The TAMDIS materialises on a planet that looks suspiciously like Earth, but from maybe around a hundred years into the future. The setting looks like a monastery of some kind, maybe the kind often named for a popular saint like St John, on a small island.
"St John's Monastery, Earth, 22nd Century," Roger announces, his voice scraping like a house key along the string of a piano.
"Why are we here, Captain Roger sir?" I ask, showing due deference to my muculent master.
"We still need more muculent energy. The Phallic Muculo-navigator detects muculence levels exceeding Slime Six," he replies in his raspy, grating voice. "Now be a good girl and go locate the source of the readings."
He ruffles my hair like a kind uncle giving me a shiny pound coin, and I smile, taking Clara's hand and stepping through the slimy flaps of the TAMDIS.
"Wait!" he says, grabbing my wrist tightly. "Take this."
"What is it?" I ask, rubbing away a slightly damp red mark on my wrist.
"A Quantitative Utensil for Identifying Muculence, or QUIM for short. It should guide you towards the source of the readings."
Gripping the QUIM tightly, Clara and I walk away, hand in hand. Roger remains in the TAMDIS, performing repairs of some kind.
"What's this?" I enquire, staring at the strange device in my hand. It is metallic, and covered with a thin layer of a slimy substance. The greenish display features some kind of radar-like graphic, blinking and pulsing. The side of the device reads "Q.U.I.M.," and "Made in China". Both of these phrases are unfamiliar to me.
"I'm not sure," replies Clara, a quizzical look coming across her adorable, beaming face as her eyebrows raise and her features bunch up, the wrinkle I love forming on the bridge of her round, delicate nose. Something stirs in my Nethersphere.
"Come to think of it, why are we here at all?" I ask uncertainly. "What is this place?"
"I'm not sure," Clara responds, her brown orbs widening in puzzlement. "Maybe we should aim for that dot on this QUIM thing."
"Yaas!" I exclaim, "That will hold all the answers!"
We set off across the mountainous terrain, hand-in-hand and heart-in-heart, our pulses beating as one in glorious friendship as warmth spreads from the areas where our soft skin meets, up our arms and into our chests, my breath catching on the waves of delight that wash over me from the simple act of making contact with the glorious being beside me. Every cell of my body cries out in intense friendship for the short brunette beside me. She's the best friend anybody could ever wish for.
We arrive at the imposing wooden doors of the monastery, towering over us in a manner that fills me with dread. Ryan follows behind. He used to be my best friend, but I simply don't feel so close to him any more. He barely even speaks now, and I sense a certain animosity towards Clara. Is he jealous of our friendship? A pang of guilt begins to eat away at me but, almost as if she knows my thoughts, Clara melts it away by simply circling her thumb on the soft and sensitive patch of skin between my thumb and forefinger. I should make amends with Ryan at some point, but this mystery should be solved first.
"Should we... knock?" Clara asks hesitantly.
"You first."
"No, you first!" she giggles, slapping my arm playfully. The lucky patch of skin on my arm explodes with delight.
"Together?" I ask, raising our hands with the fingers intertwined.
"Together."
With newfound resolve welling up inside us, we rap on the door, squeezing each other's hands tighter in apprehension.
Knock knock, knock-knock-knock... Knock knock
We stand for a few seconds that feel like a few hours, waiting for the doors to swing open with a hefty creak like in a horror film, but instead they are opened by a small, timid-looking woman in an orange jumpsuit.
"Hello?" she asks meekly.
"Hi! Do you, uh, know where we are?"
"St John's Monastery, Earth, 22nd Century."
"Oh... Why?"
"How should I know? You knocked on our door."
"Well, what is this place?"
"That's classified."
"Well, can we come in?"
"I don't see why not."
The woman steps back and allows us unfettered access to the building. It reminds me of a factory, possibly producing military supplies. Clara and I enter, followed by a still-sulking Ryan.
"Quick, Clara! Let's follow the radar blip!" We run down the corridor, still hand-in-hand. The woman in the orange jumpsuit shakes her head as if she's had far too much of this nonsense in the past.
We dash and dance through the corridors, Clara prancing like the vixen she is, our pace like that of a comet, Cupid's arrow, or a doner kebab the next morning, until we arrive at a huge, round pool of a gooey white substance.
"Is that what I think it is?" Clara asks, wrinkling her nose again, her mouth contorted in beautiful disgust.
"I'm not sure," I respond, "But I think we're supposed to collect it."
The QUIM quivers beneath my touch, almost as if to confirm my statement, so I take a large mason jar from my pocket and bend down to collect the viscous fluid. Clara follows suit beside me. The gloop ripples with my touch, concentric waves spreading away from my fingers hypnotically. I watch as they die down, scooping up a jarful of the goo and securing the lid.
As we turn to leave, congratulating ourselves on a job well done – although neither of us is entirely sure about why the job needed doing in the first place – a bubbling sound behind us stops us in our tracks, and we turn just in time to see two figures taking form.
"It's... They're... us!" Clara exclaims, stumbling backwards and taking hold of my hand fearfully.
She's right! The figures take form, climbing out of the pool. I stare at them, taking in their evolving shapes.
The first figure is somewhere around 1.57m tall, with a familiar round face centred on a little button nose and framed by silky brown hair to match the figure's big, round eyes. The figure's full, firm breasts are topped by hazelnut nipples, almost distracting attention from its tight waist, flat stomach, and light brown lady-fur. Something stirs in my Nethersphere.
The second figure is 5 feet, 5.5 inches (recurring) tall. Its waist-length hair is golden as the midday sun and blows in the breeze that follows it through life, the fringe hanging low over its TARDIS blue eyes. Its iridescent skin is alabaster, unblemished, and milky-white. A pair of mountainous breasts topped by powder-pink nipples hang firmly over a taut midriff and a dense forest of dark curls. The figure's plainness and ugliness is exaggerated tenfold and rendered cartoonish beside such magnificence as the Clara-ganger.
"And we're naked!" Clara shrieks, her face reddening in a mixture of embarrassment and sexual excitement. I long to hold her, to embrace away her embarrassment and satisfy her desires, as is the mandate of any good friend, but I cannot avert my gaze from the perfection of her approaching ganger. My Nethersphere continues to stir, as if millions of souls are trying to break free from the confines of my sensual core.
"What do we do?" I ask frantically, panicked by the approach of the gangers.
"I'm not sure," Clara replies. "But they seem... friendly."
As the words leave her immaculate lips, the Clara-ganger begins to rub up against her. The sight of the two Claras entwined, their bodies caressing each other sensually, intensifies the stirring in my Nethersphere. My heart leaps in my chest, as if trying to beat its way out through my ribs, and a knot tightens in my lower abdomen, arousal and excitement mingling to form a perfect ambrosia, its taste like that of Clara's lips. She's such an incredible friend, and I'm so glad that's all we are and all we will ever be.
My ganger begins to do the same to me, touching and kissing me, removing my clothing one piece at a time, savouring every aspect of the process of revealing the form with which it is already undoubtedly intimately familiar. The feeling of seeing my own flawless face staring back at me is unnerving, but would probably be fun if I weren't so plain and unappealing. Its fingertips graze across my exposed skin, sending shivers and pleasing tingles darting through my body. Looking over at the Claras, I see that their situation is similar.
Before long, the pairs combine into a single mass of writhing flesh and writhing Flesh, arms and legs intertwined as bodies move in harmony, gasps and moans emanating from four bodies with two voices. The sensation of three pairs of hands roaming my figure as mine traverse theirs sends me to new realms of delight, and I allow sighs to part my lips. The beings from the Flesh pool probe my flesh pool.
"Oh, Clara," I groan loudly, overcome with delight. "You're such a perfect friend."
In the corner, Ryan whirs and flashes, spinning as his eyestalk oscillates, a thrashing sound emanating loudly from within his casing for around 45 seconds, followed by a loud electronic grunt. I think the sight of two of my disgusting figure must be overwhelming for him, driving him to frustration and anger.
As the four of us close our eyes in unison, allowing simultaneous orgasms to shake through our forms, convulsing and throwing our heads back in delight as if synchronised, our hair spreading and falling wildly over our faces, a figure enters the room. I open my eyes to see...
"FLINT!" I stand hurriedly, covering myself with my hands. This sight is not his any more. "Why are you doing this?"
He says nothing. I understand.
"Betrayed?" I say, echoing his words, "You feel betrayed? How do you think I feel? My boyfriend, the one person I thought I could trust more than anyone in the world, sent my friends back in time – and now he's trying to kill me!"
He says nothing. I understand.
"No, Flint. That's not good enough. I... I don't love you any more." Those last words were said not with anger, hatred or spite, but with sadness and a harsh sense of realisation. Every word I said was true. I don't love him any more, but yet something is holding me back. Something won't let me move on. Some part of me is still clinging to Flint – nay, to the idea of Flint. And until my wounds heal, the friendship of beautiful souls like Clara is all the light I can hope for in my life. I close my eyes, bowing my head sadly as the bittersweet waters of epiphany wash over my very being.
I am raised from my trance by a scream nearby, and spin around just in time to see Clara fall into the pool of Flesh, and Flint with his stony arms outstretched. The splash occurs almost in slow motion, waves spreading from the impact.
"Clara!" I cry out, the salty taste of tears falling into my open mouth. "No! I love you platonically!"
The pool bubbles like the blood in my veins, swallowing up the most perfect person with whom I have ever had the pleasure to be just-friends. After a single slowed-down heartbeat, hundreds of figures rise slowly from the pool. Clara – the Clara – stands at the head of the herd of gangers.
"Clara! There must be hundreds of you!"
"Yeah," she quips. "I wonder what that feels like..."
The naked Clara-gangers lift the statuesque villain onto their shoulders and carry him away, his figure firm and rigid, not bothering to put up any resistance. Evil is defeated for another day. Clara and I embrace, find our clothes, and leave, jars of Flesh in hand.
"Come on Ryan," I urge, "Stop being such a grumpy-dome!"
He doesn't respond, following us wordlessly at a distance of a few paces. The QUIM guides us to the TAMDIS, and memories come flooding back.
"Were you successful?" growls Roger gruffly, poking his head between the glistening flaps guarding the warm, moist entrance to the TAMDIS.
"Yeah!" Clara and I cheer in unison, holding aloft our jars of Flesh.
"Good. Only a little more muculent energy is required." Roger beckons us in and strokes the Phallic Muculo-navigator, causing the damp walls around us to quiver excitedly as the TAMDIS dematerialises for another exciting, slimy adventure.
