“Uptight?”
“You know it.”
Sidney clutched the book to her chest. “They’re really serious.”
Lisa snapped her gum and drew her gaze down Sidney’s figure. “Whatever. So that’s an interesting ensemble, Sidney. Are you shopping the Goodwill again? I told you, you’ll never catch a man until you snaz up your wardrobe. Please, go online. Shop Macy’s, girlfriend. You’ll thank me for it. Bye!”
Lisa sashayed out, leaving a cloud of choking cologne in her wake.
“At least I won’t kill them with my smell.” Sidney waved her hands to dispel the lingering odor.
A glance to the stack of children’s books made her heart fall in her chest.
The afternoon dragged like a cinder block chained about a feline’s neck. No one came in. Not even a wide-eyed kid searching for a little Belief.
Sidney stuffed the Tooth Fairy books in a box destined for the basement. To her right she caught her reflection in the floor-length mirror Wayne kept in the office.
Lisa was right. The purple paisley ruffled outfit was . . . “Too froufrou.”
Her reflection in the mirror agreed with a pitiful shake of frizzy hair.
“Maybe I am out of touch with fashion. But that shouldn’t make me look mortal.”
The dilemma was that she had to look mortal to work her day job and walk about the community. Sidney could live with that. But to have learned how unattractive she’d become to her own kind?
This afternoon the vaccination clinic made a stop in Reverie. All Realm workers were required to be vaccinated against Disenchantment and iron sickness.
“Maybe I should change before I go. Put on something . . . sexy.”
Sexy?
It wasn’t as if she had to impress the giggling flower faeries who showed up in droves for the clinic. They were all vapid bits of petal and fluttering lashes. Sidney could never hope to compete with any of them. And why would she want to? Flowers were so common. Teeth were where it was at.
There would be myriad other faeries attending as well. House brownies, pixies, sprites, and faery godmothers. Perhaps a faery princess or two.
And a sandman.
“Dart Sand,” she said, kind of whispery and soft.
Sidney stroked her lips.
That kiss . . . had not been so special. Or so her reflection tried to convince her with a firm nod. Could be his MO—crash into them, dust them sleepy, then lean in for a stolen kiss when they were groggy? A guy like that had to have a dozen girls on the hook.
He wasn’t worth the effort.
“And have you made an effort lately, Sidney?”
No, she hadn’t. Because she had been so focused on following the rules. As a result, she had a great house and respect from the Realm. But no sex life to speak of.
“Just because relationships are not allowed doesn’t mean I can’t have a quickie, right?”
And Sand was quickie-worthy.
“What are you thinking? He’s . . . out of your league. He thinks you’re too mortal!”
The only other viable option sat on a park bench.
Sidney blew out a huff. “He won’t be there. And if he is, I’ll probably show at a different time than he. I’ll never see him again. And I don’t care if I do.”
That’s what her mouth said, but her reflection blinked hopefully.
Chapter
5
The line at the vaccination clinic curled around the roller rink twice. The old rink had been purchased by the Realm de cades earlier and served as the official meeting place for Faery events. The Realm owned old, nondescript structures like this across the mortal nation.
As faeries entered the building, they shed their glamours. This was one opportunity to relax and be with their ilk. Brownies stomped about, short and stout. Pixies flittered above everyone’s heads, giggling and dusting indiscriminately. Sprites, tall and slender and a brilliant shade of fuchsia, danced in flowing silks.
Sidney kept up half her mortal glamour; it was too comfortable to completely release. But her wings swayed with the breeze that curled inside each time the auditorium doors opened and closed.
Flashing her credentials, displayed on her Scrye-Tracker™, to the receptionist, Sidney was then directed to the queue.
Disenchantment usually set in within a week to those faeries not vaccinated. And the vaccine was only available to the flower faeries and Night Workers, which made it difficult for other faeries to travel to the MR. The exclusive selection process kept the secret of Faery as it should be—a secret.
And woe to those who forgot their vaccinations. Steve the Faery being the example.
She was halfway through the line when she spied Dart Sand. A difficult figure to overlook. She’d bet if he were one of dozens of siblings, no one would ever occasionally forget to feed him.
Free of glamour, the sandman oozed a brilliance that reminded Sidney of moonlight on a humid midsummer night. His huge muscled shoulders must shine the world bright. And that hair. Golden deliciousness. Dart’s wings beamed like chrome but were liquid and probably warm to the touch. That faery must literally glow in the dark. Which, now that she thought on it, must come in handy during his rounds.
He absently smoothed a hand across his abdomen. The motion pressed his shirt to the rigid washboard beneath. What it must be like to see him completely naked, glowing and proud.
Every part of Sidney softened and went melty. Her jaw fell slack, and she sighed.
The sound of her sigh stirred her from the silly reverie. “What?”
Caught drooling over the cookie jar.
Had anyone witnessed her delirious idiocy? Sidney cringed and hid behind the broad shoulders of a house brownie anxious to get her shot and march back to work.
And then Sidney grew a spine. “Just because he looks like the moon doesn’t make him special.”
Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t keep her attention on the line. Her eyes strayed toward the sandman, surrounded by silly giglets whose wings fluttered nervously, and some suggestively.
“Blatant fan girls,” she muttered.
Faeries were not inhibited like mortals. They expressed their desires as freely as other emotions. Yet Sidney felt compelled to roll her eyes as one of the flower faeries accidentally slipped a dress sleeve to expose a breast.
“You call that a breast?” she murmured tightly. “I’ve seen bigger ladybugs.”
The sandman flexed an arm, displaying a muscle Sidney felt sure wasn’t required to dust people to sleep at night. She preferred her men slender and aerodynamic, thank you very much. Yet when Dart turned his fist outward, the pectorals beneath his thin shirt bulged.
Much like Sidney’s heart bulged. And then her face flushed, as if she’d just flown through a sauna. “Perhaps I’ve overlooked the value of brawn.”
“What was that?” The house brownie shuffled her sack of cleaning tools flung over one broad shoulder and eyed Sidney. “Oh, you’re staring, too?”
“Huh? At what? Staring? Nope.”
“Oh, I saw you.” The brownie cocked her head, though how, when she didn’t seem to possess a visible neck, proved quite the feat. “Everyone stares at Dart Sand. Even a few of the men. Wouldn’t you love to lick those abs?”
Startled by the heathen suggestion, Sidney took a step to the right, away from the neckless brownie. Their sort were territorial and fiercely punctual. One never messed with a brownie.
Licking abs? Hmm . . .
“He’s nothing special,” Sidney offered dismissively. “Arrogant, if you ask me.”
And not a bad kisser, if she recalled correctly. Which she did. But that was neither here nor there.
A kiss didn’t mean anything. It had probably been an accident. He’d been leaning over her. She had sat up from her induced sleep too quickly. Smack!
The flush warming Sidney’s face moved down and across her chest. It tingled and woke up parts of her she’d thought gone dormant. (No, not even Mr. Big could get a ris
e out of her lately.) The sensation kept moving lower, there, to swirl about her big-girl panties. Felt good.
“Your wings are turning,” the brownie noted.
Sidney folded down her wings and slid her arms back to try to hide the tips with the excess fabric of her skirt. A futile effort. When faeries became aroused, their wings turned violet or some dark lush color like emerald or azure or crimson.
The brownie smirked knowingly. “Been a while, eh?”
“A while since—?” Sidney clapped her mouth shut. “Not at all. I am a perfectly satisfied faery. Life is sweet, couldn’t get better. I don’t even worry about my job. The teeth will never stop falling out. Who could ask for anything more?”
“I could.” The brownie sighed, blowing a hank of mud-dull hair from her eagle-beak nose. “I’m a long-timer, just like you. Been in Reverie seven years.”
“You have your own home?”
“I rent, but it gives me a feeling of—”
“Satisfaction?”
“Annoyance. I’ve been considering transferring back to Faery. Too frustrating here with the no-fraternization rule. A girl’s gotta have sex once in a while.”
“We can have sex, just not relationships. I have sex.”
“Sure you do, honey.” She nodded across the room. “Oh, you can look, but if you’d heard the rumors about Sand, you wouldn’t be staring so fiercely.”
“Rumors?”
“I hear . . .” The brownie leaned in, and Sidney, much against her desire to remain disinterested, cocked an ear to listen. “. . . that he has a problem with”—she glanced to the left and right (again, a feat for lack of neck) checking for listeners, then spat out—“premature dusting.”
“Premature—?”
“You know it. All the flower faeries whisper about him. Seems he takes them home. Beds them. But he can’t hold his dust. The dude gets excited and—poof! Not exactly Casanova, after all.”
“You don’t say.”
A glance to Dart’s brilliant glow spied him whispering in the ear of a violet-winged flutter-twit. A premature duster?
Yet, even with the rumors, none could resist his allure. The sandman charmed the color into the flower faeries’ wings.
“Worth a few good fantasies.” The brownie nudged Sidney with a thick elbow. “If you know what I mean.”
“Sure. Fantasies.” Even a fantasy of the gregarious sandman had to prove better than the action she’d been seeing lately: a TV character named Big and a flannel Spider-Man. “Pitiful, Sidney. Just—”
“Next!”
With a shove from the brownie, Sidney stumbled up to receive her vaccination. It hurt, and the base of her neck would be sore for days, but it would allow her to work in the Mortal Realm for another year.
Rubbing the back of her neck, Sidney strode through the old rink. Another year in the MR. Another year of mortgage payments—which utterly thrilled her, no matter the sacrifice. Sidney Tooth was an in de pen dent woman who could take care of herself.
Very well, so the in de pen dent part scratched her the wrong way once in a while. She had the house. But it was so big, and . . . lacking another presence.
Said presence being a man. She wouldn’t mind a man. A faery man. But how to do the relationship thing when it wasn’t allowed?
Hell, she had to know a faery man before she could start thinking about relationships. When had she stopped noticing men? And wanting—“Sex.”
“Excuse me.”
Walking without paying attention to direction, Sidney stumbled back a few paces after colliding with a solid force. Only this time the solid force didn’t dust her.
“Sex?” the sandman wondered gleefully.
A flower faery in a pink gossamer toga winked at Dart as he walked by her. Sweet. He hadn’t seen her around before. Must be a new recruit. The Reverie Horticulture Club boasted a de cade of State Fair grand prize wins. Faery was constantly dispatching new flower faeries to keep that record strong.
Just as Dart was going to introduce himself, a concoction of purple paisley—mumbling about sex—bumped into him.
“Sex?”
“Oh, I’m—” Wide green eyes stared up at Dart. Just as quickly, the green orbs shifted to the side, then right back at him.
Entranced, utterly. They could never look without falling madly in lust. He was used to the look.
But when the lustful swoon slipped away and fists formed at her sides, Dart lost his charm-them-into-bed smile. “Sidney?”
“You have a problem with navigating, buddy? I can’t seem to get within a foot of you without a crash.” She thrust her nose a little too high. “Dust any tooth faeries lately?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
“Oh.” Her fierce expression dropped, as did her paisley shoulders. “I see.”
“I meant you, Sidney.”
She didn’t realize she was pretty? Maybe it was hard to see beyond all that crazy fabric, and the frizzy hair that migrated to her eyes as quickly as it was swiped away. Why didn’t she drop her glamour completely?
No matter. Dart was glad he’d run into her. “So you were talking about sex?”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “No, I actually said, um . . . pecs. Yeah, that’s it. Pecs.”
Uh-huh. Liar.
But still. Dart flexed a muscled arm. “You like?”
She rolled those gorgeous eyes. “I think it was Max, actually. That’s it; I was thinking about my friend Max.”
Really bad liar.
He detected the scent of sugar on her. Sugar and strawberries. Like a meadow of fresh sun-plumped fruit enticing him to dive in for the feast.
A finger snapped rudely before his face. “Do you always look at women like that? Like you’re going to eat them? It’s rather discomfiting, I’ll have you know.”
“Uh, sorry.” Dart swiped a palm over his face and let out a sigh. Yeah, this one was different. The usual tactics weren’t going to work, as they did with the flower faeries. Bye-bye, patented sex smile.
“Now you look lost,” she said. And then she giggled, and it tinkled like bluebells splashed with raindrops.
Feeling her laughter spread over him was like inhaling desire into his pores. Mm, she sounded scrumptious. And he wanted another taste.
“Oh!” She slapped a hand over her mouth. It was as if she’d caught herself doing something naughty.
“I like your laugh,” he said. “You should do it more often. But not around other faeries.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want too much competition. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind a walk in the park?”
“Me?” She looked around, but no one stood even remotely close. “Uh, I don’t know.”
“Max waiting for you?”
“Who’s Max? Oh! Oh, him, no. I have another shift at the library. Then my night is full. Rounds, you know.”
“Too bad. The park is awesome this time of year. The bees have pollinated the honeysuckle and the smell of pollen in the air is heady.”
She looked down her nose at him. “You trying to get me drunk, Sandman?”
He shrugged. “I’ll try anything once.”
Chapter
6
Having turned down the sandman’s invitation didn’t make Sidney feel smart or superior. She had been thinking long-term, about maintaining her spotless record. But a simple walk in the park wouldn’t lead to sex and then a relationship, and then the complete and utter loss of all that mattered to her.
Would it?
“Whew. You are so uptight sometimes,” she muttered as she scanned the card catalog for a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “Why not go with him?”
She knew the answer to that one. Because Dart Sand was a threat, deep down, on some inner level that established Sidney Tooth as a staunch and in de pen dent woman. She wasn’t about to let anyone mess with her mojo.
“Like you have a mojo. You need a mojo, Sidney. You certainly need something.”
Sighing,
she plunked down on the stool behind the checkout desk and stared out the front doors that looked over the park. Steve the Faery’s favorite bench was empty. He must be doing rounds at the Krispy Kreme. At least the sweet treats kept him happy. But they probably disguised a deep inner pain. The pain of losing Faery.
Sidney could relate. To her, losing the Mortal Realm would be equally as horrifying as Disenchantment. She just didn’t fit into Faery. Okay, so she belonged in Faery, but she had always felt like she stood on the outside. Unnoticed and insignificant.
It had been years since she’d left her parents’ home to serve in the MR, but some emotions ran deep and were hard to shake. She wondered now if her parents ever found a few moments to think of their middle daughter off serving the MR as a tooth collector. Likely not. She was on her own, and she liked it that way. Mostly.
A giggle over in the nonfiction stacks prompted her to shush the two girls who had discovered the anatomy section. They were the only patrons this afternoon. Most days were slow like this.
Most mothers didn’t allow their children to come to the library unescorted.
“What is with all the uptight mothers in this town?” she muttered. “First they eradicate the Easter Bunny and the groundhog, and now . . . me?” Sidney’s lower lip wobbled. “Who’s next? Santa Claus?”
Catching her head in her palms, she closed her eyes. “It’s like being overlooked. Again.”
Why did she so desperately need to feel, well, needed?
Seeking distraction from her thoughts, Sidney sorted through the card catalog. The flipping of the crisp new cards gave her simple joy. Just last year she’d helped create all new records for the catalog because the old ones were wearing thin. The library hadn’t the funds to computerize, nor did they have the desire to. Sidney appreciated that.
She bent to pull out a bottom drawer. Most of the day she had to herself, unless a field trip brought in a classroom. That was the best time to survey for her night job. If there was a loose tooth in the bunch, she’d notice it and could determine the exact hour of detachment within a few seconds.
Oftentimes she beat the ScryeTracker™, knowing which kids she’d have to collect from that night. Another small thrill that delighted Sidney.
Faeries Gone Wild Page 16
