He feels ashamed for his tease but doesn’t apologize. She says she doesn’t believe in those kinds of things.
“Besides, you are supposed to accidentally come upon me bathing naked.” She leans back to rest against his chest and as she half turns, her eyes are blue-black, so deep there is no end. A man could drown in those eyes, he thinks, but he doesn’t say so. He can’t imagine how many men have said that to her. How many times she’s shaken their words away. “Down by Rigley’s well.”
“I accidentally came upon you last time,” he says, the tease in his voice taking on a playful heat, a catch of double wording that he can’t resist, caught as it is inside the memory of their last time, the way her cool, thin fingers had eddied around him and teased him into coming, his heat splashing on the shore of her skin.
She doesn’t take the bait, though, merely looks at him. He winces—there’s something in that look that reminds him how ancient she is, how many men she’s probably seen who fawn over her and pull at her hem like children. He wants her. He loves her; the thought comes to him unbidden, but he doesn’t shove it away. He wants to please her.
He adds, serious now, “You said you were afraid your father would figure it out.”
“He’s going to,” she says, even before the words have fully left his mouth, as though she knew what he might say. Her eyes shimmer and ripple, a pool of fear that makes him want to steal her away, to put her somewhere safe, away from the man that puts that dry whisper of fear into her voice.
“Let him,” he says. His hands close about her tiny waist, the muscles and curves shifting against the tips of his fingers.
She shakes her pale head, saying nothing, her hair rippling in black waves. They’ve been through this before.
“Come,” she says. Turning, she catches his fingers in her own, pulls him silently from the circle of children and puppets, her bare feet moving without sound across the dirt. He follows, as a leaf follows the curve of the current, joyous and without restraint.
“Here,” she says, finally, as they reach the edge of a stream he’s never seen before. The light is late afternoon, and it turns the trees an apple green and the bark a buttery hue. “Red Cap does not know this tributary.”
She rarely says her father’s name, and the sound of it makes his flesh break out in goose bumps, small hills that dot his arms and legs like tussocks. He rubs his arms with his palms, brisk and quick, willing the skin back down. Her father is just a man, he thinks, like any other, although he knows this isn’t entirely true.
“Come,” she says. She steps in the shallow of the river’s wide blue body, pushing her green dress from her shoulders, letting it fall into the water. He will never get used to the sight of her body, never wants to get used to it, the way her skin flows over her bones, the strong legs, the wide curves of her hips, the tiny breasts with nipples like pink pebbles.
He steps forward, joins her in the shallow water, shivering through the cold and stones.
“I could eat you up, swim in you forever,” he says.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t tell me. Just…please…”
She takes his hand, slides it between the cleft of her legs. He curls his fingers so that they dip between the folds of skin, begin a slow sink into her wetness. She is slippery as tiny fishes through his fingers. Pulling him down, she is strong and swift and she cushions his body against the rush of water and the hard edges of stone. It takes nothing to make him as hard; he’s been that way since he first saw her in the market, and now he enters her, stone above her, stone below. The water washes over them both as their bodies surge and retreat.
She says his name, over and over, whispered so low he can’t hear her, only feel the movement of her mouth against his, only know it’s his name by the shape of her lips. His fingers are caught in the tangled net of her hair and he leaves them there, tightens the weave.
Coming, he can’t tell what’s him and what’s her and what’s water, except by the heat of it. He gushes hot into all of this cool, and she is biting his lip, hard, so hard that he ducks his head and the water comes roaring over him. He cannot breathe, but he keeps his mouth against hers until she lets go and then he raises his head with a great gasp.
“You must not go to the market again,” she says, after. He is on the bank and she is sliding her dress back up over her shoulders. “It’s not safe.”
“I am not afraid.” He isn’t. There is a pounding in his heart, and in the sides of his neck, but it is not fear, something else entirely.
He thinks of how he will win her from her father. He will go to him and prove that he is everything a waterman could want for his daughter. He will get her father’s permission and then she will be his, they will be theirs.
“That,” she says, and she lays a palm against his face. Her skin is cool and it makes him shiver. “…is exactly why it is not safe.”
After a beat she says, “Promise.”
He does, but he doesn’t mean it. Not this time.
When he is sleeping, curled on the green bank in a place where he could not possibly be found, she leaves him and returns to the market, a higher watermark staining the hem of her dress a darker green. There is something in her face that closes, draws into itself like a snail as she walks among the stalls.
She bargains for butter. Slides it between hands like a fish between stones. When her hands are full, she pulls the hem of her damp skirt up to carry the bars of golden cream.
There are so many things she will not do. She will not return to him, sleeping, even though her body already aches for his entry, and for the way he watches her as though he would drink her up. She will not tell him that her father is dead, has been dead for a hundred years. She will not give him up, like she’s given up all of the rest who’ve come before him, handed them over to be borne again, blue and still, into the bosom of the sea. She will not.
She weeps as she walks, salting the butter.
Somewhere deep in a riverbed of rock and shale, her husband sleeps a hundred years in one day. When he wakes, it will storm, fast and furious, the clouds letting loose their water until they are dry as bone.
After, the moon will rise, cupping itself in the dark clear sky, and her husband will don his red cap and sit on the banks of the river, in the place where it is still and deep and makes no sound. She will join him in her red stockings, spinning a vest for him of skin and hair. They will speak of things that married couples speak of. Or they will not talk and will be silent.
He will play his pipe made of a cream-and-crimson conch shell. She will sing, a song of yearning and lullaby. The men will come, drawn by his tune or her voice or the wild promise of the river’s dark depths, and she will crush her spinning needle in her palm and keep her breath held in her chest, afraid it will be his face she sees.
Only after, when it is not his face but someone else’s, shining up from beneath the surface of the water, bloated and pale as a buried moon, will she remember to breathe again. And she will think, as she always does of late, how there are many ways to drown.
MIND YOUR PEAS AND Qs
Allison Wonderland
You’ve all heard of sleeping your way to the top, but I’ll bet you’ve never heard of sleeping your way to the bottom.
According to the guidelines outlined in The Handbook for the Highborn, Revised Edition, proof of princehood is determined by a man’s ability to feel a pea wedged beneath a stack of twenty mattresses. Old-school rules stipulate that a man must be able to detect the pea through the pile in order to qualify as The Real Deal. If he fails the test, he is classified as A Phony Baloney and, as a courtesy to the perturbed princess, is kicked out of the palace on his keister.
The revised edition of the handbook contains an extra requirement, a bonus to princesses but an onus to many princes. As outlined in the addendum, men must now demonstrate their authenticity through a test of endurance.
This is accomplished by the fine art of fornication. Every night, one mattress will be
removed from the heap, diminishing the distance between the prince and the pea. If the man is a genuine prince, he will be able to feel the pea more acutely, as though he is lying atop—and grinding against—a bowling ball. At no time will the princess assume a horizontal position, as it is the man’s authenticity that is in question, not hers. Men who pass the test, who prove that they are honest-to-goodness princes, will be granted permission to date the princess.
Since its publication three months ago, The Handbook for the Highborn, Revised Edition, has princesses all over the kingdom trembling in delight and their parents trembling in fright.
The royal rumpus room is abuzz with the chatter of tongues and the clatter of teacups. I have come upon a heated game of canasta. Hardly the right time for a serious discussion, but then, isn’t the right time always the wrong time? I scan the room in search of my parents, who are somewhere among the huddled masses. They must be wearing civilian clothes, I realize, because I’m having difficulty locating them. My parents have a bit of a superiority complex, you see, and I hardly recognize them without their customary capes and crowns. At last, I spot them at a card table in the center of the room. I approach with caution.
“Hello, Mother. Hello, Father.”
My parents peer at me over the tops of their playing cards. Their eyes are narrowed like coin slots and their lips are puckered like change purses. “Yes?” they query in unison, rising to their feet.
I gulp, forcing my heart down my throat and back into my chest. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” I request.
Father sets his cards onto the table. A slick smile graces his face. “Now, sweet pea, we’ve been over this a thousand times,” he says, as I escort my parents to a corner of the room.
“But, Father, I’m nearly thirty. Don’t you think I’m old enough to start dating?” (Screwing I’ve been doing for years now, but dating is a different story entirely.)
Mother shakes her head, her golden curls swishing from side to side. “We most certainly do not. Thirty is much too young. Give it another ten or fifteen years. Then we’ll talk.”
I thrust my lip forward in a pout. “But you promised.”
Father straightens his slouch, trying to intimidate me with good posture. “Promised what?”
“That I could start dating.”
“We said that?” Mother scoffs. “We agreed to such nonsense? You must have caught us on an off day.”
“But that’s unfair,” I protest. “That’s unreasonable. That’s unethical. That’s—”
“Oh, all right, all right,” Mother interjects, her nerves beginning to unravel. “Clearly you’re not going to let up until we give in, so…you win. We’ll allow you to date.”
“Oh, phooey!” Father grouses, a veritable grouch.
“If,” Mother continues, conditioned to impose conditions, “we find someone suitable. Not only must the man you date be a prince; he must also be a prince of a man.”
“Well, of course,” I agree. “I wouldn’t go out with just any crumb who comes along. I want to date someone I have a lot in common with—two peas in a pod, as the saying goes. Someone who is highly intelligent—he should be well bred and well read. And of course he must be a full-blooded blue blood. After all, only a purebred prince with a royal pedigree is good enough for me.”
Father chuckles, his eyes crinkling, his pupils twinkling. “Do you want to date a person, sweet pea, or a poodle?”
“What a splendid idea!” Mother chirps. “Instead of a date, we’ll get you a dog!”
For six months, Mother, Father, and I pore over applications from nearly every eligible bachelor in the kingdom. My parents place an announcement (not an advertisement, they insist) in The Daily Dignitary, alerting their subjects to the availability and desirability of their little princess.
The selection process has been a royal pain. Of the 800 men who applied, 799 failed to pass muster. Take Possible Prince Number 73, for example, who cited tonsil hockey as his favorite sport and listed fortune-telling and making shadow puppets as his hobbies and interests. Then there was Possible Prince Number 127, who prides himself on being a very experienced husband, having been married eight times. This came as no surprise when we reached the Heroes and Heroines section of the application, under which the candidate had named Elizabeth Taylor.
Possible Prince Number 361 was even less appealing, describing himself as a monarch-in-the-making and divulging his dream of sitting on a throne. I’m afraid the only throne he’ll ever have the privilege of sitting on is the one in the lavatory.
My favorite applicant, however, has to be Possible Prince Number 507, who wrote extensively about the length of his libido, boasting that his cock was comparable in size to a yardstick. Upon taking his measurements, I discovered that the information contained in his application was not only an exaggeration, it was a complete fabrication. I assure you that the only way he would ever be considered well hung is if he were swinging from the gallows.
And now we come to Possible Prince Number 712, Nolan, the only candidate whose application did not meet its demise in the paper shredder. His responses to our questions were clear, concise and creative. Under General Information, he wrote (in legible print, I might add):
I should probably tell you that I’m a vegetarian. This doesn’t mean that I’m a picky eater, though. I’ll eat anything—as long as it doesn’t baa, moo, oink, quack, gobble, or cluck. I also have a passion for philosophy. I like to ponder all of life’s mysteries. For instance, who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop? Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?
Impressed, we scheduled an interview. For two weeks, I have been waiting, anticipating our meeting. But I’ve also been feeling apprehensive. Candidates were not required to submit a photograph with their application, so I have no idea what Nolan looks like. I suppose his appearance, stud or dud, is relatively unimportant, but I’m really hoping for a hunk.
I get the hunk I’m hoping for. I feel relieved, as this could easily have turned out to be a case of be-careful-what-you-wish-for. Nolan is handsome, with royal blue eyes, a body like an action figure and a smile that stretches from ear to ear.
After the interview, I escort Possible Prince Number 712 to the guest room. “Tell me about your family,” I request, as we begin to disrobe. “Aside from your lineage.”
Nolan removes his blazer. “Well, Dad is an aviator and martial arts instructor,” he says, loosening his tie. “Mom is an interior decorator and former beauty queen who once competed against Delta Burke.”
I set my blouse and skirt onto a chair. “Did she win?” I ask, reaching for the belt wound around his trousers.
His shirt finds its way to the floor. “I’m not at liberty to say,” he replies. I think he winks, too, but I can’t be certain, as my attention is presently directed to the ripples and stripes carved into his chest.
It isn’t long before Nolan is completely unbuttoned and unbuckled. I scrutinize his lower half. Even flaccid, his phallus is inspiring, with its plump head and solid shaft, curved like a velvet rope.
We approach the ladder erected beside the piled-high pyramid. Dismissing his protests of ladies first, I insist that Nolan go ahead of me. I’m not being courteous; I’m being libidinous. While he ascends the ladder, I perform an assessment, noting the way his ass arches as he moves, the way his flesh flexes as he climbs.
When we reach the top mattress, I instruct him to lie in a recumbent position. Nolan complies, without hesitation, without reservation. He whimpers when his back connects with the mattress, but the pain does little to curb his burgeoning arousal. I watch as his cock grows hard and hardy, until it resembles the marble pillars in the vestibule.
I straddle his lips. His mouth roams from my curls to my clit to my cunt.
I straddle his hips. His hands roam from my neck to my nipples to my navel.
Groans clamber along my larynx. Goose bumps strain against my flesh. I pick up speed quickly, slamming my pelvis against his
, cramming his cock deeper into my cunt.
“Please be gentle,” he implores, and I grant his request, observing the distortions and contortions of his face, the agony of his ecstasy.
When we are through, we climb down from the tower. I permit Nolan to sleep on a regular mattress in a regular bed, while I retire to my bedroom. I’m an old-fashioned girl and have no intentions of sleeping with a man until I’m married.
The test continues for the next three weeks. Each night, one more mattress is removed, bringing Nolan closer and closer to the source of his suffering. He continues to perform with vigor, though his incessant sniveling tempers his enthusiasm.
The Handbook for the Highborn, Revised Edition, states that a princess has complete authority in ascertaining a prince’s stamina. This means that a princess may reward a prince who tries to grin and bear it, or fault a prince who chooses to suffer in silence. I favor the latter, as I don’t consider a man who opts to “take it like a man” much of a man at all.
By the time he has slept his way to the bottom, Nolan is black and blue and red all over. I inform him, cheerful yet contrite, that he has passed the test, and bestow upon him the coveted title of The Real Deal.
“Let me guess,” he jests, his sense of humor the only part of him that’s still intact. “You put a pea under the mattresses?”
I smile.
“Perhaps I will find a carrot under the sink?”
I shrug.
“Princess, now that I’ve passed the test, am I entitled to a little rest and relaxation?” he entreats, inspecting his bruises.
“Yes,” I agree. “And you know what else you’re entitled to?”
“A massage?”
I knead the knots near his spine. “Yes, and something else, too.”
“What else is there?”
I kiss the plump plum bruise invading his left shoulder. “Peas and quiet.”
Fairy Tale Lust Page 9
