Chapter Rated R - discussions of a sexual nature.
My Darling Love
Chapter 53 – The Wendy That Was
"Well behaved women rarely make history."
-Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Wendy Darling made her way quickly, not stopping to take a breath, barreling down the street in an absolute fury. Her father was home playing chess, her uncle reading in his armchair puffing nonchalantly on his pipe, John was oblivious, as always, and the only person in the whole world who cared about Mary was her eldest child. "I just can't believe my father, did you hear him, Peter? 'I thought your mother was home already'. You know what he sounded like, Peter? STUPID! That's what. I mean, really, volunteering at the church serving supper to paupers until all hours of the night. God only knows where mother is! What happens if she was assaulted, and is lying dead in an alley somewhere? What happens if she was murdered? What happens if an automobile hit her and she is laid up in the hospital and the doctors there don't know whom she is because her husband is a stupid, selfish fool! Peter? Peter?"
Peter Pan casually strolled many steps behind her, not listening to the words that bounced off of him, stopping to tie his shoe, stopping to peek in a store window, stopping to look at a shiny candy wrapper lying in the street that appeared to be a coin, stopping to yawn, stopping simply because he preferred to be back in her parents' parlor drinking, laughing and having fun. Searching for Mrs. Darling was not fun, and not on his mind. "Hey, Wendy, how about we take a train to Italy, I like fountains and I hear they have really good food there."
"Italy? Fountains? Food? What are you talking about? And a train? Are you mad? You can't get to Italy taking a train. MY MOTHER IS MISSING!"
"Who cares, Wendy? May be she just ran away."
That stopped Wendy; she turned around and stared down Peter. He was a grown man now, but not grown up. He still had the amazing ability to fly, even though his feet were now bound to the ground. Wendy used the word to describe her fiancé many times when he endlessly embarrassed her at every single social function, including this Christmas with her family. "He is a tad bit flighty, that's all." And flighty it was, unreliable, undependable, unpredictable, inconsistent, selfish, self-centered, and very annoying, if tolerated for too long. Peter Pan did have one redeeming quality; he was an amazing kisser. Wendy could never remember ever being kissed so fine and pleasing, and that was the point, she didn't remember. Peter ran face to face with her and dipped her in a passionate lip lock that by tried and true measure normally returned her cheerful smile. But not tonight.
He lifted her back into her standing position, and an unimpressed and rather disillusioned Wendy shoved him away and wiped her mouth. "Not this time, Peter!" she fumed as she stalked off without him.
Peter watched after her, wide-eyed for only a second. "Fine, Wendy, I'll just go home BY MYSELF! ALONE AND UNLOVED!" he called after her as she was now over a block up the street already. "I was trying to be nice and help you out, but since you don't want my help, I AM NOT GOING TO HELP YOU. I THINK YOUR MOTHER IS SILLY FOR GIVING UP CHRISTMAS WITH YOU ANYWAY AFTER NOT SEEING YOU FOR SO LONG!" Wendy paid no attention to him and kept walking. "Hey, Wendy, she's not looking for you!"
The church was sealed up tight and dark in the night. Wendy looked about down alleyways and street corners as she headed in the direction she knew her mother took every Sunday. There at the church, she was not giving up her search. She banged repeatedly on the rectory door, waking the priest and several nuns who came running to her call, very surprised to have the eldest Darling child on their doorstep so late in the night. They were even more baffled when she asked about Mary's whereabouts, "I'm sorry, Wendy but your mother has not been here all day. Indeed, dear child, the last time I saw her was last night after midnight mass. She got into quite a scuffle with a rude and intolerable man. Thank the Lord that the constable was here."
"A man? Was he harassing her? Did he attempt to rob her? She made no mention of it when she returned home last night." (The nun called Wendy a "dear child," but she did not resemble that kind title. She was a grown woman, who had taken to bed with a pirate captain, an incomplete man, and quite a few others who need not be mentioned. She had birthed a child, run away several times, and in most polite circles would be called a tramp, hussy or even she-devil. But to a nun who didn't know of her worldly adventures, "dear child" it was.)
"No, nothing like that dearest child, old lover's quarrel it seems. From her words, your mother gave the impression that she knew his identity all too well. Best I can guess from serving the Lord here all my life and their conversation, a very loud and nasty dispute over your father and their marriage, that maybe he was her scorned fiancé of many years back," the nun replied.
The other nun standing behind her shook her head. "No her fiancé's name was Fisher, yes that's right, Biggins Fisher, he is that regal lawyer who owns all that real estate downtown. Don't you remember, Sister Bernadette? He just donated enough money and some extra to replace all the church pews. And anyway, Mr. Fisher and his wife see Mrs. Darling and her husband all the time on Sundays, and always they extend each other their best wishes of health and happiness to the other's family."
"Oh you are indeed correct, Sister Clare, Biggins Fisher, how could I forget? What a scandal it was, their wedding, complete with cake and flowers and all those beautiful things young brides insist upon, was planned and canceled several times over before her parents finally allowed her to marry the Darling's youngest son. Well, not that they had much of a choice after that he put her in the wrong way." Sister Clare nudged Sister Bernadette from behind, indicating Wendy was the one Mary held within her hidden in white.
"I mean your father, Wendy dear. And what a good man he is, no matter what circumstances were that made them get married, a far better choice for our sweet Mary Elizabeth." The nun took Wendy's face in her hands, giving her sincerest and heart felt apology, "I am sorry, dearest child, I shouldn't have said that to you, God forgive my loose tongue. Your parents loved one another so very much, it must have been hard for them, I remember them coming to first mass where there is no collection plate passed as newlyweds carrying you in their arms. But after all these years, with God's blessings, they have proven even the wisest wrong, not to mention the fools who believed wealth was more powerful than love. You know, Wendy dear; the love of money is the root of all evils. You mother and father proved that it doesn't matter if a couple doesn't have two pennies to rub together, if they love, then they have all they need."
Wendy walked the entire way home deep in her thoughts. "Wealth is not more powerful than love," and "the love of money is the root of all evils," she repeated in her heart as well as her mind. "If you love, then you have all you need..." Peter Pan was a wealthy man; he claimed he had inherited quite a lot of money from his family when they passed on. He had run away to Neverland, and lived thousands of lives, all in the body of a boy before returning to demand his family's money. "My family is rich, I was their only child and they worked their whole lives away. I'm not going to do that, I am going to travel the world without ever having to earn one cent of the money I intend to spend on you, Wendy darling," he told her when they met again in this world.
Wendy had tried so hard not to forget about Peter and Neverland once home with her parents. That was partly the reason she set her sights on torturing Captain Hook when she was a young girl of sixteen. Neverland grew further and further away in her mind, her brothers had already forgotten, and they were younger than she. Reading her mother's diary stolen from her dream drawer in mother's bedroom only proved how tedious, difficult, complicated and horrible grown up life could be. Mary Elizabeth may have seemed happy to her children, but her diary listed a completely different life of misery and rather wicked methods of madness. Wendy wanted to remember desperately what it was like to be young or have the choice to stay young, and so her visits began. And what did she find when she ventured back? She was expecting to see a fattened crocodile still slowly digesting Captain Hook's remains. In fact, she found him alive and well, and waiting.
Captain Hook was still as mean and ruthless in his hunt to kill a boy dead set on never growing up. Wendy took it upon herself to punish him for all his malice and cruelty, for who was he to tell children they should not be allowed to stay young forever? As far as she was concerned, at sixteen and already on her way to maturity, he was just jealous that he was already past the time when immortality and a youthful forever was an option. Not to mention, he was obviously alone for no one loved him. There was to be no kiss to save him, at least not from her – or so Wendy thought - still seeing past the unknown truth of the situation through a child's eyes.
Wendy remembered nothing of this, for that is also the magic of Neverland. Away into the night, out the bedroom window she would taunt him with the never-ending influx of lost boys, and with Peter Pan, still the ringleader of havoc (when not off to gather new recruits,) the battles raged on. That was until one day she discovered something of Captain Hookmany others before her had ever seen, but would never dare talk about. There was in him compassion and an undeniable mercy of the kindest and bravest of hearts.
In the clutches of the nastiest pirates, about to rape the young lady held captive, abandoned by her devoted comrades, who still called her "mother," a pirate captain listened to her plead for mercy as she was tied down on a table bare as the day she was born. Over the cries from his men who were dying to "BREAK HER IN" and then turn her over and show her "IT GOES IN AS EASY AS IT COMES OUT!" because "IT"S BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE'VE HAD A REAL WOMAN HERE, CAPTAIN, PLEASE!"
This grown up man, who held his right by the laws of piracy to go first, raised his hook and said, "Not if this young lady is as unwilling as she appears." He cut the ropes that held her hands and legs with his hook, and then covered her with his coat. He turned to his crew and commanded, "No man will ever touch her, by my order, unless she gives her willing consent."
Without ever swearing to her if she was caught again he would not defend her virtue, he released her safely to the shore with a brief but significant warning, "Wendy, you are not the little girl you once were. The men on board my ship see you differently now that you have matured. Heed my advice, the children you keep company with call you mother, the pirates you engage in never ending conflict with want to make you a mother. Do you understand the difference?"
Wendy nodded to him, trying to hide the blush that radiated from her cheeks to her entire body. She found it difficult to not look at his handsome face, not to mention his enticing build, for it was not only her outward appearance that had changed. With maturity came a craving for the opposite sex, so innocent at first. But there on the shore, in the presence of a truly complete man, already well beyond puberty, the innocence now altered to curiosity as to what being with a man such as Captain Hook with his attractiveness and strength would be like. He had not changed in the years she had been gone from Neverland. There was not one difference in his face – the age and experiences in hell were all still present in his eyes and branded on his heart.
In a flirtatious manner, which she could tell from his expression he found uncomfortable, she snatched a small kiss of gratitude from his lips. "Very well, you have been forewarned," he intoned, seemingly unimpressed with her gesture, but his actions did not convince her of his blasé disposition, for the simple act of not wiping her insignificant peck away made her think otherwise. She further knew she had made a lasting impression with him when, while heading back to his ship and she back to the lost boys hidden lair, he turned to catch one last look at her. "A man may hold a aloof air to your charms, Gwendolyn, but if he watches after you when you take your leave of him, that alone clearly states he is interested," Aunt Millicent's voice sang in her ear, for she had heard that statement just the day before in her etiquette lesson.
Peter and Wendy spent many a day together, and he never looked back when she left to go anywhere. As she was being tailed by her assailants only hours before, frightened for her life, with no happy thoughts to fill her head and unable to fly up and away, Peter took to the air and left her to her own defense. Captain Hook not only defended her, he saved her. "I want Peter to love me like a gentleman should love a lady he wishes to marry, but to no avail. The only way to make a man truly love you and grow up, is to first make him jealous and fearful that another will steal away your heart," Wendy wrote that night in her diary before retiring. And so it started from there. She would purposely get captured whenever she was in Neverland in an attempt to be near the dread pirate captain. Soon she discovered a way to pass over Peter Pan and the lost boys undetected, flying directly to him.
Captain Hook would see her fall from the sky, landing at his feet on deck almost nightly and sneer, "Oh no...not again..." And Wendy Darling would rise and greet him with a lovely hug, which was never returned, and chime, "What are we going to do today Captain Hook? Would you like me to tell the men another story?"
Wendy did her best "flirting" while telling her tales. It was always a fair maiden named Gwendolyn trapped somewhere who was in need of rescue from the fearless pirate captain. And always there was the kiss that came at the end. As she spoke of her hero's soft lips and gentle touch that warmed the heart of the damsel in distress, she made sure her eyes met Captain Hook's under the moonlight. Soon enough, a real pirate captain named James Hook was rewarded for his patience in tolerating the stowaway named Wendy Darling who would hide in the cupboard of the galley if need be – just to ensure she was on the good ship, Jolly Roger.
"If you want to be a pirate Wendy..." Captain Hook managed as he yanked her from her hiding spot yet again after already warning her several times, "You are to keep to the shores and inlands of Neverland Wendy, for those are the rules. You are not allowed on board this ship for any reason except to walk the plank!" Wendy interrupted him as she stood and instantly fell into his arms, which he held out to thwart her advances with, "Not a pirate Captain Hook, I want to be your partner in crime."
It was an offer too tempting to decline. Captain Hook thought on it a moment before offering his hand for a gentleman's handshake to settle their pact. Wendy had another idea of the proper way to seal the deal. She kissed him. It was to be a short exchange, but became a long lingering kiss filled with passion that left Wendy woozy and on the verge of fainting. She did, and Captain Hook caught her in his able arms as she collapsed. Wendy woke up warm, snug and safe in her bed at home – the window of the attic left open with a note on the sill that read, "When you are ready Wendy, we shall begin your lessons..."
"Lessons?" Wendy asked with anticipation of romance and love, oddly enough, with Peter Pan.
"Lessons in the rules of Neverland, Wendy. There are rules and since you have changed sides, I must educate in the correct way to battle your foes..."
Not what poor Wendy was hoping for with her Pirate Captain, but nonetheless, she pressed on for romance and the jealousy that she was sure would ensue when her plan developed into complete and unquestionable fruition. "They will both duel over me, for my hand and heart...and what a jolly good time that will be..." Wendy wrote in her diary over and over again.
Captain Hook's discouragement of her advances turned in to encouragement of her affections, although he did make her wait sometime before they became lovers. As he put it, "We shall make love when in a culmination of all of your emotions, not just the one you have now, wanton lust." At seventeen, she was ready but he delayed her further with, "Not until you are a proper age, Wendy. I will not take a girl not yet a grown up into my bed ever again."
As love often occurs, Wendy did not know it was happening. She'd set out to win a heart that was not to be taken, Peter Pan's. This became a quest to remain forever with the heart that was already hers. Wendy Angelina Darling fell truly, madly, deeply in love with Captain Hook. It had happened so quickly, Wendy herself was stunned silly. "Mrs. James Hook...Captain & Mrs. Hook...Wendy Hook...Allow me to introduce you to my husband, he is a Pirate Captain, Captain James Hook who helms the mighty vessel, Jolly Roger..." Wendy now found herself penning while she should have been practicing her arithmetic lessons in school.
More troublesome to the tale, still with a "girl's mind" Wendy never thought of the accountability she was to have for her actions. She believed that Peter Pan's feelings (whatever they were) would quickly dissolve, feeling she had imagined them all along. But she miscalculated, for the Pan pined for her often, calling out to her in the night. She should have been honest, not only with him but with the Captain as well. Instead, she chose to turn blind eyes to both, thinking forever she would be in the company of Captain Hook and never more would she need to worry after a boy who refused to grow up.
The virtuous, untouched maiden she was in Neverland at first could not be further from the truth in her own. A few of the girls at school informed her, "You must not let the man you are so fond of and are always speaking about have you when you are a virgin. Wendy trust me, it is unpleasant and painful at first. You do not want him in throes of passion above you, while you are crying your eyes out below him. Take a few lovers; get some experience in those matters before you let him take you to bed. That way when it does happen, he will be overjoyed with your familiarity in nature's way. I even know someone you can start with." They told her this, more for their own purposes, Wendy was lovely, and all the young men of good breeding and proper society were after her. Thinking she would be ruined by a bad reputation, they persuaded her into the beds of many men undeserving of the honor. Thus, countless boys had taken her to bed before her eighteenth birthday, and by her nineteenth birthday, she had all the experiences with every sort of man she could get her hands on, from those her own age to a man old enough to be her father.
Now, Tinkerbell was a wicked fairy, she was far worse than any witch from any fairy tale ever told, but dim-witted and daft just the same. When Peter wept over Wendy, it made her very jealous. In an attempt to ruin her for Peter, she informed him one afternoon of a young woman aboard the Jolly Roger, Captain Hook had become endlessly fond of. "They dance, they speak of grown up things, and they love," she chimed in his ear. "That is why the Captain holds no further interest in pursuing you to the death."
Finding Wendy waltzing on deck with his archrival, Peter's reaction was quite the opposite of what Tinkerbell intended. For, instead of casting Wendy from Neverland forever, vowing revenge and reminding himself why he must never grow up, Peter thought just the contrary. "I must go back home and grow up so I can be the man Wendy wants..." Poor Tinkerbell's only satisfaction was his next words, "... and then I will seek my revenge and kill them both!"
Peter left one afternoon, plans intact. He knew his actions would destroy Neverland and its inhabitants. All died, including Tinkerbell. Captain Hook and Wendy looked out from the ship to the island's emptiness. Only the pirates, the Captain's loyal servants, did not perished in the holocaust of Peter's absence. There was no one left behind but Captain Hook, his crew and Wendy, but only for a moment. "My mother is taking me to America!" Wendy informed her intended, a Pirate Captain utterly in love, and with a kiss and a promise to return, and she left him, as well.
Peter Pan emerged into her world in the City called New York. Far away from Captain Hook, without her nightly trips to Neverland to remind her of his existence, she drifted farther away into the arms of the boy who had sworn to never grow up.
Peter Pan loved her still -- at least, he felt the emotion he believed to be love -- and forgave her imperfections with his enemy by banishing it from his mind. That was, until the night she granted him her favor, and he discovered he was the only one in the bed unsure of how to mingle private body parts together. Poor Pan was just as surprised as Mary Elizabeth Baker to hear what happened when two lovers made love. "Are you joking?" He asked Wendy who was amused by his innocence of the birds and bees.
Her giggles turned to silence when Pan blasted, "You've been with others? You've loved like this before? So I'm not the only one? Well, how many have you loved before me?" he asked. Wendy nodded in reply to his first question. She then went on to admit to both him and herself that she could not even remember exactly how many others there had been. She did have one answer she knew to be true, "But you must believe me when I tell you, I was in love onlyonce, I just can't remember his name now..." Peter Pan, even away from Neverland, still remembered it, having spent countless years there, and remembered the one man in particular he was sure had experienced her that way before he had ever gotten the chance to gather the courage to really kiss her. And he was sure he was also the only man she had loved, in both body and heart.
While they lay together in a hotel room, Peter attempted numerous times to unlock Wendy but he found his key opened the door no further than the opening she had between her legs. There was no heaven to be found within her, for she left it in Neverland, with her James. And as he rested his head to her chest, it was Captain Hook's name that reverberated with the pounding of her heart. She returned to London, and Peter Pan, who never wrote to her as he had promised, returned to Neverland in the body of a boy.
So, for that time, after New York City and the adventure that was America, Peter Pan and Wendy returned with broken hearts that ended there, and Captain Hook's broken heart extended well beyond to his soul. Wendy did return to him after she received an unexpected reminder of him from her mother, and begged his forgiveness for her errors and misjudgments, going as far as confessing the original plot to make Pan jealous, only to change into something else. Now she loved himeven more deeply. A young woman hysterical in sorrow to the point of collapse in his arms, the compassion he had for her the day she was tied naked to a table in the galley, gave way and he accepted her back, for what she was and what she promised to be to him.
Peter Pan was devastated to think Wendy had taken other lovers, particularly when one of them was his archenemy. Captain Hook had already touched every inch of her with his hand and body. Hook knew she was no virgin when he took her to bed for the first time, but being a captain of a pirate ship, with little or no room to talk of previous lovers, said nothing. It never bothered him, and he did enjoy her well-developed knowledge in lovemaking. He never asked her of her others that had received her pleasures, and she never offered. Wendy believed Captain Hook was simply apathetic toward her past; especially after she became aware of certain details of his own past he mistakenly shared with her.
Once she discovered her rival's identity, she was the one who was jealous that there was another in his bed before her. Wendy didn't want to teach him a lesson; although she did make it her sole purpose become the best for him. In her mind, she was in a constant competition with a dominant opponent of the past. Wendy's real world "activities" continued, even after she returned from America, and began revisiting Neverland nightly. Captain Hook made love multiple times to Wendy, and he assured her that she was, truly, the greatest he had ever encountered, and there were to be no others for him. Even so, she went on giving it away in the real world, hoping to keep an edge over her imaginary adversary. That was, at least, until Wendy's most unfortunate episode with Harold Darling, an underhanded blunder that she would never disclose to even her pirate captain.
Her own Uncle, Harold Darling, was her last in the long line of "learning experiences" and the memory and lesson of their encounter together would last her a lifetime, stopping her pursuit of meaningless lust to impress Captain Hook -- already impressed -- dead in her tracks.
It was the taboo that tempted her, not to mention Harold's own reputation with the ladies Wendy had overheard her own mother gossip about with envy. "If there was ever to be another aside from George, God forgive me, but it would be with his brother Harold. I heard he is very good in..." Mary whispered to one of her friends at a Christmas Party years early. She was very tipsy on wine and blushed going so far as to make the sign of the cross over her chest at the statement, silently regretting the admission. But it was that simple statement from her mother Wendy would remember always, for it was something Mary wanted that Wendy knew her mother would surely never have.
Hoping his skills in bed would simply rub off on her, Wendy took the risk and took him to bed. Harry was very drunk that day, and truth be told, not only did he not know she was there; he did not know that his body was there as well. She seduced him easily; telling him she was a tramp from the tavern named Mary who was more than happy to bestow upon him a charity lay, using the first name that came to her mind. She got off all his clothes, only removing her own undergarments, knowing time was very limited with her younger brother waiting in the parlor, and climbed aboard. But he was already out like a light before she ever began her quick bouncing above him.
Therefore at that pivotal moment, when he reached his end, he was not conscious enough in mind to remove himself from his niece. And as mastered in the skill as she thought she was, she always relied on the self-restraint of others to ensure she was kept unexpectant. He left it in her and filled her with his seed, she realizing it too late, as he went limp while she still moved. He didn't moan or grunt or give to tell-tell sign by flipping her over and doing his own handiwork, leaving proof she was unfertilized on her belly. Panicked that she had made her first error, she jumped off and tried to end him by hand, only to find him already complete.
Thus the next five weeks, three of which she was late for her monthlies, were the longest she ever had to live through. With no one to turn to, especially after her own brothers John and Michael had all but disowned her, she turned to the man who put her in that way to begin with. She told another lie to her Uncle Harry, and said it was someone else unknown to him or her parents.
Harry, being a physician, gave her a medical examination in the very bed she feared she had conceived in, and when all was said and done, he who told her, "You are not pregnant, Wendy. Guilt about laying down for someone you have no intention of marrying and have not even brought home to meet your parents, combined with raw nerves that you will get caught, is what is holding up your monthly. And rightfully so, you should be shamefaced about being so loose with your virtue, you are only, what, just nineteen? Relax and try not to think about it. I'm sure you are only to skip a month. Next month it will return, and you should keep it that way. And keep your legs closed while you're at it! Never do that with anyone else unless you truly love him and know he sincerely feels the same for you and has already put, not one, but two rings on your finger. MARRIED WENDY! Do you understand what I am trying to tell you? Wait until your honeymoon and give your husband at least the honor of being second! Or were there others? I don't even want to know. But you will ruin your reputation Wendy sleeping about with men! I won't tell your parents about this ... although I should."
Wendy heeded her uncle's advice and in a few days her bleeding began. She surprisingly mourned after the loss of the baby that never was, confusing her already mixed emotions, "Maybe I suffered a miscarriage, Uncle Harry. Is there any way to check?" she asked, rushing to him the moment after she awoke and found her bleeding returned.
He easily soothed that concern with, "No, Wendy. You don't seem to be in unbearable pain, and if you body rejected the pregnancy, well, dearest child ... more so just your worry made your monthly late. You should be thankful this time it was only a false alarm. You, being in that way by an unknown suitor, would break your parents' hearts and mine as well."
There was pain, and Wendy did find it unbearable, but not because of her monthly, but because of her betrayal. She had deceived Harry by taking something of his that was not hers to take, and she had deceived Captain Hook, her one true love, lying to him throughout the ordeal informing him she was simply, "not in the mood tonight," for weeks.
She wanted to confess it to Harry right there that he was indeed the gentleman who, "should be more careful next time or he'll find himself in trouble." In fact, she wanted to shout it at him. Instead, she settled on, "He was stinking drunk!"
Uncle Harry shrugged his shoulders, hands in his pockets. He frowned at Wendy and replied, "Never let a man put it in you when he's stinking drunk, Wendy. Even the whores working the corner by the tavern know that simple safeguard against these things. And if you want to be a whore, you need to learn that lesson quickly..."
Wendy knew it wasn't his fault, and she felt the same as both Michael and John did -- that Harry would kill himself for allowing it to happen. He deserved better than that. She decided to honor the same vows of sacred secrecy with the many lies she was to hide in her heart, and would take this affair to her grave.
Uncle Harry kept his promise not to tell George and Mary, although it really didn't matter. Her parents were well aware, not of Harry and her scare, but the others, especially her father who had overheard his daughter's name repeated several times while supervising the bank in the same context, "My son's had her."
"When I am twenty one and my parents can no longer hold me at home, I will leave their kingdom and I will stay with you forever," Wendy told Captain Hook as soon as her late monthly returned. She learned her own lessons, and was now ready to make a change, to be a real grown up. This was strange for Wendy to comprehend, but for the weeks she waited in suspense and terror for her menstruation, as she lay in her bed, she dreamed of motherhood and being a wife. No longer afraid of the responsibilities, she now longed for them, only not from her Uncle Harry. "Please God, please give me a second chance with James, and I will never cheat or lie again. I promise." Unknown to Wendy, her Uncle Harry prayed for his niece and her grandfather prayed for his granddaughter as well, although they were not as specific in their requests, "Please dearest God, help Wendy find her way."
She was curiously sad the next morning when she awoke after her prayers were answered and found her nightclothes soaked in blood, for she had offered to God in her prayer, "Please don't think me ungrateful, if You have blessed me with a baby. And If I am with my Uncle Harry's child, I will tell him and everyone else, including my James, the truth. I will even marry Uncle Harry and we will move away to where no one knows us and raise the child together. I will try to make him a good wife and mother to our child, but, dearest Lord, I would prefer to spare him, Captain Hook, my parents and my family that agony and shame. I leave it in your hands to do what is best. Please forgive me, dearest Lord, for my sins against him."
She was more thankful God thought her suggestion -- that of marrying her own Uncle and running further away than she already had -- foolish as the day wore on. She went straight to James as the full moon sat peacefully in the sky, "I want to marry you someday, Captain, and then I want to have your babies."
He accepted her proposal with a bow and an "As you wish, my lady."
To start anew, he changed her name, "Now that you are grown, I shall call you Gwendolyn, it is a name just as beautiful as you." All they had to do was wait until Wendy was twenty- one, only a few short years away. Their clandestine meetings in the night would hold them both until then. Final lessons would be learned, and all would in order for the happily ever after that was to come. And it would have ended happily there, as it should have, but even as they made love in his cabin under a crescent moon with a night sky full of stars, an unshakable force was already aligning against them.
Tinkerbell was dead. Chanting a belief in fairies to her fallen corpse that had disintegrated to dust would not bring her back and all her anger, malice, hatred, jealousy and spite had to go somewhere. Peter Pan now accepted it, and new war with Captain Hook began.
"Let us call a truce. You keep to the ship and shores, I will stay inland, and bring no more children here ever, and we will all live in peace. Maybe we can even be friends, Captain!" Peter declared, handing Captain Hook a literal olive branch he had just picked earlier in the day. Wendy liked that idea best, for she was a kind forgiving soul, like her mother, and she wanted at least to be friends. She wanted everyone to be as happy as she, including Peter Pan. Captain Hook, whose heart had been softened by her in Pan's regard, agreed.
Peter Pan played his part flawlessly. He would stop by and visit the pirate captain and his wench; at least that is what Pan called her behind her back, on the Jolly Roger as they made their life together there. They lived as husband and wife, as there was not another soul in all the world but James and Gwendolyn. They walked freely on the shores and over the island. They sailed away on the ship over the seven seas and back again. Peter Pan watched from the trees with hellfire burning in his chest where his heart should have been as they made love on the grass, in the lakes, and on the sandy beaches.
"I will stay here forever with you, and never return home, not ever," Wendy promised, knowing who James really was and why he was bound on a ship run aground near Neverland.
"You will sacrifice your life here, Gwendolyn, there will never be children, there will never be a home for you, what we have will only exist here, for where here is keeps us from being real," he told her nightly as they danced in the moonlight. "That is unless, you get your parents' blessing, then and only then can we live in your world, and have all that you truly desire in your life."
Peter was uncharacteristically patient, and he waited, days turned into months, months became years, and passed just as they would have back in London. As her brother John was to be married, Peter's master plan fell into place. "In order for us to have a real life together, we must have your parents' blessing. Please beseech them, Gwendolyn, beg on your hands and knees, as I do to you now. I want you to have my children; I want to be a husband to you. Please, you must do whatever it takes."
Wendy listened with open ears and a wishful mind when he gave her his intentions and a glorious necklace as an engagement present. "I would feel braver with you there, why can't you come with me?"
He fastened it to her neck and placed a kiss on her cheek, thinking his words through before he replied, "They cannot see me in your world, they would think you insane if you introduced me as if I were there by your side and, to them, I was not, even if I were. I will see you walk down that aisle, I will be there, I promise. Please promise me that you will tell your parents."
She gave her promise to him, as did Peter, who swore to bring Wendy home and return her safely in a week's time, for they took any longer, she again would forget.
Wendy was set on less than a week, and although Peter lied, and told her she should spend two, for he would surely return her to her fiancé the pirate captain, she refused. She counted the minutes by diligently watching the clock and calendar. During that time, Peter floated around her whispering words of warning, "You will get old here with him, and he will die just like a mortal if he were to live in this world. There are no vows in Neverland; death will never part you there. It is much better to stay there than here. What kind of life could he give you, piracy is not a respectable profession, surely your parents would never approve. They will never let you see him again. They will bar your windows." And so, she did not tell her parents, but she was going back.
Peter tried to tempt her into staying, reminding her of the gentleman from America, but he had already inadvertently burned that bridge. "That boy never wrote me, and James loves me and I love him. What are your trying to do, Peter, you want me to stay in Neverland and then you want me to stay here. I will live in whatever world James lives in, whether it be here or there."
Wendy's suspicions made Peter spring into action and force her to remain in the real world via another plan. "She told her parents about you and they are furious! They locked her away in her room and put bars on the windows. She's stuck there with no way to return."
Captain Hook fled Neverland and went to her, only to find her free, though she still did not inform her parents, frightened by Peter's cautious words. James was not afraid of her parents, nor trusting of Peter's advice. In fact, her delay in asking made him wary of her true intentions. "You had the opportunity today, this day, the day your brother got married, to tell them about us. Your parents even asked after your suitor and you brushed them off as if it was fantasy of their own creation. Before you hid out of fear, and I could understand that. This I cannot understand for now you are just lying to them."
Wendy did not know how to reply, and their conversation ran well into the night. Fear of discovery and her parents' disproval of her darling love were outweighed by her fear she would lose him, the only man whom she loved more than herself.
"I cannot lose George, not now, not ever. To make this baby without his consent is the only way I can be assured he will forever be mine. So I beseech you, Saint John, as you are the patron Saint of those who ask for silence in their secrets, to hold my confidence sacred and protect it from others, especially my husband. I give to you my promise, a hallowed oath, that if the baby I hide within me now is a boy, I will honor him and you with the name of John ..."
Taking a page from her mother's diary, and her own as well, Wendy assured Captain Hook that he could give his seed to her in her world, and it would be just as dormant and undetermined to take root inside of her as it was in Neverland. The day after she returned to him, safe passage given as Peter Pan promised it, the evidence of her mistruth was already apparent. From the moment her feet touched down near the shore only a step away from Captain Hook's anxious arms, Wendy changed from the young woman he had seen many times in her full glory -- something he could hold, caress, kiss and love -- to a transparent apparition of her former self. A Ghost or shadowy figure would best describe what Captain Hook walked through, back and forth several times before realizing his simple mistake.
"She is with child, the soul that grows inside of her keeps her being back there. She cannot stay in Neverland or they both will perish. She must go back, I'll take her and look after her," Peter Pan, the wolf in a valiant sheep's clothing offered.
His words were only half true, neither would perish if she stayed, but she did have to go back or as a phantom in their world she would remain. Wendy did not want to leave, "I will die here in your arms. I do not want to be parted from you ever again. That is why I made this baby, to join us as one forever." She pleaded to Captain Hook. His reply was loving and concerned, not only for her, but also for their child. "Think of our child Gwendolyn, you must go back and give her life...please, for me...make a part of me real in your world. Name her Jane, for my mother...If you remember anything in your absence, you will remember that."
Again, she promised to return, and just to secure her memory and guard herself against mistakes she left in her room hidden away the morning she left for Neverland, protected by the same saint that watched over her mother, the necklace of engagement Captain Hook had given her, along with a sketch of them together, she drew herself.
Peter was wise to her plan, and so even though she wanted to return in shame to her parents, an unwed mother to an anonymous father's baby, he advised her against it, keeping her away from the memories of the pirate captain.
Peter Pan took her to a secret place that not even she would remember for the months Captain Hook's baby grew inside of her. True to his word, she began to forget. Baffled after only a few weeks that she was expectant and not married, she believed his tale that she had been raped by an evil man, and he, her fiancé, out of the goodness of his heart, wanting to spare her needless pain and humiliation, was keeping her away from all that knew her. "I know an older couple in London, who have lost their children. The mother is too old to have another baby. What joy it would bring them to look after Jane." Wendy had a beautiful baby girl, a perfect blend of Captain Hook and herself. She wanted desperately to keep the baby, loving it with all her heart even before it was born, and held on to the child with all her might for months after she was delivered, in hopes of swaying her fiancé into loving the baby girl as much as she did.
It was all for naught. Peter urged her on with; "I cannot marry you and raise another man's child as my own, especially knowing what you went through at the time of its conception." Wendy herself didn't remember that it was by her own choice that Jane was conceived, and in the most loving and gentle manner. She only remembered what Peter told her of the foul and horrid assault she endured at the hands of a scoundrel. She believed Peter, having no reason to doubt him. Odd, she never loved Peter enough to marry him; she only loved his money and his willingness to spend it on her. After writing a letter to a gentleman named Joseph Baker and receiving his reply and acceptance of the infant, Mr. and Mrs. George Darling received Jane gift wrapped in a pink blanket in their front foyer a month later.
This was the magic of the fairy dust of Neverland. Not the type that enables children to fly, but the dust of the fairy such as Tinkerbell who disintegrates in death. In Wendy's case, this dust was sprinkled on her as she slept. It robbed her of all her memories of her early maturity, and it allowed Peter Pan to make new ones. She forgot about the Pirate Captain, she forgot she ever birthed a child, she forgot there was a magic place she could escape to and for a time she forgot her parents. It was to be the only and unfortunately for him, fatal mistake, Peter Pan was to make, for altering her mind was easy, but it was impossible to change what was in her heart. And no matter what, Peter Pan always forgot that children are not the only ones with hearts. Grownups have them too, and theirs are always harder and more difficult to conquer, for there is limitless variety of emotions safeguarded within. Therefore, although her she had not one memory of why her heart ached so (for if what Peter Pan told her was true, it should be empty), she found her heart full, with no explanation as to why it should be.
The war raged on, now in broad daylight, all dark sides revealed the moment Peter Pan returned to Neverland without the baby or her parent's blessing. Peter Pan dropped a dagger on deck of the Jolly Roger and congratulated Captain Hook on the birth of his only child, now trapped in the real world, accepted by her new "mother" and "father." To make matters worse he called out, "That baby you always wanted with your Queen, making you a 'real' king, well – her own king, who is not YOU, is raising it as a royal heir. YOU WILL NEVERSEE PRINCESS JANE! And what a lovely name it is, after your mother Captain Hook?!"
Peter Pan also screamed down that Wendy and he were to be married, already receiving her parent's well wishes on their impending nuptials, a lie.
"But I am to marry Gwendolyn!" a baffled pirate captain replied to a young man, flying high above the masts, older but still not grown up.
"No! Gwendolyn will marry me and she will never return to you! Not ever!" Pan retorted, taking off back to where he left her in hiding, leaving Captain Hook alone, the struggle of the heart he had fought so bravely for already defeated, as Peter Pan would always hold the upper hand where he was concerned. The final nail in Captain Hook's coffin. A crocodile swallowing him whole could not kill him; only ensnare him deeper into Neverland. Captain Hook looked up to the sky where God sat watching and picked up the dagger Peter had given him.
If the heart offends thee dearest, cut it out.
"Solid gold blade, all these jewels and stones you've selected and this engraving. The price, well young man, it will cost you a fortune," the craftsman commented.
"Doesn't matter what it costs. Revenge this sweet is worth every penny," Peter Pan said as he stood in the shop, while Wendy busied herself picking out an engagement ring.
James raised the dagger, conceding his final defeat to the enemy, and in one harsh and relentless swoop brought it down to his heart. That would have killed him, andsent the pirate captain straight to hell, had God not been furious, gnashing his teeth on his throne in heaven. As the blade pierced his coat on the way to his directed destination, a bolt of lightening blew Captain Hook off the ship into the waves of the ocean. Captain Hook swam back to the ship, shaken and disturbed to find a hand extended to him to offer him aid rising back to the ship as he climbed the rope ladder up. Grandpa Joe waited on deck from him; "George and Mary have given no blessing to Wendy and whomever this Peter Pan is, or any man for that matter. They do not know where she is. In order to be defeated, Peter Pan will eventually have to bring her home to them, they are your allies and you must not give up so easily Captain. The game has only just begun."
Peter Pan would never know or understand what it was to love the way Captain Hook did. He was undeserving of Wendy, theirs was never to be a happy union. A blessing from her parents making Peter Pan forever real in that world would not only break the pirate captain's heart, it would cut it out of his chest.
"You need no dagger to do that damage, James, for if it comes to that, I will do it myself. A punishment is owed to me for the fair maiden Gwendolyn thievery from heaven. Who better to bestow it upon her than one who made her the villain of the story in the first place? Give the dagger to Queen Mary. You will be seeing her again shortly."