Exposure in the Forest Glade (AI art + mini fic)

[PollenFiend]

Heya.  I've been doing more experimenting with Stable Diffusion techniques off and on, and wrote a little one-shot mini fic to go along with the picture.  This little snippet is cropped, with the full-frame wallpaper sized pic over at https://www.patreon.com/posts/exposure-in-98992864.

Might be a little early for it, but you know me - I always love a good allergy scenario.

 

 

The little forest glade was beautiful, but its natural beauty was the furthest thing from her mind.  All she could think about was the maddening itch and urge to sneeze.

She didn’t know how going into the woods was going to help but she was willing to try nearly anything to find relief from her hay fever, which had been getting more and more severe with each passing spring.  This year was the worst so far, with even just a few minutes of exposure to the spring air and the scents of blossoming trees and flowers making her nose itchy, runny, and constantly needing to sneeze.  It was terrible.  Medication barely did anything to help, and in her current moment, she didn’t even have that.

“HAAT-KSSCHHIIUHH!  HEK-TSCHHHIIUUGH!!... hehh-..heeghh!-... HEEGH-KSSCHHUUGH!!”  She sneezed.  She had to sneeze.  Her nose was so indescribably itchy.

In speaking with some friends over the winter holidays, one particularly new-agey type told her of a treatment that she swore by - exposure therapy in a faraway nature retreat deep in the woods.  Apparently there was something of a resort there, where people with hay fever would be intentionally exposed to the high pollen counts to trigger their symptoms and gradually desensitize their bodies while enjoying spa-like comforts between the therapy sessions and the inevitable allergy attacks.  The facials and massages were nice, but not nearly enough to be worth the sheer hell that she was going through.

“Snnrff… SSNNRRFF!... ughhh..” she let out a weak, plaintive whimper before her breath caught in a hitching combination of sniffle and gasp as a prelude to yet more sneezes that her nose insisted were necessary.  “snfff-hehh!-... hiiighh-... heh-HEHH!-..  HEEGHH-GHIIESSCCHHUUGH!!  HEEG-KIEESSCSHHHIUGHH!!....  HIHH!-..  HUHH-EEAAGHHSSCHHHIIUUUH!!!”

Her nose was positively exploding.  Clear, watery mucus dripped and trickled out of her quivering red nostrils, and when she sneezed, which was extremely often, that liquidy viscous snot gushed out in uncontrollable splattering bursts.  It was terrible, but at least she wasn’t alone in her hay fever misery.

Beside her were other similarly-aged women.  She was placed in a group with others like her - severely allergic to pollen and wanting to try something new to find relief.  They had gotten to know each other at the resort, enjoying saunas and massages together, particularly getting comfortable having their bodies exposed to one another, as that was also a key part of this apparent therapy - to be out in nature completely unclothed and exposed to the full effects of nature and its near incomprehensible bounty of pollen.

Now she was in the forest glade for yet another session, unclothed and unmedicated amongst the group, all of them sniffling, sneezing, wiping, rubbing, all just greatly suffering from the effects of their hay fever.  She glanced around, seeing one of her allergy compatriots rub fervently at her extremely itchy eyes, another trying to stem the tide from her dripping wet nostrils with the back of her hand, and yet another succumbing to a particularly messy fit of desperate sneezes that sounded like they were doing nothing to alleviate the terrible allergy itch in her fiery red nose.  As she closed her eyes in an attempt to hide from it all, the soundscape around her was a swirl of hay fever suffering, as inescapable as the dense haze of pollen surrounding her.

“SNNNFFFLL-snnrff!  Ugh… theeh-hihh!-... These allergies!... heghhh-... HHEEEGHH-EEAASSCHHHH!!!”

“HUHH-.. HUHHH!-... HUUT-TCCHHIIIUUGHHH!!!  Snnnrrff.. snnff... iighhh… sssnnfffl.... Ughhh…”

“HEK-TCHHH!!  HET-CHHIIUGH!!  HEEK-TCHHHIIUGHHH!!!”

The idea was to embrace their bodies as they were, to accept and love themselves despite their allergic sensitivities to pollen, to expose themselves fully and unshielded against nature in an effort to have their allergic bodies come into harmony with pollen.  While she tried to train her body into believing the pollen was not an aggressor but rather something to be embraced, she was reaching her limit of just how much pollen her nose could lovingly “embrace”.

“Heegh.. Haaah… AAAAGH-!...” she fought, resisting the urge to sneeze, trying to will her nose into loving the pollen invading her flared, red, glistening nostrils.  That tickly… prickly… horribly itchy pollen.  Hearing the symphony of sneezes and sniffles all around her made her willpower crumble.  “AAAHHT-TCCHHIIIUUOOOH!!!”

She didn’t think any of this was helping.  Was it helpful for any of the others?  She was miserable.  Well, at least she wasn’t alone.  And there was the spa waiting for them afterwards…

[Chiguy]

So excited to see where you take this!