The Plant  A green thumb or something else?   by  saddletramp1956 - listen to the Podcast Theresa Hemmings looked at the front of the strange little shop before going inside. She had passed by it every day on her way to and from the bus stop and had always wondered what they sold. She never saw anyone inside and frequently wondered how the place stayed in business. Now that she was on her way home from work for the long weekend, she had some time to spend looking inside. She sucked up her courage, reset her glasses on her nose and nervously walked through the front door, which caused a bell to ring. She looked about and saw mostly antiques and odd-looking knick-knacks, and began walking around stopping to look at various items before moving on. The shopkeeper, a fairly mature woman, looked into the shop to see who had come inside. She spotted the thin, flat-chested, mousy-looking young woman wearing a long dress and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses going from item to item and watched to see where she would land. Theresa looked at a number of items and thought they might look good in her small one-bedroom apartment. They might look good there, she thought, but no one would ever see them, since no one ever bothered to visit. Unlike many of her single co-workers, she didn’t have a boyfriend – or two or three – who would see them or appreciate them. She kept looking and stopped at a strange-looking plant. After looking it over a bit, she decided to move on, but stopped and turned back. Maybe she was seeing things, but it seemed the plant had moved slightly, almost beckoning her to return. The shopkeeper watched, and a smile came to her face. She walked up to the young girl, now inspecting the plant even closer. “I think it likes you,” the shopkeeper said. The young girl looked up at her. “What kind of plant is this?” Theresa asked. “It’s a very rare plant, found only in the deepest jungles of the Amazon,” the shopkeeper said. “How can it like me?” Theresa asked. “That’s not possible.” “Oh, but it is,” the shopkeeper said. “The plant reacts to your pheromones and trust me, it likes you.” Theresa looked at the small, strange-looking pustules on the end of the leafy stalks. “What are these?” she asked. “They kinda look like little penises.” Theresa knew what a penis looked like from her high school sex-ed class, but had never seen the real thing in person. She had heard the girls at work talk about them and how they gave them pleasure, but that was something she had never personally experienced. “Well, in some ways, they are just like penises. If you look closely, you’ll see they even have what look like testicles,” the shopkeeper said. “This is the male of this species and it mates with its female counterpart to reproduce. And they react in many ways just like the real thing. Go ahead, take one in your hand, but be gentle.” Theresa looked nervously at the plant and gingerly took one of the pustules between her thumb and forefinger. It was small, about one and a half inches in length, and soft to the touch. As she touched it, however, it began to get stiff and grew a half inch in length. Shocked, she let go of the thing. The shopkeeper chuckled. “There, there, dear,” she said in a friendly voice that reminded Theresa of her dear mother, now resting in a long-term care facility where she was catatonic most of the time. “Don’t be shy or afraid. It can’t hurt you. Like all living things, it just needs some tender loving care. And like I said, this one likes you.” “How big can these things get?” Theresa asked. “Well, I don’t know exactly, but I have heard of some reaching ten inches in length,” the shopkeeper said. Ten inches, Theresa thought. One of her girl friends frequently bragged that her boyfriend was that big, but she personally doubted it and had no desire to find out for herself. “On average, though, they usually grow to about six or seven inches,” the shopkeeper added. “Do you have one of these plants?” Theresa asked. “Why yes,