Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:12:41 EST
From: J
Subject: PETER PAN 20

Chapter 20-CONFUSION DOES STOP BUT NOT A LOT

Some time later, two of the Lost Boys did not come home for sleep. Peter
and I searched all night, me for them, he for his Pan pipes, which also
seemed to be missing. I wasn't sure which was more important to Peter,
the pipes or Je'ne and Rico, the two missing lost boys. I was reluctant
to call myself their mother but truth be known I was really just that in
all but name. I refused to let them call me that and told Peter if he did
I'd run him through. Naturally Peter called me it as much as he could but
he knew how it angered me and I beat him silly at least once because of
it so he stopped doing it a lot. He was capable of change every now and
then, every hundred years or so. But gosh, he was like a god to me. His
looks, his personality, his beaming presense.

All night I searched. The Lost boys helped look for Jene and Rico too but
when they began to fall asleep in the air, I had to demand they return to
go home and sleep. They listened for once, especially after I had to dive
rescue five of them, something Peter taught me. With Peter you never knew
if he saved them from falling to prove himself or because he really
cared. I mean when I asked him he told me he loved us all, me especially
and he thought of them as brothers and maybe even, gasp, sons. The sons
thing was just pretend to him but he did love them. Peter and I stayed
out all night and we looked, both of us in different locations. I didn't
see him all night. Which did not make me happy.

He? Well he was almost always happy. Even in the middle of a torturous
adventure, as long as none of us were killed, like Oliver was and even
then, somehow I wondered if death made it even more exciting for him.
Anyway he loved Oliver and Oliver saved his life and Peter looked on
death as a passage not as death and finality. Let us not forget that
Oliver and the fairy boy had similar names. The fairy was called Olivier
but I just usually called him fairy.

Peter, during the day, found his pipes. "There you are! How'd you get
here?" His bare dirty feet landed next to them. And he bent to his knees
and joyously picked them up. "I'm so glad I found you. Oh the cleverness
of me! I knew you'd be here." Then why didn't he find them sooner, I
would have asked. He smiled and looked up at the warm wind blowing the
trees above. It filled him with joy. Peter put the pipes to his mouth and
blew. Music. I heard it from the Mermaid lagoon, where I floated over
mermen and boys, my admirer among them. A mermaid grabbed the boy that
jumped at me. He jumped full out of the water to try to grab me. I flew
upward, away but then I noticed the mermaid joined by two others, horrid
things that they were. The merboy was handsome and pretty and somehow I
felt responsible. I knew what it was like to be hopelessly crushed on
someone, Peter to be exact, and I knew he felt that way about me. It was
flattering, even if his taking of me tried to kill me.

I couldn't pretend the mermaids were doing what they were doing to him
because they felt for my safety. They didn't. They were just malicious
thing, unlike the males of the species. Three mermaids dragged the merboy
down to the surface and then under the water to be gone. I flew closer to
the surface, risking his coming up again and grabbing me...or even the
mermaids' wrath. The men and boys left there came to me and looked me
over. One or two could even talk and all could use telepathy. Talk to my
mind. "What's that? What're they doing to him?"

"They will lock him up and then take away all his gills."

"Kill him?"

"Slowly, yes he will die."

"No!" I took out my knife and dove straight in.

"Crazy," the merman said and followed me along with several of the other
boys.

"If you all won't help him, I will!" I dove under, holding my breath.
"You guys are such wimps!" I dove and dove and saw the mermaids with my
merboy on a ledge. They had him a giant bubble and they were able to
reach in and grab at his gills. "Let him alone you hags!" I came at them
with my knife and while they were ferious beasts they never expected me
to be as savage as they. If I had thoguht about what I was doing, I would
have realized how out of my friggin mind I was! If they didn't kill me,
my admirer might. And Peter could not rescue me this time. He didn't even
know where I was and it was the mermaids who usually told him his
information. To be fair, if they didn't, something else in Neverland, his
land, would.

Unknown to me, Peter played his pipes. He stood up and began a fly away
but stopped. He held his head. He dropped his hand. He put his pipes on
his vine belt. Two strange monkies came flying at him and held Peter's
shoulders. They were monkies with wings. But the strange thing about them
was that they were white as bone because they were bone. Skeletons. The
entire body of each monkey was skeleton. Peter later told me he thinks
they used to belong to a witch from the land of Oz and by the way, I met
Dorothy once but that's another story and shall be told another time.
She's a nice girl. Oz is really strange too. Peter laughed at the
challenge, "Hey boys you better let me go or I'll..." He looked as the
monkies flew and lifted him off the ground. "Allright, you asked for it!"
Peter bent his body and drove his feet up to his shoulders and kicked
the monkey beings. He drove his feet behind them and kicked them off his
shoulders and using his feet to grasp them up, he smacked them into each
other as he hit foot into foot. Laughing, Peter saw them break apart and
fall. And he was a few inches off the ground. Laughing, he began to try
to fly away but he fell to the ground! Peter shook his head in confusion
and pushed off the ground.

Three figures in robes were at the swamp, which was just off to the left.
"Hold him!" One said. They sounded old. Gravel voice.

Peter pointed at them, "No one can hold me! Is it you who took my power
to fly?"

"Oh," another old voice from the one in the middle, all three wearing
gray hoods with red symbols on the entire robe, symbols of evil, "We took
much more than that. All your powers are gone!"

Peter looked down at his pipes, "You put something on the pipes! My
pipes!"

"Indeed, he is smarter than you lead me to believe."

Peter stamped his foot, "Now you three, who ever you are listen to me!"

"I said hold him!" The third one said even though he was not the one
who commanded it. "You cannot resist us!"

Two rock creatures, human shaped in that they had arms, legs, a torso,
chests and what passed as a head, came from the ground and rose up,
taller than Peter. They grabbed Peter's arms and shoved him. Peter
laughed at first but then he realized he couldn't get out of their rock
grip. "Lemme go! Leave go of me! Ahh!" The rock creatures had two eyes
each where humans had their eyes.

"To the cave!" One of the old men snapped, "NOW!"

"What do you want with me?"

"We have need of your blood...Peter Pan!"

"Blood!" Peter sounded excited by the notion. Someone actually wanted
his blood. HIS. He knew they had good taste. He was smiling as he was
lead to the cave. The very same cave he had performed his magic ritual in
to send me back in time. "And you know my name, how nice, everyone who's
anyone does."

"You're in danger, Peter," one of the rock monsters said, "You don't know
how much danger you are in!"

Peter began to look worried, his veneer of bravado dropping slowly.

I hit one the mermaids with the hilt of my knife and kicked another one.
The third one gasped and swam off. I put both hands under the under arms
of the slimy merboy and it felt...kind of good. I lifted and lifted until
I was at the surface, the other mermen and boys watching me curiously.
Once at the surface the merboy breathed air and sucked it in graciously.
He looked at me lovingly and I felt chilled. Then he spoke for the first
time, the blue sensual lips moving oddly, "Thank you. I know you love
Peter Pan but I love you."

"I..." I looked up, "I know but I have to find two of my lost
friends....the lost boys. Two of them went missing last night..."

The merboy leaned close to me and I thought he was going to plant a kiss
onto my mouth but he moved past my face to my ear, "Check out the cave
where Peter did his magic to send you away... tell no one not even he who
is Pan that I told you this. I know of his black magic. For he is a
demon..."

I laughed, "Oh....oh, ahh, you're just saying that, because, because..."
I was wet and tired and dripping but turned red in the face from
embarassment, "...you just want me for...you're jealous of Peter."

"Nevertheland nevertheless, watch out for him. He's bad
form....demon....boy."

"I won't hear anymore of it but..." I lifted my arms and rose up from
the water and turned to look at the merboy. He was very handsome and well
built and bigger than Peter, "But I thank you for your help."

"And I thank you." The merboy laughed and waved. Then I saw his fin as
he dove.

I shook my head but as I flew off, I felt ached by the thought that Peter
was some kind of a god...or more to the point a demon. Was it true? No,
he was human. At least partly. Sometimes I even saw him go to the
bathroom, at least recently. Or was he pretending. Anyway it didn't
matter. I had to find Je'ne and Rico, my lost boys who were...lost. I
worried they were already dead. Like Oliver. But wouldn't Peter know if
they were? Would he care? Looking for his pipes, indeed. No, I was not
their mother but I acted like one and he was not their father and didn't
act like one. Sometimes. He pretends a lot did I say that?

In the cave, a most hideous thing took place. Peter was laid by the rock
monster men onto a slab of stone. The three gray robed beings moved over
him, their withered hands moving across his whole body, long fingernails,
peach colored skin but also ashen as though they were washed too often or
were in water too long. One began to stick a fingernail into his navel
and the other two balked and stopped him. "No, no, not that. Not like
that!"

"Like this!" The middle one produced from his robes a long thin metal
needle and the end of it had a horrid white skull. He put it in Peter's
navel and stuck it in.

"Not too much! We need to collect this blood!"

Peter gasped, "Owahh!" He bent and tried to move but found now he
couldn't even do that. "You will regret this!" 

"Miss flying, boy?" The hooded one said and as he did his hood slipped
off. Peter winced. It was an old, old man. Wrinkled. Slits for eyes and
red pupils beneath that. The other two were even more horrid to Peter.
One had hair all over, a long white beard and moustache, hair from his
ears, gray and white; hairy thick eyebrows. Hair on his lips even. Hair
on hands that moved. One stuck a needle in Peter's left nipples and
shoved. Peter gasped.

"Expect me to scream? Peter Pan does not scream!" 

"But he does fly so..." The other one, the most withered, almost a skull
face, waved both hands and Peter's body flew up and spun once. He was
stomach to ground but floating upward. Peter was wide eyed, the pain
didn't hurt too much. He was bleeding a bit and dripping blood. Peter was
floated over a huge black pot, the handle down. In it was some boiling
gray vicious looking liquid. It began to mix with his red blood which
slowly dripped from left nipple and navel. Ropes latched onto Peter's
wrists and ankles and he was soon strung up from the cave roof. His back
was arched to the extreme and his belly was extended as far as it could
go, nearly touching the liquid. Blood dripped down the needle into the
vat. Peter's eyes teared from the heat, not the pain. But he was a boy
and a boy usually feared for his life. Peter wasn't like other boys but
while they shuddered more than once, he shuddered just once. He gulped.

Peter looked at the liquid, "It's a good day to die."

The old men laughed. One came up to him and put another needle in, this
time in his right nipple. "We, being sorcerers of the highest ilk..."

"You mean..." Peter winced as the needle went in deeper than the other
one, "Highest ick...."

"Defiant to the end, Peter of the Pan. As I was saying we could do this
by magic but it is the..."

The other one went on for him, "The personal touch that we love so
much..." This one moved the navel needle up higher into Peter.

"OAAHHHH!" Peter strained against his bonds but they wouldn't give. Not
even his method of puffing himself out and then letting go worked on the
bonds this time. He tightened his body against the pain, which was now
substantial.

"Don't go in there!"

"Get outta my way fairy!"

Olivier the fairy tried to warn me about the adult evil magic within but
I didn't care. "You can't! They will kill you too!"

"You love Peter! I love Peter. Why won't you help him?"

"You can't!"

"Look! Help, follow me in, lead me in or get to safety but either way get
the fuck outta my way!"

Inside the cave, one of the withered sorcerers laughed, "Your blood will
give us reign over that awful Time Guard and we will rule Neverland and
beyond in all times and places..."

"In....." Peter was about to pass out, "Your....dreams!"

Peter's stomach heaved and swayed but in the end he let it go limp,
bulging down. The needle was far in his belly button now.

"And now it is time for the rest of your blood to follow into our pot!"

"LIKE HELL!" I flew in fast!

"Chase! Get out of here, they have magic that can stop ours! Adult
magic!"

I flew in and my hands made a fist by combining. I flew at the one on the
other side of the pot, both fists making contact with his face and I
moved the fists into his chest so he could fall against the wall behind
him. Doing this, I had to arch under Peter's belly and much as I wanted
it to rub against my bare back, I didn't, for a needle was there. While
doing this, I also spread my legs out far so that my feet smacked hard
into the other two old men and all three were now sent sprawling. I took
my knife out and was about to cut Peter loose.

Peter yelled, "No, the pot! It's the source of their powers! Drop it into
Smokey Top Mountain!"

"I have to get you loose first!" I put my arm around his waist, trying
to miss the needle. I had to get him down without him falling into the
pot of hot water and his own blood.

On the floor, the sorcerers waved their hands. "What? We are powerless!"

"Not quite!" Another yelled, "Get them!"

The rock monsters moved at me and I stared at one. "STOP!" I turned, cut
Peter's ropes on his wrists in one wave for each and held his upper body,
his legs still attached to the roof. I looked at the other one which was
moving both hands up at us to smack us in the heads, "YOU STOP NOW!" I
made contact with both the rock monsters' set of eyes. The monsters
backed off and nodded.

Peter wondered while I cut his feet, "How?"

"Peter, can't you see their eyes? It's Je'ne and Rico! They've been
turned into rock monsters!" 

Peter looked while I cut his bonds that held his ankles, "Oh...." He
looked into the eyes of the rock beings, "Oh yeah...." He gasped.

"Sorry, did I hurt you?"

"Yeah but I can take it!" Peter said and nearly passed out. "It is Jene
and Rico. I'm glad I noticed that."

Sigh. I sighed. "Je'ne, take Peter outside!" Handed Peter to rock
monster Jene and he flung Peter over his shoulder. Peter passed out.
"Rico, help me!" 

I flew over to the pot again and tried to dump it. Rico came over and
easily did so to the yellings of the old men not to. They screamed as the
vat liquid landed on them, burning them. For good measure I took my sword
and cut off all three's heads without hesitation. But they were still
talking from disembodied heads. I went to the pot and flew out with it,
struggling, "Olivier, fairy boy, help me!" Fortunately, he was still
there. He was fawning over an unconscious Peter which Jene, the rock
being, laid down on the grass. Peter's eyes were shut and he looked white
and was still bleeding.

"I can't! I have to help Peter!"

"This is the only way! I can't lift this pot all the way to Smokey Mount!
I need your help!" The fairy looked at me so I continued, "The sooner we
drop it in there, the faster we can see to his wounds! NOW HURRY
BEFORE...."

Olivier was blowing extra fairy dust onto the pot and me and I lifted it
with ease, Rico coming out of the cave. I heaved it over the volcano in
no time and dropped it into the lava. It melted into nothing. I flew back
to the cave and went in. The old men were dead. Peter's blood was gone
and the men were skeletons now. I flew out and rushed to Peter. Jene and
Rico were there and they were themselves, the magic of the old sorcerers
dead too. Je'ne was dark and looked a lot like Kenny Morrison from THE
NEVER ENDING STORY 2 while Rico looked like MENUDO member Angelo Garcia.
"He's dying," Olivier the fairy told me.

"No!" I said and moved them all back away from him, "Back!" I put an
arm under Peter's back and lifted, "No you won't! Won't die! Not now!" I
put him back down and then took his own hands into mine. I ripped out the
needles, one at a time, they were all awfully deep and the stomach one
seemed to mutilate his navel beyond recognition as I tore it out. I
didn't care. I had to try something. I put his hands over his own nipple
wounds and held them there with my right hand over both his hands and
pressed. With my other free hand, I put over his navel wound and pressed.
Tears came down my face. "Peter...."

I thought about everything. His entry to my room. The flight to
Neverland. The tiger. His help in saving it. His saving me from the
merboy drowning me by mistake. Kickai and the pirates. The indian camp.
The trip in time and Captain Hook and the window and Peter's mother and
brother named Peter. Our nights and days together. Peter saving me from
Jason, Micheal and Freddie as well as the Texas Chainsaw family. My days
back in the real world. The Time Guard. Peter's cockiness. Our singing.
His singing, our dancing up in the sky, over the whole of Neverland.
Trips to the real world. Outer space. History. Other universes and
dimensions. But most of all, his love and my love. I felt a warm tender
feeling welling up in my heart and spreading out to my legs and feet, up
my chest to my arms and down my hands' fingers. Tingling. Entering his
wounds. It was his power coming from him, transforming my love into
healing power and re-entering his own body to heal it. He had no power to
heal on his own but I did and combined with his love and my love it would
work. Tears dripped from my eyes to his mouth. A tongue whipped out and
licked it. "Mmmm, salty." Peter's eyes opened. I laughed, tears
leaving.

"Peter! Allright?" 

"Let me go and you'll see!" Peter said, his eyes opening greater. Wider.

I removed my hands and saw a firm set of nipples and a perfect shallow
innie/outtie belly button. I was amazed.

"How does I look?"

"Beautiful! Perfect!"

"As always!" Peter sat up and hugged me.

"I couldn't have put it better!" I hugged back tightly.

"How did you do that? Stop those evil old men?" Je'ne asked, leaning
over us.

"I don't know. My love. And maybe...maybe I have some adult magic in me
too."

"Yuck!" Peter said and so did Oliveier the fairy.

"Hey say yuck to this!" I open mouthed kissed him and then pulled back,
"It saved your ass, you silly ass!"

Peter smiled, "So it did. Maybe there is some good adult magic."

Eureka, change in Pan.


The play Peter Pan and its characters are trademarks of and copyright
J.M. Barrie