Wicked Stepmother

Hello from the other side...

I suppose you are all judging me, one way or another. Well what do I care for your opinion?

No matter which of them I chose I would have been in the wrong. My father's wife and perhaps the best friend I had ever had (but not exactly a mother figure) or the young, lively but uneducated young man. He was handsome and strong. He was so admiring of the way I rode my horse and how good I was at archery- Kiora was never much of a one for archery.

Like Kiora at first, Bennett had no idea who I was. He spoke to me sometimes of this mysterious princess, Snow White whose beauty was famed. I told him my name was Clora, a blend of my own name and Ki's. Perhaps there was something in that...

I pretended to him that Snow White and her stepmother were some sort of distant figures that were not part of my daily life. They were beautiful ice-figurines, rivals for my father's affections and for the love of the people. Did  feel like Kiora was my rival? It is hard to say. Noone but her had ever approached me in beauty, and she had a quiet sadness about her which was a contrast to my need to explore and touch everything in my world. I tried to touch her too, to bring some sun and happiness to her icy sadness but she always put me off in that cold, haughty way. She was my ice-queen, locked away in an inaccessible palace of beauty and distance and sometimes she made me feel kind of cheap and like I was spoilt and badly behaved. This made me want to upset her by being even naughtier.

But I wondered whether it was my father who had cast that spell on her, or someone else. And I wanted to thaw her out. I would brush her hair and feel the tremors of pleasure run through her, which she tried to keep hidden. She never allowed a kiss or even an accidental brush of my hand against hers, but she allowed me to brush her hair. Silly icy girl playing at being queen, I thought and I spent every chance I could riding horses or learning to hunt from Bennett, or allowing him to touch me in secret ways that I knew would be frowned upon if anyone knew.

The forbiddenness made it more pleasurable, and he had oddly gentle hands for all that they were strong and calloused. He had hair on his body in strange places and an animal scent like the forest, a little like my father also but younger and with something quite different about him.

"What do you think of the queen?" I asked him once

"She is an evil witch" he said and made the Holy sign to ward off evil. I laughed and kissed him. My Kiora was about as far from being evil as it was possible to be! But she was not mine after all, and Bennett was. His flesh responded to me in exciting ways, he breathed urgently, needing me and seeking me out by an instinct, every part of him pointing back at me.

There was no complication here, no rivalry, no endless dance of denial. There was his flesh and mine entangled, our juices running together and my black hair brushing against the curly hairs on his chest. Perhaps I started it in part to punish Kiora for her distance but it was more than that. It was more than pleasure. I felt like I was very real and in my body when I was with Ben.

And he swore even Snow White could not be more beautiful than me. Silly boy, those words were treason, except that they were more true than he knew.