How Not to Date a Fae

by Stephanie Burke

  That said, Merrick clapped his hands together, sending a cloud of dust over the prone warrior, and Ario watched as Cailte’s eyes closed and his body relaxed.

  “Time to get this big boyo home.” Merrick turned and smiled at Ario again. And for some strange reason that innocent smile made Ario’s hair stand on end.

  “H-how?”

  “Why, you carry him, of course.”

  Ario stared down at the massive body of the strange warrior and began to curse fluently in several different languages.

  * * *

  Later Ario could barely remember the trip back to the surface, thanks to the extra helping of pixy dust Merrick supplied.

  The trip through the forest was a blur, though he recalled seeing several small animals stopped or paused to bow to them. At one point he thought he recalled a huge buck lumbering up and taking some of the burden of the heavy warrior on his back. And for some strange reason, Ario let him.

  By the time Ario reached his half-built deck, the sun was setting, his body was aching, and he was ready to beg for another hit from the drug pixy.

  “You did good,” Merrick purred as Ario half dragged, half carried the limp body up to his back door.

  “You could help,” Ario snapped, his aching body taking away his usual politeness.

  “Oh, if I must.” Merrick waved his hand and the huge body of the warrior lifted into the air and floated to the back door.

  “And you could not do this before?” Ario muttered, but followed the pixy into the house, directing him to the second floor guest room where his futon rested. Merrick settled the Irish giant’s body onto the futon. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on!” Ario demanded. “I have been drugged and dropped into a tomb --”

  “You fell into the to -- resting place,” Merrick grumbled.

  “Whatever!” Ario screamed. “The point is you came and you turned my life upside down! I don’t want or need this right now!”

  “So you love masturbating while crying in pain?” Merrick’s words stopped Ario cold. In fact, he paled as he stood there, face twisted in anger, his hands raised as if to make a point. How had the small one known?

  “I don’t care what goddess in your past touched you, for right now, you are a right miserable creature. If I had known that you were so weak of character, I would have left Cailte safe and asleep.”

  Ario felt his cheeks redden in embarrassment. It was not the fault of the pixy that his life had been so shitty lately. True, the introductions could have gone a bit better, but he was taking all of his ire out on the little man.

  But before he could even think of what to say, the pixy was buzzing around him, leaving the room.

  “Merrick, wait!”

  “No time for that,” the pixy snarled, heading toward the back door, Ario following on his heels. “I have business to attend to, and you have some thinking to do.”

  “But -- but what do I do with him?”

  “Bathe him and feed him,” Merrick shot back, sliding the back door open with a wave of his hand. “And when my business is complete, I will return to remove your burden.”

  “I never said --”

  “I will return.” The pixy carried on as if he had not heard a word Ario said. “And he had better be safe and sound when I return or there will be consequences.”

  Although his voice was small as befitting his stature, that last statement seemed to fill the room with its ominous tones, vibrating Ario right down to his bones.

  Helplessly, he nodded and watched as the door swung shut. “Ario,” he muttered to himself. “You have made a mess of it this time.”

  Chapter Three

  The giant was too big for Ario to carry to the bathtub without pixy intervention, and even he was not stupid enough to try. It had taken him twenty minutes to peel Cailte’s fingers from around the hilt of the sword he clutched. That was an ordeal Ario would not want to repeat -- it felt like trying to pry apart someone’s ribs by hand. It was hard and uncomfortable, and he wondered if he was hurting the man.

  But Cailte remained still as death.

  Now, with Cailte’s heavy sword hefted to the small dresser across the room, Ario was left with disrobing the man. With his hands free, Cailte’s arms were easy to pull down, thus making it even easier for Ario to use a pair of kitchen shears to carefully cut the linen tunic from his body.

  The tunic itself was a beautiful thing, with bright red cuffs around the short sleeves. The red looked to be made of silk with golden embroidery of wolves and foxes. A similar band of material was sewn around the bottom hem of the tunic, giving it an almost royal feel. There was a thick leather belt with several rabbit skin pouches connected to it, as well as a large pouch that clicked when Ario moved it, several small daggers and knives, and, of all things, a drinking horn. All of that was relocated carefully onto the dresser, leaving Ario with an unobstructed view of the whole, scarred plane of the man’s chest.

  “Kuso,” he breathed, running his fingers lightly over the slashes and shiny patches that made up the tracery of wounds on Cailte’s chest. Merrick had said the man was a warrior, and looking at his chest Ario was forced to believe it.

  Stab wounds, slash wounds and a few burn marks marred the perfection of Cailte’s skin. His skin was so pale and fragile-looking that it seemed an inhuman cruelty to scar it in such a fashion. The soft whorls of short red hair between berry-pink nipples only emphasized the damage.

  Ario shook his head in regret, but could not help but follow the red trail of hair that began below Cailte’s navel down to where it disappeared into tight, black leather pants decorated along the seams with what looked to be an animal pelt.

  Pants were easy enough, he decided, as he moved down to the heavy red socks held up by thick bands of cross-tied leather. On Cailte’s feet was a pair of moccasins made of a buff leather a shade darker than his linen shirt.

  These shoes were easy to untie and discard, though Ario made a note of the large size of the feet. At one point his mind went to the old adage about men’s shoe size when compared to dick size, but he realized he would learn the truth of that soon enough.

  The leather pants were tucked into the socks and slid down rather easily as the cross-tied leather was removed from around the socks. Ario’s fingers danced up the long legs and over the slim hips until he found the drawstring on the inside of the left side of the waistband. That was quickly undone, and Ario took a deep breath before gripping the top of the pants.

  An unaccustomed feeling settled in his stomach, and it made him uneasy. “Gah,” he snorted at himself. “It’s not like you’ve never undressed a body, male or female.” But that did not cure the tendrils of nervousness in his stomach.

  Shaking his head at his stupid antics, he again gripped the waist of the pants and tugged.

  The slick leather hung on for a second before it began to slide down Cailte’s body. Slowly, the garment rode down far enough to expose a thickening trail of red hair at his groin and the top of a thick dick before the pants caught on his ass.

  Ario felt his mouth go dry and his palms sweat at the view, but then cursed himself for an idiot as he felt his cock began to bloat.

  “Do you want another three-day erection?” he fussed at himself.

  He tried to put his mind firmly back on the job at hand and drove erotic thoughts of the muscled body beneath him away. He was a slab, a corpse, a still body that needed aid.

  Those thoughts helped deflate his dick, and he again began tugging at the pants, this time getting them low enough that a bush of dark red hair began to show below the V-shaped torso.

  This caught him off guard. He knew that the resting giant, Cailte, had red hair. In fact, it was a rich, deep color of blood or rubies. He could easily see the reddish fuzz on the man’s face, the dark red eyebrows and lashes, the auburn swirl of hair high on the man’s pecs.

  But there was something about pulling a man’s pants down to be greeted by a veritable bush of thick pubic hair that let you know a pe
rson was a true redhead. He had never seen a true redhead before. But this man was an explosion of red that left Ario curious, breathless and, oddly enough, aching.

  Yes, aching, as his erection returned with a vengeance and had him biting his lip and moaning his distress. “I have to do this,” he muttered. “He has to be clean.”

  With those thoughts as his new mantra, Ario took a deep breath and manfully jerked at the pant legs. He looked away and tugged some more, relieved when they slid free of Cailte’s pale body and hung listlessly in Ario’s hands.

  He congratulated himself on a job well done and turned to look at the man in his bed… and nearly choked. He had heard the rumors about men with big feet but this was ridiculous.

  It was huge, as pale as the rest of him, and uncut as well, with a long, pink foreskin circling the head nearly completely.

  Ario took a step back, his chest heaving as he took in the whole scope and breadth of the naked body before him. Realization slammed into him like a sledgehammer.

  He had grown up with mystical shit -- hell, he was a bit of mystical mystery himself -- but suddenly his whole heritage at the Temple was not enough to allow him to deal with this.

  Was it prejudiced to think that only certain magic belonged in Japan? Maybe it was more of a shock to discover that someone else was a bit magical outside of him and his family.

  He really didn’t know and didn’t want to dwell on it, yet here he was, sitting on the floor staring at the giant body of an undead man brought to him by magical pixy dust.

  What was this, a Disney movie?

  Right then and there he decided that if any animals came into the room singing and dancing, he was going to go and find a bottle in which to drown himself. And not just any drunk -- the kind of bender he went on when he first made it to the States with limited English and no money in his pocket.

  Those were dark days he really didn’t care to revisit, so instead he decided to make a mental list, just to cope with this situation.

  First, he would clean the body -- Cailte, he corrected. Next he would prepare a light soup or broth. It was healthy, nourishing, and he didn’t think the giant’s stomach could take much more than that right now.

  After that, he would go and soak his head and pray that this was a dream.

  Or maybe he should do that first?

  But his sense of order and fair play ruled that one out. First he had to see to his guest before even thinking about his comforts. Too much training dictated that, and he could not really go against his nature.

  That decided, he rose to his hands and knees and crawled over to the futon. This time he carefully examined the face of Cailte mac Ronan and cataloged what he saw outside of the blood-red hair.

  The man was almost pretty. He had a wide forehead that led to a rather long, thin nose with a cute little uplift at the tip. His cheekbones were high and sharp. His eyes were closed but deep set and mysterious looking, shadowed as they were by the thin, red eyebrows and the long, red lashes. His chin was a bit stubborn but strong and masculine, and was the only thing that saved him from true and utter femininity. There was a light shading of red on his pale cheeks, a light brush of a five-o’clock shadow that looked oddly out of place on that beautiful face.

  Okay, the man was beautiful. And peeking through waves of thick auburn hair was the cutest set of slightly pointed ears he had ever seen on a man.

  The body was muscular and tight, though not as thick with muscle as it appeared when he was fully dressed. There was a lot of muscle there, and a lot of it bulged, like his pecs and his biceps, but he did not have the heavy musculature of a body builder.

  Ario found delight in both male and female bodies. Whether it was a matter of his being a Komiko, of his early training, or just his personality, he couldn’t tell. But when he had to deal with a male body, this was the fit, toned type that always managed to make him lose control. The man’s sheer size was another plus in his book, someone who could make him feel safe and protected, something that rarely happened these days.

  Yes, Cailte was a huge man in every way, Ario thought as his gaze skirted over the other man’s dick, and he was going to have to ensure that this man was clean and ready before the irate pixy returned. In his culture it was a grave offense to offend anything magical, tantamount to a death sentence, and Ario had not worked this long and hard to save his skin to allow anything to happen to it now.

  Determination in his mind, he moved to refresh the pan of water and start a proper cleaning and shaving of his magical guest.

  * * *

  “You really are too pretty for words,” Ario informed Cailte as he finished washing the perfect body before him. “You almost look more like a woman than I do.” He chuckled, pushing the waist-length red hair aside as he began to pat the body dry. “And who knew you had dimples,” he added, running a finger over the freshly shaven face. The man’s skin was so soft and dewy that it deserved to be caressed and touched.

  Ario rose to his feet and retrieved another fresh pan of water and razor along with a pair of scissors. Now there was only one place left to go -- the dreaded, groan-inducing groin.

  “This is for health reasons,” he told the still body. “It’s not just because I abhor too much distracting body hair.” Ario hefted the scissors and began to snip, tossing the cut hair into a wastebasket at his side.

  “You know, I am good at this trimming,” he told the still Cailte. “It made my task as a Komiko easer. I detest hair between my teeth, and both the men and women of my country do not believe in shaving or grooming their pubes. It was an enlightening experience for them that often led to their arousal. And for me, it meant an easier time of cleaning up after they left.”

  As he spoke he clipped the rough hair low, exposing more pale skin with a smattering of red freckles that somehow managed to look endearing.

  “You, I think,” he continued, speaking in a low tone as he spread the man’s legs a bit and began to clip around on his nutsack. “You, I think, I would have taken great joy in having.” He tilted his head, considering. “If your personality is as pretty as your face.”

  He was silent as he completed the trimming, ignoring his aching groin as he lifted the sleeping dick to brush aside any stray hairs.

  There was a gradual bloating of the man’s dick, but peering up at his still face, Ario reasoned that it was just a natural reaction to having that part of his body touched.

  “There.” He sat back finally, pleased by a job well done, until he took a look at the total package once more. “Kami-sama,” he breathed, as his simmering arousal slammed into his stomach so hard he had to bend over to contain the ache and stop the moans from rolling from his mouth.

  Cailte was pure perfection.

  “God, why?” Ario asked, looking up at the white ceiling in the knowledge that he would not receive any answers, but that tonight he was in for another painful jack-off session. “Why did this perfection fall into my lap?”

  He resisted the urge to cry as his arousal built, as his nipples hardened and his balls ached. But he pushed aside his thoughts of comfort to finish caring for his guest. He wrung out his sponge and began to brush the remaining bits of hair away. He closed his eyes to do it, though. Staring at the odd perfection of Cailte would only give him a harder, more painful release later.

  “There,” he squawked, inhaling deeply as he pulled his hand and the warm sponge back. “All clean.”

  “Oh, why’d ya stop, lad?”

  The lilting voice had him gasping and jerking his gaze up to the most expressive pair of lavender eyes he had ever seen.

  It was unmanly, he knew, but Ario let out a squeak and skittered backward on his ass, his chest heaving as he stared at the now alert and awake giant who was observing him with a wicked glint in his eyes and a smirk tugging at his full, pink lips.

  “Why’d ya stop?” he repeated, his accent deep like that of most of the folk around him in this town. “I was really enjoying the wank.”

  *
* *

  Cailte grinned at the stunning young thing who had only moments before been pawing at his tackle. Being the discriminating sort of man that he was, he eyed the young one from the tips of his odd footwear to the top of his long, silky-looking hair and found himself hard pressed not to lick his chops.

  “I -- I -- I --” the dark-haired beauty stammered, and Cailte found himself grinning harder.

  “I can see that, me boy,” he chuckled. “But that shim-shamming about is not getting me any closer to knowing your name.”

  The man looked like he was about to pass out, his face blushed almost purple. It was amusing to Cailte, hitting his odd sense of humor just right, so he decided to see if he could make that blush go down that hairless chest.

  “And you still haven’t finished what ya started.”

  The man’s gaze dropped to Cailte’s crotch. Grinning, Cailte allowed his eyes to follow until he got a good look at himself.

  “What the fock!” he roared, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his nearly denuded manhood. He arched an eyebrow and, with a low growl rumbling in his throat, turned his eyes to the only possible culprit. “Did ya think it was necessary to obliterate the signs of my manhood, ya windy fuck?”

  In answer, the pretty young thing swallowed hard, then tilted his head to the side. “What?” he asked, his voice carrying an exotic accent. “What did you call me?”

  “A windy fuck,” Cailte grumbled. “Are you daft, man? Ya focking went and cut off my man’s hair!”

  “Well…” The man’s blush was truly running down his body now, over his dark, rose-colored nipples and down the flat plane of muscle on his stomach to disappear below the waist of his odd, short pants. “It was very red.”

  “Red,” Cailte drawled, still not happy.

  “Like a bloody sacrifice.” He nodded. “And it was thick.”

  “Of course it was thick, ya daft bugger!” Cailte roared, making the other man flinch. “I’ve been growing it all my life!”