Myth and Magic

by Radclyffe

  She strokes Kai’s jugular, the beat of her pulse. Her skin is hot and the Queen wants to bite and suck her everywhere. Withdrawing her cool-bravado essence will be like drinking honeyed nectar. But the Snow Queen controls herself.

  “So you’ve done ‘all this stuff’ before…” she baits.

  “Yeah, of course.” But the boast in Kai’s voice flickers out into fear.

  In one smooth move, the Queen undoes Kai’s jeans and pulls them with her underwear down to her knees. Now the thick silicone cock she’s packing is on full display to everyone in the dungeon.

  Kai’s face turns pink.

  “Your ass is as pristine as a baby’s,” the Snow Queen says, turning her around in a circle. Kai stumbles in the half-lowered jeans. “You’ve never been spanked in your life.”

  “I…” Her voice dies in her throat.

  “It isn’t nice to lie, Kai.”

  The Queen sits on a stuffed velvet chair and pulls Kai over her knee. That taut body is rigid as a board, but as the Queen delivers the first blow on the right cheek, then the second on the left, Kai begins to struggle. But the Snow Queen’s nightly predations have made her strong, and she continues to spank Kai’s firm white cheeks until her handprints mar the skin. A blood-red heat is filling Kai’s face but she doesn’t stop.

  A crowd has gathered to watch. Kai twists in mortification, which amuses the Queen. Scratching her nails over the inflamed skin, she can only to think of how sexy Kai will look gagged.

  The spanking goes on and Kai’s protests turn to groans. That silicone cock is lodged between the Queen’s thighs and the heat of Kai’s skin is intoxicating her senses. The Snow Queen wants to dominate and devour every inch of Kai’s squirming hard body, then ride her cock into exhaustion.

  Grabbing a fistful of the silky blond hair on her lap, the Snow Queen lifts Kai’s head. Her greenish blue eyes look enamored already, and as the Queen kisses her for the second time, she can feel Kai’s essence filling her like liquid stars.

  She slaps Kai’s bottom again. “Walk.”

  Kai is dazed but willing as the Queen marches her off to a private dungeon. Finally they’re alone together. Stripping Kai of all of her clothes, the Queen shackles her to a St. Andrews Cross. She’s had many naked butches displayed like this, but none as handsome as Kai. She pinches her thighs, runs her fingernails across her stomach.

  “Please…”

  The Snow Queen lightly slaps Kai’s mouth. “Silence.” Then, holding her shackled arms for balance, she slowly impales herself on Kai’s cock.

  This is the moment she cherishes: that first incredible sensation of throbbing heat pushing into her pussy. It lights her up like fire, an electric charge going straight to her clit. She moves slowly on Kai at first, sliding her arms and legs around her as she gradually adjusts to the toy’s thickness. Beneath her, Kai jerks against her shackles. Her struggle only makes the Queen wetter.

  She slaps Kai’s face with her breasts. “Don’t talk. Just show me what you can do with this big, pretty cock of yours.”

  Kai’s dick feels huge inside her. It connects the fiery buzz in her clit to the stiffness of her nipples, until her entire body hums with excitement. A soft groan escapes her as she begins to ride Kai faster, smoother, their rhythms meeting in perfect sync. Kai’s hips bang against the cross, driving into her over and over until she wants to scream. They’re fucking hard and fast with all their power now, and she strokes her clit until her pussy feels almost incandescent. Then they’re coming hot and wet, together, as a rush of power fills her like a thousand fireflies.

  She buries her face in Kai’s chest, drinking in the fresh smell of her skin, like sun-baked sand. Slowly she forces herself to slide off and undo the shackles. Kai sprawls on the floor, her blond hair a mess of sex and sweat.

  Perfect, she thinks. This one is just perfect. From her narrow hips to her boyish frame to the beautiful sex-flush across her cheekbones, Kai is having an effect on the Snow Queen that she’s never experienced. This one’s energy tastes so sweet, so succulent. The Queen looks at her again, half-puzzled.

  Kai gazes up at her with smitten eyes. “You’re the woman of my dreams.”

  All of her pets fall in love with her, but Kai’s words cause an odd flutter inside her chest. She’d describe her heart as a butterfly trying to get free, if she possessed a heart.

  She masks it with a cool smile. “Don’t move.”

  Kai obeys as the Snow Queen finds her camera. She always makes it a point to photograph her pets early on so she can remember them later, after they’re ruined and lifeless. Her photographs are her trophies, a way of preserving forever what she knows will always be temporary.

  Kai’s body is committed to photographic posterity, from her toned thighs to her bitten mouth. Then the Snow Queen links their fingers together and leads Kai upstairs to her home on the top floor. “This is where you’ll live now.”

  Kai seems so different from the others. Maybe she won’t be drained as quickly as the others; maybe she won’t turn cynical and lifeless. Maybe, the Snow Queen thinks, she can keep this one a long, long time.

  *

  The Snow Queen arranges the day’s new daffodils and roses. She has flowers stocked daily: tiger lilies, irises, delphiniums, and of course, roses of every color. She loves their beauty and freshness because unlike her pets, her cold touch does not drain them. Every day she has new ones delivered so she never has to watch them fade.

  She glances at Kai, who’s staring into her vanity mirror. It’s a self-absorption that makes her uneasy. Kai’s begun showing signs of the same atrophy all her other pets went through; lethargy, indifference. Lately she’s incapable of real conversation, except to tell the Queen how beautiful she is. Only sex interests Kai.

  Who isn’t quite the swaggering, handsome young butch she used to be. Her tan has faded and her silky hair has gone dull. Oddly the Snow Queen feels more attached to her than ever. Her other pets revolted her when they turned ugly. But she adores Kai so much that she knows she will care for her no matter what.

  She leaves the flowers to slide her hands down that sculpted chest, toying with her nipples. Kai sighs and leans back into her. “I’m so wet for you…”

  The Queen begins to rub her pussy through her jeans. “What were you thinking just now?”

  A slight frown creases Kai’s face. “That I don’t look like me anymore. And it’s been…” Kai trails off as she tries to calculate how many days she’s been living there, or has it been it weeks? “Never mind.” A sweet smile breaks across her face, making the Queen melt a little. “You’re the perfect woman, you know that? You have everything.”

  “Except a heart.” The Snow Queen meets Kai’s eyes in the mirror.

  Kai turns around and jokingly lays her hand on the Queen’s chest, pretending to listen for a heartbeat. When she doesn’t find one, her hand jerks away—but she laughs anyhow.

  “As if. You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. You’re…”

  “Beautiful,” the Queen says. “Yes, I know.”

  Kai stands and buries her face in the Queen’s neck, biting her throat the way she likes. She’s taught Kai well over their weeks together. As the Snow Queen sinks into her vanity chair, Kai kneels obediently. Her mouth ascends her thighs, sucking here, nibbling there, until her tongue is working the Queen’s pussy with masterful skill. Still, the Queen wishes Kai would show some spontaneity. That she would come up with her own ideas of how to fuck her and worship her and make her come. She can’t stop thinking about the night they met and the defiance in Kai’s eyes, the struggle of lust and willfulness that made her so irresistible.

  She closes her eyes, pretending Kai is still the same. Pretending that gorgeous butch with the cocky smile is kneeling before her right now, her tongue and her heart given freely. But that can never happen now. The only way to bring that dashing person back to life is to return Kai to the real world forever.

  A pang twists inside her.

&nb
sp; “You whore!”

  Both she and Kai look at the door, where a girl with long black hair is starting to weep. This must be Gerda, the ex-girlfriend. The Snow Queen glances at Kai, who’s still on her knees with a dazed expression. She can handle this easily. One push of a security button and Gerda will be removed from the club.

  “I’ve been looking for you in this neighborhood for weeks,” Gerda sobs. “Who is this bitch?”

  “Um…” Kai struggles for words until Gerda pulls her away.

  “Look at me!” she cries and as her tears fall into Kai’s eyes, flushing out the shards of mirror, The Snow Queen can see the two possible fates before her. Keep Kai and watch her fade, or let Gerda save her.

  She does nothing to intervene.

  Confusion wrinkles Kai’s brow. “Gerda…I was…I was…”

  The Snow Queen feels a new and crushing pain that she suspects is grief.

  “Why are you acting like you’re drugged? I’m getting you out of here. And as for you, you freakish blue bitch…” Gerda grabs a lush red rose and stabs its longest thorn between the Snow Queen’s breasts.

  The rose clings to her blue skin. All of them watch as it begins to melt in streaks. Water glistens on the dark red petals; flesh and flower fuse together in a bloody, cloppy whirlpool of viscera. Then the rose is sucked into the Snow Queen’s chest.

  Brilliant colors light up her navy eyes like an aurora borealis.

  Gerda finds Kai’s pants. “Let’s go. Now.” She grabs her hand and pulls Kai out the door.

  Alone, the Snow Queen falls to her knees on the marble floor. Her face works in contortions of an anguish she’s never known. The walls are beginning to melt in trickles, much like the tears streaming down her face, though she doesn’t know if she is weeping from sorrow or joy. Her mouth, when she opens it to cry, is full of rose petals. Her pale blue body shakes with the convulsions of transformation as deep in her chest begins the telltale, rhythmic thumping of her new heart.

  Juliann Rich is the author of three affirming novels for young adults: Caught in the Crossfire, Searching for Grace, and Taking the Stand, coming out with Bold Strokes Books in 2015. She lives in southern Minnesota with her husband and two chronically disobedient dachshunds.

  This story is based on “Little Briar Rose.”

  The Ivy and the Rose

  Juliann Rich

  Ivy backed out of Lord Ainsworth’s bedchamber, a chipped porcelain pot clutched in her small hands. She turned to find her master standing in the hallway beside a stranger dressed in a shimmering charcoal robe, a bulging money purse hanging from the belt that circled his fiercely thin waist. Ivy stood and waited for her master to speak as the scent of his urine, hours cold, seeped from the chamber pot in her hands and filled the hallway.

  “She might be the one you seek.” Lord Ainsworth bobbed his fat head. “She stumbled onto my grounds, spewing some nonsense about standing inside the castle with the cursed Princess Ambrosia one second and outside my gate the next. Claimed she’d been transported here by magic. The nonsense! But never you fear, I showed her what happens to chambermaids who hold with thoughts of magic. She’s tame now.” Lord Ainsworth frowned at the strands of long red curls that always escaped Ivy’s bonnet no matter what she did. “Well, tamer.”

  “M’lords.” Ivy curtsied. In a flash she imagined it, the pot tipping and spilling its stench onto the master’s shoes in front of the stranger he was so keen to impress. She hid her smile under the wide ruffle of her bonnet.

  She stole a quick glance at the stranger.

  “Inside the castle one minute.” The stranger tapped his bony fingers together and murmured, “And here the next. How clever…and yet how ignorant. To think they could hide the key from me!”

  Neither who they were—clever or ignorant—nor what key they had hidden did the stranger say as he swept down the threadbare rug. The master chased after him. Or, more’s the truth, after his money.

  But Ivy didn’t have time to wonder about such things. A whole morning of chores made more complicated by an unexpected guest lay before her. Best not to dawdle with questions that didn’t concern her.

  Ivy stepped out the kitchen door and flung the contents of the chamber pot. Three doves—one a babe still covered in fluff, one plump and glistening gray, and one with pure white feathers—watched her from a branch in a nearby tree. “Danger,” the white dove seemed to coo. And then, “Beware.”

  “Oh, hush with ye!” Ivy left the doves, preening their plumes, and stepped inside the kitchen.

  “Who’s the rich bastard what’s got the master drooling?” she asked Milli, Lord Ainsworth’s cook.

  “It don’t matter who the master’s entertaining!” Milli’s large brown eyes, usually calm and kind, widened with worry. “What matters is that I’m to produce a grand meal for two from this bitty chicken!”

  Ivy plunged her hands into the wash bucket and scrubbed until the filth was gone. “Now don’t you fret. You take a deep breath and calm yourself.”

  Milli closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her fingers, clutching the counter, unfurled.

  “That’s better.” Ivy smiled. “How can I help?”

  Milli opened her eyes and gestured toward a platter filled with piping-hot scones and a steaming pot of tea. “You could bring that tray into the dining room. With any luck they’ll gorge themselves on sweets and won’t even be hungry.”

  Milli’s hands still trembled, poor thing. Ivy picked up the tray and spoke, her voice steeped with the magic of goodwill and friendship. “You’ll cook a meal fit for King Alexander and Queen Alexia, you will!”

  Though how her friend would accomplish the feat, Ivy had no clue. Lord Ainsworth’s kitchen was empty as his heart. A few overripe vegetables on the counter, a small sack of barley in the larder, and one stringy marsh hen on the counter. It would take a magician to turn such poor offerings into a meal fit for a king. “You’ll think of sumfink, Milli. I know you will.”

  Milli’s eyes glazed like she was near asleep. Then they narrowed. She glanced toward a week-old loaf of bread atop the garbage bin next to the kitchen counter. “Dare I? Oh, I don’t know. If the master ever found out…perhaps he mightn’t, though, if I cut off the bits of white and cubed it. Yes, and with a pinch of sage and a splash of broth made from its liver…” she muttered to herself, reaching for the moldy loaf of bread.

  Milli’s voice stopped Ivy at the door. “Promise you’ll keep your thoughts to yourself for once,” Milli said, her hands busily shredding the bread to wee bits. “I’ve the worst feeling, I have!”

  “I promise,” Ivy said, leaving Milli in the kitchen muttering about apples and chopped nuts.

  The master’s guest sat at the far end of the dining room table. Such an odd-looking one was the stranger, with black hair that hung to his waist, cheekbones so sharp Milli could have carved a ham on them, and fingers as thin and gnarled as a bird’s talons.

  “I simply cannot let the girl go for less than one pound two shillings,” her master said. “You must understand. I have years invested in the girl. Why, I’ve given her a proper training, I have.” Lord Ainsworth reached out and swatted Ivy’s rear just as she was about to put the platter down.

  She lurched forward and the tray skidded across the table.

  “Obviously.” The stranger traced the fresh scratch in the wood with the tip of a fingernail, the point of it sharp as a dagger. “There is, of course, the matter of the debt you owe the crown.”

  Lord Ainsworth’s head jerked toward the stranger. “Debt? What debt? I’ve paid my taxes, every last shilling.”

  Ivy poured two cups of tea and handed one to her master, who snatched it from her hands. Whether Lord Ainsworth’s scowl was due to the scratched table or the talk of debt made no difference. There would be hell to pay no matter the cause. She handed the other cup to her master’s guest, who accepted it and stared until she flushed red and stammered, “Will there be anything else, m’lords?”

  “Stay, by
all means. I have questions for you.” The stranger lifted the cup to his lips and sipped.

  She curtsied and backed a step away from the table.

  The black-haired man turned his attention to her master. “But first, Lord Ainsworth, let us settle the matter of your debt. It is true you owe the crown nothing for this house and your land. But for privilege of having your fires laid, your chamber pots emptied, and your meals served to you by one who remains in the employ of our king, sleeping or not? No, I am afraid, sir, your debt has run quite high on that account.”

  The master looked at her then, stone-cold fury in his eyes. “Is it true, girl? Are you in the king’s service?”

  “Yes, m’lord.” She jutted out her chin. “As I told you when I came to your door.”

  “And when was that?” The stranger leaned forward.

  “I believe it were two years ago exactly on the morrow, m’lord.” How could Ivy not know the passing of time to the second since she’d seen her girl? It carved itself on her soul.

  “Two years ago exactly! You are the one!” The stranger’s voice pitched high as a woman’s. His eyes flashed. “Quick, tell me! How did you escape the curse?”

  She opened her mouth to answer him, but it was Milli’s voice she heard in her mind. Promise you’ll keep your thoughts to yourself. Ivy stared at her scuffed shoes and shook her head.

  The master pounded his fist on the table, rattling the cups, the saucers, her bones. “Two years I’ve tried to teach you silence and now you learn the lesson? Oh, for the love of King Alexander, may he wake soon, speak the truth, girl!”

  So she spoke, though not the truth. “I were already running away, you see. From Mrs. Babcock, the head housekeeper what caught me peering behind the curtains and under the bed for the princess when I should have been laying her fire, but Mrs. Babcock dinnit understand. She dinnit know that were our game. I tried to tell her, but she got so red in the face and gave me such a fright when she swung her hand back that I ran from the servants’ quarters and never looked back.”