“Darling.” He tilts his head in a way that promises punishment. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I know there’s nothing he can do, considering he refuses to get in and I like playing games with him. I think secretly he likes playing games too so long as he wins. But I’m ravenous in a way that I’ve never been before, even when I was starving back at home, so I don’t think I could play very long.
“Fine,” I say and sink my feet into the cool sandy bottom of the lagoon and make my way to the shore.
When I walk out, water runs down my arms, down my torso and follows the V of my thighs. My hair is heavy and wet and sticks to my breasts.
Peter Pan’s eyes are drinking me in.
“We could linger for a while,” I suggest. “I’m hungry for something else, too.”
“You are always hungry for cock, Darling. But you will never be able to keep up with me if you don’t feed yourself something other than dessert.”
“When you say ‘dessert’， are you referring to Lost Boy cum or pancakes?”
He snorts and holds up my dress. He has it bunched in his hands so all I have to do is thread my arms in as he pushes it over my head.
I wiggle my hips so the thin cotton will sink over my hips. Pan lets out an appreciative growl.
“There will be plenty of time to fill you up with Lost Boy cum, Darling. But right now, you need meat and potatoes. Something to stick to your bones. Come.”
“I’m trying.” I give him a devilish grin.
“Is that the game we’re playing then?”
I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I am 100% a sex-positive kind of girl. I like sex and I don’t try to hide that. But I’m not usually so damn needy for it.
Or maybe it’s Peter Pan I’m needy for.
Pan scoops me up and tosses me over his shoulder.
“Hey!”
The wolf barrels out of the woods and yips at Pan.
“I warned her,” Pan tells the wolf. “She will obey me and so will you.”
The wolf yips.
I’m not sure what that means but Pan seems satisfied with the response.
He starts away from the lagoon.
But he doesn’t go toward the treehouse. Instead he goes toward town.
“I thought we were getting food?”
“We are,” he says. “It’s about time I show my face in Darlington Port. Remind them all who rules this land.”
It isn’t until I hear the distant hum of a small city that Pan puts me down. I straighten out my dress and realize I’m bare foot. But so is Pan. I guess there’s something wild about us both.
The dirt path from the woods connects to a road that goes north and south. But across it is a cobblestone road that spills downhill into a town.
Darlington Port, I guess. I can hear the rattle of wagon wheels over the stones. People shouting and laughing. The toll of a distant bell. The clashing of metal on metal and the smell of burning iron.
It wasn’t that long ago that I lived a normal life in a normal town in the normal world.
But however long I’ve been on Neverland and at the treehouse, it’s somehow wiped away what was normal and replaced it with something new.
Because being here in Darlington, I feel like a tourist in a novelty shop. Like I want to oohh and ahhh around every corner.
I suppose it doesn’t hurt that Darlington Port is very much like a 19th century Dutch Colonial town with white stucco buildings with exposed timber beams and crooked little stoops with colorful awnings and goods displayed in shop windows.
“You’ve been keeping this from me this entire time?! This is wonderful!” I say up to Pan and he smiles down at me.
“I suppose it does have it’s charm.”
We pass a bakery and a man out front is sweeping the stone stoop, the sign in his front window reading CLOSED in big red letters.
When he sees Pan, he stops sweeping, bows his head and keeps his eyes on the stone. “Never King,” he mumbles.
Pan ignores him.
Across the street is a book shop and a stationary next to it and a shoe shop next to that. Only the latter is open.
“Do you have money?” I ask Pan. “I could use shoes.” I wiggle my toes on the cold cobblestone.
“Of course.”
Something sweet bites at the air and on the tip of my tongue and a second later, Pan holds out his hand to reveal a pile of gold coins.
“Holy shit. How did you…where…”
I would have noticed if he was carrying a pile of heavy coins in his pants. Trust me. I notice everything that goes on in his pants.