Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

mouths agape and tentacles swaying.

“Swimming upside down as usual. What an obscene creature.”

“Also known as the jacuzzi or missionary jellyfish.”

“I did some research on these once,” said Mogamigawa. “They have ectodermal reproductive glands and appear to eat bleedweed, as well as various species of vegetable plankton.”

“Do they sting?” asked Yohachi.

“Well, considering how very obscene they are, they’re obviously going to sting, aren’t they,” said Mogamigawa, staring at Yohachi maliciously. “Why not try grabbing one?”

“They only sting before reproducing,” I explained to Yohachi, then turned back to Mogamigawa. “And when they do, it doesn’t really hurt but is a rather pleasant feeling. Why do you think that is?”

“That’s precisely my point,” he replied sourly. “Their pre-reproductive nematocysts contain poison, like that of earth jellyfish. I’m analysing this poison now, but it seems somehow to display anaphylaxis. That is, the first sting only has a mild effect on the ejaculatory centre, but with increased frequency the resistivity is lowered, finally leading to ejaculation. It’s the opposite of immunity.”

“Have you tried it out?” I said with a snort of laughter. “Oh. Sorry.”

Mogamigawa gave me a murderous look.

“Let’s catch a few of them, then!” said Yohachi.

A gentle splish-splashing noise could be heard. I looked back towards the shore, which was already about fifty yards behind us.

One by one, a colony of gurgling alligators, which appeared to have been basking on mudflats some distance from our launch point, were starting to slip into the lake.

“Do you think they’re coming after us?” Mogamigawa said anxiously.

“But of course,” I answered as I vigorously thrust my pole down to the bottom of the lake. “And in some numbers. Let’s make haste!”

The alligators, somewhat smaller than the earth variety, started to approach our raft in groups. Although some seemed to have concealed themselves underwater, dozens of them swam just under the water’s surface, showing only the tips of their snouts, their eyes and the tops of their bony backs, which resembled dorsal fins. They closed in on us at speed, making no sound in the water except the lazy gurgling noise of breath flapping out of their nostrils.

“If they all come here, the raft will capsize!” Mogamigawa shrieked while frantically working his pole. “What do they want from us?!”

“Our chastity,” I replied. “They have a habit of mating with other species.”

“If they drag us underwater we’ll drown!” Mogamigawa wailed. “Isn’t there anything we can do? How did you get over this last time?”

“By getting to the other side quickly. The opposite shore is the territory of eleventh-hour crocodiles…”

Just at that moment, the alligators approaching underwater must have risen to the surface, for the raft suddenly listed to one side. We all lurched with it.

Mogamigawa crouched down on the surface of the raft to prevent himself from falling. “These must all be females, then?” he asked.

“Some are male, some female,” I answered, also squatting on the raft. I had hurriedly withdrawn my pole, which they’d tried to wrench from my grasp with their gaping mouths, and was now holding on to it for dear life. “They can’t tell the gender of other species, so they just try to mate with them anyway.”

“But it’s usually only the male that displays courtship!”

“Yes, but on this planet both males and females display courtship. We know that attractants such as sex pheromones have hardly any effect between individuals of the same species, which means that they don’t mate much among themselves. They compensate for this with a strange innate releasing mechanism, whereby they chase other species as if hunting prey.”

“Won’t the species then become extinct?”

“No. Excessive inbreeding is more likely to cause extinction. Especially on this planet, where the animals have hardly any natural enemies.”

“Why don’t we try it out?” said Yohachi, using his pole to bash an alligator as it tried to crawl onto the raft. “It might feel good.”

“Idiot. If it’s a male, your anus will be ripped apart,” I said, then gasped in relief when I saw the opposite shore only thirty feet away. “Thank God! Eleventh-hour crocodiles!”

Slightly larger than the gurgling alligators, groups of eleventh-hour crocodiles were crawling into the lake from swamps near the shore.

Pushed up from below by the alligators’ snouts, our raft continued to tilt wildly. We clung onto our baggage to avoid being shaken off, and waited for the eleventh-hour crocodiles to arrive.

“But it’s out of the frying pan into the fire, isn’t it?” said Mogamigawa, shaking with fear.

“We’ll escape while they’re fighting,” I replied.

The eleventh-hour crocodile at the head of the group snapped at one of the gurgling alligators. The pair corkscrewed their bodies and leapt six feet into the air as they grappled with each other. A massive spray of water flew up, and at last, the mother of all battles started around our raft.

“Now!” I yelled.

We desperately worked our poles to escape from the carnage.

“That’s quite a battle,” said Mogamigawa, turning back to watch the action goggle-eyed. “Many of them will surely die.”

“No. What you’re seeing is a ‘ritual contest’, as they say in ethology. It’s the same as when males of earth species fight over the females. The difference on this planet is that they’re not fighting over females but over the spectators, creatures of other species that simply watch the action from the side. They’re waiting to yield their chastity to the victors.” I was punting along for all I was worth, but let out a cry when I saw the far bank approaching. “Oh no! What a fool I’ve been! There’s a pod of flatback hippos near here!”

Mogamigawa raised his voice in alarm. “Those unearthly creatures?! Good God, it’ll be no joke if we’re ravished by them! Which way should we go?”

“Let’s skirt the shore southwards. Hey, Yohachi – look out!”

Before I could finish, a number of flatback hippos surfaced around the raft, showing only their flat rectangular backs.

“Take that!” I shouted.

“Take that!” yelled Yohachi.

“And take your bestial desires with you!” added Mogamigawa.

We thrust our poles into the backs of the flatback hippos in a mad frenzy. Their soft backs were covered with fine crepe-like wrinkles resembling the mesh of a reed mat. With each manly thrust, the ends of our poles would penetrate the skin and slide into the thick fat on their backs. But it didn’t appear to hurt the hippos at all, for they continued to close in on our raft undeterred, oblivious of their gaping wounds. A very small quantity of white fat oozed out of the round holes made in their backs by the poles. As I continued to thrust, I wondered if perhaps they actually enjoyed having this done to them…

The hippos’ backs now had so many holes in them that they began to resemble honeycombs, a truly sickening sight. I decided to stop thrusting the pole and started smashing them over the head with it instead. But merely being hit on the head wasn’t going to make these hippos desist. They continued to look up at us ruefully, their eyes bloodshot with carnal lust, some diving down below the raft while others waited for a chance to crawl up onto it.

“Aaargh!” Yohachi had plunged his pole into a hippo’s back with such force that he was unable to pull it out again. As he clung to the end of the pole, he was lifted off the raft and hoisted about three feet into the air vertically above the hippo’s back. “HELPPPP!!!” he cried, eyeballs bulging.

Our raft, surrounded on three sides by flatback hippos, was gradually buffeted along the shore away from Yohachi. The hippo that had Yohachi on its back also continued to chase, but lagged somewhat behind the others under Yohachi’s weight. The gap between us gradually widened as a result, though we remained at the same distance from the shore.

“Is it all right to leave him like that?” Mogamigawa asked.