The Nature of Faeries

"Why not?" I demanded, confused.

She was bawling now. "Because I can't ever get married, stupid! I don't have any place to wear a ring!" She ran into the house.

I followed her to her room and sat on the bed while she cried into her pillow, not knowing what to do.

"I would marry you, Clara," I remembered telling her.

~~ 10 ~~ PRAYER ON THE MOUNTAIN ~~~~

I moseyed around the stable, shoveling out the mare's stall and filling feed bins and water troughs waiting to be called to lunch. Clara had stayed in the house, telling me she had something to take care of. I'd been waiting for a long time and was about to go fetch her when I heard a noise behind me. Clara stood in the door, wearing the same blue-print dress—sans pearls—and carrying a satchel.

"Wanna' go for a walk?" she asked.

I took the satchel—whatever was in it was heavy—and we set off down the trail, around the pond, and began climbing. About a fourth of the way up Cowan's, we slowed. Clara moved cautiously.

"He's not here," she said, pointing to a hollow beneath an old tree.

I knew where we were. This was where Ol' Nick lived, the rattlesnake who'd taken half her hand.

"You can smell him when he's close by," she whispered, as though he could hear us. "Like rotten cucumbers."

We continued climbing. The path grew steep and rocky, and we had to pull ourselves up by the twisted, gnarled branches of the rhododendrons. Near the top, at the knob, the slope was easier. We waded through a knee-high sea of yellow coneflowers, and a cool breeze rolled over the ridge.

A stand of birches stood off to the east side, overlooking Wilson's creek, Brown Mt., and the valley beyond. Clara pulled a blanket from the satchel and laid it out in the shade, then set out a full meal—fried chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, and fresh cukes. She pulled out two glasses—one tall, one short. The tall one got iced tea, sweet and refreshing. In the short one, she poured a small amount of clear liquid from a mason jar.

"Moonshine?" I asked. I'd heard of it.

She nodded.

"Is it—safe?"

She laughed. "Bill Hammer down the road makes it. Gramma's been drinking it in her coffee for thirty or forty years."

"Then I know there's something wrong with it," I quipped.

We sat down and I picked up a chicken thigh.

"Wait!" Clara said with a stern eye. "Gotta' say the blessing."

"What?"

She held out her hands across the blanket, so I took them, and we bowed our heads.

"Lord," she began, "thank you so much for this poor, dead, juicy chicken, and the rich and fertile earth that gave us these vegetables."

"Amen," I said, and tried to let go, but she gripped my hands and gave me a nasty look from her lowered brow.

"Lord, we thank you for the sunny days and the starlit nights, for the creatures that moo and sing and chirp, and the lovely flowers of this field, and for the faeries and all the other magic you put on this earth, and for Mom, and Aunt Maggie, and especially for Gramma."

"Amen," I said again, opening one eye to see that she clearly wasn't finished. I sighed impatiently.

"And Lord, thank you for Mom's pretty dress that I promise is going to come off me real soon. And thank you for my cousin Jack and his marvelous penis, and for my pussy that just seems made to fit around it so well. Most of all, Lord, thank you for creating fucking, and for giving me the best fucking ever for the last couple of days, and please, Lord, don't let it stop now."

She squeezed my hands lightly, and we breathed a long, heartfelt "A-men."

I stretched over the food and kissed her. We tinked our small glasses together and took a sip of moonshine. It was a surprisingly clean taste that eased into a soothing burn as it went down my throat.

After a sumptuous meal and a few more of sips of moonshine, I spread out on the blanket and Clara laid her head in the crook of my arm.

"Gramma outdid herself," I said, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. "That was the best fried chicken I've ever had. And I don't think she's ever made her potato salad like that. It was awesome."

Clara cocked her head up. "That wasn't Gramma. I made all of this."

"You? Wow! You're a fantastic cook, Clara! Better than Gramma."

She cuddled into me. The fully belly, the swaying coneflowers, and the lovely woman resting in my arms lulled me to a peaceful sleep.

~~ 11 ~~ A TRIFLE ~~~~

When I opened my eyes after a short nap, Clara was staring at me, smiling. She pulled a small kit from the bag, and began clipping, filing, and buffing my nails. I chuckled, remembering her comment from the Sunday school lesson.

Done with my manicure, she kissed my chin, and asked, "Ready for dessert?"

My imagination went into hyperdrive. I reached between her legs, but she pulled my hand away.

"Not yet, Jack-Off. Be patient."

"But I heard you were Easy."

With an annoyed, sideways smile, she said, "I may be easy, but I'm not cheap like your other girls. You're going to have to earn it."

My brow crinkled, contemplating what she could possibly have in mind.

She pulled a container out of the knapsack and spooned onto my plate a glop of yellow custard mixed with chunks of cake and fresh strawberries and blueberries.

She apologized, "I usually put whipped cream on my trifle, but I didn't think it would last during the hike."

I wasn't disappointed. The vanilla custard was thick and not too sweet, the cake moist, and the fruit was perfectly tart.

As we finished, she scooped some custard with her finger and held it up to my mouth. I sucked and licked it clean. She did it again. With the next bead, she traced a circle around her mouth.

"A woman's first kiss holds the promise of surrender," she said as she released the top buttons of her dress.

Carefully, I licked away the custard ring, then came over her, pushing her to the ground with a powerful and passionate kiss.

"Good," she said. Her face was flushed, her chest rising and falling. She placed a dot of custard on each cheek and her chin, and on her bottom lip. "Again," she said, popping another couple of buttons free.

I kissed each of the creamy blemishes, then suckled gently at her dark, pouting lower lip.

With delicious yellow signposts, Clara continued leading me where she wanted me to go—a spot on her earlobe, a line down the side of her neck—each followed by deep expressions of pleasure—an "Mmm...good", or sibilant "Yes..."

Her completely unbuttoned dress was open only a teasing inch or two. When I nudged the hem aside with impatient fingers, she quickly pushed them away. "No hands...not yet."

Instead, she laid open the lace collar in a 'V', exposing her bare breasts. She made a smiley face on each one with the custard, with the grin following the curve underneath, then pushed her chest up towards me. I complied happily, sucking and licking them clean. When she made a large circle around the nipples and said, "Tongue,", I licked around each one, with occasional 'accidental' forays onto the darker tips. With two fingers she slapped large servings on her nipples. I attacked each of them voraciously, back and forth, while Clara squirmed underneath me, pulling my head to her chest and muttering, "Fuck, fuck..." The next marker took me back to her swollen, hungry lips.

I sat back and waited for my next target. She grinned deviously and slipped the dress from her shoulders. Raising one arm above her head, she smeared creamy yellow custard all over the finespun down of an armpit.

I gaped at her. "You're not serious."

Her response was to coat the other underarm. With a mischievous look and both arms raised high, she wiggled her brows, waiting.

I buried my face into the first shallow cavity and began sucking and licking. The ripe scent was not nearly so objectionable as I expected—in fact I discovered that it was exotic, even stimulating. The combination of salty armpit and sweet vanilla was delicious.

My delight was exceeded only by Clara's. She writhed and squealed more and more excitedly as I took to my task with greater gusto. I turned my attention to the second armpit more eagerly, to our mutual enjoyment. When I raised my head, she clasped my face in both hands and pulled me to her mouth for an enthusiastic kiss.

"Thank you, Jack," she smiled. Her eyes were glazed and watery, and a tear trickled from one corner. "That was the most beautiful thing anybody has ever done."

Raising her foot in the air, she planted a dollop in the tender spot behind her knee. As I cleaned that up, she traced a line from the knee, along the inside of her thigh—the stairs to Heaven, I remembered. I obediently followed the short path she'd given me, and kept going straight toward the heavenly pinkness, already open and glistening.

Clara pushed my head back and looked down at me. "Jack, a woman desires three virtues in a man—patience, persistence, and finally, to be possessed." With her finger, she drew a series of large curlicues on the inside of her thigh, stopping well short of the promised land. "Now is the time to practice your patience."

Taking her admonishment to heart, I willed myself to slow down, closed my eyes and relished the velvety softness of her thigh, inch-by-inch along the line of the vanilla-scented trail.

"That's perfect," she purred.

She wiped a dollop into each of the hollows where her lovely thigh met her crotch. I dabbed gently at the sweet custard, my tongue barely touching her skin.

A long, sighed "Yes..." told me I was doing something right. She swiveled her hips, nudging her musky pussy toward me, but I resisted the urge.

She took me back to her thigh, across the swell of her belly, then back for a lap at her furry outer lips. As quickly as I cleaned her, she marked the same place. Ah, I thought—the persistence stage.

Once more, Clara drew a wavy line up the inside of her thigh that led all the way to her scarlet pink angel wings, where she smeared it all over. When I accidentally licked a fold of skin at the top, she jerked with a gasp. I grinned to myself—Jesus, swaddled in his blanket.

She produced a sliced strawberry and barely inserted it into the opening of her passage. I could have sucked it out, but sensing her intent, I used my tongue to pry it from its nest. She pushed another in, and I removed it, then I licked and sucked at her pussy to tidy up the glop of custard she spread around the hole.

With a fingertip, she placed a single dot on Jesus's head. "Gentle, Jack. Like a butterfly." When I brushed my tongue over it, she inhaled sharply. "Perfect," she whispered.

I sucked custard from her angel wings again and watched as her fingers pulled back on Jesus's blanket to expose a tiny, white head. I admired my first real look at this little wonder. Clara shivered as she carefully placed another dot on top of it.

She didn't say anything, but I knew. With feathery flicks, I tickled it clean. Clara shuddered the whole time, muttering, "Fuck, fuck...ohh, Jack...oh fuck yes..."

She released the fold, hiding the little pearl again, then dabbed a finger-full on top of the tight skin. I had no sooner licked it away when she replaced it. Faster and faster, we went, until she couldn't keep up, and grabbed the sides of my head holding it steady.

"Harder, now, Jack," she begged, her breaths coming quick and uneven. "Two fingers...streets of heaven..." she gasped.

Remembering the way she had taught me at the Sunday school lesson, I pressed two fingers down into her sopping wet pussy and began fucking her with them while my tongue nuzzled insistently across her hooded clit.

I never saw it coming. Rising off the ground suddenly as if she were possessed, Clara screamed a "Fuck!" that echoed from the hillsides—I'm sure they heard it down at Gramma's house. Her tensed body shook violently with tremors, her fists clenched. With a weak, pitiful moan, she eased back down to the blanket.

"Now, Jack," she whimpered, struggling to catch her breath. "Fuck me, hard"

I couldn't get my pants down fast enough. Fortunately, I'd taken her cue and worn no shorts. I knelt between her legs, my jeans still around my ankles.

"Take me, now, Jack," she demanded, her eyes alluring and seductive. "Show me how powerful you are. Possess me. Make me yours."

I hoisted her butt, aimed my helmeted head, and thrust it home, driving the wind from her lungs in a shriek. With a firm grasp on her hips, I pulled her onto me forcefully, again and again.

"Fuck, yes," my cousin yelled. "Harder, Jack," she insisted.

Whether it was a testosterone-induced impulse or an inspired bit of playfulness, I don't recall. I fell on top of her with my full weight, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled it by the roots, growling, "You don't fucking tell me what to do! You're mine, Easy, and I'll fuck you whenever and however I want to!"

It caught her by surprise, but her eyes lit up and her lips tightened in a suppressed a grin. She mewled a meek, "Yes, sir."

Her instant submission fueled a surge of raw, masculine energy, a sense of confidence like I'd never felt. I was in control—I was the master. Everything slowed. I withdrew gradually until only the bulbous head rested at the threshold, my resolute stare daring her to move. She gazed back, waiting.

Finally, Clara begged, "Please, Jack."

As I fed my dick back into her greedy pussy, little by little, her eyes fluttered, her head rolled back, and she moaned softly.

Like a steam engine, I began building speed and power, pumping harder and harder. I curled my arms underneath hers, my fingers gripping her shoulders for leverage to jam our bodies together. Our eyes never left each other.

A strange shift in perspective came over me—I no longer cared about Clara's pleasure or pain, what she liked or disliked. She had become my possession, a means to my end, a soft and compliant tool for my selfish gratification. The funny thing was, I was certain that was exactly how she wanted me to be. Maybe not every time, but this time for sure. She smiled up at me as I barreled toward release, kneading the muscles on my back and her cunny strangling my cock with each upstroke.

My testicles tensed in anticipation. The climax began as a tingling in my butthole that coursed rapidly up my spine. I threw my head back with a loud and ferocious roar, my fingers digging viciously into her poor shoulders. I lunged, banging our pelvises together once, twice, again, letting the warm, gooey sensations spread through my loins as my semen painted the heavenly walls of my cousin's pussy.

I collapsed, breathless, leaving small kisses on her neck, her jaw. She turned her face and our lips met in a sweet and romantic kiss. My deflated cock slipped out, and I rolled to the side, the balmy breezes cooling our sweat-soaked bodies. We looked at each other and began laughing.

"Patience, perseverance, and possession, huh?" I said.

She grinned. "Good for me. How about you?"

~~ 12 ~~ ENCOUNTER WITH OL' NICK ~~~~

Clara filled our glasses with a tad more moonshine, and she handed me a small paperback, "Nature", by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was only fifty pages, or so.

"This might help you with your philosophy course," she told me.

We lounged around on that blanket in the solemn shade of a midsummer afternoon, reading together and sipping our moonshine. Clara was right. Emerson spoke to me in simple words, touching feelings that I had never quite been able to express. I was enthralled, and before I knew it, I'd finished half the book.

I looked at Clara. She was beautiful. She still wore her pretty dress unbuttoned, the narrow opening teasing my eyes. My dick was actually sore from the sexual athletics of the last couple of days, and as tempting as she was, for the first time ever I had no interest in sex—just looking at her gave me a satisfied feeling.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

"It's a book about raising children," she answered. Then she asked, "Do you want to have kids, Jack?"

"Sure," I answered. "Some day." I shrugged.

She nodded with an enigmatic smile and turned back to her book.

I continued reading Emerson. I was so immersed that I hardly noticed when the sun was nearing the horizon.

"What about the evening chores?" I asked, concerned.

"Our moms said they'd take care of them for us."

"Cool."

Clara sat on my lap, and I put my arms around her. We watched the glowing sunset, then turned the other direction. A golden moon drifted upwards. As the day grew dark, below us to the east, the mysterious lights of Brown Mt. began dancing.

"I guess those aren't faeries, either," I concluded from our prior discussions.

"Not faeries," she replied. Her voice was quiet. "Nobody knows exactly where those lights come from, but they're definitely not faeries."

I cloaked the blanket around us as the balmy breezes turned chilly.

My curiosity got the better of me. "So, Clara, how will I know if I see a faerie?"

Still gazing out over the valley, she explained, "The first time, it's not so much that you see them. You get a warm, eerie feeling that something's not the same any more, like you're in the presence of something special, but you can't put your finger on it. Then, if you really open your eyes and look with your heart, you'll realize the faeries were right there in front of you the whole time."

I knew better than to challenge her cockamamie theories, so I just sat and waited for the faerie feeling to come over me.

After a while, we packed up and headed back down the mountain. Fortunately, wise Clara had known we'd be here late, and brought a flashlight. It was tricky at the steep spots, but the path leveled to a mild grade.

Clara grabbed my arm and sniffed. "He's here," she warned in an agitated whisper.

The faint, ripe scent of rotted cucumbers permeated the still air. I swept the flashlight across the path. I'd never actually seen him, just heard the tales.

"Me and Ol' Nick, we have an agreement," she said quietly. "He promised he won't hurt me anymore, but he don't know you, Jack."

As crazy as my odd cousin sounded, I believed her. Momma had long alleged that it was Ol' Nick's bite that made Clara the way she was. Some of the venom went to her head, Momma said, and she hadn't been the same ever since.

With slow and careful steps, we swung wide around the rattlesnake's den. A soft, steady buzz grew louder in the weeds to my right, making my skin crawl. Clara pulled me to the other side and put herself between us. After a few steps more, we left the buzzing sound well behind. I began to breathe again.

~~ 13 ~~ THE BATH ~~~~

We were exhausted, trudging up to the house. We sat at the table—our usual seats, across from each other—and enjoyed leftovers in weary silence. After cleaning out the backpack and washing the dishes, Clara went upstairs to fill the bath. I plopped down at the table for a few minutes, mulling over all the ways my world was changing. Emerson had a profound effect—I couldn't get his ideas out of my head. And Clara—what a remarkable woman. I had never had so much fun. We had only one more day together before Momma and I had to go home. My final year at State began the next week, and I still had to pack, but I wasn't ready to leave Clara and the farm.

Then there was that thing with the faeries. Usually, Clara's meandering stories were self-explanatory, but that one didn't seem to connect to anything I could understand.

Momma came into the kitchen. "Everything okay, Jack?"

"Yeah, Momma," I said, pasting on a half-hearted smile. "Just tired. Long day." I realized we'd hardly talked the last few days. "How are things going with you?"

Her smile was equally fake. "Fine, Jack. Everything's fine."

I heard the bathwater stop running, so I moseyed upstairs. An uneasiness followed me. I was getting the suspicion that everybody knew a secret but me. Something was telling me I didn't want to ask.