There's this certain feeling that I love to chase. A state of being that's hard to reach, and when reached it is fleeting and gone before you can even enjoy it in the moment. 

It's that feeling of when you've just woken up from deep, deep sleep without an alarm clock, the knowledge that you're able to turn right back around in the back of your mind. 

Your eyelids are barely opened, two of the slightest slits of vision trying to make sense of the severely limited visual stimuli piercing through eyelash and teary blur.

It's that feeling when you're getting drugged, anesthetized for a light medical procedure. The final few moments of coherence where you already know what's going to happen. The chemicals coursing through your veins have long won the battle, your body asleep, mind not quite there yet.

It's that feeling on the precipice of trance. Getting hypnotized and being a finger snap away. You know it's coming, and need it. You need that snap. Still, those fleeting moments are true bliss. A fragment in time where the borders of existence can be blurred for a second.

That's the feeling I hunt. Like a high I'm constantly chasing. I am addicted to the precipice of sleep.

That edge of awareness when you struggle between sleep and wake tends to get my imagination running wild. Like I lose control of my fantasy, unable to distinguish between reality and dream.

My bedroom is pretty bare - a closet, a computer, a bedside table and a bed. Of course there's decorations on the wall, but nothing spectacular. I like the simplicity.

But, at the recommendation of my parents, I bought a plant to keep me company. I am admittedly not the best father to flowers, because I am inherently forgetful. I fail to water them in time. Of course I could get a cactus or a succulent, but… nah. I also had something to prove to myself.

I've worked retail for the better part of the last decade. Started as a stocker, quickly moved to cashier. I liked the contact with customers. Most of them, at the very least.

Something that always stuck with me was how certain products would put a smile on my face whenever I slid them across the register. Whether or not that is regular behavior is not up to me to decide.

One of those products was fresh potted basil. The scent was instantly recognizable, piercing through the gray mundane. I could always tell if someone in my queue had it well before even seeing it.

Basil doesn't even have any distinct core memory to me that would explain the connection. Of course, my mom used it often when making pasta which is admittedly amongst my favorite dishes. 

Still, that's where the connection ends. We didn't grow it in our garden or anything, it's just one of many herbs used in cooking. Doesn't set it apart from the rest.

Regardless, basil had me under its leafy spell. So, when the time came to buy a plant, I had quickly made up my mind. Much to the surprise - and perhaps dismay - of my parents, who had hoped for an orchid or similar. 
But no, I was adamant. I needed a basil plant. One that I would care for, for once. I had to prove myself that I could take care of it. How hard can it be to take care of a potted plant? Herbs are resilient. I can do this.

So there it stood. A single basil plant, fiercely on my bedside table. Besides my alarm clock. A reintroduction of life to the monotony. And it was entirely up to me to keep it that way.

And I did. I diligently took care of that plant. I felt a renewed sense of purpose. This was my responsibility. I started projecting a consciousness onto it. 

I even considered giving it a name, but Basil as a name sufficed. I wouldn't dare to clip its leaves for cooking purposes either, I couldn't bring myself to hurt my child. Again, whether or not that is normal is not up to me to decide.
 
On an especially sleep-deprived night I remember opening my eyes slightly - recognizing deep down through the fog of slumber that I am hanging in the balance again. A fleeting encounter with that feeling I chase.

I lay there on my bed, flat on my stomach, staring through my eyelashes with a mindless grin, enjoying the feeling while it lasts. It's 4am, and I know I can sleep in. True timeless bliss.

Then it hits me. An all too familiar scent and a foreign sight. My consciousness is too faded to separate fact from fantasy, but the basil has blossomed. In hindsight I don't think it does that in the first place, but there they were.

Tough to make out at first, but - even half-lidded it's undeniable - there are pink flowers on my basil. And the scent that I so enjoy at work is now visible - brought to life in the shape of a pink puff of cloud, pollen perhaps. 

But its strength is significantly increased. And it's not just the standard scent of basil, there's something more. Something that exceeds beyond what I can grasp. The smell can only be explained as a representation of the visual stimuli. I smell pink. The basil smells pink.

It's already entered my bloodstream. The pink courses through my veins and fills me with a near indescribable heat. Akin to a fire, yet the warmth isn't alarming. Instead it beckons and massages and soothes, going from searing hot to freezing cold and back to comfortable numbness in a fraction of a second.

As it travels through my body - nose, eyes, skin, throat - it finds its way into every nerve of my body. Blanketing me, sedating me. My thoughts slow down, a thick pink fog hypnotizing me.

It's tough to tell whether this is fantasy, reality or perhaps magic anymore - but my movements become foreign to me. I remained on my stomach, but my hips were forced to buck as I thrust forward once, and again. 

The friction between my groin, the fabric of my underwear and the fabric of the bed feel like a hug with a curtain in-between. My movements might not be fully mine anymore, but all sensations still are. And they are heightened to the nth degree, making my consciousness become a blur. At this point I become a passenger in my own body.

I distinctly remember trying to think “what's come over me?” but my consciousness faltered. The attempt was there, but the very concept didn't come through. The thought died somewhere between conceptualization and execution.

There's an absent-minded - perhaps even mindless, hard to tell the difference - move of my paws to the edge of my boxer shorts as I pull them down.

It wasn't even like there was a command I followed, either. There was no second consciousness or sapient being guiding me, no. This was a deep, primal craving. Hardly recognizably mine, but if not, then whose?

Undeniably, the right state of being was nakedness. And so, with my underwear down to my ankles, I thrust again. And again. I'm a slave to the pink scent of the Basil, and it's driving me to the brink of a mind-shattering climax.

My paws grip the bedsheets that are now forced to embrace my penis as I continue to mindlessly hump, the layer fabric no longer in between to mute the pleasurable friction.

My eyes are forced shut, my body quivering with pleasure - amplified by the hypnotic hold the Basil has over me - and, despite the lack of visual stimuli I can practically feel the pink cloud becoming tangible. 

Like its inherent floral nature, it takes root around the shaft of my cock as I thrust and hump. The pink roots flow freely, assisting the rubbing and friction of the bedsheets, ensuring maximum pleasure. It craves my cum, and it'll milk out every single drop.

I grunt and moan, still unable to control my own motion, still unable to think, but still mindlessly aware of everything that is happening, florally sedated by the pollen of my plant.

The motion of my hips becomes almost like a dance. Were I able to think, I would have imagined myself like an insect - a bee, perhaps - one that dances to their hivemates to inform them of the location of other plants.

However, my dance is not informative. Instead, it's deeply carnal. The humping remains at a steady pace, the fabric of the bedsheets eagerly taking the motion of my cock as it pushes it backwards, bouncing back up upon retreat. 

I feel myself rapidly approaching the edge. The cloud of pollen feels like it manifests in a humanoid form, its hands grasping my hips and pushing it down and forwards as I hump.

A second set of hands wraps around my cock as I am forced to thrust by the Basil, the pleasure resonating and pulsing deeply. My cock is fully enveloped by the pollen and the tingles intensify.

My roars of pleasure turn primal as I reach the tipping point. My bedsheets are already moist from the precum, and the tip of my cock is leading its own life.

The Basil only has one request left. Climax. So with one last guided hump, I feel the pleasure overwhelm. Specifically the tingly warmth in my crotch pulses and writes its way into my nervous system. I have to orgasm.

My bed is immediately painted by off-white strings of hot sperm, mixing with the fabric. The hand of pollen continues to jerk on, making sure that not a single drop goes to waste. I moan loudly, my breath hitching and my heartbeat increasing as the basil makes sure that everything is drained.

As the last drops spurt out of my throbbing cock, a looming sense of lethargy sets in immediately. As if the pollen takes on a whole new role, the hypnotic feeling that they brought on at first suddenly shifts its purpose.

That feeling of teetering on the edge of sleep, that sedated daze, suddenly returns and intensifies. Having fulfilled my purpose, I go limp onto the sheets. My mind fogs up and shuts down, and within seconds I have fallen asleep. The last feeling I think I remember is the feeling of a gentle leaf trying to probe its way beneath my limp body, though that might have been my imagination.

Waking up naked the next morning should’ve been enough proof, yet still I remained confused and unsure. Of course, it seemed so impossible and bizarre that I kind of just accepted it didn’t happen. I rolled out of my bed and looked at the sheets. No signs of my orgasm, and I took that as a sign that my imagination just ran wild with me.

Before I put on my work uniform to head to my retail job again, I look over my shoulders at the basil plant on my bedside table. A shiver runs down my spine and I’m filled with mixed emotions, mostly confusion. I could swear they seemed… bigger. Happier. Fuller. 

To this day, whenever someone in the store buys potted basil, I can’t help but become ever so slightly aroused.