Arthur had missed his Wednesday dentist appointment so long ago. Normally (if any aspect of his life approached normality), this would be cause for great alarm and dejection; he had only missed a dental appointment willingly once, and that had been to go to the home of one of the few dominatrixes who had ever accepted his advances. She'd been fun… but so was this plant, maybe… definitely even more so than her, than any of the others who had accepted or tolerated or temporarily failed to reject him and his unconventional desires. It didn't just accept them, it thrived on them, gaining healthy, vibrant colors and growing several times larger than it had been when it had started sucking from his blood and glorious pain; the most growth he had seen before that was doubling at most and that had been his own! The vitality it was able to draw from him and the associated pain he was able to draw from it were intoxicating, feeding into each other and making each other stronger as they fed from each other… with the plant's consumption of him being much less metaphorical… was this that 'romantic love' thing he had heard so much about?
Usually the revolving door of dentists and tattoo artists and the occasional person he managed to pick up or get picked up by at a bar were largely interchangeable to him; as long as they could hit his thirst to be hurt and dominated just right he didn't care who was doing the literal and metaphorical hitting. But this plant was different; it spread fire through his chest as well as his hands and arms and not just because it was a miracle his heart hadn't run out of blood yet…. how had he not died by now? He kind of had if la petite mort counted… Arthur looked upwards as two Audreys… no, just one, he was just seeing double from his glorious blood loss… entered the shop, regretfully removing his hand from the plant's mouth so that she wouldn't get any wise ideas about doing this herself and weakening the rock hard connection that had formed between him and this unlikely but extremely welcome source. She looked over at the floral arranging (or whatever) room before quickly moving towards and entering it, staring at them in shock for a long moment before speaking. "...Woah… h-how did you do this? She looks like she's doing so much better…"
In spite of the combination of the plant's increased weight and his decreased strength due to blood loss, Arthur managed to pull it away from her and onto his lap by its pot as she reached out for it, attempting to touch it. "Minerals, like the books said." Her confusion increased at this. "...I already tried all the likely combinations and a lot of the unlikely ones… what minerals did you give her?" His mind turned to those bygone high school biology classes. "...Iron and calcium and a few other things, it's not important, I can take care of it now." It's not a she, not that I'm opposed to those; they can be hot and bothering too. Not her, though, she seems like she takes it rather than giving it… Said she paused for a moment, tilting her head, before responding. "...Can you please tell me exactly which minerals you used and about what the ratios were? I really do appreciate your help, but I need to know how to take care of my plant." Arthur stood up as she once again attempted to take his new love from him, feeling conflicting anger towards her for doing so and a growing attraction for her now that she was finally firmly putting her foot down about something, as well as… guilt?! for thinking she was hot now?
He had never felt guilty for finding two people… a person and a thing in this peculiar even for him case… arousing at the same time before, not even when he had happened to catch a glimpse of a picture of that dominatrix's husband on her nightstand before she had slammed him against the bedframe… good times… oh, great, now it was even worse! As was his passion for this plant in his arms and his anger towards the person who was technically its rightful owner because of the 'value of money' or whatever. He had to defend it and their love against her wicked (and hot) machinations! "...No, I can't. It chose me! You wouldn't get it!" She was angry now (but seemed to be trying to hide it for some reason and was mostly succeeding?), maybe she'd punish him. Audrey started to say something and trailed off as the bell above the front door to the shop rang, which Arthur took as an opportunity to leave the room and take his plant with him despite his job in theory being confined to it, quickly regretting this decision as the man who had come in was immediately transfixed by his glorious plant. Of course he was, who wouldn't be?
"Wow, what a strange and interesting plant! What is it?" Arthur started to answer this question, trailing off as Audrey, suddenly next to him, assertively and authoritatively took it for him. "Well, I haven't been able to find her in any of my books so far, but I think she's some kind of flytrap." This piqued the man's interest further, because of course it did. "Where did you get it?" Arthur opened his mouth to answer this question, but nothing came out, and he panickedly remembered that he hadn't been paying attention when Audrey had told him about how she had found it. His punishment for this wasn't one of the good kinds, just listening to some dumb story about how she had found it in the wholesale flower district after the eclipse. Admittedly the story probably would've been interesting if the fact that it was her in it and not him didn't cancel that out; he had to admit that he liked learning things about his love. The man seemed to think so too, moving dangerously close to the plant and the limits of Arthur's patience. "Well, that's an unusual story, and a fascinating plant... Oh, while I'm here, l might as well take fifty dollars worth of roses." They all looked behind them as Mushnik unexpectedly burst through a door, standing at its entrance excitedly. "Fifty dollars?!"
The customer nodded before looking through his wallet and then back up at them. "Can you break a hundred?" Audrey and Mushnik deflated at this. "Uh… no." Unperturbed, the man deftly and with a surprising lack of hesitation removed a crisp one hundred dollar bill from his wallet… Arthur hadn't even known they came that big. "Then I'll just have to take twice as many, won't I?" Audrey moved slightly closer to him, amazed. "Twice as many?!" After Mushnik echoed this sentiment in a similar but even more exaggerated manner, Audrey rushed to get him his roses, and Arthur repeated it as well just for the hell of it. And partially because he did care about the shop, it was where the plant was after all, and its success was his success. After this transaction, which he had gathered was a rare occurrence at Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, had concluded and the customer was sent on his way, more followed with even more questions and comments and concerns (not really that last one) about the plant, distracting him as he tried to figure out which one to answer first.
Audrey, the sexy hussy that she was, took advantage of this and him and unceremoniously took his love from him before beginning to answer the customers' questions. Arthur had never wanted to hit someone before, being hit instead was so much more fun, but he wanted both events to transpire between them almost equally in that moment… being hit still won out slightly though. Although it wouldn't compare to the addictive bite of that plant… he hadn't even tried it in a location other than his hand, that's how caught up with it he had gotten. And he might not get to try it if that bitch succeeded in getting it away from him, he couldn't let that happen! Arthur helplessly looked for glimpses of the plant, entrapped in Audrey's arms and surrounded by a circle of customers thicker than her curves but not the blood bond between him and it… Hey, that's it! It lives on blood! Just like Audrey has!... But it's only had my blood so far… it's literally made up of me and the bond and pleasure between us, and getting her involved might wreck the whole thing… our whole thing… my thing…
He contemplated this unusual and quite hard conundrum for the rest of his shift, simultaneously juggling the difficulties of learning how to make the floral arrangements that were in demand all of a sudden on the fly and not being able to think quite as quickly or deeply as usual with most of his blood either in the plant or pooling in an extremity of his far away from his brain as he thought about it. And yet, in the end, all of that agonizing was unneeded: her fate was decided as she dared to walk out the door with his love at the end of her shift even as the effects it would have on him and it and the bond between them remained up in the air. Audrey would have the fortune of servicing his plant that she foolishly (but very commandingly…) thought was hers in a way that he might not ever be able to. She too would experience la petite mort, except in her case (and hopefully his eventually) it would be permanent.