“What are you talking about?”
“Look, she’s really good friends with Katie, and I just…don’t want you messing around with her.”
“
What?
” Pino was incredulous.
“You know I love you man, but you know how you are, and I just don’t want Katie to get upset if you hurt her friend.”
Pino felt a pang of guilt and fired back. “Why do you care so much about what Katie thinks anyway? What, you love her or something?”
“Yeah, actually, I do.” Marcus grinned. “I mean, I know I haven’t known her for that long, but…” He paused, looking for words. “It’s like I’m home when I’m around her. I’m dreaming about a house and babies and growing old with her, you know?”
Pino didn’t know. He’d never felt that, and he didn’t imagine that he’d ever find someone who felt that way about him. Sure, he thought about it late at night when he was alone in his bed; wished that he could find someone who would love him. But how could he, when every hookup he’d ever had had been based on a lie? He’d fucked a lot of women in the past few years, mostly drunk women in the bathrooms of bars, and he knew what Marcus was getting at—he’d become an ass. He’d steer nice girls away from himself too.
“Look man, just hang out with her and be nice to her, okay? For me. Just this once.”
“Sure, no problem,” Pino said. He could be a gentleman tonight. Smile. Make conversation. Hell, he thought a little bitterly, maybe he’d fall in love too.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Katie was waiting to the side of the line-up at the club entrance as Pino and Marcus approached, and Marcus gave her a sweet kiss on the lips when he reached her.
Pino, for his part, had stopped moving when Katie had gestured to her friend that the boys had arrived and the girl had turned around to get a look at them. He felt like he’d been sucker punched. Like all the air in his lungs had suddenly
vanished. She was beautiful. No, she was more than beautiful. She was magical, almost otherworldly. Tiny and fine boned, she couldn’t have been more than two or three inches over five feet tall; the top of her head would reach just below his chin, Pino thought. Her skin was like porcelain, so white that it fairly glowed against the backdrop of the night, and her hair, which fell nearly to her waist in silky-looking waves, was the most extraordinary shade of blue.
He forced his feet to move and approached the group with what he hoped could pass for nonchalance. He kissed Katie on the cheek, and she introduced him to her friend, whose name, as it turned out, was also Blue.
“Hi, Pino,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied, feeling himself blush for no apparent reason.
Her eyes were the same extraordinary azure as her hair, and he felt as though she could see past his surface, through sinews and bones, into to the very heart of him.
“You guys ready to go inside?” Marcus asked.
“We’re ready,” said Blue, slipping her hand inside Pino’s, sending currents of electricity racing up his arm.
That night Pino was more of a gentleman than even Marcus could have hoped for, listening to Blue with rapt interest and doing his very best to make her laugh, just so he could listen to the sound. He held her close when they danced, breathing in the fragrance that was uniquely hers, and he would have sworn—as only the lovestruck do—that when she was in his arms, time itself stood still.
He walked her home after the club, scarce believing his good fortune when she pressed her soft lips to his cheek and asked in a whisper if he’d like to come inside. He opened his mouth to say yes, but caught himself at the last moment. He couldn’t go with her, couldn’t explain.
“Are you worried about this?” She said gently, her hand cupping the bulge in the front of his jeans. Pino stepped back, his eyes wide.
“How did you—”
“Shhhh….” Blue stepped forward, pressing a finger to Pino’s lips. “How did I know it wasn’t real? Why it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“But you still—”
“Yes, still.” She feathered kisses against his lips until he took her in his arms and kissed her as he’d wanted to from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
Pino was a changed man. With Blue at his side, he became the kind of man his father would have been proud of. He became a certified personal trainer and got a full-time job working at his gym. He vacated his semi-permanent spot on Marcus’s sofa, and he and Blue moved into an apartment of their own. He was responsible and caring and all the things that Geppetto had wanted his son to be.
Pino thought a lot about his father. He thought about the way he had stormed out of their small apartment all those years ago. He wondered about his father’s health; the old man was in his eighties now and had no one to care for him. He realized with horror that his father could be dead, and he’d be none the wiser.
“I’ve got to go back to New York,” he told Blue, and she kissed him and told him to go.
November in New York can be cold, and Pino shivered as he got off the plane. He grabbed his luggage and hailed a cab, and gave the address of his childhood home. When the taxi pulled up, Pino cried out in dismay. The toy shop looked long abandoned. Wooden boards crisscrossed over broken windowpanes,
and ripped plastic did nothing to keep out the elements. He bounded up the side steps to the apartment, but the door was bolted shut with a huge padlock. A weather-beaten notice of eviction was stapled to the old wooden door, its date too faded to make out.
Pino descended to the street and sat in the empty doorway, head bowed low with grief. He should have been there for his father. He was gone. If he was alive, Pino didn’t know where to begin looking for him, and if he was truly dead…he stopped himself. He couldn’t bear to think of that now.
Just then, a hunched old beggar in a ratty woolen blanket rounded the corner, pushing all his worldly possessions before him in a shopping cart. He was humming a tune, though he had to pause now and then as he was gripped by wracking coughs. Pino recognized the tune; it was the song his father used to sing to him as a small child!
“Father!” Pino shouted, running to the old man and grabbing hold of his arms. “It’s me—it’s Pino!”
“Pino!” Geppetto cried. “Is it really you?”
“Yes Father, it’s really me!” Pino laughed and the two embraced, father and son reunited, overcome by laughter and tears both.
“I knew Pino, I knew you would come to me,” Geppetto said, overcome by a fit of coughing once more.
“But Father—” Pino held him at arm’s length, taking in every detail of the old man’s ragged appearance. “What’s happened to you? Why is there a padlock on the apartment door? What’s happened to the toy shop?”
“Sharks!” Geppetto cried. “The sharks have taken everything—swallowed me whole!”
“What sharks Father? What do you mean?”
“Loan sharks! When you left that night, I was sure you
would come home. Even when days became weeks, I was certain you would come back to me. But then weeks became months and I despaired that I would never see you again. I tried to find you. I searched everywhere, and when I found nothing I hired a private investigator to look for you—the very best! But he was expensive, and I needed money to pay him, so I asked the Commisso brothers for a loan.”
Pino groaned; even as a child his father had warned him against such people.
“Business at the toy shop was not very good, and when the time came to pay…” He shrugged.
“They took everything,” Pino finished.
“Swallowed me whole.” Geppetto nodded. “But I knew that I must stay close. I knew that eventually, you would come. And so—” He pointed a gnarled finger at the broken toy shop window.
“You’re living in there?” Pino was horrified. “No more, Father! I’m taking you home to Miami to live with me.”
And he did.
When Pino and Geppetto arrived home, Blue welcomed them both with open arms. She gave the old man a warm hug and kissed his weathered cheek, and Geppetto declared that she was the loveliest creature that lived. Together they arranged his few possessions in the extra bedroom down the hall, and as evening progressed, Geppetto announced with a yawn that he was tired, and he bade the young couple a good night.
Alone in their room at last, Blue lit some candles and turned off the overhead light. Standing at the foot of the bed, the two embraced, sharing tender kisses in the glow of the candlelight. When Pino would have laid her down on their bed, Blue stopped him.
“Wait.” She said, placing her small hand in the center of his chest. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
“What is it?” Pino asked.
“I just want you to know how proud I am of you, Pino.” Blue said. “You’re a good man, caring and unselfish, and I think what you’ve done with your father is a wonderful thing.”
When Pino would have spoken, Blue pressed a finger to his lips. She took a step away from him and then another, and Pino thought back to the night they first met, and how he’d thought her skin seemed almost to glow in the moonlight. It looked like that now, only she really
was
glowing, as if the light was inside her.
“And because of these things,” she continued, “I can, at long last, grant you your heart’s desire.”
“What do you—” Pino began, and then stopped. There was a tingling in his chest; a warmth that began in the vicinity of his heart and spread outward, racing through his limbs until he could feel it everywhere; his fingertips, his toes, his—
“Oh my God.” Pino’s hands flew to his button fly, but they trembled so badly that he couldn’t get the buttons undone.
“Here, let me.” Blue closed the distance between them, brushing his hands aside and unfastening the buttons. She slid one hand in the opening, cupping his warm, soft flesh tenderly in her palm.
“I can
feel
that.” Pino’s voice was a rasp of emotion and tears glittered in his eyes.
Blue stroked him gently, and Pino’s intake of breath was swift as blood rushed to his cock and he stiffened in her hand.
“Who
are
you?” He whispered.
“I’m the woman who loves you.” She kissed him softly. “And a fairy.”
“A fairy.”
“Mmm-hmm…” Blue trailed a line of kisses along his jaw and down his neck, stroking his erection until he groaned. With her free hand, she tugged at his jeans, and Pino quickly shrugged them down and off, his T-shirt and Blue’s dress following closely behind.
Blue knelt in front of him, and when she took him into her mouth, Pino thought it was entirely possible that he had died and had somehow wound up in a heaven where all his dreams had been made real. He could
feel
the heat of her surrounding him, the erotic scrape of her teeth against his shaft, the swirl of her tongue against the sensitive skin on the underside of his cock. He could feel her fingers circling the base of his cock and slowly stroking in time with the workings of her mouth, and her other hand cupping his balls and caressing them gently. He could feel his pulse pounding in his cock and the tightening in his balls. He was rushing toward the precipice with all the speed of a teenage boy, and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Pino?”
He drew her up against him and wrapped his arms around her, his cock nestled against her belly.
“Thank you,” he whispered against her hair. “I love you so much, Blue—and not because of this; I just want you to know that I am who I am because of you.”
He kissed her then, a kiss both tender and passionate. When it ended, Blue smiled at him and took his hand, leading him wordlessly to the bed where she lay on her back and drew him between her thighs.
He knelt there, looking at the vision before him with wonder. Her body, so open and ready for him, and his cock thick and proud between them. He drew her thighs over his and wrapped a hand around his shaft, tracing her opening with the head
of his cock, slicking himself with her moisture and spreading it along his length. He shuddered with the pleasure of it and rocked his hips forward so that the head of his cock disappeared into her welcoming heat.
“That’s it, baby,” Blue murmured, her hips pushing forward in turn so that he was even deeper inside her.
Pino groaned and shifted his grip, his hands beneath Blue’s thighs, bringing her even closer to him, opening her even wider as he thrust into her, as aroused by the sight of his cock sinking into her as he was by the sublime feel of
being
inside her. She felt so hot and tight around him, the friction sending currents of electricity tap-dancing from his nerve endings to the pleasure center of his brain.
Pino could feel the tension rising in Blue’s body; see the telltale flush on her skin. Without changing his rhythm, he slipped one hand out from beneath her and stroked the pad of his thumb across her swollen clit.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, eyes shut, body arching into his touch.
“Never.” He loved watching her like this—lips parted, hands fisted into the bed sheets—he swore he’d never get tired of this as long as he lived.
He felt it then, even before her breath caught. He felt the contractions begin deep inside her, rolling through her and over him, her orgasm pulsing around him, squeezing him with viselike strength.
“Blue!” he cried out, pulled into the vortex, his own pleasure cresting in an explosion of sensation as he shuddered and emptied himself into her.
In the aftermath, Pino moved carefully, loathe to separate his body from hers. He braced his weight on his elbows and her legs wrapped around his waist, his hips still cradled between
her thighs. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, then paused for a moment.
“A fairy?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She smiled.
“And this is really real?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Blue clenched her muscles around his cock, giggling as he sucked in a sharp breath. Already he was hardening inside her again.
“Forever?”