It was the moment of truth.
I couldn’t believe I’d actually found it. When John Holliday told me where to look to find the infamous Dictyophora species, I didn’t really believe him — probably because he also claimed this mushroom had some pretty implausible properties. But it was there all the same, right where he said it would be. Countless hours of research and reporting had culminated in this moment. There I was, standing on the remains of an old lava flow, staring at a mushroom that one man claimed could make me orgasm by smell alone.
I bent down, pressing my hands in the soft mulch on either side of the fungus, and let the air out of my lungs. Then I pushed my face next to its orange stalk and breathed in as deeply as I could.
I was on a plane flying back to Honolulu after nearly ...
