NOT EXACTLY A FAIRY TALE # 2

by Frank Conniff

The trans-dimensional vortex is a place where fairies, pixies, sprites, and all manner of mystical beings live and work, but even in this setting, the love affair between Elle, a high-ranking fairy princess, and Sheldon, a mutant half-man/half-peanut hybrid (commonly known as a Peanotaur), was considered kind of weird.

It was unlikely that a fairy princess would ever be attracted to a creature like Sheldon, who never wore clothes because his peanut shell body was not considered the least bit pornographic. His sweet and friendly face was embedded into the upper part of the shell, so his eyes, nose, mouth and ears looked like they were drawn on. Thin, bony arms jutted from his sides, and his short legs and big feet made walking awkward.  Somewhere in the lower depths of the peanut-shell there existed genitalia, but they were hidden from view, and although they do play a part in the story about to be told, for the sake of decorum they will never be mentioned again.

Even for a Peanotaur, Sheldon was strange looking, but Elle was a golden-haired fairy princess in the classic mode, albeit a human-sized one, as opposed to the tiny Tinkerbelle-types well known in the mortal realm (and referred to by some of the cattier vortex fairies as “postage stamp-sized publicity whores”).

Some said Princess Elle’s beauty was so profound that God kept a photo of her in his wallet, and while her face might inspire a chorus of angles to sing, the rest of her perfectly proportioned body would more likely evoke a funky fuzz-boxed wah-wah pedaled porno-soundtrack electric guitar.

The two of them met only because Sheldon had a temp job standing in front of the Spirits Sports Lounge, across the street from the Institute of Enchantment, were Elle worked.  He was promoting that week’s lunch special (the sign that he carried read, “Try Our New Spicy Kung Pao Chicken For Just Peanuts”).  His great, great grandparents had been victims of an evil wizard’s spell (a practice long since outlawed and abolished in the trans-dimensional vortex) and had been turned into mutant half-human/half-peanut hybrids.  They continued to procreate, and Sheldon, like his father and his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father, worked mostly as a free-lance promotional mascot. And thus it came to be that one afternoon when Princess Elle dove out the window of her forty-seventh floor office at the Institute Of Enchantment and flew down to the Spirits Sports Lounge during her lunch hour, she landed right next to Sheldon.

He wanted to say something, but her staggering beauty left him speechless, so it was Elle who initiated their first conversation.

“How is that Spicy Kung Pao Chicken?” she said, eyeing the sign that was now teetering precariously in Sheldon’s shaking hands.  “I always get the Cobb Salad, but what do you think, should today be the day I try something new?”

She spoke to him with such friendly warmth that some of Sheldon’s nervousness dissipated and he was able to say,  “Well, Princess, this is off the record, but here’s what I think: if you go to a restaurant that specializes in Asian cuisine, then Kung Pao Chicken is a good bet.  But if you go to a place like the Spirits Sports Lounge, that mostly sells burgers, finger food, and salad, well…”

Elle laughed.  “You make a really great point!’ she said. “It was nice chatting with you…what’s your name?”

For a second Sheldon was stumped by this question, but he somehow got it together enough to give the correct response:

“Sheldon.”

“Great meeting you, Sheldon,” she said, smiling. She shook his hand and then turned and walked into the restaurant.  As far as handshakes go, it wasn’t particularly passionate, more like what you’d get from a politician.  But she definitely had Sheldon’s vote.

And like a politician, Elle’s sunny disposition masked an inner turbulence that she had been carrying around for some time, and she was filled with dread about this lunch date.  She was meeting with General Drake, her on again-off again boyfriend. He was the trans-dimensional vortex’s most feared and decorated military officer, a fierce and volatile mutant half man/half dragon (Elle had a thing for mutant hybrid trans-species dudes; she admitted as much to her therapist).  Drake had a normal human body, albeit a strong and muscular one that could kick your ass at a moment’s notice.  He had a scaly, reptilian face, and his smile was more frightening than most people’s scowls.  When he seethed with anger, which was often, smoke billowed from his nose, ears and mouth, and he often emphasized a point by baring his fangs (kept under constant maintenance for maximum ferociousness by his personal orthodontist).

He was the spawn of one of those tempestuous dragon/virgin-sacrifice marriages you might have read about when they were in the news several decades ago.  In those days there was a public outcry in the trans-dimensional vortex over the practice of virgins being sacrificed to dragons, and a compromise law was passed in which dragons were allowed to date virgins and marry them and only then did they have the legal right to deflower (but not disembowel) the virgins.  In almost every instance, these were unhappy marriages that ended in nasty divorces and ugly custody battles. Drake was the product of one such union.  Dragon/virgin-sacrifice hybrid children like Drake were often vicious little brats with hair-trigger tempers, but they also tended to be courageous and made for great warriors.  Drake grew up to become the bravest and most fearsome warrior of them all, but when it came personal relationships, he was an emotional triumphalist who expected girlfriends to throw a parade in his honor every time he walked through the door.  Still, against their better judgment, fairy princesses were often attracted to him, and Elle, a fount of wisdom in every other aspect of her life, was no exception.

When Elle came into the restaurant’s dining room, General Drake was already seated.  “My darling, there’s something I’d like you read,” he said in his sweetest, most tender voice, which usually was a sign of an impending attack. “This is a document I prepared that states in writing that you were in the wrong during our last argument. I demand that you sign it.” 

Elle answered by crunching up the paper and throwing it back at Drake.

“Do you realize what you’re doing?” he said, rising to his feet. “If you don’t acquiesce to my demands, I will be forced to walk out of this restaurant in a huff!”

“So, what should I call you now,” Elle said. “‘Huff the Magic Dragon?’”

As corny as this was, she was proud of herself for saying it.  In past confrontations, Drake was usually able to intimidate her into silence so even a stupid pun was a small victory.

“I’m serious!” Drake said. “If you do not change your attitude, I will terminate this reconciliatory lunch.  I mean it!”

Elle covered her face with a menu. “I think I’ll order the ‘Yeah, Whatever’,” she replied.

Drake kept his word: he did indeed storm out of the restaurant.  There was now so much smoke coming out of his nose and ears that the restaurant’s smoke detectors set off the sprinkler system and all the diners in the room became doused with water.

Elle took out one of the many compact mini-wands she kept in her purse and waved it.  The water stopped gushing, and everyone in the room was a dry as they were a few moments earlier.  This small act of miraculousness was typical of Elle’s considerate nature. The diners at the other tables all smiled their thanks towards her.  She called over a waitress and ordered a Cobb Salad and a glass of white wine. This was about one drink above her usual alcohol limit, but she was so happy about the way she had handled Drake that she felt a small celebration was in order.

She was a bit light-headed when she left the restaurant.  She saw Sheldon smiling at her. Elle smiled back and thought to herself, “Peanotaurs are so sweet. If I’m going to date a mutant hybrid, this is the type I should be hooking up with.”

Sheldon had devoted the last hour to trying to think of something to say to Elle when she came out of the restaurant.  This is what he came up with:  “How was lunch?”

“I went with the Cobb Salad like you suggested and I didn’t regret it,” she said, now radiating an almost goofy smile. “I could kiss you!”

The peanut oil that kept Sheldon alive was now pumping into his heart at a rapid rate. He knew he now had to step up his game and choose his words carefully.

“Wanna make out?” he said.

Giddily, Elle took Sheldon to an underground parking garage beneath the Institute of Enchantment.  She led him to a small and boxy sedan that Sheldon immediately recognized as the most coveted automobile in the trans-dimensional vortex: the new Toyota Space/Time Continuum.  Sheldon saw the personalized license plate, “DRAGON1” and knew exactly who the owner was.

“Uh, are you sure it’s okay to use General Drake’s car?” Sheldon said.

“Oh, the general never even drives it,” Elle said with a gleeful mischief that she rarely expressed in the middle of the day.  “He prefers his government-issued Penis Utility Vehicle.”

They entered the car and for the first time, Sheldon saw for himself the main innovation of the Toyota Space/Time Continuum: an interior that bent time and expanded space.  The back seat of the car had a plush living room and dining area, plus two upstairs bedrooms.  The driver’s seat had a den, a foyer and a bathroom with shower and bathtub.  And all of this somehow fit inside a car that never took up more than a single “compacts only” parking space.

Sheldon and Elle sat on the back passenger seat’s plush sofa bed.  Sheldon was nervous and uncertain about making the first move, so when Elle abruptly thrust her tongue into his mouth, it was a real icebreaker.

Elle and Sheldon barreled over every inch of the backseat’s square footage, bumping into table legs and knocking over silverware.  Elle grabbed onto Sheldon as if he were a large piece of unwieldy, unsecured novelty luggage that was being banged about a cargo hold during a turbulent voyage.  Elle thought that Sheldon was like an amusement park ride and circus snack rolled into one, and she enjoyed herself so much that she didn’t even mind the few shell fragments that got stuck between her teeth.  For his part, Sheldon had not a single objection to the rapid succession of hickeys that almost cracked him open.  And while Sheldon’s salty, peanutty flavor was completely unfamiliar to Elle, she figured that this must be what nice guys tasted like.

Afterwards, as Elle dabbed her face with towelettes to remove the last remaining traces of fluffernutter, she turned to Sheldon and said, “I had a really nice time.” Sheldon came up with what he thought was an excellent response (“I had a nice time, too”) but before he had the chance to say it, they both saw General Drake marching through the garage towards the car.  “Uh, oh,” Elle said. “Here comes the fire-breathing douchebag.”

“Oh, my God!” Sheldon said. “General Drake is going to kill me!”

“Don’t worry,” Elle said with complete calm.  She took another wand out of her purse, and seemed about to wave it, but then she suddenly sneezed.

“That’s odd,” she said. “I never sneeze.”

“Maybe I should have asked this beforehand,” Sheldon said. “But do you have any kind of peanut allergy?”

“Not that I know of,” Elle replied.  By now General Drake was getting very close to the car. Elle was about to sneeze again, but first she waved her wand twice, and in an instant, Sheldon was in front of the Spirits Sports Lounge, holding his sign and back from his lunch break.

Sheldon was relieved to have escaped the wrath of General Drake, but a little disconcerted over the way the greatest afternoon of his life had ended so abruptly.  But he still felt the glow of what had to be the most beguiling nooner of all time.

At that same moment, General Drake entered his car. Sheldon and Elle were both gone, but he sniffed what seemed like an odd mixture of perfume and some sort of sweaty kind of Tai food in the air, and he knew that this wasn’t that new car smell. Right then and there he abandoned his plan to drive to the outer dimensional region for a surprise inspection of a Ninja Sprite training camp and instead slammed the car door shut, went back upstairs to the executive offices of the Institute of Enchantment, and burst into Elle’s office.

“Were you just in my car?” he demanded.

But Elle could not answer because she was bent over her desk in a fit of sneezing. Drake approached Elle, intending to grab and shake and berate her, but Elle looked up and let loose a particularly cacophonous sneeze, the force of which sent a projectile of fairy phlegm smack up against Drake’s face.

Elle’s sneezed continuously and uncontrollably, which General Drake thought unfair because he wasn’t being given the chance to get a word in edgewise.

But Elle couldn’t even see Drake. Her perception of the world had fuzzed up, like a TV that had lost reception. As she continued to convulsively sneeze, all she could see were thousands of bright shiny dots that hovered in the air like tiny Christmas lights.  Then, as her sneezing multiplied, the dots of light shined even brighter, but the effect was more like a million harsh little lamps in a police interrogation room than a constellation of twinkling stars.

And soon the million points of light revealed themselves as having faces and bodies.  The faces all looked the same: round colorless eyes, small snarling noses, mouths that screamed in anger without ever opening. Their arms and legs looked like sharp fingernails immaculately groomed for the sole purpose of drawing blood. This armada of aggressive pointy creatures grew in numbers with each sneeze, and Elle assumed that she was hallucinating.  She had never hallucinated before, but she had never been so physically ill before either. Normally she was open to new experiences, but this sucked.

The sneezing and the hallucinating continued on for what seemed like forever. And then all at once the horrific visions receded and she could see her own world again. She found herself standing naked in a glass device that looked like a human-sized drinking cup filled with soothing warm water.  Tubes were attached to her nose and they appeared to be slowly extracting her illness from her brain through her nasal passages.  She felt a little bit better but was still quite sick. And the strange contraption she was in, while helpful, did nothing to inspire the thought, “at least I have my dignity.”

She realized that she was in the Institute of Enchantment office of Dr. Bilbo Bilbonowitz, perhaps the most renowned medical practitioner in the trans-dimensional vortex.  General Drake, convinced that Elle had had sex with someone in his car, but realizing that she had to be healthy if he was going to effectively shame her, had rushed her here, and he now stood by impatiently as Dr. Bilbonowitz examined Elle with methodical deliberation.  The doctor was thin and frail, yet for a man of his advanced years, he moved with amazing agility and speed (although he wasn’t so quick when it came to promptly mailing alimony checks at the first of the month, as his many much younger ex-wives would be all too willing to tell you).

“Well, Princess,” the doctor said when the examination was complete. “You have developed a peanut allergy.  Have you eaten any peanut-based food products lately, or, uh, this is the less likely scenario, and I only bring it up to be thorough, but have you recently had sex with a Peanotaur?”

“Would earlier this afternoon fall under your definition of ‘recently’?” Elle asked.

“Of course!” General Drake screamed. “I knew there had to be a reason why my car smelled like a peanut butter & slutty sandwich!”

Elle, still in considerable pain and discomfort, ignored Drake and somehow managed to say to the doctor, “Is there a cure?”

“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Bilbonowitz replied with a finality that sent a chill up Elle’s already aching spine.  Bilbonowitz let this sink in for a moment before slapping his forehead and saying, “Oh, wait, I just remembered, I’m a genius and I can cure it!”  He then laughed in a way that both reassured and annoyed Elle.

The doctor whistled nonchalantly as he took out a small plastic bottle of ointment and began squeezing it.  The tiny container oozed out an endless supply of lotion, which coiled out of the bottle and twirled and twirled in mid-air like a lariat until it morphed into the shape of a fully formed female body in the middle of the room.

Bilbonowitz drained the water from the cup Elle was standing in, and then he removed the tubes from her nose.

“Quick,” the doctor said. “Walk into that formation of lotion in the middle of the room.”

Elle staggered into the center of what looked like a cloud of hovering lotion, which then hugged her body from her neck down and made a suction noise as it enveloped and clung to her like a skin-tight body suit.

“How does it feel?” the doctor asked.

“Fine,” Elle said.  “It’s quite comfortable, and…”

A wonderful realization came over Elle. “Oh, my God!” she said. “I’m not sneezing anymore!  I’m not sick anymore! This is amazing, I feel awesome!”

“And you look great,” the doctor said. “My patented Ointment Outfit is quite fetching on you if I do say so myself.” He then made a salacious growling noise, which would have creeped Elle out if she hadn’t been so grateful to Dr. Bilbonowitz for curing her.

“Stop flirting with the princess, doctor, you’re wasting your time,” Drake said in a voice dripping with vicious jealousy, “She only sleeps with Peanotaurs now.  She…”

A loud siren coming from Drake’s cell-phone interrupted his tirade.   His phone only made this particular noise during a top priority alert, and when Drake heard this sound – a high-pitched digitalized musical rendering of La Cucaracha (he had been meaning to change the ring tone but had been too busy to get around to it) – he always stopped whatever he was doing and took the call, no matter what.  He flipped open his phone, placed it against his smoke-filled ear and marched out of the room, making a mental note to emotionally destroy Elle later on when he could fit it into his schedule.

Within the hour, an emergency staff meeting was called at the Institute of Enchantment executive conference room. The magic elite of pixies, sprites and fairies were all gathered; some hovered in mid-air around the conference table, while others sat on high chairs drinking coffee and nibbling bagels. Elle arrived looking healthier and more energetic then ever. Everyone greeted her and expressed good wishes and relief that she was feeling better, but Drake, standing at the head of the table, cleared his throat and almost singed the whole staff with a gust of fire. This was bad breath that could kill, so everyone stopped talking.

General Drake briefed the room. “Radio transmissions from Dimension 0 have been intercepted,” he said.  “Until now, Dimension 0 was thought to be lifeless and dormant. In ancient times a race of creatures called the Geez lived there. They were known for their violent and imperialistic ways, but inbreeding and digestive issues rendered them extinct ages ago, or so it was thought.  No living person has ever laid eyes on them, but we do have an artist’s rendition from tens of thousands of years ago.  And even this image may not be accurate because unfortunately for our purposes, the ancient being who drew this was a caricature artist.”

A three dimensional holographic image of a Geez appeared over the center of the conference table.  A look of shocked recognition came over Elle. The head was cartoonishly bigger than its body, and the florid signature of the artist was a distraction, but other than that it looked exactly like one of the creatures she had seen during her allergic delirium.

Elle stood up and announced, “I saw an entire army of Geez in what I now realize was a cross-dimensional vision I had while I was sneezing.”

“Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?” Drake said.  The tone of his voice made it surprising that he didn’t add “young lady,” and then tell Elle that she was grounded.

“Because I thought it was an hallucination,” Elle replied. “And like you said, the Geez have never been seen before, so how was I to know they were actually real?  But that doesn’t matter; what matters is the harsh truth that I have to become sick so I can see those visions again and gather more intelligence on them.  I’m going to consult Doctor Bilbonowitz about this.”

She turned and left the room, and Drake followed right behind her. Between the conference room and the doctor’s office, Drake berated Elle about her affair with Sheldon, and Elle replied using language not exactly befitting a fairy princess, so for the sake of decorum her words will not be repeated here.

Elle briefed Dr. Bilbonowitz on the situation and his diagnosis was immediate: “If you really are intent on jumpstarting those trans-dimensional visions by returning to that sickly, allergic state, all you have to do is have sex with the Peanotaur again.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” General Drake said. “I placed him under arrest not long after I became aware of the princess’s dalliance…”

Elle gasped and was about to scream at Drake, but he cut her off, saying, “Do not worry.  I have spoken with the proprietor of the Spirits Sports Lounge, and he has assured me that they will find other ways to promote their Kung Po Chicken lunch special.”

“What is Sheldon charged with?” Elle demanded.

“Suspicion of a terrorist act.”

“What, sleeping with me?”

“He is an enemy of the state and must be interrogated until…”

Elle, in no mood to argue, ended the conversation by waving a wand and instantly transporting herself to the suite of holding cells housed beneath of the Institute of Enchantment, leaving General Drake to turn to Dr. Bilbonowitz and fume, “I never should have given her that transporto-wand for her birthday!”

It didn’t take Elle long to find Sheldon in an interrogation room. He had been locked there for hours, sitting in a straight-backed metal chair and waiting for Drake to come “question” him.  His back was aching and he was hungry, but the sight of Elle made him instantly feel better.

Elle explained the situation. “…and there’s only one way for me to have that trans-dimensional vision again and gather intelligence on the approaching army of Geez: I’m afraid we have to make love again.  I hate to impose, but…”

She could say no more because Sheldon had grabbed Elle and was kissing every inch of her face, as if his worst nightmare was to be admonished with, “Hey, you missed a spot.”  Elle kissed back, but before they could go any further, the door was knocked down and Drake stormed into the room, followed by several other soldiers.

“I will not allow you to make love to this peanut-shaped subversive again!” Drake said.

“You’re letting your personal feelings get in he way of trans-dimensional security!” Elle replied.

“Seize them both!” Drake ordered to his soldiers.  But before they could move, Elle waved her transporto-wand and she and Sheldon were gone, leaving General Drake to fume to his soldiers, “I wanted to get Elle a bracelet for her birthday, but who can afford diamonds on a military salary?  So I got her that wand, and…what are you standing around for? Find them!”

Meanwhile, Sheldon was surprised that Elle had used the wand to transport them back to where they had first made love, the General’s car, which was still parked in the same spot.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to come here?” he said.

“Don’t worry,” Elle said. “This is the last place Drake will look. Coming here again is a bold and brazen move on my part, something he’d never expect from me.  But I’ve changed.  Something happened to me.”

“What?” Sheldon asked.

“Well, for one thing,” she said, pulling Sheldon towards her, “I done got me some Peanotaur.”

Then she added, with the utmost gravity: “Okay.  For the sake of the universe.  Let’s do this.”

And do it they did.  Elle, knowing that she was going to start feeling sick the minute they were finished, decided to enjoy her last moments of pleasure as much as she could, so she gave herself to Sheldon with complete abandon.  Sheldon, exhilarated by the knowledge that he was actually getting laid twice in one day, gave all of himself back to Elle.   And although it soon became apparent that the intensity of their lovemaking would ultimately have an adverse effect on the resale value of the car, this mattered little.

Afterwards, Elle did indeed become sick, this time even worse than before. But in the midst of her non-stop sneezing, she heroically gave detailed descriptions of her trans-dimensional vision. A group of analysts took notes and recorded invaluable information about not just the thousands of Geez soldiers, but the airships and carriers traveling behind them, and the tiniest details of signs and symbols on the sides of the ships.  An army of Samurai Sprites was then able to fly into Dimension-0 and unleash a sneak attack on the Geez, easily vanquishing them.  This victory could never have been achieved without the data that had been obtained through Elle’s sneezing.   There was no denying that her inflamed sinuses were a goldmine of military intelligence.

This time Elle’s recovery was slow. She was bed-ridden for months, and Dr. Bilbonowitz decreed that she would not survive another allergic fit of this magnitude.  So her participation in the burgeoning field of telepathic trans-dimensional mucus-based surveillance was over, as was any chance that she could have intimate relations with Sheldon again.

Sheldon went back to his career as a promotional mascot.  He thought about Elle all the time, but eventually his yearning transformed into a kind of comforting melancholy gratitude.  In addition to the signs he held up announcing various lunch and dinner specials, he now carried around something else: the idea that life was filled with possibilities.  And he had Elle to thank for this. So when he visited her in the hospital, he said the one thing that nobody had thought to say to her the whole time she was sneezing:

“God bless you.”

As for General Drake, his jealous rage became so pronounced that every time he drew breath or broke wind, hazardous materials were released into the atmosphere.  By executive order he was taken to an isolated base in the middle of the desert where he could do the least damage.  Quiet, contemplative meditation eventually cured him of his ailment, but he never again recovered his previous standing in the military.

And he never got over Elle.

And so, as the brokenhearted often do, he pursued a religious path, which eventually led to war and thousands of innocent lives lost.  But for the sake of decorum the details of that story will have to wait till another time.

Submitted for your approval, a short story.

NOT EXACTLY A FAIRY TALE

by

Frank Conniff

In matters of the heart, Irving the magical pixie had been going through a bit of a dry spell. Centuries had passed since he’d last managed to get a fairy princess drunk enough to go home with him, and the results of that night were far from romantic.

“Wow,” Irving said to the fairy princess in the aftermath of their curt bout of bitey, grabby, slurpy sex.  “I knew I could go all night with you, and sure enough, I did.”

The fairy princess, abruptly sober, sniffed the air and said, “You sprinkled this room with a magical hour-glass sand that made time slow down, didn’t you?”

“No!” Irving said, lying through his hygienically challenged teeth.

“Oh, my God,” Belinda said (for that was indeed her name, although if this were an answer on Final Jeopardy it would have stumped Irving). She buried her delicate face in nicotine-stained hands.  “I can’t live like this anymore!  The booze.  The drugs.  The empty, unsatisfying sex with pixies half my size and twice my age.  It has to stop!”

Belinda grabbed her wrinkled fairy dress, tucked it under her arm, then reached her other hand down onto the floor, which was covered with a mucky sludge that Irving’s half-assed swiffering had failed to make a dent in. She picked up her magic wand (which was rarely been used in the service of magic; more often than not it was an instrument of self mutilation), and then flew up out of Irving’s futon and into the air, stopping just short of hitting her head on the low, mold-encrusted ceiling.  As her luminescent body twirled out of the room, Irving knew that this was the last time he would ever see her naked.

But on the bright side, Irving could now take this brief, awkward, hurtful experience and build a lifetime of boastful exaggeration upon it.  This was as close as he ever came to positive thinking.

Every now and then Irving’s diminutive size brought out the fetishistic nature in a woman, but this happened rarely if at all, and even chicks that were into tiny dudes were not necessarily into him.  He had a round stomach that protruded against the ill-fitting pseudo-leprechaun onesies he favored.  He was an insomniac, so his emerald eyes, which should have glistened like a sun-baked Irish meadow, were instead red and foggy, like a Bloody Mary that someone had doused a cigarette in. It’s safe to say that the phrase “eye candy” would never be applied to Irving, unless it was a poisonous kind of candy that causes diarrhea and death.

It wasn’t as if he never got to meet any interesting, available women.  Every day, at his clerical job at the Institute of Enchantment, a castle-like office complex with adjoining convention center located in the downtown business district of the trans-dimensional vortex, he mingled with lots of beautiful fairy princesses: ethereal hotties wearing short willowy skirts that he never failed to peek under when they flew into the air over him.  They were all sweet and saintly, so they always waited until Irving left the room before talking about what a disgusting little perv he was.

Irving’s luck wasn’t much better with mortal women.  While one might think that his magical powers would have given him an advantage, this was not the case.  The Institute of Enchantment has strict rules and guidelines when it comes to the use of magic on unsuspecting mortals, so Irving had to be discreet while trying to spike women’s drinks with love potions and magical elixirs.  Thus, there was always something sneaky and conspiratorial about him when he approached a woman, and this only turned up the volume on a creepiness factor that was already at high decibel levels.

He never had any success in earthly bars and restaurants, because he could never get a positive response to the inquiry, “Can I buy you a drink?”  But he thought his luck had changed when he began frequenting a Jamba Juice located a few blocks east of a Manhattan strip club he patronized during his many forays into the mortal realm.

“Have you tried the Protean Berry Pizzazz?” he yelled over the drill-press-like sound of the smoothie blender to one particular stunner, a brunette career girl in tight business clothes who looked like she could be a Forbes magazine centerfold model.

She smiled down at him.  “I’d love to try it if that’s okay,” she said. “It’s so sweet of you to offer.  Here, let me get a straw…”

She tore the paper off a straw with her teeth and Irving thought he’d plotz.  As she lowered it into his cup, which contained way more illegal magic love elixir than it did protean powder, Irving began to imagine their life together as New York’s ultimate power couple.

But the moment the fruit-flavored contraband passed her lips, she immediately spewed it back out.  Irving felt a shock as it hit his face, although this certainly wasn’t the first time a disgruntled woman had spit on him.

“I am an undercover officer with the I.O.A. Magic Abuse Task Force,” she announced, flashing a badge with the Institute of Enchantment logo.  “You’re busted, douchebag.”

The next morning, Irving stood before the Institute of Enchantment Disciplinary Committee, which was made up in its entirety of one perpetually aghast elder with a severe face and chapped lips that had never once uttered the phrase, “no hard feelings.”

“If you are ever caught using another elixir or love potion you will be stripped of all your powers as a magical pixie,” he said to Irving.  He then added, “The balance between the magical realm and the mortal world is delicate and fragile, and we’re not going to let it all fall apart just because you can’t get laid!” 

Later, at his office desk, an enclosed cubicle exactly like the thousands of other pixie-manned workstations on his floor (except that his computer was the only one with a company-mandated parental control porn blocker), Irving carefully read the judgment that was handed down against him.  He realized that the elixirs and potions he was forbidden from using were all listed specifically as beverages.  But there were other ways to artificially manipulate a woman’s perception without having her drink anything.  (The magical hourglass sand that he had used on Belinda, for instance, although that was a faulty product and Irving had already written an angry letter to the manufacturer.)

Irving concluded that due to a technicality, there was still a plethora of love-inducing spells and formulas available to him.  But he knew that he had to stay away from fairy princess.  As he said to the bartender at the Spirits Sports Lounge across the street from the Institute of Enchantment, “I’ve had it with fairy princesses. For all their fancy high flautin romantic lyricism, when you came right down to it, they’re just a bunch of stuck-up bitches!”

The bartender was an ogre the size of a landfill who worshiped and idolized fairy princesses.  He had framed autographed pictures of many of them on the wall behind the bar, so he put down the ceramic shot-glass he was wiping, picked up a magic wand with a cattle-prod application, and electrocuted Irving. Later that night, when Irving awoke face down and ass up in a dumpster, he wasn’t quite sure how he got there, but he remained determined to go through with his plan to snag a mortal babe.

He found an on-line dating service that seemed perfect for the kind of human female he was looking for, I’mReadyToSettle.com.  But as it turned out, only one woman was ready to at least look into the prospect of settling for Irving.  Her name was Lily and while she was skeptical of the largely fictional autobiography Irving had posted on the site (“I work as a billionaire financial tycoon when not playing in a rock band and directing critically-acclaimed independent films”) and more than a little confused by his misleading profile picture (a file photo of Montgomery Cliff immediately after the car accident that disfigured his face), she was nonetheless looking for a reason to go out since her cable TV wasn’t working and wouldn’t be fixed until the following Monday.

When Irving and Lily did meet in person, Irving in the flesh fell a bit short of expectations, if only because she had allowed herself to be optimistic enough to expect a date whose actual physical appearance would not make her nauseous.

“Would you like to have a drink?” Irving said.

“Actually, I could really go for a Dramamine,” she replied.

Irving thought that queasiness became her. Her profile picture gave the impression that she was bright and healthy, but in Irving’s presence she appeared gaunt and malnourished.  “Me likey,” Irving said to himself.

Their predetermined meeting place was the entrance of a carnival that had opened on a New Jersey marshland. As they strolled the damp fairgrounds, Irving eschewed his usual first date small talk (“Can I touch your boobies?”)  and instead just walked by her side and silently drooled.  It was only when they got to one certain destination, the attraction that was central to Irving’s whole scheme, that he finally spoke.

“Look,” Irving said.  “The tunnel of love.” 

Before them stood a mountain made from Styrofoam.  There was indeed a tunnel that ran through it, with a canal that was one or two discarded candy wrappers short of being a sewer.  An assembly line of small plastic boats traveled into the tunnel.  Some of the boats contained couples, many of whom were kissing, although this may have just been their way of not breathing in the toxic fumes.

Lily did not want to go into any tunnel, much less a tunnel of love. So Irving knew that convincing her would require some romantic sweet-talk.

“It’s the only way you’ll be able to get your parking validated,” he cooed.

This didn’t sound right to Lily, but this date had already crushed her spirit to the point where she was too tired to argue, so she stepped into the automated faux-boat with Irving and drifted into the tunnel of love, her only passion being the desire to go home and pray for absolution from the cable repairman.

Once inside the tunnel, Irving and Lily were treated to the smell of Jersey tap water that had been raped by chlorine. The grey walls and suffocating air made the tunnel feel less like a path towards love and more like a DMV office in the wake of a flash flood.

Irving was now ready to go through with his plan, which had been worked out over several post-masturbatory ruminations.  It involved dosing the water in the tunnel with a special love-inducing bubble bath formula that he had found in an obscure catalogue in the Institute of Enchantment’s library.  And so the minute he entered the tunnel, Irving dropped an alka-seltzer-sized tablet into the water and it quickly began boiling and foaming like a rabid hot tub.

Next, according to the catalogue’s instructions, he had to push Lily into the water and then dive in to “rescue” her.  Theoretically, the damsel, drowning in the liquid love bubbles, would fall instantly in love with the first one to grab and save her.  It was only under these conditions that the magic formula would work.  It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to find eternal happiness, but Irving had come to the conclusion that being a successful sleazeball required a certain work ethic.

Now came what was perhaps Irving’s most unconscionable act in an afternoon already rife with moral deficiency.  Irving prodded the bottom of Lily’s behind with a nuclear-powered joy buzzer that fit into the palm of his hand like a penny, causing a shock that catapulted Lily to her feet, giving her a precarious, unstable balance in the boat.  Irving stood up and pushed her into the water.

Lily flailed about in the narrow canal of bubbles beside the boat.  Whatever concerns she had for her own safety were drowned out by her justifiably crazed anger at Irving.

“I’m going to kill you, you pint-sized scumbag!” she screamed.  “And I’m going to get my money back from the dating service!”

Irving was about to dive in after her, but he paused to consider whether a woman who could not clearly see the “No Refunds” banner that was prominently displayed on the dating service website was someone he really wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

But that half a millisecond of hesitation gave the person in the boat right behind Irving’s boat the opportunity to spring into action.  He was Lt. Clark Johnson, a military veteran on leave from his duties as a Navy Seal. Through years of active service in many overseas conflicts, his square-jawed, crew-cutted, regulation handsomeness had not diminished, although his ability to make it through a night without waking up in a sweaty fit of anguished screaming had.  But the athletic requirements of his profession, combined with a disciplined approach to the intake of medicine before and after his numerous visits to East Asian whorehouses, had left him in good physical condition.  And so the minute Lily hit the water, the trained Navy Seal dove in after her, grabbing and rescuing her while Irving dithered in the boat.

For once, Irving had concocted a magic love formula that worked, only it was Lt. Johnson who felt its effects, not Irving.  The lieutenant had been riding in his tunnel of love boat with three friendly and open-minded gals.  They were all beautiful, exotic, and imaginary.  He had made their acquaintance while on mushrooms during the invasion of Grenada, and even though they didn’t exist he enjoyed their company, especially their ability to activate his post-traumatic stress disorder in an erotically exciting way that seemed beyond the reach of most women from the reality-based community.  But the minute he touched Lily, his make-believe ménage a trois evaporated (although he still had their phone numbers just in case).  He didn’t need them anymore because once he looked into Lily’s eyes, he knew that for the first time in years he was willing to give flesh-and-blood a try.

The watery magic also worked on Lily, but when all was said and done, the enchanted bubbles might not have even been necessary.  In the past, the guys she had gone out with were mostly overweight nerds who were just as affectionate with a plate of nachos as they were with her.  But now here she was in the arms of a slim, buff, good looking jock-type.  She didn’t need a magic bubble bath to get wet over this guy.

But Lt. Johnson was a soldier as well as a lover, so while continuing to keep Lily’s lovely head above water, he used his other hand to reach into Irving’s boat, grab him by the torso, and clutch him like a football.

“I’m holding you until the police get here,” he said.

Irving tried to explain. “I wasn’t pushing her in the water to kill her, I was pushing her in the water because…”

He went no further.  As far as Irving was concerned, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation to all this, but he knew that there was no way he could articulate it.

Irving was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and the Institute of Enchantment stripped him of all his magical powers. Once in lock-up, Irving’s small size gave him a certain kind of popularity; it was easy to pass him around from prisoner to prisoner.  His fellow inmates used him for a variety of functions, everything from shower sponge to communal ashtray. Yes, he was quite useful, but this did not give Irving’s life the sense of purpose that he hoped it would one day have.

Lt. Johnson and Lily were married and stayed that way for the rest of their days.  The nature of magically inseminated love is such that couples under its spell consider themselves soul mates without ever having to get to know each other.  For instance, Lily never bothered to ask Lt. Johnson what he did for a living (she thought “Lieutenant” was his first name), and Lt. Johnson never got around to telling Lily about the imaginary women that he often invited to into their bed for three-ways, and it never occurred to her to ask him why in the throes of passion he was always screaming out names that sounded like characters from “Hawaii Five-O.”  Lily and Lt. Johnson kept true intimacy out of their marriage in a way that other couples could only envy.

Irving was eventually released from prison. On his first night of freedom he lay on a stained mattress on a roach-infested floor in a shabby halfway house. He stared at the ceiling, cursing the insomnia that forced him to experience every last minute of his life.

Just as Irving was about to finally fall asleep, the peeling paint on the ceiling began to strip itself away until a constellation of bright shimmering stars appeared.  A fairy princess emerged and hovered in mid-air over Irving’s bed, like an aurora borealis of pure transcendent female beauty.  She looked familiar to him, and indeed she was Belinda, the fairy princess he had had a brief, drunken one-night stand with all those years ago.

“Irving,” she said. “Remember me? I slept with you once in a moment of profound bad judgment.  But that encounter spurred me forward to therapy and twelve step programs and I turned my life around. Now I am a class-A fairy princess, an advanced provider of benevolent compassion, and in a way I owe it all to you.”

“Does this mean we’re going to do it?” Irving asked.

“No,” she replied with an indulgent smile.  “But the Institute of Enchantment gave me special permission to come tell you that you need not despair.  Yes, you have lost all of your magical powers, and because of your transgressions you have endured a humiliating ordeal. But you can now start anew, and you need not live without companionship.  You’ll just have to pursue love and romance through normal, everyday human means.  And Irving, my friend…”

“Yes?”

“Normal, everyday human love is the most beautiful magic of all.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” Irving said in a voice sarcastic as the day is long.  “The news just keeps getting better and better.”