2. AN ANGEL FAIRY

What's the difference between an a gel and a fairy? Is it just that most angel's seem to be of the male persuasion?

AN ANGEL FAIRY

Being a fairy is a ticket for a pleasant passage through life, and Honey was one such and loved using that ticket. And she wasn’t just the sort of fairy that a man might call his wife after a bout of passion on a dark winter’s night, she was the real thing with bright eyes and wings.

And she could be mischievous. And why not? Most people didn’t believe in fairies and she rather enjoyed keeping that air of disbelief alive so she put in fleeting and flickering appearances at the least expected times..

But there was a something in the minds of many human beings that believed in what they thought of as tiny look-alikes. Fairies were little people, female mostly, with gorgeous small bodies, a wonderful taste in sexy skirts and glittering wings. And there were angels which occupied corners of some human minds, called angels they had wings even though they chose not to disport themselves in sexy skirts, and they had deeply religious connotations. Honey was not one of those. For starters, she was the wrong sex.

Honey was at a loose end when she spotted the funeral as she invisibly fluttered past it. Apparently the young wife of a local clergyman had passed away, and because the corpse was young Honey was upset (fairies get easily upset when it comes to sadness and sorrow).

Maybe, she thought, she could cheer the husband of the departed up a bit, give him a reason to get a twinkle in his eyes again.

The mourner was the Reverend Jeremiah Pyke and he was conducting the funeral service of his late wife, Angela. Honey noted the drawn expression on his face and the way he sought comfort by staring at the way his accompanying curate stood almost to attemtion as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

“Amen,” murmured the Reverend Pyke, and the curate nodded and made his way as quickly as he deemed to be decent back to the church and his car because he’d never had much to do with the vicar’s wife and anyway there was something on the television he wanted to catch.

“You poor man,” whispered Honey into the Reverend Pyke’s best ear, hovering so close to his shoulder that he could feel the draft from her wings tickling him, though for a moment he had no idea that it was a draft or that it came from fairy wings.

“Thank you,” he replied quietly, not looking at where the voice had come from because there had been quite a lot of people at the funeral and he’d become bored with the whole idea of seeing who was saying what with almost sickening sympathy on their faces. And now that his curate had gone, taking his fascinating trousers with him, all he really wanted to do was get back to the vestry and polish a bit of silver.

“I’d be happy to listen to your grief and maybe ease your conscience,” Honey said, and that made his mind stop feeling sorry for himself because apparently someone else knew that his conscience was labouring under an unnecessary weight of guilt. So he looked round and saw Honey, though he didn’t know her as Honey because the presence of her wings told him she must be an angel. After all, he didn’t believe in fairies anyway, he was a man of the church and to him the only winged creatures capable of intelligent speech were messengers from his deity and that made them angels. And what did angels know about his wretched conscience? He’d kept it hidden, hadn’t he? The sordid little affair he’d had for years with the increasingly elderly Marlene Foster, the church volunteer cleaner, had continued unsuspected by all, didn’t it?

And it hadn’t been his fault, had it? He and the late lamented who was already in the coffin that was settling into place sex feet down had agreed that they would do nothing intimate until she was forty or over, and she seemed to have agreed. Of course she did. The truth, of course, was he had included the whole idea of a lower age limit on their romantic activities and she had accepted it because she knew what a beauty she was and knew that no man would be able to resist her charms for almost twenty years. The truth sadly, was above all things under the sky he had wanted to avoid having children at any cost, little brats ruining things and running under his feet, and the doctor had suggested forty was a reasonable age for the female sex to lose the ability to swell with offspring and Marlene Foster and her ever loose underwear seemed a reasonable solution because she was well over forty even when he first noticed her.

“What do you mean by my conscience?” he asked, a trifle nervously, “and did my saviour send you to torment me in my grief?”

“Tormented, are you?” she mused, “but don’t worry, only three of us know of your little frailty.”

“Three?” he stammered, “What three?”

“Well, that would be me, you and Marlene Foster, of course,” replied Honey. “More than once when it’s been wet or too windy for safe aerobatics I’ve sneaked behind you into the vestry and seen the uses you put that huge Victorian armchair to after you lock the door! And although she’s a bit on the geriatric side, Marlene’s showed you a few fascinating things you can do with your you-know-what.”

“She has?” he asked.

“Of course she has. It’s a pity poor Angela didn’t have the benefit of the education Marline offered you. It might have given her a reason for living.” Honey knew that last suggestion was spiteful, but she asked herself, can’t fairies be spiteful if they think it’s called for?

“We agreed, she and me,” sapped Jeremiah, “it was for the best. As a man and preacher of your master’s word. I’m well equipped to understand the meaning os abstinence and self control and anything else you might like to add to that list.”

“What do you mean by me master?” demanded Honey, “I don’t have any master! I’m not slave to any man!”

“But… but… but,” stammered Jeremiah, “I’ve read the holy book from cover to cover and preached about most of it, and doesn’t it go on and on about angels?. What about the snake in the fruit tree in the garden of Eden way back in the beginning of time? Didn’t that cursed serpent beguile the first woman and thus guarantee that all females must have masters and never be free to do their own thing?

“As you know,” murmured honey, “that’s a fairy story, and I should know because you may have noticed that I’m a fairy. And by the way, can you name an angel who isn’t male?””

His eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he looked particularly hard at her. “Your skirt..” he whimpered, ignoring her question, “I thought you were an angel, but that skirt…”

“Pretty, isn’’t it?” she asked, teasing him by flashing a bit of thigh in his direction. She may have been small and her thigh proportionally so, but it did something to his quivering and almost grieving heart.

“So you’re not an angel from my saviour?” he asked, being uncharacteristically slow on the uptake.

“No darling I’m not and I’m a tad offended that you think I might be,” she said huffily, “but be comforted: you’ll have me at your shoulder whenever you want me, Just whisper Help Me Honey and I’ll be there. Now come on, The woman’s buried, the silver needs polishing and Marlene Foster needs a good seeing to!”

“And angels?” he asked, not wanting to believe what he knew must be the answer.

“All butch men called something like Gabriel,” she replied. “I’m a fairy and quite contented with my situation. Now do get a move on. She’ll have put her dusters away and gone home by the time we get back!”

“And?” he stammered.

“Have you ever tried making love to a fairy, or must it always be an angel?” she teased.

© Peter Rogerson 19.09.23

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