Broken Wings

by L-J Baker

  “Is something wrong?” Flora asked.

  Rye stared at her. Slowly, oh so slowly, her brain drew out the shocking conclusion of what being in a gay bar meant about Flora. Rye reached for her fresh drink and swallowed heavily.

  “Rye?” Flora touched Rye’s wrist.

  “Um.” Rye felt horribly conscious of the light press of warm fingertips against her bare skin. She turned her frown away to the dancers.

  “Did you want to dance?” Flora asked.

  “What? Oh. Um. I can’t imagine I’d be any good at it.”

  “It’s not a contest.”

  Rye followed her. She felt awkward, stiff, and self-conscious. When she concentrated on Flora, though, she relaxed. Flora’s smile, her voice, the way she swayed held Rye’s attention firmly fixed. Rye noted the shape of her lips, the curve of her throat, and the roundness of her bosom. That long-dormant part of Rye uncurled and grew stronger inside her.

  The music changed to a slow number. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that Rye and Flora draw closer together. Flora rested her hands on Rye’s sides. Rye didn’t pull away and didn’t want to. At some point, her own hands found Flora’s waist.

  She could feel Flora moving to the music. Beneath the mingled aromas of floral perfumes, fruity drinks, and musty whiffs of pheromones from different species, Rye smelled a faint, elusive scent like pine sap. It made her want to press close to Flora, to touch her and to inhale deeply the smell of her skin. Rye felt drunk, and not only from the alcohol she’d swallowed.

  Flora ran her hands up Rye’s arms. Their bodies almost touched.

  “Let’s go back to my place,” Flora said.

  When they stepped out into the parking lot, the cool night air slapped Rye in the face. If anything, it made her head spin worse. She closely followed Flora to the flying carpet.

  Flora slotted her mobile into the ignition but turned to Rye without starting the engine. Her hand burned the side of Rye’s face. No power in all of Infinity could have stopped Rye from twisting around to kiss her. The first passionate kiss Rye received in years, soft and warm and probing, hit her like a bolt of pure magic.

  “Oh, Elm,” Flora whispered. “I’ve needed to do that since I saw you in that bathroom.”

  Their kisses merged their mouths. Hot, wet, hungry. Their tongues writhed together, deeper, stronger. Beneath Flora’s musky perfume, Rye again smelled that tantalising scent like pine sap. It seemed to be the essence of Flora. Rye couldn’t inhale it deeply enough. Her hands clutched at Flora, needing to touch all of her. Her flesh felt more than alive where Flora’s body pressed against her. Rye shifted to maximise their contact all along her length. She slipped off the seat and ended up kneeling in the foot space.

  Flora giggled. Rye felt stupid.

  “It had to happen to one of us, didn’t it?” Flora said.

  Rye wished it hadn’t been her. Flora pulled her close and ran her hand through Rye’s hair. For that look in her eyes, Rye would’ve fallen off a hundred seats.

  “I was in danger of thinking you too good to be true,” Flora said in a husky whisper. “At least now I know that you and this is real.”

  Rye kissed her and finally touched the warm, smooth skin of her naked thigh. Flora threw her head back to moan. Rye kissed Flora’s throat and worked her lips down the salty skin to the bosom lifted close to her mouth. To her astonishment, Flora’s breasts had firmed. Rye clasped her wildly erotic discovery. The dryad’s chest hardened to the texture of wood. Through the silky fabric of Flora’s dress, Rye’s lips squeezed and teased nut-hard nipples. Flora moaned and dug her fingers into Rye’s hair. Rye’s wing buds twitched against the restraint of her tight T-shirt and drew the cloth even tauter against Rye’s aching nipples. The insanely sensitive spot below the base of Rye’s neck, between the top of her wings, throbbed in counterpoint with the matching one between her legs. Flora’s leg slid up to Rye’s hip. Rye knelt on the seat with one leg and thrust her hand up Flora’s dress. Her fingers found damp panties.

  “Oh, fey,” Rye whispered.

  Flora’s hips moved into Rye’s touch even as Flora slid down in her seat. Rye’s fingers worked beneath the lacy panties. She found pubic hair that felt soft and springy like warm moss. Flora groaned and she clutched at Rye’s hair and shoulders as she writhed to the rhythm of Rye’s fingers. Rye’s wing buds strained against the restraint of her T-shirt as her wings tried to unfold with her arousal.

  “Oh, Elm,” Flora panted. “Oh, Holy Elm.”

  Need drove Rye’s fingers harder and deeper into slippery flesh. Even though Rye was maddeningly aware of the tangy smell of Flora’s arousal, it did not fully swamp out that thin trace of pine sap which seemed to have infused her brain and every excited nerve and fibre. Flora groaned with rising pitch toward her climax. As she jerked with her release, her blindly clutching fingers hit the hotly throbbing lump high on Rye’s back. Rye loosed a shuddering groan as her world squeezed with the pleasurable pain of orgasm.

  Rye sagged, panting, and nearly slid off the edge of the seat again. She rolled back to slump into her seat. Flora sat with her eyes shut and her head thrown back.

  After a few moments, Flora reached across to lay a hand on Rye’s thigh.

  “Oh, that was good,” Flora whispered.

  Rye lifted the hand to kiss.

  Flora sighed and shifted. She sat up and leaned close to Rye. “Maybe I’m not quite as old as I thought. Torrid sex in a parking lot. Not a usual geriatric activity, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  Rye smiled. She liked the feel of Flora’s hand sliding down her chest and twisted closer to give Flora easier access. She put a hand on Flora’s hip. Just touching her felt wonderful.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Rye said.

  Flora smiled as she kissed Rye. “And you have a truly impressive physique, lover. Real, not manufactured in a gym. You’re so real. Everything about you is genuine. And strong. You’re so wholly unlike anyone I’ve met before.”

  Flora ran a hand down from Rye’s hair to her shoulder and then across Rye’s back. Her hand stopped. Through Rye’s clothes, her fingers rested on the hard lump of the top of Rye’s right wing bud. She frowned.

  “This isn’t going to be the most romantic thing I ever say to you,” Flora said. “Which species are you?”

  Rye’s blood went cold. She stared with horror at Flora. “No.”

  Rye twisted around, wrenched the door open, and scrambled out of the carpet.

  “Rye?” Flora called.

  Rye stumbled to her feet and ran.

  “Rye!”

  Rye’s mind blanked. The need to flee took over. She ran and ran.

  Rye unlocked the front door. Luckily, Holly had not left the chain on. Rye crept inside and slumped on the couch. Her alarm clock showed that it was after three o’clock. In the dark, she couldn’t see her hands. They hurt. She must have hit something. She didn’t know what.

  Rye clenched her fists against the pain and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t remember what she had done between leaving the bar with Flora and coming to her senses an hour ago sitting on a bench in the dark on the river bank. If she had hurt Flora, she would never forgive herself. In fact, it might be the end of her if Flora went to the police. She would deserve it this time. Unlike the last time, she knew that she was capable of doing something destructive in her panic.

  Fuck.

  Holly would get her wings in a year or two at most. Then she’d be safe. Eleven years, Rye had managed to keep her life together. Why couldn’t she have continued for just a little longer?

  Her world had unravelled with her willing aid.

  She had not been prepared to meet anyone like Flora Withe. Flora had somehow cut through all Rye’s protective layers. Rye had very much wanted to have sex with her. Everything else had vanished in a surge of lust. Had they done it? Was that what caused her panic? Had Flora discovered she was a fairy? Or had sex with Flora triggered memories of wha
t had happened after the last time Rye had had sex?

  Rye slumped back full length on the sofa and put an arm across her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about any of it, but whatever she’d done in that gaping hole in this evening might have put her and Holly in serious danger. What was she going to do?

  When the alarm sounded, Rye roused herself. She changed into work clothes and mechanically went through her morning routine. She felt so numb from worry and lack of sleep that her workmate’s cheerful reminder that today was a half-holiday failed to make any impact.

  The hours before the morning break whistle crawled by. In her worst moments, Rye imagined Flora’s broken body and police carpets, sirens wailing, heading for the building site.

  The whistle sounded. Rye dropped her tools and raced down ten flights of stairs. She paused to regain her breath at the pay phone pod. Mercifully, the video screen was still inoperative.

  Beep-beep.

  “Please get the machine to answer,” Rye said.

  Beep-beep.

  “Please be the machine.”

  “Hello. Flora here.”

  Rye winced. Shit.

  “Hello?” Flora said.

  Rye stared in anguish at the phone. At least Flora sounded fine. She wasn’t dead or in the infirmary.

  “Hello?” Flora said. “Is anyone there?”

  Rye hung up. She sagged against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. “Why couldn’t I say something to her?”

  Miserable and tired, Rye trudged back to work. When the building site closed at lunchtime, Rye began walking home with thoughts of falling onto her couch and catching up on some sleep. After she crossed the bridge to the Eastside, though, she stopped to look upriver. Flora had said that she worked at home most days at her loom.

  Rye turned north and kept a lookout for a pay phone pod. At the cost of a quarter of a piece, she entered Flora’s phone number and received her address. Newbud was the very trendy north-eastern suburb. Rye had been there once a couple of years ago when Holly had pestered her to take her to the Art Museum.

  Rye passed cafés, galleries, rare book shops, boutiques, and gourmet parlours. She felt horribly out of place in her work boots and patched clothes.

  She had to ask three times for directions to Whiterow Gardens. At about the time she saw the street sign, she noticed a flower shop. She stopped to frown at the bewildering profusion of blooms. She had not the faintest idea what Flora might like. In reality, she knew very little about Flora. Yet they might have had sex together.

  “Hello.” A smiling sprite woman with yellow hair waved her feathery antennae in greeting at Rye. “Those orchids are perfectly wonderful, aren’t they? So regal.”

  Rye picked some flowers at random. They cost a lot more than she expected. She carried the small bunch up the street and turned into Whiterow Gardens. Rye stopped and stared at the tall, stately trees. If she had had antennae, they would have drooped. She might work at and live in the cheapest and shoddiest of apartments, but that didn’t prevent her from recognising the other end of the scale. Flora had downplayed her success. She lived in the housing equivalent of her expensive, late-model flying carpet. The whole short, exclusive street oozed money. You could practically smell it.

  “Crap.”

  She had no business being here. Someone who couldn’t afford the fare on public transit to get here did not belong in this street.

  Rye turned around and trudged back toward the main flyway. She dropped her pitiful bunch of flowers in the first rubbish bin that she passed.

  When Rye returned home after her evening shift at Pansy’s, she had to knock for a couple of minutes to get Holly out of the bathroom.

  Holly emerged rubbing her wet hair and wandered off toward her room.

  “Ms. Withe phoned,” Holly said.

  Startled, Rye jerked her head around. “She did? What did she want?”

  Holly paused in her doorway to shrug. “You can use a phone, can’t you? You talk to her.”

  “It’s too late for me to call anyone. Just tell me what she wanted. Did she leave a message?”

  “No. She asked if you were home. That’s all.”

  Rye scowled. She could not have done anything terrible to Flora last night. Flora had not set the police on her. Nor had the immigration officers swooped to apprehend the illegal aliens. Flora could not have guessed that she had wings. Which meant they probably had not had sex. Or, if they had, Flora hadn’t told the authorities about Rye.

  For some reason, Rye felt even worse. She glanced at the clock. It really was too late to call. She was too tired to think straight. She would get in touch with Flora tomorrow.

  Rye slept through the alarm and arrived late for work. Grub, with a malicious glint in his yellow eyes, gave her the filthy job of burning the rubbish. She coughed and her eyes streamed all day from the smoke. She stank before the first break whistle. Still, no one could smell you on the other end of the phone.

  Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Click.

  “Hi. Flora here. Well, Flora’s machine, actually. I’d love to hear from you, so please leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Bleep.

  “Um,” Rye said. “Flora? It’s me. Rye. Rye Woods. Um. Holly said you called. Um. About Fifth Night.”

  “Rye?” Flora said. “I’m here.”

  Rye started and bit her lip. “Um. Hi.”

  “Do you usually fuck and run? You know, that was the shittiest thing anyone has ever done to me.”

  Rye grimaced. “I… um. Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –”

  “It was a casual act of abandonment? Or a thoughtless screw? You have no idea how much better that makes me feel.”

  Rye winced and banged her forehead against the pod wall. “I’m sorry.”

  Rye hung up. “Fey!”

  She thought she heard the pod phone ringing as she crossed the flyway, but that seemed unlikely.

  Rye could not get her head into her lesson at night class. She might have been better skipping it and going to bed early. The stink of smoke from her clothes and hair gave her a splitting headache.

  She trudged out into the night and buttoned her jacket against a light drizzle. Just to make her day perfect, it was possible that Holly would be a sulky pain when she got home. Surely life was supposed to be better than this.

  A horn honked. Rye looked around and saw Flora’s carpet parked on the other side of the flyway. Rye’s heart gave an odd thump. She hesitated, chewing her lip, before jamming her fists into her pockets and crossing the street. Flora looked stiff and unhappy. Rye braced herself for another stream of angry abuse. She probably deserved it.

  “Do you want to talk?” Flora asked.

  Rye got into the passenger seat.

  Flora stared at her. Rye thought she looked gorgeous but quickly directed her frown at her own lap.

  “I have had two of the worst days thanks to you,” Flora said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I get so angry when –” Flora wrinkled her nose. “Is the school on fire?”

  “You smell smoke? Um. That’s me. Sorry.”

  “Oh. Do you mind if I put the air cleaner on?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  Flora pressed a button on the instrument panel. She really was marvellous to look at.

  “Where was I?” Flora asked.

  “Um. Angry with me.”

  “Oh, yes. I get furious every time I think about you running out on me. Then I’ll blame myself for causing it. Then I’ll get angry with you all over again and cry a little.”

  Rye scowled at her hands. This was worse than being shouted at. And she still didn’t know exactly what she’d done. “I’m sorry.”

  Flora sighed and leaned back in her seat. “The worst part is that you have done – are doing this to me. I shouldn’t be so strongly emotional about a casual fuck and a disastrous date. Elm knows I’ve had both before.”

  Rye squirmed.

  “W
hen I walked into that bathroom at the school and saw you,” Flora said, “my whole body thought sex. But later, when we talked, something else happened. I had to get to know you. I’ve never chased anyone before. Maybe I’m not cut out for it. But you went out with me. I thought the evening went amazingly well in the bar. We talked. We danced. Elm’s sake, we fucked! It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?”

  “We did? In the bar?”

  Flora’s head snapped around. She looked livid.

  “I can’t remember,” Rye said. And the Almighty King and Queen of the Fey knew she would have wanted to remember that if she could.

  “You can’t remember?” Flora said stonily. “I made that little impression on you?”

  “No. I mean yes. Shit. I don’t know what I mean. I remember leaving the bar with you. And wanting to – wanting you. Then I don’t know what happened for the next four or five hours. It’s blank.”

  Flora glared at her.

  “It happens to me sometimes.” Rye made a hopeless gesture. “It’s not your fault. It’s me. Um. Oh, fey. I don’t know what happens to me. My brain stops working. I wish I could remember. I really do. I’m sorry.”

  The air was tense enough to walk on.

  “I’m sorry,” Rye said. “I’m glad I didn’t hurt you. Physically, I mean. Um. I think you’re wonderful. And sexy. And beautiful. And fun. And I can’t believe you looked twice at me. Um. I’m sorry for whatever I did. It was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I’ll always regret it. And I’ll always wish I could remember having sex with you. Bye.”

  Rye reached for the door handle.

  Flora grabbed Rye’s jacket sleeve. “Wait.”

  Rye remained tense as she stared at Flora. Flora didn’t look angry anymore.

  “Why is it that nothing goes as I expect when I’m with you?” Flora sighed and sank back into her seat. “If a thousand women told me they couldn’t remember having sex with me, I’d never forgive any one of them. And think they lied out of spite. But I believe you, Rye Woods. I don’t even feel any enthusiasm for finishing the rant I’d practised to deliver to you. Holy Elm, help me. I must have dry rot.”