Mrs. Beast (11 page)

    
Beauty resents her use of the word
beast
, the boar being the only truly innocent party in this twisted tale.

    
"I ran over sharp stones and through thorn bushes, wishing they'd rip my body apart, my snow white skin, my ebony hair, my blood red lips that stirred Horst's lust and Vanita's rage; this body that hurts and punishes against my will."
 
Snow White groans and thumps her chest.
 
"I ran past ravens feasting on a dead horse, past a herd of blinded stags, past a tribe of elves carrying off a baby."
 
Snow White pushes up her sleeves as if she means business.
 
"Do you know elves steal babies and substitute them with changelings?"

    
Beauty notices a row of thin silver scars on the underside of both Snow White's arms.
 
"Are those scars from the thorn bushes?"

    
Snow White yanks down her sleeves and hides her hands inside them.
 
"I don't do it anymore.
 
It used to calm me.
 
When I couldn't comprehend or express my suffering, these cuts showed me my body could heal.
 
I'm not lying about the elves!"

    
Beauty's throat tightens and her nose prickles.
 
Her sorrow comes from knowing that even though Snow White is ranting, unbalanced, possibly crazy as a coot, she's right about her beauty acting on others against her will.
 
Such a high price to pay for so little power regained, for the cut, the scab, and the scar, tangible evidence that beauty does not grant self-acceptance.
 
Don't cry!
  
Beauty rubs her nose roughly, and her baby flutters.

    
Please be a boy
, Beauty prays, watching as Snow White curl into herself, cringing at her bogy delusions.
 
Beauty decides she prefers the face slapping, potato-kicking Snow White.
 
Still, as a beauty she is expert at diverting disaster by changing the subject, and she's eager to learn what became of Snow White's prince.
 
"Then you found the dwarf's cottage and you were safe?"

    
Snow White audibly exhales. "Yes.
 
Safe.
 
I know the dwarfs told you how I came to live with them, of Vanita's attempts on my life, and about my wedding.
 
I was listening at the top of the stairs and I heard every word.
 
I guess you want to know what happened after I married my prince."
 
Snow White's gaze drifts to Beauty's tattoo.
 
Did that hurt?"

    
"Not while he was doing it; I was unconscious."

    
"Did it bleed?"

    
"Not much."

    
"Three drops?
 
Would you guess three drops?"

    
"Yes, three drops."

    
Beauty rises and walks to the window.
 
From the position of the moon, she estimates it's near midnight.

    
"How about when he pierced you with the other needle?"
 
Snow White's voice is a coarse whisper at Beauty's back.
 
"The one between his legs.
 
Did it hurt?
 
Did you bleed on your wedding night?"

    
Beauty turns about slowly.
 
Snow White is chewing on her thumbnail; she tears away a cuticle and grinds it between her front teeth.
 

*
     
*
     
*

    
"And you think
The Young and The Restless
is juicy," Elora says to Croesus whose nose is pressed against the crystal ball.
 
They had been watching a meteor shower atop the Deco palace roof when Snow White's knock on Beauty's door sounded from the ball.

    
"You can bet your last box of Milk Bones Beauty won't talk about her wedding night.
 
I was there, and believe me, it was no Victoria's Secret fantasy.
 
Look, a shooting star," Elora points to a blazing white trail through the black sky.

    
Croesus paws Elora's leg and perks up his ears.

    
"You're a shameless gossip hound, and I love you for that," she says and kisses the round bump on the top of his head.

    
“Okay . . . after I turned Violet and Daisy to stone, I turned myself into a horsefly for the wedding reception.
 
Runyon was the life of the party, pouring champagne, dancing with all the women, and some of the men.
 
When the musicians fell on the floor, drunk and exhausted, Runyon plunked his pretty self at the harpsichord and played for an hour.
 
He was radiant with charm. Women fluttered around him like moths, and I could tell, resting on Beauty's veil, that she wanted to have him to herself.
 
I rode that veil up the stairs and into the boudoir.
 
Bride and groom slipped between the sheets and I flew onto the headboard.
 
Beauty nuzzled Runyon's naked chest, as had been her habit in pre-mating with the Beast.
 
Runyon wrapped his hands in her chestnut locks, pulled her head backward and kissed her cherry pink lips.
 
He explored every inch of her body with his soft, supple hands, caressing places the Beast's claws had not been able to touch."

    
Croesus' eyes grow large and liquid.
 
Elora passes her hand over her throat and speaks in the voices of the newlyweds.

    
"Am I not the gweatest wover?

    
Yes, yes.

    
Much better than the filthy beast?

    
Yes, yes, my love!" Elora squeals and Croesus howls.

    
"No, no.
 
After two embarrassingly brief minutes, Prince Runyon was spent.
 
Beauty's first time with the Beast had taken two hours, and even so, he allowed only half his staff to breach her maidenhead.
 
When Beauty had uttered those three little words and changed Runyon back to the prince, all his beastly parts were transformed to what they once were."
 
Elora arches an eyebrow and smirks.
 
"Small."

    
Croesus wheezes a derisive doggy laugh.

    
"Beauty snuggled against his arm and kissed the inside of his elbow."
 
Again, Elora passes her hand over her throat.

    
"Don't be ridicuwass," she snarls in Runyon's voice. "You don't need to pwetend.

    
Husband, I assure you . . .

    
You're a wiar.

    
My prince, I do not tell lies.

    
Right, I forgot.
 
Beauty the perfect, Beauty the fairest, Beauty the swut of a beast.

    
Runyon.
 
That beast was you!

    
Throw it up in my face! Beauty the spell-bwayker. I'm supposed to be forever in your debt?
 
I'll start paying you back this moment by weaving you in peace. From now on, I sweep in my own room."

    
Elora restores her voice and dryly says, "As he sashayed out of the bridal boudoir, I flew over and bit his nasty ass."

 
*
     
*
     
*

Chapter Five

auf Wiedersehen, Snow White

    
"I gather your silence means I shouldn't have asked about Runyon's needle,"
 
Snow White says. "I want to know how it feels to . . . "

    
Beauty blinks three times. "But you are a married woman."

    
"A married maiden."
 
Snow White pouches her bottom lip round as a cherry tomato.

    
Now Beauty's curiosity is piqued.
Was Snow White also a beauty spurned by her husband, or had she refused her groom?
  
"Really?"

    
Snow White nods, then reclines across the bottom of the bed.
 
"Did the dwarfs tell you what Prince Otto said when he first saw me?"

    
"Something about wanting to take the coffin, and that he couldn't live without you?"

    
"He could not live without
looking
on me.
 
Unfortunately, that's
all
he wanted to do."

    
"Go on!"

    
"Truly. Can you imagine awaking in a coffin?
 
I'd been in that glass box a whole year with a chunk of poison apple stuck in my throat.
 
The last thing I remembered was an old peasant woman offering me an apple.
 
It was January, and you know how hard it is to get fruit in winter.
 
This apple was beautiful; deep red and shiny.
 
The old woman cut it in half and the flesh was firm, white and juicy.
 
I swear, I didn't know it was Vanita, even though Otto later insisted I did."
 
Snow White sits up and hugs her knees to her chest.

    
"The next thing I knew, I woke up in the coffin, flung the lid open and shouted,
Where am I?
  
I heard a voice answer:
You are near me
.
  
I turned around thinking,
Do I know anyone who would come up with such an incredibly stupid response?
 
There was Otto, all six feet of him, dressed in a gold tunic, arms spread as if I'd just won a raffle and he was the grand prize.
 
Otto wasn't handsome as you've described Runyon, but not unattractive either.
 
He had an air of self-confidence and strength I found extremely appealing.
 
He said,
I would rather have you than anything else in the world.
 
Come with me to my palace and you shall be my bride.

    
"Well, what was I to do?"
 
Snow White stares at Beauty with a stupefied expression.

    
Beauty does not know how to answer. If she had asked what Beauty would have done, she could have said:
Talk with him, allow love to grow if it will, then marry him, as I did with my Beast. But then
, she reconsiders,
I thought his love would remain constant in spite of his transformation.

    
"I'd been living with the dwarfs four years, and still they worried about leaving me home alone.
 
Obviously, Vanita wasn't going to give up tormenting me.
 
And, I had dreamed of a prince coming to claim me, and of the happily ever after I'd been promised.
 
I bid a tearful good-bye to my seven friends and rode off with Otto."
 
She sighs and lifts her nightgown to pick at a scab on her knee.

    
"You spoke of Runyon's passion for mirrors.
 
Otto's passion was glass; more precisely, objects enclosed in glass.
 
Pastiche Palace contained rooms of glass cases displaying Otto's collections: brilliant butterflies, bird's eggs of every shape and color, pressed flower blossoms, and dead animals stuck in unnaturally serene poses."