The departure from Both was now delayed. Peter lay in a small bed in one of the backrooms in the house of His Senses. He idled in a lovely bed, flitting in and out of consciousness. He dreamt that Hanny was in attendance. He dreamt that the King of the Fairies came to see him to ask about his health, but received nothing but rudeness from the bedraggled Pixy. Did Oberon berate Titania as Puck tried his luck? His Magic Underpants had been removed to help dilute the pleasure. Hanny felt this would allow the excess happiness to spread across the Universe and give a bit of love and kisses to all it met.
And it gave her the chance to wash out the skiddies.
It was evening.
Peter opened an eye as opening two felt like such an effort, and one eye was good enough even though it doesn’t really allow for any depth of vision. His dream seemed to be coming true as there at the foot of his bed sat Hanny. She was immediately aware of his one open eye though tutted to herself about his apparent lack of depth in vision. This was an issue she would bring up later as monocular viewing could result in trip hazards. Everyone knows that one eyed monsters often go astray even when well intentioned.
“How are you feeling?” asked the concerned handmaiden Hanny.
“What happened?” asked the confused Pixy.
Hanny looked into the single eye of her erstwhile lover and smiled. Here lay the sore arsed one with no idea about the power of Fairy Magic.
“Your bum got an overdose,” she said.
“Bummer!” said Peter.
It was coming back to him now; the pleasure from the anal relief had been replaced by a desire just for the Moonshine on his Jacksy. At first he had topped up his bum in secret but more recently he had been ultra blatant. Now he was starting to rely on the top up just to see him through the day.
“We think you have overdosed and overheated on Fairy Magic!”
He left it for a while to sink in.
Overdose.
It was all too much.
Just a short time ago he had been one of the happiest Pixies on the planet. Life had been good for him. He had a good job with prospects in the Pixy Phactory, with the possibility of one day being Chief Corrective Technician in the Summery Department, working toward life being Summer all year long. He wanted to cast out those cool Winter months and make every day a wonderful day.
Then devilment had overtaken him. It all came back – the session with a tart, then the sore bum, followed by CO2 and lard, Magic Underpants and now lying in a bed cast out on the coast of Wails suffering from an overdose of Enchanted Bottom.
“Still,” he thought, “nobody’s perfect.”
Besides, sitting at the foot of his bed was the most captivating bit of skirt he’d ever laid eyes on. His dreams continued. Would he ever lay more than his eyes upon her?
“What are you thinking about?” asked the Fairy, a mischievous knowing in her eyes.
“I was wondering if there is any kind of future for you and me,” he confessed.
“Of course there is a future,” she said pedantically. “You are asking if you and I have a future together. I can’t say. As I look at you in this bed I think not. You are a rascal, your stole the Queens Tarts then overdosed on her Magic Knickers; I am loyal to the Royal Family so your actions fill me with revulsion. Yet when I look into your eyes I feel a welling of passion that has been suppressed for so long. You remind me of tears I’ve lost in the days gone by. And yet …” She trailed off.
Peters mind was filled with a tornado of confused emotions. Looking at the curve of her chest he was filled with lust yet the deep blue of her eyes took him to the chapel of love.
He fell asleep.
It would be a while before the party would leave Both. The other guys took the opportunity to visit Fanovabba to take in the sights, smells and sounds of this larger town just south of Both. Here there were all kinds of strange creatures. The streets were filled with Banshees crying out that they’d been framed. All that they want is another baby but fortunately Mary Hinge had given the boys protection. This didn’t stop the Banshees from complaining to the lads about the lack of childcare facilities or the poor state of the benefits system or that their best mates all got the latest technology. It just meant that there would not be a miniature of Greg or Steve appearing on the highways and byways of Fanovabba.
Greg sat on the beach collecting Whelks. It’s another of those funny intergalactic coincidences that Whelks can be found in the seas of all of the planets of this Universe. So don’t ever be surprised if when bathing on the Costa Del Sol a companion on the beach will shout out that there are Whelks on Uranus.
For a gormless Goblin like Greg collecting Whelks was an interesting pastime in itself, though he subsequently found out the Hanny was an expert in Whelks and their breeding habits. With Steve in attendance they some came up with an entertainment plan.
A Whelk race.
The locals came out to watch as this was the most exciting thing to have happened in Fanovabba for quite some time.
Posters were made.
‘Whelk Racing on the Sands’ declared the hoardings.
‘Which Whelk Will Win’ enquired another?
Greg decide he wanted to have a winner in the Whelk races and so took a small team of slightly larger Whelks to a secret location further down the beach. There he trained them hard, though he fed them well too, what with decaying fish being quite common in the sea. On the day of the first race tension was high. Greg had developed one of the gastropods to such an extent that it could bend a sheet of paper with its overdeveloped foot muscle.
As the race started money was still changing hands. Most bets were on Greg’s champion Whelk ‘The Boy of the Sea’, though a few had gone for one of Steve’s outsiders ‘Foot and Mouth’. Nothing appeared to happen as the shell creatures were placed on the sand. Then “look out!” cried a voice.
A wave came in; small though it was it had pretensions to be a tsunami. The Whelks were ripped off the sand and dragged out to see by this pompous little wave.
Greg and Steve got wet ankles.
It was all over bar the shouting.
The crowd were distraught.
“Let’s go for a pint instead,” suggested Steve.
Fanovabba has few marvels for the traveller. In the centre of the town lies the centre of the town, marked carefully with a plaque declaring ‘This is the centre of the Town’. Close to this are alleys, streets and passageways that contain houses and shops. Different creatures live in the houses, and should the traveller be curious enough he can knock on a door and say, ‘Hello who lives here?’ Not always advisable as it could be the home of a Banshee, though in reality the Banshees don’t live in houses; they tend to have flats provided by everyone else, a parasitic arrangement that does no good for anyone.
It could be that the door opens to reveal a menacing carnivorous fiend; though again this is unlikely as not many of them live in Wails. Most of the monsters left a long time ago and work as Uncivil Servants in the grounds of the Great Castle at Setebos, where the streets have no names.
I dither and digress.
Steve and Greg found a marvellous little inn not far from the harbour in Fanovabba. It served a fine beer and lovely Whelk sandwiches. They ate and drank until they’d eaten enough. As the day wore on they began to realise that life in Fanovabba is quite predictable and routine. They became more conscious of this as they read a newspaper over a second pint, declaring that the second would be the last as they didn’t want to go home in a state of drunkenness and upset the other half.
“But you don’t have another half!” said Greg.
“Best make it a pint then!” quipped Steve in his oh so Gnomey way.
Boredom was setting in in the inn.
“When do you think the anally distressed one will be ready to move?”
“As soon as Hanny says so.”
“Well I hope that will be soon as I am bored!”
“How can you get bored here?”
The Question answered itself.
They headed back along the cliff path to Both, stopping to piss into the wind at the highest part of the path. Where they really that bored that they had to piss on themselves for entertainment? On the other hand so much of life is just pissing in the wind, which would have been a better title for a very famous song.
Back at the house of His Senses in Both, the Fairies were once again at the bottom of the garden. They talked long into the evening on the merits of Magic Potions, Herbal Remedies, Crystal Healing and Alternative Therapies as means of combating serious pile problems in Pixies. Some felt that the Magic Underpants should be returned to the vaults of the Queen deep in the dungeons of Setebos. There appeared to be a hint of criticism regarding the Queens decision to release the Magic Underpants from her safe keeping, but Hanny said it wasn’t one of her vaults. Others felt this would be a possible life-threatening action for the anally corrupted Pixy, withdrawal from bum relief possibly leading to a fatality. What if they could whip away the knickers and quickly insert a potion or a cream? After all he’d not been wearing them for a few days now. Had the Magic delivered a Permanent Cure?
“I inspected the dangling grapes this morning,” said Hanny. “Not a pretty sight, no sign of relief. In fact they were ablaze with itchiness!”
Peter had been overdosing on Jacksy Magic, and she said she would stand beside him when the going got tough. Besides, wasn’t the aim of the Quest to find a Permanent Cure? All of these potions and therapies could help in the short term but he needed a long-term solution. The issue that concerned Hanny most was the addiction; Peter seemed to have lost track of why he needed to wear the Magic Underpants, he just wore them for the pleasure they gave him.
Hanny carried the argument in her favour. They would continue the Quest as given to them by King Innocent. She would monitor the way in which Peter was using his underpants, reducing his dependency on the enchanted under garments and steer him on South until they found the Sea of Green, the fabled Lake of the Gloompty Fish. There Hanny would take charge until the Permanent Cure was achieved. After that they would return in triumph to the Great City of Setebos and the Castle of King Innocent. Oh how the crowds would cheer.
‘No more piles for Peter’.
‘A numb bum is a cured bum.’
‘Have a tart but return to fart’.
‘He who laughs last is usually the dim one’.
Hanny would ride into town on the back of some mythical beast.
“We love Fairy Hanny!” all the chaps would cry out with meaning.
Yes, Hanny would save the Quest.
“Good!” shouted Peter from the bedroom window, “‘because my arse is killing me!”
Fairy Hanny 