Beasts of Beauty

Belle's Tale:

Tossing and turning didn't help.

It was much later into their wedding night, but not late enough.

Her precious Prince slept, his head on the pillow, arm hanging out to the side. The empty wine cup resting sideways in his hand.

Her cup remained half full. Or half empty. She had trouble making up her mind about it.

The wine in her cup had barely touched her lips earlier.

"What is that spice?" he'd asked, licking his full lips. "I never tasted anything like it. Bittersweet, fragrant?"

The moon cast a reflection on the wine's dark surface in her cup. The pale face of the moon had reached its highest point on the dark sky, but the castle's windows were higher still, allowing the moonlight into the bedroom.

He slept deeply, her precious Prince. She had poked him a few times. No reaction on his beautiful, moonlit face.

He'd never had any difficulty sleeping. He'd been sound asleep during their unwed nights as well.

The before nights.

She'd barely slept a wink between the snores and grunts in the beginning. The long curved tongue often slipped out over his sharp teeth and puffs of his warm moist breath brushed whatever naked body part of hers he wouldn't let go of even in sleep. Occasionally lost in his dreams, he'd purr, so deep it was almost a growl. But a tender growl. There was such a thing.

She shivered from the memory. Who would have thought she'd miss the Beast's growls?

She put her ear to the Prince's soft warm skin, a lone heart beating slowly deep within. But that was it.

No loud bubbling noises from his foul-mannered stomach. No fur itching her ear and nose. No musky marked scent.

Her Prince and husband slept like an angel.

She couldn't sleep at all.

She had thought she'd get used to it. She had thought she'd get used to the human man he'd become. Or had been all along.

Inside he was still the same. She had tried telling herself that for a long time now.

And perhaps he was.

She just couldn't see it.

The beauty got in the way. The silky locks on his head, his boyish slender build, his big adoring eyes, his plump lips and his small perfect white teeth, so useless for ripping a deer apart, so useless for tearing her clothes off.

The curse ended.

One day. Just like that.

He stood before her: The Prince.

He was so happy. He took her hands in his and said that from now on everything would be perfect. Who could have known her perfect turned out to be different from his? Who could have known her perfect ended where his began?

She moved a lock away from the Prince's handsome face. His real form left her cold. There was no way around the truth anymore.

She did not love easily. Never had. 

The Beast hid from her in the beginning. Not to scare her, yes. But also not to eat her.

The Beast was wild, hungry and stronger than a bear. She knew because she'd seen it. She'd been there.

They had been out walking, tentatively, for the first time. Like two people sometimes take walks.

The bear came out of nowhere. It was springtime and the bear was famished after waking from its long winter sleep.

The bear came at her, so close she smelled its hot, reeking breath on her face.

The Beast killed the bear.

It was an even fight. One of them had to die. The bear's claws slashed the Beast's arm and side to the bone. She remained beside the Beast all night, not knowing what to do, or where to go.

She couldn't leave him. Not when he was injured. She stayed instead of trying to find her way home. She put his ragged, heavy head in her lap and began stroking it. It calmed her.

It was a strange night, deep in the forest. Magic was at work.

At dawn the Beast's wounds had healed and he was ravenous. He ate of the bear right there in front of her, the bear's blood glistening from his whiskers in the pale morning light.

She shivered. From the cold and because she knew it could just as well been her blood staining his snout.

The Beast looked up at her just then. So many strands of emotions, like the hairs on the Beast's back. She could not make sense of anything she felt in that moment. Still, something changed.

They walked again. Together.

And so it began. The long, slow falling in love with the Beast.

It did not happen simply, joyfully or with any kind of haste.

Love outside one's own kind is full of nasty surprises. The gems that pry one's heart a little more open are few and far in between.

The Beast had a wonderful library. He sang quite well for a beast.

But his needs were immediate and un-curtailed like an animal's. He pissed in the dining room corner. It had the rhythm of a down pour on the dark oak floor.

One night he began telling her in parts and pieces about the curse. Over several evenings she learned of his fate. There was a curse put upon him.

He looked sad and bewildered when he told her. Perhaps one day the curse would end and she would finally see him as he truly was. He hoped so.

She reached out and put her hand on his arm.

It was the first time since the night when he killed the bear she had touched him. Like that time, she liked it. Unlike that time, it didn't ease her mind or sooth her nerves.

Later still, his huge paw lay silken on her bare skin. Being a strange and clever sort of girl, she knew from the first time that it was the long sharp claws hidden among tufts of fur that really made her moan.

She knew full well and all along that it was the Beast in all his hideous magnificence who grabbed her heart piece by piece with teeth and tongue and danger.

The curse, and his longing for it to be gone, fell wayside, gone from her mind. To her the Beast was perfect the way he was.

Funny thing that.

The moment she felt that swell of true love for the Beast, she lost him forever. True love turned out to be the secret to end the curse. He'd known of course, but couldn't tell her. She knew he'd believed it wouldn't matter. Not after.

He'd been mistaken. It mattered.

Now, here she was on her wedding night. The Prince she'd never wanted slept beside her, wedded and bedded for the rest of their lives until death did them part.

But theirs was not a fairy tale happy ending, she thought.

Theirs was but another fairy tale curse. One starting the moment the first one stopped.

The empty wine cup fell from the Prince's long fingers, landing on the thick rug without a sound.

Her Prince and husband did not stir. The sleeping potion should have him deep in its hold now.

She put her fluffy pillow over his perfect face and pressed down hard.

* * * The End. * * *