were in the past, and could not be retrieved.

  Perhaps though, if life permitted, Pinocchia could benefit from her hard-won knowledge and act more wisely in the future.

  The best thing she had done on her pilgrimage to become a real woman was to befriend Talking Cricket. And that composite individual must have felt the same, since units of it continued to try to contact Pinocchia, apparently having tracked her down. She saw the occasional lonely nizmo approach Donkey Island and attempt to land. But invariably, the sharp-eyed, sharp-eared manjacks would descend on the bug and cmsh it before it could establish communication with Pinocchia. She thought that perhaps one rescuer could sneak in at night, when the manjacks slept. But after the first nizmo arrived, a guard was posted with Pinocchia around the clock, alert for any intrusions.

  After the third day, Pinocchia had become relatively inured to the messy chore of milking the manjacks. But then Gallbash introduced a new demand during sex.

  “Jenny say she loves Gallbash!”

  Pinocchia at first pretended not to have heard. But a menacing rear hoof forced her to comply.

  To lie.

  After her clit had unexpectedly grown in Splicetown, a paucity of subsequent lies had allowed the mutable organ to diminish to its old baseline configuration. Pinocchia was glad. The hypertrophied organ proved awkward, and over-sensitive. She did not want to provoke its growth again.

  But now she had to.

  “I—I love you, Gallbash.”

  Within seconds, Pinocchia’s clitoris had sprouted half an inch.

  One such statement of affection seemed enough for Gallbash, before he plugged her mouth with his knob, and for such small mercies Pinocchia was grateful.

  The other baboon-burros were denied the privilege of asking her to declare her love. That honor seemed reserved for the alpha-male.

  Still, having to affirm the untruth twice a day added an inch to Pinocchia’s clit every twenty-four hours. And it never had a chance to shrink.

  By the end of the fourth day of lying—completing her first week with the manjacks—she possessed a little pseudo-phallus that troubled her incessantly with its sensitivity. She had to play tiresomely with it several times a day just to gain temporary relief.

  The night that marked her week’s anniversary with the Troll Donkeys, Pinocchia lay on her uncomfortable bed of sticks and grass and leaves, weeping bitter tears and uttering silent prayers to the spirit of the Blue Fairy, the nizmoes, Tom Geppi, even Bobo and Pips—anyone who might be able to help her.

  As she fumbled once again with her sore, demanding clit, Pinocchia wondered how much longer this life of servitude could continue.

  The next morning brought an answer.

  Each day as dawn broke, Pinocchia always remained in her hut as long as the manjacks allowed. This morning, no one came for her for a long time. Instead there drifted to her dreadful violent screeches and half-heard curses, thuds and the clatter of galloping hooves.

  Soon, Pinocchia learned what had transpired.

  The silhouette of a manjack appeared in the entrance to her hut. “Jenny, out!”

  Pinocchia exited the hut, her chain dragging.

  In the center of the clearing, Spunk water stood proudly over the mutilated corpse of Gallbash. Seeing Pinocchia, the victorious new alpha male reared up on his hind legs, highlighting his waving tumescence.

  “Spunkwater leader now! Jenny cunt sex!”

  Pinocchia cringed. She looked frantically about for impossible help. She grabbed her chain and yanked, but it held firm as ever.

  Before Pinocchia could make another move, two manjacks were upon her. One grabbed her wrists; the other kneeled and grabbed her ankles. The encumbering chain and manacle were removed. Then Pinocchia was hoisted off the ground. Held at four points like a hammock, she was splayed wide.

  Spunkwater capered over to her. With surprising delicacy, he lifted one foreleg over her lowly slung body. Then he lifted the corresponding rear leg.

  Now Spunkwater bestrode her entirely, although they did not yet touch. She felt a fat drop of his hot pre-cum splatter on her belly. With the temporary aid of a third Troll Donkey, the manjack holding her ankles re-accommodated his grip to allow Spunkwater actually to get between her legs.

  Her two bearers hoisted her higher, so that her ventral side met the centaur’s. His massive cock rested outside her, from groin to boobs. She could feel the weight of his hairy balls against her cunt.

  Spunkwater shifted slowly backward, draggin
g the slippery knob of his cock down her skin, aiming for her hole.

  Her face half-buried in his musty chest fur, Pinocchia began to weep.

  Without warning, the illumination of the sun was suddenly blotted out.

  Pinocchia’s bearers dropped her to the dirt.

  A giant cliff of hulking grey flesh had invaded the island, and reared skyward now on the edge of the clearing, towering for an attack. A stupendous tonnage of artificial protoplasm that moved much more swiftly than its mass would imply, this was a bleb, one of the ecosystem enforcers available to authorities.

  Stunned, Pinocchia watched the bleb lash out with a score of pseudopods and lasso every manjack save Spunkwater, who danced deftly aside. The tentacles quickly reeled in the braying manjacks to the main bulk of the bleb.

  When the manjacks met the mass of flesh they were envaginated and sucked out of sight.

  Pinocchia managed to get to her hands and knees. Next to her, Spunkwater howled his defiance.

  “Spunkwater never give up! Spunkwater fight and die!”

  The bleb silently obliged the unrepentant manjack. A dozen tendrils enwrapped him and wmng him out like a dishcloth, with a symphony of cracking bones, before hauling the corpse inside.

  Pinocchia’s limbs felt like water. She couldn’t even gain her feet before a large canopy of bleb-flesh dropped on her and dragged her into darkness.

  Chapter 8

  The Blue Fairy’s abode. Pinocchia pleads, but the Blue Fairy declines. A surprise brings a change of mind. A real woman at last.

  Regaining her senses, Pinocchia found herself held in a lightless cellular vacuole that was dry and not unpleasant. She was reminded of her time in the tin cricket tumulus, and felt reassured. Although she had no idea of who controlled this mountain of dumb flesh or where she was going, she began to relax for the first time in a week. Simply to be freed from the captivity of the Troll Donkeys was heaven enough for her.

  Pinocchia estimated that perhaps half an hour passed. She had no real sensation of movement, but had to assume that she and the manjacks were being transported somewhere.

  True to her guesses, Pinocchia eventually reached a destination.

  The vacuole that held her began to migrate through the mass of the bleb, carrying Pinocchia with it. In seconds, it had fused with an organic airlock, letting light and fresh air burst into Pinocchia’s chamber.

  Pinocchia clambered through the narrow portal and found herself beneath an enormous transparent dome. She stood on a smooth warm ceramic floor.

  Pinocchia was at the bottom of the sea. The diamond dome held back an enormous weight of ocean. The bleb clung like a barnacle to a few square yards of the dome at its lower edge. Schools of fishes curved through the waters. Delicate waving fronds trailed upward from their seafloor anchorage.

  Pinocchia gazed in awe at the spectacular marine vistas, until a polite cough behind her caused her to turn.

  Standing patiently was a fishman: popeyed, all green scales and gills, with jagged fins on his calves and forearms like buckskin frills.

  “Administrator Kinghorn demands your attendance now.”

  “Who—who is he?”

  “The governor of this bioregion.”

  Pinocchia was unsure of the exact meaning of this title, but it sounded important. Perhaps this person would be in a position to help her—if he was so inclined.

  So Pinocchia asked no other questions, nor made any objections, but just accompanied the fishman further into the dome. She was resolved not to act impulsively nor stubbornly any more, lest she get herself in further trouble.

  Like an inverted fishbowl, the dome held a toy castle within, of human scale. Pinocchia and her guide entered the building, cutting off all view of the sea. Through various corridors hung with paintings and lined with old-fashioned books they marched, until they arrived at a set of double doors.

  “Go in,” said the fishman.

  Pinocchia went shyly in, still naked as she had been on Donkey Island.

  The large room was dominated by a rich, floral-figured carpet across which was strewn a wealth of sumptuous pillows. A hookah burbled, and trays of food gave off odors that caused Pinocchia’s stomach to rumble.

  Several fishmen reclined rather wantonly amongst the pillows, and in their midst was Administrator Kinghorn.

  Pinocchia gasped!

  “You—you’re the Blue Fairy!”

  Administrator Kinghorn chuckled, his indigo face manifesting crinkly laugh lines. “Not many people use that name in my presence. You’re either utterly innocent, or utterly brash. I wonder which? But, yes, my dear, I am the Blue Fairy.”

  Standing, Administrator Kinghorn revealed the same proud physique that Pinocchia had seen in her dream: broad shoulders, burly chest, mighty limbs, handsome visage. His sole clothing was a tiny black swim- suit that only served to emphasize his sizable genitals.

  Pinocchia noticed then a detail absent from her dreams: the Blue Fairy sported tiny wings at his heels.

  Pinocchia sought first to express her gratitude. “Blue Fairy—if I may continue to call you by that name—thank you for rescuing me from the Troll Donkeys.”

  Kinghorn made a dismissive gesture. “Simply doing my job, young lady. If I had not been, ah, distracted by other concerns, I would have dealt with those brigands much earlier. Major damper on the tourist trade they were. But they’ll bother no one ever again, as they’ve all been rendered down to raw nucleotide feedstock.”

  Pinocchia continued. “If only I could ask for an additional boon, Blue Fairy. I’ve come so far and through so much grief to seek your help! I want to ask you to turn me into a real woman.”

  Administrator Kinghorn laughed, but not in a manner that gave Pinocchia hope. “A real woman? I’m afraid not, my dear. You’re runaway property. I’ve already arranged for you to be returned to the RealDoll factory for re-tooling.”

  For a black, broken moment, all words fled from Pinocchia’s throat. This was not how she had dreamed her story would end.

  “But—but the Talking Cricket said—”

  “Ah, yes, the Talking Cricket. One such as this?”

  Kinghom made a gesture, and a nizmo shot out from concealment beneath the pillows. The mechanical bug flew to perch on Pinocchia’s shoulder.

  “We are sorry, Pinocchia. We only said he had the power to help, not that he absolutely would.”

  Pinocchia experienced a tumult of emotions: fear, anger, despair, grief. But at last she managed to conquer the disorienting inner storm and summon up fortitude and a bitter pride.

  “I want nothing from you, Blue Fairy. Just send me away now.”

  “In due time. Until then, you may follow the one who led you here. He’ll bring you to a private room where you may wash and dress and eat.”

  Pinocchia swung around and stalked off, nearly blind from captive tears.

  At the double doors she stopped and looked back.

  The Blue Fairy had returned to his cushions. He had shucked his swimsuit Two fishmen were sucking his long, thick cock and licking his cobalt balls, while a third straddled Kingston’s head and fed the man a length of green penis.

  Pinocchia’s tears welled out, and she fled.

  In the small room assigned her, Pinocchia moved robotically. She ate some tasteless food first. Then she climbed into the shower.

  Talking Cricket left her shoulder to avoid the water, hovering just outside the glassed-in stall.

  As the hot water hit Pinocchia’s skin, the marvelous sensation began to melt some of the frigid indifference inside her. She wept gently as she soaped herself clean for the first time in over a week.

  Her hands reached her groin, and encountered her abnormal clit. Nearly a day without lying had caused it to shrink a bit, but it still loomed like an infantile penis between her fingers. Aroused, her clit demanded relief, and so she brought herself off with vigorous short tugs, twists and tweakings.

  Closing her eyes to shampoo her hair, Pinocchia spent another
minute in the shower before shutting off the flow.

  When she stepped out, the Blue Fairy was waiting.

  Suddenly, Pinocchia was improbably embarrassed. She attempted to cover her breasts and snatch.

  “My dear, what’s that curious disfiguration you’re hiding? The camera lens of a single nizmo on the far side of a steamy glass offers very poor resolution.”

  “It’s—it’s nothing,” said Pinocchia.

  The lie shuddered through her frame to lengthen her clit yet again. The traitorous organ actually poked out between her fingers like a timid kitten’s pink nose.

  The Blue Fairy gently pulled her hand away, to inspect her mutant genitals. He voiced sotto voce speculations as he did so.

  “Uncanny brain chemistry … feedback loops … enteric system as well as proprioceptors … novel configuration of para-neurons … might result in turing-level sapience …”

  The Blue Faiiy straightened and gripped Pinocchia by both hands. “My dear, why didn’t you tell me any of this? You’re absolutely unique! Those delusions and demands of yours were one thing. I mistook them for mere nonlinear emergent behavior. Totally trivial. But when combined with this somatic phenomenon, they bespeak an utterly unique combination of wetware and software. Orders of magnitude greater than a simple RealDoll. It would be a shame to send you back to the factory. I’m cancelling the pickup order right now. Talking Cricket!”

  “Done, Administrator.”

  Pinocchia lost all power to stand, and began to collapse. But the Blue Fairy caught her up in his strong embrace, and carried her to the room’s bed. He set her down.

  When Pinocchia could speak again, she said, “My vat-flesh—can you change it, so that I won’t die so soon?”

  “Well, yes, but that might very well destroy the exact properties I wish to study.”

  Pinocchia sat up, angry. “I’m not a subject of study! I’m a real woman. Everything but my flesh!”

  The Blue Fairy pondered Pinocchia’s outburst thoughtfully before responding. “You’re correct, of course. Pardon me. You’ve already earned your status. I can only help adjudicate it.”

  “Oh, thank you! How quickly can you do it?”