Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (55 page)

Peter turned his attention back to Wendy.
“So why don’t you have any time for fun?”

“It’s a very long story.” That was an
understatement. She didn’t know if she wanted to share her life
history with this strange boy.

But Peter grabbed her hand, swinging it as
they walked. “I love stories!”

“Even terrible stories?”

His eyes widened. “Does it have lots of
blood and violence and sex?”

“Actually… yes.” She nodded sagely after
considering his question for a moment.

“Then I’m sure I’ll love it! You have to
tell it to me,” he insisted.

“You’re a strange boy, Peter Pann.” She
couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm.

“And you’re a boring girl.” He grinned back.
“But you might tell an interesting story, and then maybe you won’t
be so boring. So tell!”

And she did. She didn’t know why she told
him—except that he was charming and persistent, pulling her to a
seat under a shady tree on the library lawn—but tell him she did.
For almost an hour they sat there while Wendy painted word pictures
and Peter listened, laughing at all the funny parts (there weren’t
many) and sighing at all the sad parts (they were numerous), giving
her all of his whole, undivided attention, something that she grew
secretly to like as the story grew longer and longer.

Wendy told him a tale of three children
without a mother (“I know what that’s like,” Peter briefly
interrupted with a sad nod of his head) whose only support in the
world was a very wicked man. Their mother hadn’t meant to leave
them with this man, Wendy assured him. She had died, quite
suddenly, a car accident as swift and final as her last breath.
With no mother to protect them, the wicked man had free reign to do
whatever he liked, whenever he liked. And the wicked man liked, to
no one’s surprise, least of all Wendy herself, to do very wicked
things.

Many of the things were so wicked Wendy
couldn’t even tell Peter that part of the story. His already
wide-eyes would have bulged out of his head even more. So she
skipped the really terrible, the most heinous, egregious offenses.
But the little ones were awful enough.

“So I finally took the boys and we ran
away,” Wendy told him, pulling on a blade of grass poking up from
under her bare feet. She’d taken off her shoes. “Now me and John
and Michael live in a home for foster kids. Of course, I won’t be
able to live there once I turn eighteen. This Friday I will be
effectively homeless.”

Peter gazed at her thoughtfully, his chin
resting in his hand. “That was a terrible story, Wendy.”

“I know.” She smiled wanly, wiggling her
toes in the grass. “I told you it was.”

He perked up, grabbing her hand and
squeezing. “I have an idea.”

“What?” She looked at him, startled, the
press of his hand like a gift in hers.

“Come with me to Neverland.”

She blinked at him, confused. “Where?”

“Come on, you’ll see.” He stood, pulling her
with him so quickly she barely had time to grab her shoes.

“I can’t,” she protested, stumbling after
him. “My brothers.”

Peter stopped, frowning, and then
brightened. “Bring them with you.”

“Really?” Wendy perked up, turning the idea
over in her mind. “I don’t know if they’ll let them go. We’ll have
to sneak out.”

“We can do that,” Peter assured, pulling her
along again. “I’m good at sneaking.”

“And stealing,” she reminded him.

“And all sorts of things,” he agreed with a
wicked grin. “You bet. Come on, Wendy Dahling. Let’s fly.”

“Where is this place?” Wendy gasped, the
stitch in her side growing as they hurried down the sidewalk.

Peter pointed somewhere into the blue sky
above. “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning!”

* * * *

John and Michael were asleep. Wendy had
checked on them three times to be sure, but they were back to back
in the little twin bed in a room more closet than anything else,
with just enough room for a box spring and mattress on the floor
and a small night table beside it. The boys didn’t seem to care
though. They’d jumped on the bed like monkeys and had torn through
the place like it was a funhouse, running up stairs and opening
strange-shaped cupboard doors, looking for the “secret passages”
that Peter assured them did, indeed, exist.

Just ten and eight, the boys had suffered
from their lack of parenting far more than Wendy had, and being the
oldest, she’d assumed a great deal of motherly responsibility with
them. If she didn’t do it, who else would? Not their stepfather, to
be sure. But she was questioning her choices now as she sat on her
own bed in the room next to the boys’, looking out the window into
the darkness.

Outside, Neverland was still, except for the
sound of crickets and bullfrogs and the occasion grunt of a ’gator
to compete with the rustle of a breeze through the trees. It seemed
like paradise compared to the shelter, this big old rambling house
surrounded by fields and woodland and swamp. The boys loved it
already. Peter had generously offered to let them stay
indefinitely, but how could she possibly repay him for that kind of
hospitality?

She had hoped something would come along
before her eighteenth birthday, when she would be no longer welcome
in the shelter, having reached the “age of adulthood.” Whatever
that meant. How could she take care of the boys then? She didn’t
even have a high school diploma, let alone a job. She’d gone to the
library to look for resources, maybe find a job in the paper, to
pray for a miracle… and then Peter had come along.

“Too much sad in your story, Wendy-girl,”
he’d said. “It’s time to make some happy endings.”

Maybe he was right.

“Wendy?” Peter poked his head in without
knocking, seeing her sitting on the window seat. “There you
are.”

“Here I am,” she agreed. There was something
about him that made her smile.

“You have to come meet the boys.”

“The boys?”

“I have boys too.” He sounded rather proud.
“I collect them. Tink does her best to take care of them, but of
course, you can’t really count on her all the time, especially when
she gets into one of her moods.”

“I bet.” Wendy made a face, having already
been subject to Tink’s mood swings.

“What they really need is someone to look
after them…” Peter explained, leading her down the stairs into the
large living area off the kitchen. Wendy blinked and rubbed her
eyes, sure she was seeing things. Everywhere she looked, young men
were draped and curled and stretched out on the floor, the sofa,
chairs, even one sitting atop the grand piano in front of a large
door wall, singing at the top of his lungs while another boy
played. Most of them were in various stage of undress—lounge pants
or boxers with no shirts, a few of them in just briefs and a pair
of socks.

Wendy gaped at Peter. “These aren’t boys…
they’re… our age!”

“Well, technically, I suppose.” Peter
shrugged, waving to a boy who called out his name, steering Wendy
into the room. The boys were looking at her, quite curious. “But
they’re all rather lost, you know. None of them can find their
way.”

“To where?” She frowned up at him, her brow
knitted. Sometimes Peter seemed to talk in riddles.

“Anywhere.” Peter slipped an arm around her
waist as the boys started to get up, coming to find out who this
girl in their midst might be. “So they stay here, at
Neverland.”

“Do they
all
stay here?” she
whispered as they drew nearer.

Peter scoffed. “You thought I was all alone
in this great big house?”

“I didn’t know.”

The boys were closer, looking, but not
asking about her, not yet. The music was loud, probably too loud
for any of them to hold a normal conversation. Even the
piano-singer was having a hard time hearing himself over the
noise.

“And no girls?” Wendy inquired, the display
of masculine flesh around her a heady sight, like a smorgasbord of
men.

Peter grinned. “Just you, now.”

It was a prospect that made her dizzyingly
uncomfortable, although not entirely in a bad way. Her thoughts
were interrupted by the swing of a door and in came Tink, changed
out of her green sparkles, trading that for red feathers and
sequins, including a red and white boa wrapped around her neck that
made her look a little like a tall, blond candy cane.

“Peter!” Tink blew the boy three kisses,
leaving red lipstick prints on her big palms.

Wendy couldn’t help but state the obvious.
“I think Tink likes you.”

“Of course she does,” Peter agreed. “But I
don’t swing that way.”

She would have asked which way he meant, but
she had a feeling she knew, given what was happening already in the
periphery, men kissing and touching and rubbing flesh through thin
layers of clothing at the edges of the room. To Wendy, it looked
like everyone here except maybe Peter swung that particular
way!

“I have something fun for you, Wendy-dear!”
Tink’s voice dripped saccharine, the false sweetness leaving the
girl feeling numb as the tall blond approached. “I made it up
special, just for you!”

“Tink,” Peter warned, frowning and starting
to pull Wendy away as Tink opened the little tin box in her
hand.

Wendy was too curious for her own good.
“What is it?”

“Pixie dust.” The blond leaned in and blew
hard with her red-painted lips, the white stuff inside puffing up
into Wendy’s face in a cloud. She coughed and gasped and sneezed
and Peter swore, but it was far too late for that. The world was
already spinning, her feet going out from under her so fast she was
hardly aware of Peter catching her and bringing her down to a sofa
amidst a sea of concerned faces.

“Goodness,” Wendy whispered, her eyes
seeking out Peter and finding him. “That’s… lovely.”

“Wicked Tink.” Peter grinned at the way
Wendy stretched and smiled on the couch. “She’s gone and given you
a happy, hasn’t she?”

“Is she really all ours, Peter?” One of the
boys asked, eyes wide.

Peter nodded. “If she’ll have us.”

“I’m Curly,” a boy with dark curls
announced. “And this is Nibs.” The boy beside him nodded a hello,
his hair long and straight and dyed a deep, jet black to match the
eyeliner and dark lipstick he wore.

“I’m Slightly.” It was the boy from the top
of the piano, his hair bright red, smiling down at her now with
laugh-crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “On account of I’m just
a smidge over slightly-too-handsome.”

Wendy laughed like it was the funniest thing
she’d ever heard, and maybe it was. Her body sure thought so—it was
tingling, alive with good humor.

“His name is Edward Slight,” Peter
interrupted, making a face. “Oh, here are the twins.”

For a moment, Wendy had thought she was
seeing double, those two same faces and reddish-blond curls poised
over her.

“There are far too many of you to remember
all your names,” Wendy apologized, half-sitting on the sofa now,
seeing them all surrounding her. Twenty? Thirty? How many rooms did
this house have anyway? Where did they all sleep?

“You’ll learn us all,” one of the twins
assured her.

“Over time,” the other twin piped up.

“Okay, let the girl breathe, would you?”
Peter reached for her hand, pulling Wendy to standing. The world
had stopped swimming, but now it was glowing, all warm and fuzzy
around the edges. It was delicious.

“I love this song.” Wendy put her arms
boldly around the boy’s neck and tucked her head under his chin.
“Let’s dance.”

She’d never heard the song before in her
life and didn’t care, except that it was slow and pulsing and alive
as they rocked together in the middle of the floor. They were the
only couple for a moment or two, but then boys started to join
them, twined together, limbs wrapped, hard flat bellies pressed
together, navels kissing.

She thought she’d never seen anything so
interesting before and she couldn’t help staring as Nibs and Curly
kissed each other like lovers, the pink flash of their tongues
almost as much of a surprise as a glimpse of the pierced stud in
Nibs’ tongue.

“Are you shocked, Wendy Dahling?” Peter
whispered, tucking a piece of sandy-blond hair behind her ear for
better access. His breath was hot and it made her shiver.

“Terribly,” she whispered back, nuzzling his
neck, feeling him shift his weight in response. She was lost in the
feel of him, long and lean, the way his hands pressed her lower
back, but she noticed someone missing and couldn’t help remarking
on it. “Where did Tink go?”

“She’s pouting.” Peter’s chuckled. “I think
she wanted to dance with me instead.”

“I can’t blame her.” She couldn’t believe
she was admitting it, but the way Peter’s arms tightened around her
alleviated any of her self-doubt. Why else had he invited her here?
Wendy knew how the world worked, especially when it came to men—or
boys, who were just slightly less mature versions of the same. She
knew Peter would demand payment eventually. She hadn’t expected any
less.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she suggested, glancing
around at the plethora of sex going on in the room. For some
reason, it all seemed natural, the way the boys were mingled
together on couches and bending over chairs, a cacophony of flesh,
playing in time with the pounding music.

“We can’t leave yet.” Peter scoffed. “The
party’s just started.”

What did he want? She wondered, still
feeling wild and dazed as he led her over to a sofa. Curly and Nibs
were on one end, oblivious to anything else but themselves.
Slightly was on the other end with a boy Wendy didn’t recognize or
didn’t remember, but she wasn’t looking much at his face anyway, as
the boy’s considerable cock was out and being swallowed at great
length by Slightly, who knelt between the unknown boy’s thighs.