Page 17 of Shroom for Improvement

Josh couldn’t be further from Claude. He was human, and he smiled, and he’d kissed me within twenty minutes of meeting me. And he was here with me right now, and Claude wasn’t, and... I should just stop thinking about that bloody shroom fae.

I let my hands travel down the back of Josh’s shirt, feeling the damp warmth of his muscles through the fabric. His fingers wove higher into my hair. We pulled apart.

“You’re really fucking good at that,” he panted into my mouth, his eyes slightly unfocused.

“Three hundred years of practice,” I replied. “So, what do you want to do now?”

“Take me back to your place. And fuck me.”

I was already on my feet.

Pee-Bales and Neighbourly Chats

Sonny

Before Josh, I hadn’t had sex in nearly six months, so I didn’t mind too much when he asked me to top. Well, told me to top. A bossy bottom, I guess. I mean, it was fine. It was still great. He was great. Even though I did all the work and even though I desperately wanted to be fucked. I hadn’t been fucked in so long I wondered if I ever would again.

I watched the shadowy silhouette of Josh’s sleeping form rise and fall with his peaceful breaths. The moonlight streamed in through my panoramic windows and cast golden highlights across the curves of his naked hip, his shoulder, his jaw. The sheets had tangled around his legs.

On paper, Josh was the kind of guy I could fall in love with—handsome, smart, friendly, successful. Yet there was something not quite... there, and I couldn’t put my finger on what. And it wasn’t that he was human. I knew my lifespan asa fae would be ten times his, but my neighbour was a fae. He’d fallen in love with a human, and evoked some form of ancient fae magic that meant her lifespan had been extended far beyond her human years.

I was a huge fan of archaic fae magic. I may have mentioned that.

No, it was something else.

My watch told me it was just after three a.m. I rolled onto my back and attempted to drift back to sleep, but my mind whirred, and I needed to pee. So I got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt, and headed to my building’s roof.

I relieved my bladder into—onto—a metre by half-metre brick of compacted straw. My pee-bale. My pride and joy. My other collection.

Yep, I collected my pee.

Okay, yeah, it was fucking weird, but there were so many incredible nutrients in urine that plants absolutely loved: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. You couldn’t piss directly onto the plants, or they’d curl up and die from the potency—not to mention, my allotment neighbours wouldn’t be best pleased with the view—which was why the pee-bale came in so handy, tucked away behind a couple of fence panels. The straw absorbed the urine and all those wonderful goodies, and when the pee-bale was full and it had matured, I could break it apart and spread it over the soil’s surface.

I tried to keep my diet as organic as possible, no meat or fish, and I tried not to use my bale if I’d been drinking. But I knew for a fact my neighbour, Goldie, used it too. He mostly came up to the allotments to either sit with his fiancée and watch the sunrise, or smoke weed, so gods knew what toxins were in his pee.

“Sonny?” Came a male voice from the general direction of the two sun loungers on the easternmost ledge.

Think of the devil.

“Hey, Goldie,” I said, strolling over and taking the free seat, the one often occupied by his human girlfriend. “No Holly tonight?”

“She’s gone to the Human Realms to visit family for Spring Fest. It’s a big deal for some of them, apparently,” he said. “You smell like sex.”

Goldie was a nymph. A mountain nymph, to be precise. He had some sort of sixth sense for sex.

“He’s still asleep,” I replied. And then, because I was keen to change the subject, I said, “How come you’re not going to the Human Realms with her?”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “You know how it is. Some of the older family members are not my biggest fans.”

I got it. Not only were the couple from different species, but Holly, who had absorbed some of Goldie’s millennia-long lifespan, would now outlive all her family members, including their great-great-great nieces and nephews. Besides, Goldie had never been the easiest person to get along with. He was a nymph, smoked too much weed, drove a ridiculous sports car, designed video games where unaliving people was actively encouraged, and his resting bitch face was on a gold-medal-winning level.

He almost never appeared happy. Except when he was with Holly. That was really the only time I’d ever seen Goldie smile.

“You like this guy?” he asked. “Is this... a thing?”

Urgh, we were back on the topic of Josh. “I dunno. Probably not. He’s human.”

Goldie pulled a face like he’d smelled a bad fart. Despite Holly being human.

---