Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,92

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.

“The main thing is for us to reach the shore,” I replied. “Then we can throw him a rope.”

At that moment, one of the hippos must have stood on all fours in the shallows directly beneath us, for the raft started to tilt at an acute angle.

“As I thought – we should have made the raft of pine or cedar,” I shouted, frantically gathering up the baggage to stop it falling into the water. “We’ll be up a creek if we fall off now. The water round here is full of fondleweed!”

“But we’re men, and we’re wearing trousers, are we not? We will surely not be fondled so vigorously,” said Mogamigawa. “This is no good at all. We’ll capsize at this rate. You take the machinery and equipment, and I’ll take the food. If the raft capsizes, we’ll wade ashore with the bags on our backs. We’ll just have to force our way through the fondleweed. Audere est facere, my friend!”

“Right.”

The raft moved closer to the shore. Dusk was starting to close in.

With the flatback hippos still standing beneath us, the raft had tilted to an angle of about forty degrees. We slid down its surface with the baggage on our backs, landing thigh-deep in water.

“Run! Run or be fondled!” Mogamigawa hollered as he started to race bow-legged through the water. I followed behind. The flatback hippos were still grouped on the other side of the raft, and as they could only waddle through the shallows with their slow thumping feet, there was no danger of them catching us.

We reached the shore safely without being molested by fondleweed, then turned back in relief to look at the lake. The flatback hippos had given up chasing us. Instead, they were now homing in on Yohachi from all sides. Some started to clamber up onto the hippo that had Yohachi’s pole stuck in its back.

“Quick, fetch the rope!”

I went to get the rope out of the baggage, but it was too late. Yohachi’s trousers, along with his pants, were instantly snapped off by the gargantuan mouths of the flatback hippos.

“That’s it – I’m off!” Yohachi shrieked. He boldly leapt off the pole and bounded towards us, completely naked from the waist down, using the heads and backs of the hippos as stepping stones, then plunged straight into the lake and began to run towards us waist-high in water.

I braced myself. “Hey – he’s running through the fondleweed…”

“Come on, he’s a man! Even if it fondles him, it won’t be that bad.”

No sooner Mogamigawa had spoken than Yohachi started to slow down. His eyes assumed a haunted look, and he gasped oppressively as he walked the next two or three steps. Then a half-smile came over his face as he issued a loud cry, bent his head backwards, and in that pose fell flat on his face in the water.

“It’s got him!” Mogamigawa shouted aghast. “The fool! He should have kept his trousers on!”

As I watched, I shook at the horrible thought of what the swarming fondleweed might be doing to Yohachi under the water. The surface started to bubble feverishly, then Yohachi’s face appeared, followed by his upper body. He started towards us with an expression of complete exhaustion, staggered up onto the shore with white trails of semen hanging from his still erect member, and collapsed at the water’s edge panting furiously.

“I wonder why the flatback hippos remain unharmed by this fondleweed,” Mogamigawa mused as I nursed Yohachi. “They eat fondleweed, so they must always be physically surrounded by it.”

“No, even the flatback hippos are fondled. Or to be more exact, they only know where their food is when it starts to fondle them. Of course, they must have the occasional orgasm while they eat.”

“Really? Now I begin to understand,” Mogamigawa said with a nod. “Once, Dr Shimazaki asked me to test the water quality near a spot where fondleweed grows. There I discovered large quantities of helical bacteria breeding on protein, potassium and calcium. The fondleweed evidently absorbs these substances