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There is a fairy that lives in my garden. Most days she frolics and flitters among the annuals and the evergreen alike, climbing wooden trellises and twining vines to find and conquer each bud, bush, and bloom.
As far as fairies go, I’m certain that many would say she was nothing special. She had a half-clipped wing and the naive, green temperament to go with it. Her eyes, bright and dewy no matter the time of day, saw through me in a way that human eyes never could. Most days she would laze about in a teacup or take a nap on my shoulder while she pretended to listen to me read.
I was at her every beck and call, entertaining every whim she had. I served her every day with a smile and a quiet, content whispering of, “As you wish, Princess.”
The first time I’d called her by the crown, she was quick to correct me in that little, squeaky voice she took on when she was upset.
“Aye! You know not all us fairies are royalty, don’tcha?”
“Oh, of course not,” I’d answered, “Only the most beautiful of them.”
“Alright, alright. I admit it. You’ve got some charm in you, beansprout.”
The fairy in my garden had been there all of my life. Whenever my family moved, I’d always made a point to bring her with us. It was never against her will or anything — she’d come up with the schemes herself.
When I packed up and moved across the country to start my new life all on my own, she’d insisted she come with me. It confused me, mostly because she had always told me that she didn’t like change. Uprooting her from her home to travel across the country seemed like the furthest thing from maintaining normalcy.
She told me I asked too many questions. She told me to never stop asking questions, even when she didn’t know the answers. Unlike the others, I believed her when she said it. I could see the enthusiasm in her everything; the way her wings would twitch, and her hair would glow every time that she saw me come around the bend. It was the collection of crystals and only the prettiest of petals that she gave me with each visit.
Sometimes, even when she had the answer to my questions, she didn’t deign to share them with me.
“How do fairies reproduce?”
“Excuse me, beansprout?”
“I’m just saying, I’ve never seen you take an interest in any boy fairies. Can you reproduce asexually, like fungus?”
“I am not a mushroom!”
I always recalled memories of her fury with the utmost fondness. With a special kind of softness that I never could replicate with anyone else.
“Calm down, Princess,” I’d say, and she would listen every time.
She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, and I was just so loath to consider that she would waste away, only visible to me in my garden. When my job would start to take me away for longer hours, days, and weeks, what would she do?
Would she wait for me?
Why would she do that?
“So why haven’t you fluttered off to find someone special?”
“Why’s I gotta leave here for that?”
I’d laughed then, bringing my pinky up to smooth over her hair. She huffed and puffed at the condescending touch, wrapping her arms around my fingers and pulling herself up to sit in my hand, where she could display her crossed arms and prominent pout fully.
“I think there is a stark lack of compatible suitors for you here, little fae,” I’d said, and it was the first time I’d ever seen her look so sad.
I tried to kiss those negative feelings away, but it was hard when a chaste kiss to her head was practically enough to crush her. She always giggled when I did it, though. One time she’d even tried to do it back, but when my laughter was too loud for her, she kissed the tip of my nose, instead.
There had always been a fairy in my garden, but some days I would come to find every mushroom cap empty. There were no trails made of breadcrumbs and acorn tops like steppingstones through the stems.
Lately, those absent days were more often than not. When I would catch her, she shone a little bit dimmer than the time before. She assured me that she would be fine, with yet another little reminder that she was incapable of lying. I still didn’t believe her, the same way she hadn’t believed me when I told her that I’d rather her fly free than remain at my disposal.
“You would miss me too much,” she’d said through a toothy grin.
“Would you miss me, too?”
“No more than usual,” she’d assured me.
“How often is that?”
“Oh, just every time you leave.”
But then what was I to do, when I came home to an empty garden? A garden with cobwebs formed between withered stems; untouched and untamed just like the girl who’d used to care for it.
I would say I’d thought nothing of it, but that would be a lie. I thought many things when I found the abandoned garden. I cursed myself for ever making such an extended absence, for not recognizing her unhappiness, for not understanding her riddles well enough to stop her before she left me for good. I resented that she would leave without so much as a note, even if we both knew I wouldn’t be able to make out the tiny, clumsy writing made on scraps of parchment smaller than my pinky nail.
I couldn’t blame her for leaving. She had been there all of my life. I wasn’t positive what the life expectancy was for a fairy, but I knew she had better ways to spend it than waiting around for me. As I’d grown older, she’d likely just grown wearier and less patient of my excuses.
Because truthfully, there was no reasonable explanation for abandoning her the way I did so regularly. Not when there were so many others out there who would care for her better.
At that point, I was sure even the meanest hawk would have taken better care of her.
There was no use dwelling on my pain, but I did it, anyway. I spent time clearing the webs and dried, dead brush to reveal the tiniest footprints she’d left behind. I ran my fingers over the dirt, only to panic when I saw how it erased what was left of her memory.
It was such cruel irony, that I had been able to grow into the conclusion that I loved that whimsical little fae, but she would never be able to grow into a life with me. Not the way I wanted her to.
My mind was a bit distracted when I approached the front door, and if I’d cared enough to notice any oddity that wasn’t based purely around her, I would have stopped to care about the fact my door had already been unlocked.
But I was too forlorn, lost to grief and self-hatred, to realize that someone else had made their way into my home. It wasn’t until I saw the footprints, strange and remarkably human-sized wet spots padding from the washroom to my bedroom.
“Hello?” I called before realizing that is precisely the sort of thing I shouldn’t do.
What kind of idiot asks an intruder to kindly announce themselves?
I got no response, as I knew I wouldn’t. But something about the way the rest of my house was left perfectly intact told me that I shouldn’t be afraid.
In fact, it felt like the opposite. It was that odd, calming serenity that I’d always found when I was with her.
With two firm fingers, I pinched myself to ensure that I wouldn’t wake from what was about to happen if my instincts were right. When I felt the familiar sting, I took off with quick feet until I burst through the door to my room and found her.
I found her, completely bare and hidden only behind her hands and hair, with trembling wings and a smile stretching wide across her face.
“Spencer!”
Just like that, those hands I’d mentioned were no longer hiding her body, but were instead thrown around me as she knocked into me with full force. Perhaps I’d been caught off guard by how light she was despite her increased size, or perhaps I was just weak, but the two of us toppled onto the hardwood with no grace whatsoever.
But my head thunking against the ground was the least of my worries. I had much bigger things to worry about as I tore my hands off of the soft skin of her lower back.
“Oh my god, you’re completely naked!”
“My clothes don’t fit anymore!” she yelled back, simultaneously shameless and sweet, like always.
“I can see that!”
But my fae did not care about nudity, and instead nuzzled her cheek against my neck in a way she had tried to do many times before. She was buzzing with excitement, and her hands were clumsy and relentless in their search to touch as much of my face and hair as she could.
“I’m so happy you’re home!” she hummed, never once stopping her pursuit to hold me however she could. “I missed you something terrible.”
“I missed you, too.”
I helped sit the both of us up, laughing at how she obviously found the new form a bit more awkward. Still, she did nothing to hide her body from my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to look away.
Upon realizing that she had no intention to show me mercy, or even notice that I had been implicitly begging for it, I finally, kindly brought attention to the proverbial elephant in the room.
“You really need to put clothes on.”
“Why?”
“Uhm… J-Just because. I can’t… Uh…” I stammered. It didn’t seem possible to explain to her the way it affected me without also admitting a number of things I wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle.
Deciding that I would protect her modesty for her, I reached over and pulled a blanket from my bed. Her wings started to flap in response, hard enough that she nearly lifted herself from the floor. But then I caught her wrist, pulling her close enough that I could drape the fabric over her shoulders and pull it together in the front.
“There. That’ll do for now.”
Then, we both sort of just stared at each other. Almost as if we’d each honestly expected the other to know what to do in this situation. I had many questions for her, like why she’d failed to tell me about her plan, how long it’d been in the works, and why she’d wanted to do it at all. Those questions, however, felt a bit too hostile.
I settled on a vague, whispered, “How did you…?”
“A lot of potions,” she answered before emphasizing again, “A lot.”
“Is it… Is it permanent?”
“No.”
And although the negative carried disappointment in it, it was not nearly as frantic or miserable as I would have expected a ‘no’ to be.
“Oh. Then when will it wear off?”
“Usually takes a day.”
I turned to see the sun setting over the horizon through my window, and then I returned to her. I saw sleepy but overjoyed eyes staring back at me and couldn’t help but to return her smile with my own.
“How much time do we have left?”
“As much as we want. I can take more.”
My mind was racing, and I was hardly able to focus on her words. All of the energy left was spent trying to take note and memorize each of the features of her face I’d never been able to scrutinize. She’d never really let me look at her under a magnifying glass for long, and after a few seconds of my staring, she nervously shifted under the blanket.
“Do you not like me this way?” she asked.
My answer was unfortunately loud and unbelievably stupid.
Because I yelled back, “No!”
“You don’t?!” she balked, her voice an octave higher to match her bowed brows and sunken heart.
“No, I meant— that’s not what I meant!” I panicked, reaching forward to grab her hands and not thinking of how it would cause the blanket to fall. “I do… like you. Like this.”
My fae settled back down, although there was still a strange sadness in her pout. Her crouched position on the hardwood made my heart ache because I couldn’t help but think about how unfair it was that she’d gone through so much just to accommodate me, and then I’d done nothing but give her a bedsheet.
“Come here, Princess,” I called, just to see the way her eyes lit up like the sunrise.
She sprung forward into my arms, and that time, I caught her with ease. While careful to keep the blanket wrapped around her, I hoisted the two of us back up to our feet. After a bit of stumbling, we found ourselves in another strange situation.
Because it felt almost normal. Almost right.
I’d conjured so many visions of having her with me like that so many times, but now that she was standing in front of me, I couldn’t help but feel inadequate. It was easy to convince myself that I was worthy of any of her attention when she was a tiny little thing.
But like that, in high definition, she could’ve made even the stubbornest man fall to his knees.
I was no exception.
“I like you the other way, too, to be clear,” I blurted out. A sly grin formed over her cheeks at the sudden admission, and she took a step forward in something akin to a challenge.
“Keep going,” she giggled.
I wanted to give her what she wanted, but with each step I felt my self-control dwindling. I wondered if her powers had somehow grown with her. Because it was astounding, how lovely she was up close. I’d compared her to so many beautiful things in my life, but none of them seemed enough. I wanted to express just how badly I craved her touch, how often I dreamt of her in my arms, even without the carnal desire.
But when I spoke, my feelings came out like stuttered nonsense.
“I-I mean, surely, you know that I think you are wonderful in any incarnation, and it’s really just a matter of—“
Nonsense that I never got to finish. My darling fae had other plans, it seemed. The kind that consisted of her lips over mine and her hands tangled in my hair, tugging on the locks she’d never quite been able to hold so well before.
At first, I did nothing. I stayed suspended in the amber of her, a still-preserved relic of the way I was before she kissed me. But then, I realized, that I didn’t ever want to be that man again. So, I kissed her back. I parted my lips for her and didn’t even bother hiding the pleased sounds that slipped between us.
“God, you taste like honey,” I mumbled through it all.
“More,” was all she answered, “Kiss me more.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
Her next reply came in the sound of effervescent laughter as I led her onto my bed. I thought nothing of how crude it was, for me to take her there as quickly as I could. But it didn’t feel rushed. It felt like we’d already taken too long — we’d spent so many lifetimes of waiting to hold each other like this.
When the blanket fell from her shoulders and her wings sprung back up, I was too caught up in her smile to take note of her body presented to me so comfortably. There was not an ounce of worry or hesitation in her; especially not when she wrapped her legs around me and pulled me in until our hips came together and she could feel the bulging evidence of my desire pressed against her.
But I wasn’t ready to have her like that just yet. I had more of her I wanted to see first.
I gave my little fae one more kiss before I left her lips. I didn’t stray far at first, marking my way down her neck and over her collarbones. I noted every freckle and scar, every single detail that I might have missed on those magnifying glass mornings.
I lowered myself onto my knees in front of her, and she looked down at me like I’d done something silly. I think she’d half expected me to bow to her. And in a way, that is what I was doing.
There was no resistance when my hands came to her knees and gently guided them apart. She watched me carefully, with her head tilted to the side and her eyes wide at the sensations that started to follow.
Of my lips, lavishing the skin of her inner thigh, and slowly coming up to her center. By the time I’d gotten there, she was out of breath. I wasted no time, a testament to the impatience she so often teased me for. I ran my tongue through the wetness that had already gathered and watched as her skin lit up in an entirely new way.
I’d seen her magic many times before, but I’d never seen it as it was in that moment. From just one taste, I was irreparably intoxicated by her. My hands began ruthless, my blunt nails cutting into her hips while I continued to taste her.
But as beautiful as she looked, she sounded even more stunning. The trembling trill and her provocative moans took echoed in my room. It still wasn’t enough. I wanted more of her. Pushing her back against the bed with one hand that remained on her stomach, I rolled my tongue in languid strokes over her clit until I heard her call for me with a tiny, breathless voice.
“Spencer,” was all she said. It was all that needed to be said.
I could feel her body shaking, her legs growing tense and tight around my head. I was too busy to care, although it did wonders for the longing that I felt for her. It was thrilling to imagine that I could make her feel something that powerful. To know that she would grab hold of me and refuse to let go.
When she did let go, it was in only the most ethereal of ways. Small hands pulled on my hair but held me in place as her hips rocked. Her body moved and danced along my mouth, and I felt myself growing close just by witnessing the spectacle.
That was the same reason I refused to stop until she yanked on my hair hard enough to elicit a chuckle from me. I looked up at her, my chin still covered in her essence and with blown pupils that struggled to take in the beauty before me.
My little fae said nothing. She just guided me up off the floor and onto the bed with her. I broke away from her just long enough to strip myself of my clothes. She watched, carefully inspecting the areas of skin she’d never seen before. I watched as her skin flushed with light and sparks of energy seemed to burst in her irises at the sight of me.
I tried not to think too hard about her scrutiny, considering how happy she seemed to be. In fact, the smile never left her lips, even when her jaw did drop open in something resembling a naive type of excitement.
When I gave her an opportunity to touch me again, she took it with both hands. She pulled me up until I was hovering over her, the tips of our noses touching and her hands framing my jaw.
Just as I was about to comment about how strange it was, to picture a precocious thing like her choosing to be on bottom, she’d wrapped her legs tightly around me and flipped the two of us over. I landed beneath her with a huff, which she took great pride in given her apparent weightlessness.
As I laid there, I looked at her for what always felt like the first time. I contemplated how everything about her was enchanting and extraordinary. I’d seen other fairies, but nothing like her. There was nothing and no one else like her. With white wings like lily petals and bright eyes to match their filaments. I ran my hands over her body, memorizing the softness and taking in the fresh scent of flora that emanated from her.
“You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed of this,” I said before realizing that I was speaking.
My little fae found it funny how smitten I was. I was not ashamed at all.
“I… I want you, Princess,” I pleaded to the girl whose hips couldn’t seem to stay still while they rested on my legs. “Please, let me have you.”
“You are willing to beg?” she asked in a way that clearly indicated it had been in jest.
But I was too lost in the lifetime of longing to care about pride anything of the sort. I grabbed hold of her hair, pulling her down into a kiss that still tasted like the nectar between her legs.
“I would give anything to have you. My pride is an easy exchange,” I chuckled when our lips finally fell apart. As we struggled to suck in enough air to continue, I wasted just a little bit of it to make her laugh again. “But I hope you know by now that I have very little of it to give.”
And laugh she did, albeit muffled against my lips while my hands continued to roam the unfamiliar landscapes of her shoulders. I’d touched her before, but only in small strokes between tiny, fragile wings.
But now when my fingers ran between them, I felt the way gooseflesh followed in their wake. My little fae couldn’t contain the whimpers that began to flow from her, and those sparks and specks glowed again.
“Does that feel good, Princess?” I asked, both genuinely and to tease.
She nodded her head in an unfittingly innocent fashion, but I did not protest. She could be as coquettish as she pleased now that she was getting what she’d clearly sought. I certainly was not an unwilling or unhappy participant.
The innocence she displayed was like gasoline on an open flame. Although I wanted to treat her delicately like the petals she resembled, I couldn’t help my desire to drag my nails down heated skin and watch the way the color changed. To watch her body try and fail to accommodate me, even when it had been altered so much to do just that.
“Do you remember the time I told you about the nature of men?” I asked that precious little fae. “About how we are nothing but greedy, monstrous beasts? Do you remember?”
For the first time possibly ever, I heard her stutter, “Y-Yes.”
My insecurities might have perceived the look she returned to be fear, but the lust raging within me won in the end. It spotted all of signals mirrored in her eyes. I looked at her, and I saw myself — wanton and yearning for something, anything that we could give or be given.
She wasn’t scared. She was excited.
As my fingers finally found the courage to flow over her wings, I leaned forward to whisper in her ear.
“And yet… you’ve put yourself in my bed.”
Our bodies began to move in tandem, shifting over the sheets while her breathing got heavy again.
“Helpless. Desperate for even the slightest touch,” I groaned as I lifted her hips, “The things I could make you do…”
When the head of my arousal came against hers, though, she froze. I saw the fear sprout in her eyes while her nails dug into my arms. I tried to reassure her however I could, with gentle touches to distract her from the sensation of her body stretching to accommodate me.
“Don’t be frightened,” I whispered, and I felt her muscles follow my instructions. She calmed, the tension rolling off of her as she started to take me in. Although it was hard to stop myself from pulling her down and filling her with me all at once, I managed. I maintained that willpower long enough to reassure her one more time, “I promise that I will always be gentle with you.”
I think she might have replied, if she’d been given the chance. But her lungs were emptied by soft, staccato panting and whines that grew hungrier by the second. Even after she was fully seated on me, she took a moment longer to finally learn how to breathe again.
“That’s it, Princess,” I whispered. I said it just to see how her eyes lit up like the stars dazzled across the night sky. I cradled her still small face in my hands and called to her again as soon as her eyes closed, “Look at me.”
She did. She looked at me with a distant but intimate gaze and a lovesick smile, and my already overwhelmed nerves went haywire. I tried not to crush her still, but she leaned into my touch so freely that it was hard not to sink my nails into her skin.
“How does it feel? Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” I asked.
In her typical fae way, she refused to answer the question. Instead, she cheekily giggled, “How are you so confident that you know what my dreams consist of?”
I proved my point simply but effectively. I started by dragging my fingers over her collarbones, over her breasts and their pebbled peaks — I went slowly and with such feathery pressure that her skin predicted my path before it even happened.
Grabbing hold of her hips, I took the most pleasure from how her eyes got bigger and her pupils blew out when I dragged her up the length of my cock, just before I slammed her back down.
And I swore, that little thing nearly came undone at that alone. Every part of her that could become illuminated, did. Her nails drew angry lines in my skin that I wished I could keep forever. Her voice rang out and burned into my memory in a way I would ensure I remembered until the day I died.
But I couldn’t alert her to just how smitten I was, so I did it again, but hid my ulterior motive with a quick quip.
“You can’t lie, so you resort to mockery?”
A wry smile appeared on her face, still mad with lust but revived by her hatred of losing.
“What’re you gonna do about it, beansprout?” she sneered.
I had a few things in mind, but she never let them come to fruition. The second the nickname skipped from her tongue, she took over with rolling hips and persistent legs. She moved in ways that felt impossible, forcing me to feel every inch of her. Each time it felt different; it felt new.
“You are a fast learner, my little fae.”
“Perhaps there is something to your theory about my dreams,” she purred back between the moans and motions.
As much as I would have loved to continue the repartee, the only thing I could manage was a graceless groan of, “Fuck, keep going.”
She did. She moved on me like it was a ritual she’d practiced many times before. It was a performance meant for my eyes only, and I was so enraptured by the attention she paid me and the feel of her enveloping me with heat and softness, that I couldn’t think straight.
“Gods, what I wouldn’t give to have you in my bed every night.”
Many men might have thought it irresponsible, or naive, to be so forthcoming about my longing, lest she realize the power she held over me. But I had, apparently wrongfully, assumed she already knew.
Because as soon as I’d said it, she beamed back an eager, “Really?”
“Yes,” I answered enthusiastically, freely, and still without regret, “I want you to be mine.”
That mythical fae began to grind down on each descent, obviously seeking a friction that I wanted to offer her if not for her hands grabbing hold of my cheeks and pulling me back to look her in the eyes.
I still saw the universe floating within them, stretching and ebbing into the infinite in an impossible way, I saw the colors of her skin shift and illuminate and wondered for the first time if it was the magic or my own infatuation that made her shine so bright in my perception.
But then she whispered, “You have me.” And I decided I didn’t care the reason — I only cared that she found me worthy of bearing witness to her.
“You don’t understand…” I strained, glancing down at where our bodies met and struggling to contain the beast inside of me that wanted to break free.
Her smile didn’t help, either.
“Oh, but I do,” she assured me.
I still wasn’t convinced. It seemed too good to be true that my little fae would find a way to be with anyone she wanted, and she would immediately pick me. I would expect her to roam, to find and sow new pastures. I thought that she would hesitate in the very least.
But there wasn’t an ounce of uncertainty in those eyes. She was as sure as the sun and the moon and the tides. I thought she must be mistaken, and I tried to explain.
“If you don’t stop, I won’t be able to stop myself.”
She did do something in response, but there were no words involved. Her hips began frenzied movements, struggling to keep her quickened pace while her legs trembled and moans broke through from between our lips.
“Stop, or bear my children,” I said with labored breath.
She did not stop, so I tried to get through to her again. To stress to her what she was agreeing to, regardless of how enthusiastically she was seeming to agree.
“Stop, or be my wife.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected her to do in response, but what followed was anything but disappointing. Those lily petal wings shivered and shook, dragging over my legs and reminding me just how close she was. Remembering how long it had taken us to get here, how many years were spent dreaming and yearning for the impossible only for it to come to fruition.
My little fae kissed me hard, with her hands clutching my cheeks and her forehead pressing down against mine.
In my head I thought only of her, in the hope that she might hear the way I shouted:
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Each time I’d thought it, her movements had faltered. She inched closer and closer to the abyss with each recitation of those three words until the two of us collapsed together. Like two dying stars, our bodies curled together while we fell apart, greedily trying to steal breath from one another.
“Give it to me,” she ordered.
“As you wish, Princess.”
I complied. With each wave of tension and bliss, I felt the gentle pulsing while I filled her. I watched the euphoria and relief of a lifetime of waiting blossom over her features and stick around like the honey sweet taste of her still lingered on my tongue. The excess dripped back down over me, reminding me once more just how small and fragile she was compared to me.
So, when she collapsed on top of me, spent and content with having gotten everything she wanted, I accepted her with open arms.
I held onto her tightly while I littered her skin with kisses. I watched the colors shift over and over until she fell into a deep slumber on my chest.
I thought of all the evenings I’d spent in the garden in my youth. I thought of how things had changed, but she never did. Big or small, she still felt like home.
I’d known as a child that it would require more work than the average romance. I’d abandoned the idea of anything being easy long before I’d fallen for my darling fae.
I could still hear her as she slept, playing through my memories with perfect clarity.
The time I’d foolishly promised her, “Whatever you need, I will help you get it.”
“Anything?” she asked.
“Anything,” I answered.
“Well, in that case, I want everything!” she shouted.
To which, of course, I replied, “As you wish, Princess.”
But when she’d come to rest in my hand again, nuzzling her face against my thumb, I realized that for us, everything was easy. All we needed was each other.
There is a fairy that lives in my garden, but most of her days are now spent by my side. So, I suppose a better phrasing would be that there used to be a fairy that lived in my garden.
And I love her more than anything.