Gregory looked down the long aisle through the middle of the greenhouse where rows of heavy trunked plants like the one they stood next to grew from solid, gray planters. From the top of each plant, four branches sprouted and bowed with the weight of their fruit, full sized women.
They walked to the next plant and Jermaine picked a handful of dirt out of it, felt it like an expert farmer and then let it dribble back. Even though the planter was only three feet tall, Jermaine had to reach up to replace the dirt. He was very short, almost a midget. A moody man who Gregory didn’t particularly like, he had insisted they come to the flower shop when he overheard Gregory arguing with his newly “ex” girlfriend on the phone.
Jermaine said, “I hear that their secret here is meticulous care. Each gene splicing, forced mutation and pollenization is done by hand.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready… I mean… a plant… I want to live alone,” said Gregory.
“Not just a ‘plant.’ A designer house plant, a state of the art product! And don’t give me this stuff about living alone, Bucko. Unless you think house plants think, you’ll still be on your own. That’s the beauty of it.”
Gregory turned away from Jermaine and faced the next “fruit” dangling from an acorn like skull cap that cupped the top half of her head. Green streaks showed faintly through her pale skin, through her eyelids.
“This one’s almost ripe.” Despite his three piece suit, Jermaine clambered onto the planter, grasped the “girl’s” wrist and examined the hand, turning it palm up. “See, fingers separated.” He pressed his thumb into the palm and the fingers closed slowly around it. “Stimulus reflexes coming along.” He beckoned Gregory, “Here, touch its skin.”
Shaking his head, Gregory backed away.
“Relax, Bucko, it’s meant to be handled. That’s what it’s here for.”
“I’m uncomfortable.” Gregory’s face flushed. “She’s naked.”
“Come on.” Jermaine held out a hand. “It’s all right.”
As if afraid that someone observed his reluctance, Gregory glanced side to side then stepped up next to Jermaine.
“You said they were ‘fully functioning?’”
“Fully reflexive. Press here.” Jermaine directed Gregory’s hand to the small of the woman’s back; he reached around her tentatively but jerked his hand away when he touched her.
“She’s warm!”
“Of course. Would you want a cold one? Hold that spot longer. Don’t move your hand.”
Gregory touched her again. For a few seconds the three of them stood still; fans at the far end of the greenhouse blew humid air past them, ruffling Gregory’s hair, partially uncovering a bald spot. Then the plant moved. Her hips pushed against him rhythmically, and her arms moved up as if to encircle him. He stepped away. The woman’s arms dropped and her torso quit moving.
“Oh, my,” he exclaimed.
“That reflex will improve, naturally, when she’s completely ripe, about a week after she’s picked.”
“Are there other… uh… models?”
“Sure. Each trunk produces three slightly different usable fruits, like sisters, but the separate plants… well, you can see.” Jermaine gestured to the next planter where “girls” distinctly different from the one they were standing next to hung: more delicate, shorter. Gregory tried not to stare. He looked away.
“You said there were three ‘fruits’ per plant, but I count four.” Gregory pointed to a fourth girl dangling in the shadow behind the trunk.
“Ah, you mean Rose.” Jermaine sidled around the plant between the trunk and the girls. “They’re a recessive gene, I understand. Quite unusable.”
Gregory hopped off the planter and went around to where Jermaine was standing. His hand sunk into the wet dirt when he braced himself. Little globs of soil flew from his fingers as he shook them, and he held his hand away from his suit until Jermaine tossed him a rag to wipe it off.
Relieved to be doing something mundane, something as unembarrassing as cleaning his hands, Gregory wiped each finger meticulously. When he finished he looked at “Rose” and gasped.
“Quite striking, isn’t she?”
Like the others, her toes brushed the dirt as she swayed slightly from her branch. Her hands rested against her thighs, relaxed, fingers curved as if waiting for someone to hold them, but no one would hold these hands, Gregory realized, no one would embrace this “fruit,” because huge thorns, hard, wicked and sharp poked through her skin at every point. She bristled with inch long stickers so heavily that she didn’t even mimic human appearance as the others did. From her forehead, her cheeks and lips, her neck and shoulders; from her breasts and belly, her hips and thighs, they curved out, translucent at the tips, needle sharp and glistening.
Gregory reached out to touch a thorn on her leg.
“Better not, Bucko. She’s fully reflexive too.” Jermaine lightly brushed the thorns on her belly, then pulled his hand away as her hips thrust forward. “You could get a nasty little cut from this one.” He laughed. “She got me and I knew it was coming.” He put the heel of his hand in his mouth.
“It’s hideous.”
“I don’t know. Depends on how you look at her.”
Gregory shuddered. “Why do they grow anything like this?”
“Like I said, a recessive gene. Completely unavoidable. Sometimes they sell one for novelty.” Jermaine climbed off the planter. “Let’s look at some of the others.”
A half hour later, Gregory chose a “girl” that he liked and signed the contract for delivery. He felt, absurdly, like he had as a child after buying a Christmas tree.
The next day, at home, Gregory waited for the delivery. He was watering an African Violet, letting the water’s weight push the leaves into the black earth, until the pot overflowed. He tapped the leave’s edges to shake the drops off, then rubbed the soft fuzz on the leaf as if the plant were a mouse. The violets were Sara’s, his “ex.” He had expected her to pick them up after she left, but as the days passed and the leaves began to droop and shrivel, he had watered them. “You have to talk to them,” she’s said when she’d bought them. “Talk and TLC and they’ll bloom.” She’d say, “Here’s water for my ducks. How are my babies?” That’s ridiculous, he had thought at the time.
Pots of African Violets covered the entire counter top. She’d replaced the florescent bulb over the counter with a grow light, and as each plant flourished, she’d pinched and pruned, divided and replanted, until not a patch of the mauve linoleum counter was visible. Gregory refilled the canister and, without talking, doused the next plant.
She had loved simple things: plants, horses, sad movies, sappy poetry. For a big woman—a hint of double chin, padded shoulders and cushioned collar bones, round soft hips, broad thighs, pliant skin—she had moved over the tiny plants with a delicate grace. “Water, water everywhere and here’s a drop to drink.”
Finished with the violets, Gregory checked his watch, opened the front door and looked up and down the long, empty street, sat in front of the TV, staring at the blank screen. A car hummed past the house and he half got up but sat again when it didn’t stop. Finally he searched his collection of DVDs for something to watch until the delivery. He paused at The King and I, a movie that Sara had watched over and over. He had found her slumped into the recliner one morning the week before she’d left, the remote control in hand, crying during a dance sequence. “Why?” he’d said. “Because they love each other,” she’d replied.
He pushed Little Shop of Horrors into the player and fast forwarded to the climax. (“Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!”)