The Hard Way (Box Set) by Stephanie Burke Page B

ice cubes, stealing sips of her good hooch, when she was wasted on Jagermeister.
    “We are not flies,” another voice huffed, joining the second cigar-smoking… thing that was hovering above her face. “We are personal, paternal, aviated, size-challenged inner desire granters.”
    “Did I say that out loud?” she gasped. Then his words, or at least some of them, penetrated her alcohol-fogged brain. “What?”
    “Ignore Carl,” the first personal paternal… flying thing interrupted. “He is playing the PC, card-holding metrosexual nowadays. His cigar is a legal Cuban,” he whispered in his rough voice, “and he has manicures to prevent tobacco stains on his fingers and nails.”
    “I’m dreaming,” she muttered. “This is a tequila induced fantasy.”
    “Then I would hate to see your nightmares,” another fly added as it joined the two hovering over her shocked face. “I mean really, look at those drapes and that carpet. Was your designer Martha Screw Up? I mean, plastic backings! Who has plastic backings on drapes? And that color! Neutral is not a color, darling -- it’s a country, like Switzerland!”
    “Okay,” Shaquandra muttered, desperately holding her panic at bay. “My brain is fried, I am receiving fashion advice from an insect.”
    “Decorating advice,” the perturbed voice corrected. “If I was going to give you fashion advice, I would say something about that terry cloth robe. Hello? It is so Laverne and Shirley ! I mean, get out of the seventies.” Then he added, in an aside to the others, “And a little wax will take care of that unibrow, ducky. Wax is for black people, too!”
    “I need a drink!” Shaquandra’s voice cracked as she felt herself slipping farther into insanity. She reached for her tumbler, forgetting her tequila moocher until the glass was at her lips. A movement made her look down with a whimper, just in time to catch the first of several cigar smoke rings that the floating fly blew at her.
    “I think you’ve had too much,” the first fly mused as she very carefully placed the tumbler back on the table.
    “I think you may be right,” she agreed, her voice reedy and thin.
    She was shocked that her voice sounded that normal. Hell, she had just impressed herself. “Okay,” she continued, sliding back into her couch to hide her trembling limbs. “Talk to me.”
    She was now ready for the pronouncement that the world was coming to an end or that Jenna Jameson, Nicole Ritchie, Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Michael Jackson had decided to form a Christian Coalition and give up sex, liquor, scandals, shocking people, and plastic surgery altogether.
    “We,” the first voice began formally, “are your Fairy Godfathers.”
    “Personal paternal…” the second voice began, but was cut off.
    “Fairy godfathers, Carl! We have wings and we wear tutus!”
    “Enhanced body sheaths,” Carl muttered, but fell quiet as the rest of the fly-fairy -- or was it the fairy-fly -- contingency shot him glares.
    “Carl the PC, Murray the drunk, Phil the fashion consultant, and I am Carter the leader. We are your four fairy godfathers!” Carter sounded pleased with himself.
    Shaquandra stared.
    “Well?” He flew in closer, close enough for her to see that the fly really did have a tiny face… that was covered with a five o’clock shadow. It was wearing, sure enough, a small black tutu and had a cigar clamped between its lips, lips that spread into a smile without dropping the precious cigar.
    “Get out!” She hid deeper in her comfy neutral colored couch and fiddled with her snack friends.
    “Truly!” Carter added, shifting his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without the use of his hands, a truly skilled and magnificent feat.
    “No,” Shaquandra stated. “Get out. Get out of my house! Get out now!” Her voice rose with each word, until she was nearly roaring.
    “You…” Carter stammered, a confused expression crossing his tiny little face.