Hunting Pixies

Hunting Pixies, Pt. 17

I finished this section in one session with the last one, but have split it because they seemed overlong together. Same warning as that one: there is a possible squick factor for some regarding sex during menstruation, but I don't think it puts it in the fetish realm. I'm taking a risk in pulling this back to Romance, but I think it fits best here for reasons that will be apparent. Hope you enjoy...

The young server at the host stand of the Peach Valley Cafe catches our kiss and blushes a bit as she greets us. She's pretty. Margaret's smile becomes impish. As she leads us to a booth, I whisper in Margaret's ear, "don't even think about it, I'm losing track already..."

She giggles and squeezes my hand and feigns innocence, "you wound me with your accusations, sir, but okay..."

The booth is big enough for four, but Margaret pulls me in to sit side-by-side with her, and I have no complaints. Even though it was relatively cold outside, and our pace was slow, I managed to work up a bit of a sweat on our walk, and unzip my fleece to cool down, pulling our tumblers from the pockets.

The fleeting thought crosses my mind that Margaret and I just spent an hour walking together in anything but silence. I never missed my headphones and the background filler of my constant musical playlist. Our hands or bodies never separated; the joy of simple touch was a constant. It has been decades since I enjoyed a walk with someone so much. There's a rabbit hole best left unexplored, and I shake myself from the thought.

The server is passing us our menus and notices the empty tumblers, "so can I get you coffee? I'll bring the pot?" I make note that the name on her tag is Mia.

"Yes!" Margaret chimes in immediately, quickly adding, "please."

"And decaf, too? If that isn't a problem, Mia?" I smile and get one in return.

"Of course not, I'll be right back with those and some waters. Looks like you're kind of...hot," she blushes and turns away to get the drinks.

Margaret snickers, "look at you all flirty after telling me not to be."

"What? I'm sure she just thinks sweaty Grandpa is about to have a stroke, so she better help him cool down..."

"True. You really do sweat a lot, fortunately I seem to like it. I guess that's another kink unlocked for me..." she giggles and I pull her in for a quick kiss as Mia returns balancing two carafes of coffee and a pitcher of water. She sets the carafes down and reaches for our water glasses, leaning over the table in the process.

"Do you see anything you like...on the menu," she asks as she's filling our waters, and I see Margaret biting back her response, raising an eyebrow at her.

"The protein avocado toast looks good, with eggs over easy, and a bowl of fruit, and two turkey sausage patties, please?" Margaret orders and Mia nods and smiles, no doubt making mental note.

"And I'll be good and have the healthy start omelette, with rye toast, and...home fries, please?" So much for being good, I suppose.

"Of course," Mia smiles, "I'll get those right in for you." I see Margaret's eyes following her as she walks away.

"We already have one server on deck, baby," I remind her. She blushes and laughs, and we pour our coffees. I forego my tumbler and use the cup on the table for a responsible amount of decaf. Margaret pours a little coffee in her cup, decides it meets standards, and fills her tumbler. I raise an eyebrow and she sticks her tongue out at me. Point/counterpoint.

"I know I keep tempting you, but I'm a pixie? We love to lead people astray? And I'm a very visual and imaginative person. I'm enjoying fantasizing about you 'coupling' with these hotties. I love the way you fuck me, and I bet it would be REALLY erotic to watch you at work..."

"The idea of that has...some appeal, for sure," I say as I feel color rise to my cheeks. "But maybe baby steps with that? I may already have my hands full with one pixie..."

"Of course, my noble troll. But if it's a no with Kelly today, YOU should definitely let her know. It's YOU that she's into, for sure, and I know you'll let her down gently...but keep the door open with her? She's absolutely a pixie, and a fantastic catch, don't let her slip away."

"I will try not to, Margaret," I respond, giving her thigh a squeeze under the table.

"Mmm, I love it when you call me by my name. It makes me tingle. And you've done it from the start, without ever having been asked. You haven't called me Maggie once," she smiles.

"You've never liked 'Maggie,' it's kind of cute?"

"Too cute. And that's why I never liked it. Momma raised me to be fierce. A strong woman to be reckoned with, not a diminutive girl to be disregarded..."

"So you hated it when Sue...Susan defaulted to calling you that?"

Margaret laughs, "I did, and she knew it. And she hated 'Sue' and knew that's why I called her that. I guess I was a bit of a brat? I look at it now and it all seems so silly. We wasted a lot of time on some kind of rivalry that shouldn't have mattered. But we both want to make up for that, I think I can learn a lot from her, and I'm ready, now, for that."

"That's really great. It's funny how names hold so much power, and how we kind of instinctively know that? So many fantasy writers use it as the basis of their magic systems, Le Guin in 'Earthsea,' Rothfuss in 'Name of the Wind...'"

"You know your stuff. The whole 'power in naming things' goes way back in ancient myths. It's going to be fun talking to you about writers and books, we can do that when I have to wait for you to recharge in between fuckings. I'm really happy we can be about more than sex..."

"Me too, so did anyone else close to you call you 'Maggie?' David?"

Margaret laughs, "No, 'David' always called me 'Margaret,' and I never called him 'Dave.' But that was probably more out of him having a stick up his ass about things...or I guess maybe he wanted something else sticking up his butt, now that I think about it?" Margaret laughs and I join her, happy to see that she has a sense of humor about her new insight into their relationship.

"Does anyone call you 'Steven'?"

I think for a moment, "My Dad. Only my Dad as a rule. But my kids when they want to get under my skin." I laugh and she joins me and I pull her in for a kiss. We break apart as Mia is arriving with our dishes.

She blushes a bit and places them down for us, "I hope you enjoy, I'll be back to check on you in a bit if there isn't anything else I can get you right now?"

"No, this looks wonderful, thank you Mia!" Margaret chirps and I smile in agreement as Mia smiles and turns to leave us. Margaret starts digging into her food immediately, humming a little as she enjoys it.

"Baby, when was the last time you checked in with Beth?"

I pull my phone out, it's close to eight. There are no message notifications, but I know she should be up by now, even if she was seeping in. I can't actually recall the answer to Margaret's question. "I'm not sure..."

She raises an eyebrow and gives me a stern look, "Steven..." I laugh and she giggles.

"On it," I say, and type out a quick message to Beth. "Hope you guys had a great night there. At breakfast. I should be on the road by ten. Will be back in time to grill for the game. LMK what you need from the store. Will stop on my way back."

"Good boy, she should at least have some proof of life from you," Margaret smiles as I hit send, and I look at my breakfast plate, noting she's already helped herself to a few bites of my omelette and a potato or two. "What? I also get really hungry when I'm on my period, deal with it." I squeeze her thigh and dig in while I have the chance. Ravenous pixie.

"So back to books and fantasy," I say between bites, "will you tell me about Lily Hart?"

Margaret stops mid-bite and looks genuinely surprised and lost in thought. "Ah, my citations in my thesis that you are for sure going to read at home this week?" She arches an eye and giggles, giving my hand a squeeze.

"Lily Hart is my Momma, but I'm sure you already figured that out?" I nod.

"When she got her PhD, she taught, like Daddy, but also spent a lot of time writing. A LOT of time. Mostly in the 1970s and 80s before I was born, or when I was really little, but some when I was a bit older...before she got too sick..." I reach and give her hand a squeeze, and smile at her in a way I hope she takes as reassuring. Her return smile suggests she does. I choose not to dwell on her not having been born until I was well into my teens.

"She was actually VERY successful, under a few different pen names, but in subgenres she didn't much enjoy writing, although she was great at it, and she sold really well..."

"Really, what was the genre?"

"Romance, some historical, some contemporary, but usually bodice-ripping type stuff that she kind of considered literary trash. She told me sometimes she would write stuff as almost tongue-in-cheek parody, and it would sell the best. She even sold some for TV and movie adaptations."

"Wow, not a genre I paid attention to as a teen, but I might know some of it?"

"Possibly, and wow, you WOULD have been a teen, that's...surprising when I think about it. You really don't seem that old until we start putting numbers around it. But a lot of what Momma wrote for the market was VERY smutty, so I imagine if you had discovered it, you might have found it really good jerk-off fodder, my pervy little troll..." she giggles and I give her a kiss and a quick squeeze very high on her thigh to confirm her suspicions.

"So I doubt you were referencing those in your thesis, what were the works you cited there? What did she really want to write?"

"Oh, she wrote what she wanted, she just never found a publisher for it other than a few short stories she adapted from part of her works. She wrote epic fantasies, high fantasy with a LOT of world building and a literary bent? She finished a whole trilogy, and had really detailed outlines and partially completed chapters for at least another three books as a prequel, and three more as a sequel to her core work. Literally thousands of pages of manuscripts and notes..."

"Wow, that's amazing, but all unpublished?"

"Yeah, when she passed away, she left me a trunk with ALL of it. And dozens of letters that she had saved and collected: some between her and Daddy, and some between their parents and grandparents, and a few older. And about a dozen of her private journals. And hundreds of other pages of random notes on things she was interested in. And...a whole file of rejection letters from publishers. Her will gave me all the documents and full rights to them."

"That sounds like a real treasure chest."

Margaret smiles broadly, "I've always thought so, too. And felt like it shouldn't have all gone to me, but I guess I showed the most interest in her stories, even though I never knew she had written them down? My sisters knew about it, but didn't have any interest in any of it, and Daddy has always been very neutral about what I might do with it."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I asked them when it was given to me, and a few times since. Daddy explained it pretty well, it was hard for him to see how much of herself she put into that body of work only to have the world take no interest. He remembers the pain it caused her every time she got a rejection letter..."

"I can understand that, what do you want to do with it all?"

"Well...I don't know? When I first got it, I started by reading the books she had finished, and I realized a lot of the stories she had told me when I was little came from them, or were set in the same world. And I wasn't in a good place, and that hit too close to home, so I just kind of put them aside and tried to forget about it all until I was ready for it?"

I give her hand a squeeze of assurance and she returns it.

"But I wanted to make sure it was safe. Momma had some of what she had written saved on those big, flimsy disk things they used in old computers..."

I laugh, and she gives me a look. "Floppies, and yes, they are an ancient technology," I confirm, remembering when they were state-of-the-art but not mentioning it.

"Okay, 'floppies,' and some more recent stuff on CD-ROM. Especially the stuff that was most complete. But a whole lot of it was just hand and type written. Daddy helped me get it all scanned so that I could have backup images of everything saved on flash drives. I kept those with me and left the trunk stored at the farm in Wisconsin. I liked that because I would look through it every time I visited and think about Momma."

"I'm sure that was always bittersweet? I'm so sorry that you lost her when you were both so young. She sounds like she was an amazing woman and a huge part of what makes you so special."

Margaret smiles, and it seems she's struggling to fight back tears. I open my arms to her, and she accepts my embrace, hugging in tightly. "Thank you, Steve. She was great, and I love the parts of her that I see in me."

Margaret releases me and gives me a soft kiss, then resumes, "When I was working on my thesis, my advisor was appalled that all I had was scans of the images saved. She convinced me to bring the trunk back to Birmingham and helped me get everything rescanned through more recent OCR technology and stored on the cloud."

"Oh, that's really great. So you have it all digitized now if you ever wanted to work with any of it to edit or finish?"

"I do, and I've thought about maybe doing that? But it's SUCH a daunting task, and there is SO much material. And part of me wants to see if some of it might get a better response from publishers now than it did then, but I'm scared that it wouldn't?"

"What was the objection to it then, do you know?"

"Yeah, I read most of the rejection letters, and they were all pretty brutally clear. Momma's work centered around female protagonists. Who were not all young and buxom and dumb damsels in distress; or sultry and seductive playthings; or malevolent manipulators of men. She broke all those tropes. They were pretty normal women...or female beings; plain even. Doing magical and heroic things in a fantasy world where that was just...normal? They weren't reliant on the male characters, and they weren't just there for romantic relief."

"That actually sounds really interesting. I would think there would be a pretty huge market for that now? Although, yeah, in the 70's and 80's I can see there would have been little appetite for it. I mean, I think Le Guin got a good critical reception for "Tehanu" in that era, but it seems like it was an outlier?"

"You sure you haven't read my thesis?" Margaret laughs. "She did, in 1990, and no, it did not sell as well as the rest of Earthsea. She wrote to Momma that she probably only got it published because she already had that leverage."

"Really? They knew one another?"

"I think only by correspondence, but yeah, Momma had several letters from her encouraging her to keep up her work."

Margaret becomes silent for a few moments, clearly thinking of something and settling on it. "Would you like to read what Momma finished? I've never shared it with anyone but my advisor, but I'd be interested in what you think and whether you might be supportive of me if I were to try to do something with it?"

"I would love to read it, but I don't need to see it to tell you that I'll be supportive, one hundred percent, with anything you might want to do. You are, after all, my paramour."

Margaret beams, "Yeah! I knew before I asked, but thank you. I can send you some of the files when I get home. I'm actually going to be going through them anyway. Susan suggested I look through some of Momma's journals. I've actually never done more than peek at those. But she suggested they may help explain a lot about their relationship. She wants to look through the trunk the next time she and Daddy visit me. She was Momma's assistant for a long time and helped her with typing and some editing and things."

"Wow, really? I think that would probably be a really great way for you to connect? I'm sure there's a lot she can share with you about your mom."

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it all."

We've been finished with our breakfast for some time, and I've noted Mia on the edge of our space a few times through our conversation, but she hasn't interrupted. I make eye contact with her now and smile, and she comes to check on us.

"Sorry, you two seemed to be pretty deep in conversation, so I didn't want to interrupt. Looks like you enjoyed everything. I'll clear these. Is there anything else I can get you, or just the check?"

"Thank you, Mia. Yes, I think just the check, and I'll take it." Margaret smiles her reply, and Mia takes our empty dishes.

"So your mom didn't have success publishing what she loved, but did have success publishing what she didn't? Does that make you an heiress to big smutty paperback money?" I tease.

Margaret laughs, "It does, actually. I told you I want to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner? It isn't because I need the money; I just want to do something meaningful with my time again. And I was fine with having a prenup with David that covered premarital assets because the trust Momma left me and my sisters was...substantial then. She and Daddy didn't need the income from her writing. She invested it all and put it all in trust for us. And while I was married to David, I never had to touch any of it. I've just reinvested everything I get from it. So now it's....really substantial."

"Interesting. Are we talking about buying a private island, substantial? Or every summer in Europe substantial?" I joke.

"Mmm, somewhere in between? Smut really sold back then, although not as much as buying in on the ground floor of Amazon and Cisco stock returned, apparently. Let's just say that if I ever wanted to be a sugar momma to a sexy old troll who should find himself at odds with his wife at some point, it wouldn't be a financial burden."

Well, this is interesting, I think, "Madam, are you suggesting I'd be okay with being a 'kept man.'" I feign outrage, then change my tune, "because that sounds pretty intriguing. I think I might be more than willing to sling my dick in exchange for some pretty baubles..."

The giggle coming from beside me isn't coming from Margaret. "Sorry to interrupt, but I have your check here," Mia recovers as we all blush. Margaret passes her card to her, and she processes the transaction. Margaret gives her a HUGE tip and turns to me before she leaves.

"Alright, baby, time for Momma to take you back to the hotel room so you can show her if what you're slinging is worth it," she whispers just loudly enough that she can be certain Mia hears.

"Well, I'm sure you two will have a very enjoyable morning," Mia giggles and walks away quickly. I give Margaret a "stern" look.

"What? Pixie here. Adorable magical being that creates mischief. You know the drill by now. But seriously, let's go back to the room. I am extremely horny for you right now, and well past due for some of your good dicking. If it wouldn't make such a mess, I'd make you get me off right now." I laugh and grab our tumblers, pulling Margaret out of the booth with me and making our way across the street to the hotel.

The sun is fully risen when we exit the restaurant. It's almost 8:30, and the skies are clear and bright, temperatures in the low 60s. A bluebird Fall day in Florida. The kind that has made snowbirds flock here for generations now. A perfect day to golf. As we walk quickly up to the porte-cochere of the Indigo, I'm reminded of this.

A large SUV is pulled up under the cover, and a group of six familiar faces is busy loading their bags into the back, stacking them with the six sets of clubs already there. The three ladies look tired and slightly hung over, but Melissa manages a sweet smile for us as she sees us coming.