Page 82 of By the Fae

I should have fucking listened to him.

It wasn’t until my third lap of Downtown Remy that I realised I didn’t need booze or drugs to help me through. What I needed was to fuck. I needed my dick in something hot and wet, and my hands full of someone else’s flesh, someone else’s hair wrapped around my wrists. Someone who looked nothing like Holly.

I needed the old Goldie back. The one who took women and men home without even bothering to learn their names. Let alone what kind of fucking cereal they liked best.

As if the universe had listened to my demands, I rounded the corner and there she was. Standing at the junction of South Street and Bordalis Road, chatting on her phone, glancing down at her hot pink talons. Wearing that handkerchief of a skirt and those flimsy straps over her nipples.

Cara? Clara? No, wait, Sophie.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said to me, her eyes lighting up as I approached, her tongue dipping out to wet her lips. She spoke into her phone, “Babes, I’m gonna have to call you back. My ride for the evening has just turned up.”

Chapter 28.

Holly

The taxi took me back to the Tallywhacker’s carpark where I’d left my car all week, and from there, I drove home. I didn’t even know how. I felt numb. Like an NPC. Programmed to do only the most basic movements. There were things happening out there, others still playing the game, but all I could do was pulsate in circles and repeat the same simple sentences. My arms pointlessly held aloft, my mouth not moving.

“I feel sick,” I said, standing in front of the mirror in my shared bedroom wearing only a towel and a pair of flesh-coloured, VPL-less knickers.

“It’s because you’re nervous,” Abby said. She held up two dresses. A black silky thing with spaghetti straps and a cutout under the bra area, and a yellow long-sleeved number, high-necked with an even higher skirt. “What about either of these?”

“You’ll be able to see my pants in the yellow one.”

She gave me a look that said,yeah, that’s kinda the point.

“Okay, the black one then,” I said.

“Have you shaved your legs?” she asked, hanging the yellow dress back inside our closet.

“Goldie doesn’t care if I shave my legs.”

“Yes, but you’re not going on a date with Goldie.” Abby booped me on the nose with her forefinger. “Come on, this is Seth, right? This is the guy you told me about when you started at FaeGames? No? Remember when I asked you how your first day went? And the very first words to leave your mouth were, “Oh, Abs, there’s this guy. He’s perfect, he’s a ten, he looks like a summer fae, I think he’s a summer fae. Abs, I’m in love already”.”

My cheeks heated at the memory. “Yes, that’s the same guy.”

“Well, then,” she said, sounding far too much like Mum. She peeled the towel from me and threw it onto my bed. “Try to look a little more enthused. This is what you wanted.” She took the black dress off its hanger and assessed me. “Isn’t it?”

I shook my head, rattling up my thoughts. Yes, it was what I wanted. Not just since I started at FaeGames, but since I was a teenager. Since I got my copy of the Faecyclopaedia. Which coincidentally, was the same time my sexuality had developed.

I forced a smile to my face. I should be feeling happier about this. So, Seth wasn’t Goldie. But that was a good thing. This thing with Goldie was never designed to last. He would teach me a few tricks, I would help him with his game, then we would both get on with our individual lives. Separately. That happened. Done and dusted. Both ends of the agreement fulfilled.

Plus, Goldie stole a cat. He told me to fuck off. He’d had sex with almost everyone at work. I can safely say all of those qualities emphatically do not appear on my boyfriend wishlist.

Seth was a chance to put all this ickiness behind me. To forget abouthim. To move on. Though move on from what? I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like we even had a relationship to move on from. Not even a fling. Just a few weeks of very intense sexual activities and gradually hating each other less.

There was nothing to move on from.

“Yes, I want this.” Need this. “Let’s get me dressed. Will you do my makeup?”

Abby made a squealing noise.

After thirty minutes of sitting bent-backed on the bed while my sister sat in the swivel chair in front of me applying makeup, I looked, well, I looked like Abby. Like Abby, but older, and shorter, and much, much sadder. Having decided there wasn’t a lot we could do with my hair — too curly to tame, and too short to tie up — she ran some expensive oils through it and congratulated herself on a job well done.

“Stunner,” she proclaimed, pulling me towards the mirror.

Okay, I would probably rub some of the makeup off in the bathroom before I left, but otherwise, I looked . . . not bad. Nice, actually. Pretty? Sexy?Hmm.I wouldn’t have gone that far.

“Seth’s about to realise how lucky he is,” she said.

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