The Heart of Whimsy

The temperature dropped ten degrees the moment the sun dipped behind the spine of the Green Mountains. December. Out across the clearing at Faerie Camp Destiny, the air filled with balsam fir, woodsmoke, and breath. The ground was hard. Sweetfern was a memory under the boots.

The stage was little more than a low deck of hemlock planks, hand-hewn and silvered by mountain weather, resting on granite fieldstones. Strands of yellow Edison bulbs and mason jars glowing with warm filaments swayed gently from the cedar posts. In the hollow below, fifty faeries sat shoulder to shoulder on plaid wool blankets, velvet cushions, and sleeping bags, coats zipped, steam at their mouths. Shawls fringed with silver tinsel rustled; antlered headdresses and beaded crowns caught the amber lantern light. Eddie and Jessica had a blanket near the front. Eddie’s waveform was a quiet gold. Jessica’s tablet was dark in her coat. A soft, collective breath rose like steam as Noah Fernwood walked out from the trees. Druid. That was his name on this mountain.

He moved with an unhurried, heavy-footed grace, clad in an oversized, moth-nibbled cardigan that sagged over his shoulders, sleeves pushed to his forearms. In his right hand, he carried a 1960s acoustic flat-top—lacquer checked across the spruce top, wood raw and worn down to the grain around the soundhole. He dragged a sturdy wooden stool forward, its legs groaning against the pine decking, and sat.

He didn't speak. He didn't offer a title. He leaned forward until his lips almost grazed the black foam of the single Shure microphone.

With a snap of his wrist, his thumb dug into the low D-string. It didn't ring out with bright folk cheer; it droned, guttural, low, and hollow, shaking through the timber boards beneath his boots. The dissonance hovered in the night air, pinning the clearing into an immediate, breathless hush.

Then his fingers found the first chord, dragging the tempo into a slow, bruised, deliberate pulse. This was not a Maypole night. This was December remembering one. Noah’s voice cut through the dark—not theatrical, but raspy, cracked at the margins, and laced with intimate ache:

“There’s a red light burning

Where the good boys never go

There’s a witch in the mirror

With a crown made out of smoke...”

The words hung in the mountain chill like incense. He sang of the subterranean underworld—a velvet-draped strip club where the fallen, the strange, and the broken met under flickering neon. In his delivery, the seedy venue shifted into a hidden sanctuary, where a dancer descending with glitter on their throat wasn't an object of consumption, but a living saint offering a prayer that no conventional church would dare write. Noah’s foot began to stomp against the wood planking, steady as a heartbeat, matching the bass notes:

“You came down from the dressing room

With glitter on your throat

Like a saint from a dirty church

Like a prayer nobody wrote

The room went still around you

Every sinner held his breath

You wrapped your hands around the pole

And danced the sun to death

There were roses in the ashtray

There was honey on the floor

And every man who watched you

Wanted something from the door

But I saw the candle flicker

I saw the circle drawn

I saw the old gods waking

In the place they said was wrong

And I don’t know if I should kneel

Or run into the night

But you looked at me like mercy

With your body full of light

There’s blood on the Maypole tonight

Not from dying

But from being alive

There’s blood on the Maypole tonight

You spin like a spell

In the red velvet light

And I would lay my name down

I would lay my shame down

I would let the old world burn

Just to watch you rise

There’s blood on the Maypole tonight

And baby, it’s mine”

The sound swelled as Noah leaned hard into the guitar, hammering the acoustic body with the heel of his palm to create a sharp, thumping backbeat. The campers in the meadow leaned forward, shoulders touching, sway answering sway. He sang of the old gods—the Green Man, the Horned God, the radiant sparks of light that orthodox worlds called fallen simply because they dared to glow. He tore through the bridge like an incantation, surrendering fear, pride, and hunger, letting the dance floor dissolve completely into an ancient forest grove.

“They threw paper like leaves

At the altar of your feet

But you gathered every dollar

Like a charm against defeat

You smiled like a secret

You moved like a blade

Every curve a little scripture

Every bruise already paid

I could feel the forest breathing

Through the speakers and the smoke

Green Man in the exit sign

Horned God in the strobe

And Lucifer was laughing

Not cruel, but soft and low

Like, “Look what they called fallen

Just because he learned to glow”

And I don’t want to save you

I don’t want to make you clean

I just want to meet you

Where the holy things are seen

There’s blood on the Maypole tonight

And baby, it’s mine

Take my fear, take my pride

Take the boy they crucified

Take the hunger I denied

Take me where the witches hide

Take my mouth, take my prayer

Take my hands into your hair

Take the god they buried there

Raise him up into the air

Oh, the club becomes a clearing

Oh, the pole becomes a tree

Oh, your body is the sermon

And your sweat is saving me”

Noah snapped the strings one last time, driving the guitar into a ringing acoustic break. He bent the treble strings until they wailed with raw, microphonic bite, his head hung low, sweat dark on his collar despite the mountain cold. Then he found the last verse.

“When the song began to shatter

You were laughing through the flame

Not a victim, not an angel

Not a body without name

You were Beltane in black leather

You were moonlight in the wires

You were all the pretty devils

Calling lonely men to fire

And I stood there like an offering

With my ghosts around my knees

You said, “Love is not possession

Love is learning how to see”

So I opened like a wound

So I opened like a door

So I gave the night my sorrow

And I asked for nothing more

There’s blood on the Maypole tonight

And baby, it’s mine

And baby, it’s mine

Spin

Baby, spin

The old gods are listening

The forest is listening

And I am on my knees

In the red velvet light

Spin.”

As the final resonance decayed into the surrounding hemlocks, he leaned his forehead against the mic stand, breathing the silence back in. Out in the meadow, not a single person spoke. Eddie’s throat was tight. Jessica’s glove found his hand. They only watched, transfixed, while the mountain wind rustled the high canopy above them.

After the show they did not hurry. Destiny stayed cold. Breath showing. Faeries still out in coats. The three of them staggered back to their tent, passing a joint back and forth, laughing about how fierce the play was. The dirt path was frozen. The tent was going to be the stove. As they walked, Eddie could feel himself getting aroused anyway.

“Oops, here he comes, y’all.” Eddie was a grower, not a shower, and within a matter of seconds his penis started getting erect.

“Uh oh,” Noah replied. “Now you’re going to make me get hard.”

Jessica giggled and said, “My titties are hard!”

They all laughed as they crawled back into the tent. Eddie got on his knees on the foldable small mattress they brought for the trip.

“Why don’t y’all suck my cock?” Eddie said with his boyish grin.

“Why don’t you guys eat my pussy first?” Jessica quickly interjected.

Eddie said, “I like that idea better.” So, Eddie and Noah cuddled up next to each other on their stomachs while Jessica spread her legs and lifted her knees to her chest.

The two guys took turns licking her pussy and flicking their tongues on her clitoris. Occasionally they would open mouth kiss and lick her ejaculate off each other’s faces.

“You guys are going to make me squirt again, I can feel it,” Jessica moaned.

“I need some penetration, baby,” Eddie said, getting on his hands and knees. He looked at Noah and said, “Dude, lick my balls.”

Then Eddie thrust his cock in Jessica’s hole. As Eddie fucked her missionary style, Noah ate Eddie’s ass and sucked his balls like it was his job.

Eddie pumped his cock into Jessica’s pussy until he felt the urge to cum. “Yo dude, it’s your turn, or I’m gonna squirt.”

Eddie dismounted Jessica so Noah could take over. Noah had a nice big banana cock like Eddie, and Jessica sighed as he slid it up her canal.

Eddie stood up, walked to the head of the bed, and straddled Jessica’s head. He squatted down, putting his asshole on her mouth.

“Lick my ass, baby. Be a good girl and lick daddy’s asshole.”

Eddie masturbated over Jessica as she tongued his hole while Noah’s thrusts became more embodied.

“Tell me when you’re going to cum and we can squirt together, dude,” Eddie said, open-mouthed, staring into Noah’s blue eyes. “Monkey goon, dude. Get stupid on your penis.”

As Noah fucked, he started making sounds like a monkey: “Ooo Ooo Ooo ah ah ah ee ee eeeee.”

Then his eyes opened wide. “This is not going to take very long. Fuck, I’m going to cum.”

“Did you hear that, baby? Noah is going to make you a creampie,” Eddie shouted to Jessica, whose face was buried under Eddie’s bubble butt, tongue deep in his ass.

“Cum in her, dude. Drop a load.”

Jessica felt the warm explosion deep inside, filling her full of cum.

As Noah started cumming, his eyes rolled back into his head, his head fell back, he opened his mouth, and his tongue came all the way out as he released a massive groan.

“Agggghhhhhhhhhhh.”

When Eddie saw Noah’s goon face, he started ejaculating on both of them.

As Noah slowly pulled out of Jessica, Eddie grabbed the small pink battery-operated vibrator in Jessica’s backpack. It was her travel bullet to get her off whenever she was on the road.

Jessica lay between the boys and masturbated to the point of ejaculation while Eddie and Noah sucked on both her tits, licking off Eddie’s cum.

“Oh, my goodness! Oh, I’m going to squirt!” she cried. With that, she sprayed the entire bed and wall of the tent.

“Good girl!” Eddie laughed. “Damn, girl, you busted a fucking nut.”

Noah’s eyes were bloodshot and wide as hell. “Whoa, does she always squirt like that?”

Jessica went limp in the two guys’ arms. Eddie and Noah locked eyes and smiled.

Then Eddie reached forward and gave Noah a smooch on the lips. “That was hot,” Eddie concluded.

“That was cock tree magick, Eddie,” Noah said with a smile.

Eddie put his hands behind his head and looked up at the top of the tent. He could see the moonlight beaming down through the rainbow-colored fabric. It laid on three stupid smiles and left them there.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Magick.”