Blooming

Mei turns into a flower whenever we touch. Her pupils blossom into glossy hibiscuses—hues of red and peach and white. They grow from her pores and eat through her skin, treating her flesh as the soil that nourishes them. We tried different things: kissing, hugging, hand-holding. Now, we avoid most skin-to-skin contact because I fear Mei will become a silent flower-doll-corpse rooted in the earth.

Mei wants to have sex, though. She likes the feeling of me running my fingers over her sides until flowers begin blooming along her rib cage. She likes when I touch my mouth to hers until my tongue no longer feels the tight muscle of her tongue but rather the bitter yet fragrant taste of petals choking me. The flowers grow faster the longer I touch her, filling her mouth until she can no longer breathe, although I suspect that in this state, she has no need to. Several minutes later, she reverts to her original self and asks why I don’t stroke her for longer periods of time. She hasn’t seen herself in the mirror. You can’t make love with a person sprouting flowers out of their eye sockets, mouth, limbs, and who-knows-where-else. I’m not even sure Mei is capable of having sex, her body a hibiscus harvesting ground.

“Will you at least hold me then?” Mei asks, turning to the other side so she doesn’t face me on the bed. I indulge her request briefly since I feel bad saying no to everything else. I hold Mei in my arms until the first flower blossoms completely. She cries when I carry her to her bed and close the door as I leave so the flowers can wither away properly.

I don’t crave touch like Mei does. Supposedly when I was born, I wouldn’t stop crying until my mother put me down and took several steps back with her hands raised as though to promise she’d do no harm. It creeps me out a bit: someone’s hands clammy and tight over your limbs, suffocating your skin. Skin is meant to breathe, lined with pores that resemble pathways to the outside.

Whenever I stroke Mei, she purrs while I shut my eyes and try not to focus on her limbs. The moment I stop feeling the slick sweat, my fingers slightly moist as they flow from uneven patches of flakey skin to silky petals erupting over her body, I retract my hand. I would rather touch the flowers, honestly—they’re softer, more delicate, like clouds cushioning the pads of my fingers instead of the skin and flesh dragging them down. I tell Mei that making love resembles drowning and that she wouldn’t like it at all.

“Do you think this happens because I’m actually the descendant of some god?” Mei asks, gesturing to the half of her face that has been overrun by the roots and tiny buds yet to bloom. “I’m just built differently and will probably outlive a regular human. Like a god, you think?”

I look Mei in the eyes even though all I see are flower pistols and the bulge where their ovaries grow. She insists we make eye contact when we’re intimate, but when I look away, she rarely notices. I suspect she can no longer see when the plants overrun her pupils.

“You’re probably closer to a god than anything else I’ve seen,” I say.

“Really? Do you mean that?” Mei places her hands on her cheeks to feel the petals and plucks one straight from her eye socket. “It doesn’t hurt at all. This has got to be nature’s way of protecting me.”

“From what?”

“Everything, I guess. The world is always out to get you, you know. ”

Mei likes to speak in ambiguities. She can’t even explain to me what she wants from the grocery store—“something sweet” or “something that makes me feel like using three spoons with two hands”—so I’ve learned to translate her needs over the years. It’s not an exact science though, and sometimes I misinterpret her words and think she wants to sleep when really she wants to paraglide, or that she wants feta cheese instead of kimchi. I used to think Mei didn’t know what she wanted, but her furrowed eyebrows and slumped figure whenever I got it “wrong” meant a “right” and “wrong” existed. She wouldn’t say it out loud—only sigh and grumble and collapse into herself like a crushed foil sculpture.

“But I’m here to protect you.” I swing my arms around Mei, wrapping her so her back is flushed against my chest. The flowers grow from beneath her bra strap, forcing their way over the elastic until my body is what’s crushing them rather than the spandex. It’s a light touch, almost unnoticeable with how thin and delicate each growth is, but they tickle my stomach and spill over our sides, growing larger with vines winding along our arms and wrapping around my wrist.

“Do you know what kind of flower these are?” I wonder.

Mei twists her head over even though she can’t see in her state. She can’t even speak anymore, her mouth stuffed with petals and hairy stalks.

I withdraw, pushing her to the side of the bed so she has a chance to let the flowers wither off and her organs regenerate the gaps filled by hibiscuses. For a moment, my hand slides through her ribs where a bouquet has now shriveled, leaving caved-out organs and half-decayed lungs, more shell than flesh. I scoop away the wilted plants, holding them delicately in case they can still feel, in case the pleasure Mei desires carries over to her remains, alive and thriving like tiny gods in my palm