Copyright © P Hopkins 2010 1

A World Beyond

There really are Faeries at the bottom of my garden. Or,

at least, there were when I was younger. But I'm afraid they
don't seem to be there any more. I wish, I really wish they
were.
*
I forced my way through the hole in the crumbling
brickwork that separated the two gardens. Xanthia was
waiting for me, leaning on the mossy boulder as usual, as
calm and serene as always. I had asked her once whether
she sat there all day waiting for me to arrive. She had
looked at me most strangely.
"Oh no! I always know when you're coming to find me,"
she replied, frowning prettily at my confusion, "Of course I
make sure I am here to meet you."
But she would never tell me how she knew when I would
arrive, even when I did not know myself when my chores
would be done and I could escape for an hour or two.
Today, Xanthia was already naked - gloriously,
wonderfully naked and basking in the warm sunshine - with
just a single flower in her hair to counterpoint her elfin
beauty. Her summer dress - made of a diaphanous material
I have encountered neither before or since - lay discarded on
the lawn at her feet.
I rushed to her, kissed her boldly, then held her body
close for the longest time, the delightful scent of her hair
filling my nostrils. Xanthia eventually pulled back, then
reached for my face and drew me close. She kissed me, and
again, and thrice again. Then I too pulled back to look upon
the face of my love.
I studied her face, drinking in her distinctive features: the
wide mouth, the high cheekbones and slightly pointed ears,
the fair skin and the translucently blonde hair. It was not
that she would look out of place on the average high street,
not really, but when you knew the truth, it was evident to
me that she was somehow not quite human.

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 Unconscious of her own nakedness, Xanthia gently helped
me out of my clothes: the buckled shoes and white knee-
length socks, the summer dress of printed gingham and the
brassiere that Mother insisted that I wear, even though my
adolescent breasts barely needed any such support.
In spite of the heat of the sun, I felt suddenly chilled,
exposed by my nudity. Recognizing this, Xanthia smiled
warmly then held me close to her breasts for a long moment
before bending to strip away my last item of clothing, the
voluminous knickers that chafed and itched unbearably in the
warm weather.
I gladly kicked aside the underwear. Xanthia - always the
bolder one - ran a gentle tongue over my left nipple, causing
me to gasp involuntarily. She pressed the lips of her mouth
against the more intimate lips between my legs, her tongue
now expertly licking me. As always, the heat of her body
ignited the passion in mine, a roaring hot sensation that left
me so very sensitive everywhere at once.
I moaned aloud, unable to contain my passion and my
pleasure. Her lips found my mouth, now spiced with my own
moisture and her fingers delicately explored that sensitive
opening, already wet and aching for her attentions. I needed
her, wanted her so much, and she knew it. I could tell it in
her every touch, her skillful fingers soon bringing me to the
first of the many shattering climaxes we would enjoy
together that last afternoon.
*
Afterwards, we lay together on the sun-warmed grass,
Xanthia's head cradled on my shoulder, our legs entwined
intimately, dozing and sated. We could have stayed like that
all afternoon, or al least until the urgencies of her touch, the
passion of her need would stir us both to further paroxysms
of ecstasy.
It was not to be. Xanthia stiffened in my arms and looked
up, her eyes wide and darting from side to side, a worried
expression suddenly creasing her forehead and making her
look so very much older. She struggled to stand up, her
posture erect, poised, somehow alert to some change I could
not perceive, analyzing something my own senses could not
fathom.

Copyright © P Hopkins 2010 3

 I stood too, alarmed by her apparent agitation. Suddenly
a cool wind began to blow, chilling the perspiration which still
beaded my body. The breeze stirred the tangled locks on my
head, made me hug my naked body with cold and a sudden
fear.
"What is it? What's wrong?" I demanded, shivering.
Xanthia turned to me, held my shoulders and looked
directly into my eyes.
"There is bad news," she said gravely, "The time has
come for us to separate. You must go, now"
"No!" I cried, "Never! I don't want to go. Why do I have
to?"
"You must," she repeated, shaking her head sorrowfully,
"It is too late to stop the change, and you cannot stay here."
From the other side of the wall, the bell that summoned
me for dinner started ringing, a summons that to disobey
would leave me confined to my bedroom for a week. At
almost the same moment, heavy grey storm-clouds gathered
overhead, so suddenly it seemed impossible, and rain began
to fall in great heavy drops.
Xanthia swept up her dress, the rain beading her face and
flattening her hair.
"Go!" she cried, "Get your things and return. Go now!"
I bundled up my clothes awkwardly. She pushed me
towards the hole in the old brick wall. I stumbled, took a
couple of steps forward, practically fell through the hole in
the wall. When I turned around, Xanthia was gone, invisible
in the grey torrents that battered the brickwork and blinded
my eyes.
There was enough glass left in the old lean-to greenhouse
to provide some shelter from the rain. Inside, I struggled
back into my sodden dress and stockings, my brassiere and
my hated knickers. My shoes soaked and muddy, I ran
through the rain to the main house where my parents were
stood in the porch, an expression of concern on both their
faces.
My mother's concern was for me, although her mode to
display that concern was to chastise me sternly for my

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sodden and mud-splattered clothes. My father barely
noticed me. His mind was elsewhere, frustration at being
unable to complete whatever task he had started plainly
visible on his face.
I ran inside, the tears on my face unnoticed, washed
away by the rain.
*
The day after I had been drenched in the rainstorm I was
confined to my bed. I had caught a chill, one which I would
have cheerfully ignored if left to my own devices, but my
mother - perhaps worried about having a sickly daughter on
her hands - insisted I remain indoors.
The next day found me in perfect health and, after a few
misgivings, mother was willing to let me resume my usual
chores, and my usual perambulations. I hurried through the
tasks that had been set me, preoccupied with what Xanthia
had said and the alarming circumstances of our sudden
separation.
Finally, I returned to the hole in the wall beside the
battered greenhouse. The sun had dried out all but a few of
the most shaded puddles, and the garden looked green and
fresh after the rain. The gap in the brickwork was still there
but, after I squeezed through, what I found was quite
different from how I remembered it: a tangle of brambles, a
thicket of stinging nettles edging an overgrown coppice.
There was no obvious path, no easy way forward, and I got
both scratched and stung trying to force my way though. I
hardly felt the pain; the anguish in my heart made my limbs
numb.
Xanthia was nowhere to be found. There was no clearing
in the woods, no lawn, no mossy boulders, no faerie grotto.
*
I didn't tell anyone about Xanthia. Not before she left
me, and not afterwards, either. Nobody at school would
have believed me and I would have been so ridiculed by my
snotty brother that my life would not have been worth living.
I was a quiet and lonely child. My younger - much
younger - brother got all the attention from my parents. He
was a loud brash boy, full of himself, popular with the other

Copyright © P Hopkins 2010 5

lads and the teachers, and occasionally getting himself into
the kinds of scrapes that, in later life, everybody would laugh
about. Mind you, he wasn't deliberately cruel to me - I can
see that clearly, in hindsight - just selfish and insensitive to
the needs of others.
So my parents had their hands full dealing with the
irrepressible youth, and I suppose it was a relief to them that
their daughter did adequately at school, did not get into
trouble, and was polite and well-mannered in company. It
did not occur to any of them that I was growing up, on the
cusp of becoming a woman, not just a girl-child. They hardly
noticed the changes in the shape of my body, although, in
truth, those changes were not particularly obvious: I have
always been slender, and the swell of my breasts and the
curve of my hips was slight enough to pass concealed under
my girlish clothing.
The move to Zana House was a whirlwind of exhausting
activity, blurred and confused in my memory even now. The
house was a rambling old place in quite a poor state of
repair, with several ramshackle outbuildings. I know now
that the move to a rural location was a dream of my father,
to escape from the drudgery of working in a factory and
living in a crowded city. But at the time all I remember was
that he was permanently tired and bad-tempered. He was
laboring hard to repair and rejuvenate the house and
grounds, painting and mending, working long hours while the
weather lasted.
I soon fell into the habit of wandering in the garden and
the nearby fields, keeping out of the way of my parents,
returning to the house only when my feet got tired. I grew
accustomed to staying out longer and longer as spring
turned to summer, wandering the countryside until the sun
sank towards the horizon, or until summoned for meals by
the ringing of the old bell that hung my the kitchen door.
Part of the grounds at Zana House was an old walled
garden, entered through an archway filled with a wooden
gate which had collapsed from rot. The garden within had
not been tended in many years and was now heavily
overgrown. Weeds and brambles had taken root,
submerging the original beds where fruit and vegetables
would be grown. The walls themselves were of worn and

6 Copyright © P Hopkins 2010

fractured red bricks, with mossy and flaking mortar holding
them together. Despite the lack of recent care, the old
garden still retained a feeling of peace and tranquility, warm
in the sunshine and quiet enough to hear the buzzing of
bees.
I found it was possible to get inside, with a little care, the
brambles not entirely obscuring the gravel paths that once
cross-crossed the garden. I spent some time exploring,
finally reaching the lean-to greenhouse that stood in the
sunny spot furthest from the gate. The greenhouse was long
abandoned, its glass so furred with green and broken in a
few places that it was almost impossible to see inside.
Behind the greenhouse, I found a place where the wall
had partially collapsed, the bricks piled up underneath a hole
that was too small for a grown man to use, but was just big
enough for a skinny girl to get through. Something drew me
to the place, made me want to see what was on the other
side. Maybe it was just curiosity. I scrambled up the pile of
mossy bricks and squeezed myself sideways through the hole
in the wall.
Brushing dust and dirt from my dress and my knees, I
looked around. On this side, the wall bordered a wide and
sunny clearing in the woods, nearly circular - as far as I
could tell - and with the suggestion of paths leading into the
cool forest in several places. In one direction, the wall
disappeared into luxuriant undergrowth, a veritable mountain
of glossy green leaves. In the other, I could see a cluster of
rounded boulders, their shapes and sizes looking as if they
had been artfully selected to be pleasing to the eye. Beyond
the stones, the edge of the dark woods drew close.
And then it was that I first set my eyes on Xanthia. She
was sitting on one of the boulders, under the shade of a tree.
Her blonde hair was flowing free, ruffled by an occasional
breeze. She was clad in that light summer dress whose color
I could never quite describe or reproduce; I would realize
only later that it was always the same dress that she wore
whenever I saw her.
Xanthia seemed only slightly startled by my sudden
appearance, bursting untidily and besmirched from the hole
in the wall. I had caught her in the act of waving goodbye to
two friends, girls similarly clad, but with different colors for

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their summer dresses, who were walking slowly across the
clipped grass of the clearing. I stared at Xanthia for a long
moment, unable to drag my eyes away from her beauty.
When I remembered my modesty and looked away, the
others had disappeared, as if they had simply flown away.
On all my subsequent trips through the hole in the old
garden wall, I never saw anyone other than Xanthia.
She stood, walk to me and took my hands in her own. At
that moment, I seemed to fall into the depths of her eyes.
"Hello," she said simply.
*
We became close friends, and more, very quickly, Xanthia
and I. As soon as I saw her, I longed to touch her. She was
so beautiful, so alive and, I would soon discover, so very
passionate. She was always the wise one, the forward one,
and she seemed to have a preternatural ability to know what
I wanted, what I needed.
We spoke little, that first day. We sat together on the dry
grass, touching and being touched, enjoying kisses and
caresses at first shy and gentle, then more confident and
passionate. It seemed so natural when she ran her hand
under my skirt. Her merest touch on that so-sensitive skin
on my inner thigh was itself enough to make me cry out. My
clothing, and my modesty, was suddenly a hindrance to the
urgency I felt. Xanthia helped me to remove the former,
while the latter dissipated as if it had never been. Her own
dress simply slid from her body in a single smooth, sensuous
movement.
Now both naked, and our passion redoubled, our hands
and mouths exploring one another's bodies with yet more
heightened urgency. And so it was I came at last, in her
arms, her fingers on my nipple and on my clit. I was so
inexperienced that I did not quite understand what was
happening to me, to my body. The heat in my belly, the
gush of my juices and the spasms of my muscles - all were a
shock, a surprise to me. But even then I knew I wanted to
feel that way again, and I wanted my dear Xanthia to feel
the same way, too.
She gently guided my fingers over her own body, showing
me how to touch, to caress, to separate her lips and explore

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her vagina with my fingers. I would like to think that my
enthusiasm and my newly-awakened passion overcame my
clumsy inexperience. In any case, with Xanthia's
experienced guidance, it was not long before her back
arched, her body shook, and the gasps of her orgasm filled
my ears.
Even in that long hot summer, now such a long time ago,
it seemed that the sun was somehow warmer, the breezes
always more clement, on the other side of the wall. It truly
was a world beyond our own, a haven of tranquility where I
could relax, a place where I felt I belonged.
"I love you," I told Xanthia passionately, on many
occasions, "Let me stay with you always."
She would always laugh, and hold me close, but she
would never use those words herself. And she would alwyas
insist that I answer the summons of the dinner bell or return
home when the sun began to sink towards the horizon.
Once I asked Xanthia how old she was.
"Oh, I'm ever so much older than you are," she replied, a
tinkle of laughter in her voice, "Can't you guess?"
She didn't look more than a year or two older than I was,
although there was something in the way she spoke, the way
she moved sometimes, which hinted at a greater maturity
and wisdom. I never did guess her age; somehow I never
seemed to get a simple answer to any question. But it didn't
matter, not then - and not now either, really.
On another of the seemingly endless series of hot summer
days, I found, for some reason, her usual caresses did not
seem to satisfy. There was something more I needed.
Sensing my frustration, the unreleased tension in my body,
Xanthia rolled away and reached out - exactly where, I could
not see. When she returned to her former position, she was
holding something: a long cylinder, rounded at one end and
as creamy-white as Xanthia's skin, a device I would later
learn was called a dildo. But at the time, I was naive and
completely confused.
"What is it?" I asked, unable to take my eyes from the
device in her hand.

Copyright © P Hopkins 2010 9

 She showed me. She sat on the grass, her legs spread,
and leaned back against her favorite boulder. She first
moistened the toy in her mouth and then slipped it inside
herself, a soundless "oh" of pleasure shaping her lips. I was
astonished, fascinated - and desperate to get that thing
inside me right now.
"Now you try," she said, withdrawing the phallus with the
slightest hint of regret.
I copied her actions, taking the curved tip of the dildo in
my mouth - experiencing the now-familiar taste of Xanthia's
own most intimate moisture - and then into my own vagina.
That movement alone immediately brought me to a
shattering climax - I was really that close already. The toy
was made of some wonderful material, somehow both hard
and flexible at the same time. It was a remarkable
experience and I would not discover its like for several years
- in fact, until I experienced a man's hard cock inside me.
As the summer drew on, and my womanly curves became
apparent to even the most unobservant members of my
family, I started enlarging the hole in the brickwork,
removing just one or two brick each day, each time I visited.
Perhaps it was my own actions that somehow upset the
equilibrium of the passage between the worlds, and required
my dearest Xanthia to push me away. Or maybe I was
growing up, truly approaching adulthood, and therefore
excluding myself from the world beyond. Of course, I will
never know.
*
Perhaps it was all a dream, a figment of my imagination
boiled from the fevered heat of adolescent hormones and
loneliness. Mentally and intellectually, I accept that it might
have been, viewed from the calm perspective of one twenty
years older. But in my heart, I don't think that it was. The
clarity of my memory and the warmth of the emotions bound
up by that memory convince me it all really happened to me.
Whatever experience it was, it certainly opened my eyes
to an entire world, a world hitherto unimagined, a world of
female sexuality and erotica. It took me a little while to
discover what form my reaction to that exposure would take.
The shape and curves of Xanthia's face and body were so
etched on my memory that it awakened a dormant artistic

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talent within me. I found that drawing helped to assuage the
pain in my heart. I ceased my walks in the garden and the
woods, and remained in my bedroom, covering any piece of
paper I could find with scribbles and sketches.
At first, I hid - or even destroyed - my hesitant attempts
to recreate her form in pencil or crayon. At about that time,
the school appointed a new Art teacher - a very enthusiastic
young woman – and after a while I felt confident enough to
show her some of my most treasured pieces. She looked at
my crumpled papers for a long time, smiling, tears not quite
forming in the corners of her eyes. Then she took me by the
hand and said, "These are good, really very good. You have
a wonderful talent. You must use it."
Over the next year or two, she gently encouraged me to
broaden my artistic interests from a narrow focus on the
female form. I started drawing from life: people of all
shapes and size, animals and birds and insects, landscapes
and scenery, and still life compositions of all kinds. Later, I
took up painting in watercolors and, later, in oils - not
entirely satisfactorily, I have to say - just so that I could try
and capture something of Xanthia's glorious form in color on
paper and canvas.
Pushed by the teacher, and to the bemusement of my
parents, I managed to win a place in a prestigious art college
in a big city. As well as an opportunity to polish my talents, I
was more-or-less forced to meet people, people with whom I
had something in common - unlike my parents or my
brother. I was drawn out of my shell and thrown into a
social whirl. For a time, I lived a wild and free life, indulging
in parties and pot, dancing and drinking, as well as a series
of affairs and liaisons - with men as well as women - that
would have shocked the gossips back home.
But it was not all partying 'till dawn. While at the college,
I evolved the artistic style that would eventually make me
moderately famous: faeries with butterfly wings and
diaphanous dresses, in a variety of romantic rural settings.
The world beyond my immediate experience has, it seems,
appreciated my little talents. My paintings and drawings
have attracted a certain interest from the public for a decade
or more now, and it makes be smile when I hear epithets

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such as: "so real" and "almost as if they were drawn from
life."
And, for the more exotic collectors, the more open-
minded of my fans, I have produced certain limited editions.
If you know where to go, you can acquire prints and posters
of Xanthia in more erotic poses: naked and aroused, her
eyes flashing, her breasts uncovered, and her nipples taut
and dark. And, perhaps, one of my most famous images:
my darling Xanthia with her legs apart, her fingers
separating her lips and penetrating herself with the
wonderful phallus that she had produced out of thin air at
the moment of my great need.
After college, I spent many years traveling the world,
always with sketchbook and pencils to hand, always ready to
capture a lovely flower or a beautiful child, the rough brown
bark of a tree bole or the delicate blue veins of an exposed
breast. During that time, I experienced many places and
cultures, and indeed, many different people, and gained a
degree of wisdom and maturity that would have seemed
impossible to my childhood self.
I now once again live at Zana House, tending the gardens
and trying to keep the old place in a reasonable state of
repair. I was able to buy out my brother's share of the
property, after my parents died and we were jointly left the
place in their wills. I still have money, enough to live on
with a degree of ease, from my paintings and commissions,
and royalties on their reproduction on posters and placemats
and bric-a-brac for the tourists.
The old walled garden is now a carefully-tended plot,
producing plentiful fruit and vegetables in season. It is a
tribute to my father’s dedicated pursuit of the perfect
country residence and, in later years, to a succession of
young men and women who have worked on the land. The
wall itself has been carefully repaired and re-pointed, and
the breach where once I passed through blocked up – except
for a hole only just large enough to look through. I have
never seen the faerie circle in all the times I checked and,
these days, I have given up even looking.
But my own life has been both full and fulfilling. For
many years, at my side has been a woman who, although
not exactly like my dearest Xanthia, is sufficiently similar

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that the more perspicacious of our visitors have remarked
upon the similarity between her face and the one I have so
lovingly, and so frequently, depicted in paintings and
illustrations, and which now decorates plates and postcards
everywhere.
Still, I do miss the faeries at the bottom of the garden.

A Note on Names in A World Beyond

Xanthia means "yellow" and is an old - and now rather unusual
- name for girls. It is also the name for a genus of moth - flying
creatures which only come out at night.
A Zana is a kind of good fairy that lives in the woods in
Romania. It is also a colloquial word for a cute, good-looking girl.

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