“Look man, just hang out with her and be nice to her, okay? For me. Just this once.”
“Sure, no problem,” Pino said. He could be a gentleman tonight. Smile. Make conversation. Hell, he thought a little bitterly, maybe he’d fall in love too.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Katie was waiting to the side of the line-up at the club entrance as Pino and Marcus approached, and Marcus gave her a sweet kiss on the lips when he reached her.
Pino, for his part, had stopped moving when Katie had gestured to her friend that the boys had arrived and the girl had turned around to get a look at them. He felt like he’d been sucker punched. Like all the air in his lungs had suddenly vanished. She was beautiful. No, she was more than beautiful. She was magical, almost otherworldly. Tiny and fine boned, she couldn’t have been more than two or three inches over five feet tall; the top of her head would reach just below his chin, Pino thought. Her skin was like porcelain, so white that it fairly glowed against the backdrop of the night, and her hair, which fell nearly to her waist in silky-looking waves, was the most extraordinary shade of blue.
He forced his feet to move and approached the group with what he hoped could pass for nonchalance. He kissed Katie on the cheek, and she introduced him to her friend, whose name, as it turned out, was also Blue.
“Hi, Pino,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied, feeling himself blush for no apparent reason.
Her eyes were the same extraordinary azure as her hair, and he felt as though she could see past his surface, through sinews and bones, into to the very heart of him.
“You guys ready to go inside?” Marcus asked.
“We’re ready,” said Blue, slipping her hand inside Pino’s, sending currents of electricity racing up his arm.
That night Pino was more of a gentleman than even Marcus could have hoped for, listening to Blue with rapt interest and doing his very best to make her laugh, just so he could listen to the sound. He held her close when they danced, breathing in the fragrance that was uniquely hers, and he would have sworn—as only the lovestruck do—that when she was in his arms, time itself stood still.
He walked her home after the club, scarce believing his good fortune when she pressed her soft lips to his cheek and asked in a whisper if he’d like to come inside. He opened his mouth to say yes, but caught himself at the last moment. He couldn’t go with her, couldn’t explain.
“Are you worried about this?” She said gently, her hand cupping the bulge in the front of his jeans. Pino stepped back, his eyes wide.
“How did you—”
“Shhhh….” Blue stepped forward, pressing a finger to Pino’s lips. “How did I know it wasn’t real? Why it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“But you still—”
“Yes, still.” She feathered kisses against his lips until he took her in his arms and kissed her as he’d wanted to from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
Pino was a changed man. With Blue at his side, he became the kind of man his father would have been proud of. He became a certified personal trainer and got a full-time job working at his gym. He vacated his semi-permanent spot on Marcus’s sofa, and he and Blue moved into an apartment of their own. He was responsible and caring and all the things that Geppetto had wanted his son to be.
Pino thought a lot about his father. He thought about the way he had stormed out of their small apartment all those years ago. He wondered about his father’s health; the old man was in his eighties now and had no one to care for him. He realized with horror that his father could be dead, and he’d be none the wiser.
“I’ve got to go back to New York,” he told Blue, and she kissed him and told him to go.
November in New York can be cold, and Pino shivered as he got off the plane. He grabbed his luggage and hailed a cab, and gave the address of his childhood home. When the taxi pulled up, Pino cried out in dismay. The toy shop looked long abandoned. Wooden boards crisscrossed over broken windowpanes, and ripped plastic did nothing to keep out the elements. He bounded up the side steps to the apartment, but the door was bolted shut with a huge padlock. A weather-beaten notice of eviction was stapled to the old wooden door, its date too faded to make out.
Pino descended to the street and sat in the empty doorway, head bowed low with grief. He should have been there for his father. He was gone. If he was alive, Pino didn’t know where to begin looking for him, and if he was truly dead…he stopped himself. He couldn’t bear to think of that now.
Just then, a hunched old beggar in a ratty woolen blanket rounded the corner, pushing all his worldly possessions before him in a shopping cart. He was humming a tune, though he had to pause now and then as he was gripped by wracking coughs. Pino recognized the tune; it was the song his father used to sing to him as a small child!
“Father!” Pino shouted, running to the old man and grabbing hold of his arms. “It’s me—it’s Pino!”
“Pino!” Geppetto cried. “Is it really you?”
“Yes Father, it’s really me!” Pino laughed and the two embraced, father and son reunited, overcome by laughter and tears both.
“I knew Pino, I knew you would come to me,” Geppetto said, overcome by a fit of coughing once more.
“But Father—” Pino held him at arm’s length, taking in every detail of the old man’s ragged appearance. “What’s happened to you? Why is there a padlock on the apartment door? What’s happened to the toy shop?”
“Sharks!” Geppetto cried. “The sharks have taken everything—swallowed me whole!”
“What sharks Father? What do you mean?”
“Loan sharks! When you left that night, I was sure you would come home. Even when days became weeks, I was certain you would come back to me. But then weeks became months and I despaired that I would never see you again. I tried to find you. I searched everywhere, and when I found nothing I hired a private investigator to look for you—the very best! But he was expensive, and I needed money to pay him, so I asked the Commisso brothers for a loan.”
Pino groaned; even as a child his father had warned him against such people.
“Business at the toy shop was not very good, and when the time came to pay…” He shrugged.
“They took everything,” Pino finished.
“Swallowed me whole.” Geppetto nodded. “But I knew that I must stay close. I knew that eventually, you would come. And so—” He pointed a gnarled finger at the broken toy shop window.
“You’re living in there?” Pino was horrified. “No more, Father! I’m taking you home to Miami to live with me.”
And he did.
When Pino and Geppetto arrived home, Blue welcomed them both with open arms. She gave the old man a warm hug and kissed his weathered cheek, and Geppetto declared that she was the loveliest creature that lived. Together they arranged his few possessions in the extra bedroom down the hall, and as evening progressed, Geppetto announced with a yawn that he was tired, and he bade the young couple a good night.
Alone in their room at last, Blue lit some candles and turned off the overhead light. Standing at the foot of the bed, the two embraced, sharing tender kisses in the glow of the candlelight. When Pino would have laid her down on their bed, Blue stopped him.
“Wait.” She said, placing her small hand in the center of his chest. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
“What is it?” Pino asked.
“I just want you to know how proud I am of you, Pino.” Blue said. “You’re a good man, caring and unselfish, and I think what you’ve done with your father is a wonderful thing.”
When Pino would have spoken, Blue pressed a finger to his lips. She took a step away from him and then another, and Pino thought back to the night they first met, and how he’d thought her skin seemed almost to glow in the moonlight. It looked like that now, only she really was glowing, as if the light was inside her.
“And because of these things,” she continued, “I can, at long
last, grant you your heart’s desire.”
“What do you—” Pino began, and then stopped. There was a tingling in his chest; a warmth that began in the vicinity of his heart and spread outward, racing through his limbs until he could feel it everywhere; his fingertips, his toes, his—
“Oh my God.” Pino’s hands flew to his button fly, but they trembled so badly that he couldn’t get the buttons undone.
“Here, let me.” Blue closed the distance between them, brushing his hands aside and unfastening the buttons. She slid one hand in the opening, cupping his warm, soft flesh tenderly in her palm.
“I can feel that.” Pino’s voice was a rasp of emotion and tears glittered in his eyes.
Blue stroked him gently, and Pino’s intake of breath was swift as blood rushed to his cock and he stiffened in her hand.
“Who are you?” He whispered.
“I’m the woman who loves you.” She kissed him softly. “And a fairy.”
“A fairy.”
“Mmm-hmm…” Blue trailed a line of kisses along his jaw and down his neck, stroking his erection until he groaned. With her free hand, she tugged at his jeans, and Pino quickly shrugged them down and off, his T-shirt and Blue’s dress following closely behind.
Blue knelt in front of him, and when she took him into her mouth, Pino thought it was entirely possible that he had died and had somehow wound up in a heaven where all his dreams had been made real. He could feel the heat of her surrounding him, the erotic scrape of her teeth against his shaft, the swirl of her tongue against the sensitive skin on the underside of his cock. He could feel her fingers circling the base of his cock and slowly stroking in time with the workings of her mouth, and her other hand cupping his balls and caressing them gently. He could feel his pulse pounding in his cock and the tightening in his balls. He was rushing toward the precipice with all the speed of a teenage boy, and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Pino?”
He drew her up against him and wrapped his arms around her, his cock nestled against her belly.
“Thank you,” he whispered against her hair. “I love you so much, Blue—and not because of this; I just want you to know that I am who I am because of you.”
He kissed her then, a kiss both tender and passionate. When it ended, Blue smiled at him and took his hand, leading him wordlessly to the bed where she lay on her back and drew him between her thighs.
He knelt there, looking at the vision before him with wonder. Her body, so open and ready for him, and his cock thick and proud between them. He drew her thighs over his and wrapped a hand around his shaft, tracing her opening with the head of his cock, slicking himself with her moisture and spreading it along his length. He shuddered with the pleasure of it and rocked his hips forward so that the head of his cock disappeared into her welcoming heat.
“That’s it, baby,” Blue murmured, her hips pushing forward in turn so that he was even deeper inside her.
Pino groaned and shifted his grip, his hands beneath Blue’s thighs, bringing her even closer to him, opening her even wider as he thrust into her, as aroused by the sight of his cock sinking into her as he was by the sublime feel of being inside her. She felt so hot and tight around him, the friction sending currents of electricity tap-dancing from his nerve endings to the pleasure center of his brain.
Pino could feel the tension rising in Blue’s body; see the telltale flush on her skin. Without changing his rhythm, he slipped one hand out from beneath her and stroked the pad of his thumb across her swollen clit.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, eyes shut, body arching into his touch.
“Never.” He loved watching her like this—lips parted, hands fisted into the bed sheets—he swore he’d never get tired of this as long as he lived.
He felt it then, even before her breath caught. He felt the contractions begin deep inside her, rolling through her and over him, her orgasm pulsing around him, squeezing him with viselike strength.
“Blue!” he cried out, pulled into the vortex, his own pleasure cresting in an explosion of sensation as he shuddered and emptied himself into her.
In the aftermath, Pino moved carefully, loathe to separate his body from hers. He braced his weight on his elbows and her legs wrapped around his waist, his hips still cradled between her thighs. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, then paused for a moment.
“A fairy?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled.
“And this is really real?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Blue clenched her muscles around his cock, giggling as he sucked in a sharp breath. Already he was hardening inside her again.
“Forever?”
“And ever,” she said, before adding, “that is, unless you do something to really piss me off.”
“Never.” He said, rolling his hips slowly, and it was his turn to smile at Blue’s tiny moan of pleasure.
“Well, what should we do now?” Blue looked up at Pino with feigned innocence, and he kissed her, a deep heated kiss that left them both breathless.
“I can think of a few things,” Pino growled.
“Mmm…and then?”
“We live happily ever after,” Pino whispered, kissing her tenderly.
And they did.
GARDEN VARIETY
Lynn Townsend
The carafe of wine slipped, unnoticed, from Jackie’s hand and smashed onto the patio. Shards of glass and splatters of Chianti barely registered as she stared, gape-mouthed, at the wreckage of her garden.
Before work, Jackie had checked the seedling beans, twining tomato plants, and a few decorative flats of strawberries, and everything had been pristine. She’d plucked a few weeds from the warm soil, bound up a falling tomato vine, relocated a few bugs, and discussed the latest celebrity news with the attentive bean sprouts. After a day of manning the phones at East Agency Collections, being called multiple names—as if she were the one who’d run up thousands of dollars of credit card debt and then tried to default on it—and being bitched out thoroughly by her manager, Jackie had been looking forward to a glass of wine, a book of poetry, and the company of her pleasant, non-meddlesome, non-annoying, quiet plants. As far as Jackie was concerned, plants were much better company than most humans.
Especially now.
All four vertical trellises that Jackie had painstakingly put together herself lay in shattered ruins. There was potting soil all over the patio. Her budding garden, lovingly tended, was torn asunder; the plants yanked rudely from their clay pots and shredded. There was seemingly nothing that could be salvaged. This was no act of a careless child, not the destruction of someone’s dog that had slipped their leash for a few short moments. This was wanton, cruel desecration.
“Who the hell would do such a thing?” Jackie was barely aware that she spoke aloud, tears of rage and grief spilling over her lower lids. She turned her head from side to side, as if seeking answers, but there was nothing. With all the potting soil scattered all over the patio, she would have thought at least that there would have been some tracks, but the earth gave up no trace of the murderer of her garden.
All she saw was one flicker of life, one tiny, tenacious plant that clung to life.
She dropped gingerly to one knee, avoiding the shards of pottery and glass, scooping up the runner bean sprout. She’d bought them just last week from Garden Variety nursery.
“I’ll make it right,” she promised. Jackie pulled together a handful of soil and pressed it into her empty wine glass. It wasn’t the best solution, but perhaps it would be enough to keep the one plant alive until she was able to get to the nursery. “I’ll make everything all right again. I promise.”
Just not today, she thought as she closed the porch door on her savaged plants. Maybe things will look better in the morning.
Under the full moon, touched by love and grief and hope, the beans swelled. Green vines lifted leaves to the sky, twining and twisting, stretching and growing, hard and fast and turgid. Jackie slept on, unaware an
d unmoving. She didn’t stir as the stalk groaned and strained, cracking the foundation of her home, ripping free of the porch railings and at last, sighing to a halt.
Jackie woke. The first thing she noticed was that the light was all wrong. Her alarm was usually screaming at her as the early grey strains of sunrise barely registered through her blue lace curtains. She normally stumbled into the shower before 6:00 A.M. and left the house with the inevitably vain hopes that she would be able to avoid the morning gridlock.
Not this day. She woke up to warm sunlight streaming in through an open window. She smelled rich, green vegetation. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her entire window was filled with plant life. The rigid stalk was thicker than her arms could reach around, spreading joyously toward the sky. The sweet tang of pickwick flowers scented the breeze. Hummingbirds already swarmed around the red blossoms. Her window was broken; the remains of her draperies were tangled in tendrils of the stalk.
“There’s nothing to do,” she murmured, pulling on a simple sundress, “but to climb up.” Dreamlike, she sat on the window sill and then flipped her legs out the window, her naked feet finding easy purchase. The vegetation was warm under her bare skin, firm and soft, smooth. She rested her cheek against the stalk, arms around it as far as she could reach.
“I know I promised to make things right,” Jackie said, “You’re prompt and enthusiastic in your response, don’t you think?”
Ladder-like thick vines dotted the stalk and acted as handholds and foot rests. It wasn’t long before the ground was lost in the clouds. Blue, clear sky canopied her journey. She spared only a moment to think of the earth, far below. By the time it occurred to Jackie to worry about how far in the sky she was, falling seemed like such a remote possibility that she couldn’t spare it much concern.
“You won’t let me fall, will you?” she said to the stalk. “You’ll take care of me, I just know it.”
Jackie had never felt silly talking to plants, and now she felt even more like she was having a real conversation. That her words were heard and understood. Her heart raced, her skin rippled with goose bumps, not from fear, but from desperate excitement. The vines rustled, one twining briefly around her ankle like a caress. She grinned, continuing upward.
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