Taming the Beast: Eleven Paranormal Romances

by Alyse Zaftig

  She let his calm reach out to her, and as she stood there, catching her breath, she looked him over.

  Since she was human indoors, she’d never really seen herself in any reflections. She’d only seen the parts of herself that she could look at directly, looking down. So she took that time to not only see him, but to also translate it to how she’d probably see her beast self in a mirror indoors, if she could.

  She could see Gastard in the beast, and at the same time, she could see the beast in Gastard.

  No wonder he recognized me, she thought. If he saw me the same way that I can see him, I understand now how he knew who I was when everyone else was yelling and pointing. I’d recognize him anywhere, in any form.

  That knowledge, that deep recognition, calmed her even more. When he bumped himself into her, butting against her, pushing her on and aiming her toward the front doors, she let herself be herded up the porch stairs, through the entryway and back into the manor.

  “I’m so very sorry,” was the first thing she said when they were human again. “I had no idea that would happen.”

  “Yeah, that definitely caught me by surprise, too,” he said with a laugh.

  “How can you laugh now? After that?”

  “How can I not? It’s laugh or…”

  Neither of them picked up the dropped thought, both preferring to let it go without pinning it down.

  “So, that’s it then? We’re all doomed. We didn’t break your curse at all, we just swapped it out for my curse. For the manor’s curse. We’re all doomed to be like this forever, aren’t we? And it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t let Eva give me hope, if I hadn’t let her talk me into going after you and had just stayed here, you wouldn’t share my curse now.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’d be even worse off and more miserable. I’d rather have this, Belle. I’d rather be here with you, be just like you, than still be kept from you. This way we can be together, we can share the same burden. We understand each other.

  We can drown our sorrows and lose ourselves in each other. We can touch, kiss, talk, fuck our days away, together. Wait…

  You said “we’re all doomed.” You said Eva gave you hope and talked you into coming after me. Is she here, too?”

  “They all are. Everyone who was in the manor that night when dad walked in on us. They’re all cursed, too.”

  “They all turn to beasts when they go outside? Where is everyone now?”

  “They’re probably all scattered through the manor, giving us privacy. Their curse is different, they can’t even go outside at all, like you couldn’t get onto the grounds before. They can’t go outside and they’re stuck in their altered state. We turn beast, but they’ve all been turned into… objects.”

  “Objects?”

  “Sex toys. Eva is one of those G-spot vibes now. Mrs. Pulse is a neon multi-speed, everyone is something different. Vibiere is extra big, Cocksring is a, well…”

  “Why would they hide themselves from me, they all knew me before. I’m as cursed as they are, it’s not like I’d judge. They don’t need to hide.”

  “Well, to be fair, until right now we have been getting rather intimately reacquainted with each other. I think it was very nice of them to not make themselves known. I’d imagine a talking vibe or cock ring speaking up right in the middle of us getting busy would’ve ruined the mood.”

  “It would’ve done more than ruin the mood. That would’ve scared the shit out of me, to be honest. I see your point. But now that I know, I’d love to see them all again. We all need to talk, actually. Put all of our heads together.

  If my curse was separate and designed to fit me, and then altered to your curse when we got together, maybe their curse can be altered, too?”

  “So we’d all be forced to be beasts? I’m not sure that’s any better, Gastard.”

  “Not any better than being sex toys? At least we can go outside. And we can be human indoors. Maybe they’d prefer to have that option, as well? Maybe they wouldn’t. But if we could offer them the choice—having a choice is always better than not having a choice, right?”

  “We’ll, that’s true.”

  “And maybe, if we can figure out why their curse is their curse, and why your curse is your curse, we can figure out what similarity binds all the curses, and we can break them all.”

  “The similarity is me, Gastard. All of this is my fault. If I hadn’t gotten caught with you, none of us would be in this mess. I did this.”

  “Then maybe you can undo this as well,” Eva said.

  Belle and Gastard both jumped when the tentative voice spoke up from nearby, startling them from their obviously not-so-private conversation.

  Belle’s eyes darted around, searching, til she saw Eva’s form, half-hidden as she peeked at them from around the corner of the doorway separating the foyer from the next room.

  “Mrs. Pulse has prepared a meal for you both,” she said. “After, we can all talk, like Gastard suggested. But for right now, come and eat. It’s not often we have guests; Mrs. P is very excited. I have a feeling she’s going to make quite a production out of this.”

  Gastard

  “Break our curse, break our curse, put this damn spell in reverse.”

  Gastard watched, fascinated, his fork paused half-way between his plate and his mouth, as plastic, rubber and silicone sex toys swirled and danced around him and Belle in a flash of colors and sounds.

  “Put this curse to the test.

  You dropped your trousers round your knees, cheri

  And we all know the rest.

  Doggie style, like a perv,

  We all know she lives to serve

  We know her cunt’s delicious

  But her dad had other wishes

  You lost your shirt, you dropped your pants

  Her dad saw London, he saw France

  And his fury’s never been second best

  Go on, eat up. Take a bite.

  Fill your belly, then make it right.

  Get your wits first

  Then we’ll all converse

  On how to

  Break our curse!

  Break our curse!

  Break Our Curse!”

  Gastard glanced at Belle, and then back to the singing and dancing cacophony, unsure if he should eat or drink anything placed before him that was prepared by house staff who were making him wonder if he’d stumbled upon some bad mushrooms in the woods while he was searching for a way back to Belle. Maybe he wasn’t here at all but was currently lying face down in the mud, between the bar and the manor, hallucinating all of this.

  Or… maybe this was just a fucked up dream, and he’d wake up slumped over and drooling on himself back inside the bar, still unable to come, his reunion and subsequent orgasms with Belle just a cruel joke.

  He leaned over toward Belle and asked her possibly-hallucinated-form to pinch him, hard.

  She didn’t pinch him, but instead she leaned the rest of the way toward him, closing their gap. She whispered in his ear, “Oh, this shit is for real, all right. Trust me on that. Dad had one fucked up, warped, sense of curse-humor, didn’t he?”

  “Have you ever…?”

  “Oh, hell no! I knew these toys when they were people. Not a one of ‘em needs to be all up inside…”

  “We’re bursting to break this cursing,

  But we waited while you caressed.

  While the candlelight’s still glowing

  Our impatience is now growing

  Break a curse, one by one,

  Til we shout “All is done!”

  And we can get back to our lives,

  But for now, let’s make a plan,

  Cause to not try would be the worst.

  Break this curse,

  Break this curse,

  Break This Curse!”

  Their grand finale shook the table and then the silence that fell was deafening as every object struck their last pose and stared at him and Belle expectantly. Their voices still rang in his e
ars as he tried desperately to think of something to say back to them after their interesting performance.

  “Oh, what have I done?”

  He turned to look at Belle as she spoke, grateful to have a reason to look away from all the brightly colored, hopeful little faces staring at them from every direction.

  “Knowing we altered your curse has given them hope, but we have no idea how we did it. Or any clue on where to start altering theirs.”

  He saw the ache in her eyes as she looked away from all of her friends to face him instead. She wanted nothing more than to be able to release them from their curse, he could see that plain as day. He knew that she’d even take their curse upon herself if it meant that they’d be freed, and the unselfishness of that, of everything she was, just made him love her even more.

  They had to find a way. They just had to.

  He meant what he told her before. If he really was stuck here forever under this current curse with her, it was a small price to pay to be able to live out his life beside the woman he loved.

  And even if finding a way to free all of the others meant taking on their curse somehow as well, Gastard was willing to do it. For Belle. With Belle.

  “So, what do you know, then?” Eva asked, settling in beside them for a brainstorming session.

  “Yes, tell us everything,” Mrs. Pulse nodded.

  They all gathered round as he and Belle filled them in on everything from the moment she’d taken Eva’s advice the night before and headed off to see if she could leave the manor grounds and find him.

  They all interrupted the story, at one point or another, to ask a clarifying question or to throw out an odd thought or theory.

  “Gastard, you couldn’t get through the barrier around the manor until you passed through it with Belle, correct?” Mrs. Pulse asked.

  When he confirmed, she asked him, “Can you pass through it freely now? Now that you’re like Belle? Or do you still need her to do so? And either way, once you’re back on the other side again, if you can even get there, are you still like her? Or do you get your own curse back again, instead?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t tried,” he said. “But knowing the answers to those questions would definitely give us a place to start. Belle, care to go for a walk with me toward town?”

  “It would be a pleasure,” she said, grinning at him like he’d asked her out for a date around town instead of to shift into a beast and experiment with the boundaries and new rules of his new curse.

  “Let’s go now,” she added. “I don’t need to wait for darkness this time. I’d rather have answers than cover of night.”

  They walked out the front door together moments later. They took their shifting in stride this time and hurried to the land’s border. Gastard tried first, alone, to see if the curse would let him pass.

  It did.

  He walked right over the boundary like Belle could, not feeling anything that even tried to stop him. Once he was a few yards out and most definitely past any barrier, Belle followed him. He stayed a beast, just like her, as they headed toward town.

  They stopped at the edge of town though, and looked to each other to decide together how far they needed to go to be sure. He felt no real need to see if the other aspect of his old curse was still there. Since he obviously couldn’t shift human on this side of the manor’s land, testing that would mean having sex with Belle out here, in their beast forms.

  While the idea did appeal to him, it was more as a fun excursion to try later, when there wasn’t a manor full of nervous objects waiting on them to find out how this piece of the puzzle had gone.

  With as much of a shrug as he could muster as a beast, he signaled Belle, asking if she wanted to keep going or turn back. He watched her look out over the town, then she too shrugged, and they turned around and headed back home.

  Gastard went first again, crossing the now non-existent barrier alone. Then he came back and motioned for Belle to cross. Before, when he was unable to pass this point, she was on the manor side and he was on the town side, so he wanted to try it that way now, too. To be sure.

  She went on alone, and once she was quite far ahead of him, he followed behind, in her wake, with no problem at all.

  When they got back inside the manor, they reported their findings. Gastard’s original curse was most definitely broken; he was now as Belle was. Their curse was the same.

  “I think I know what to do now,” Belle said.

  Gastard looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  “You do? What?”

  Belle

  “I’m the key. I’m the key to everything,” Belle said.

  “Eva was right. True love does do weird things to curses, we’ve all heard the stories.

  Dad wanted to keep us apart, that was the whole point in all of this. I’d like to think that he would’ve calmed down and come to his senses, only he never got the chance. But either way, that was the purpose of the curse. Or curses.

  Whether it was meant to do so forever, or just until he came back and could deal with me more rationally, he wanted us separated. That’s why he put the spell-wall around the grounds, the one you couldn’t find a way around or through. He set it up to keep you from coming back, not to keep me from leaving. He knew that me shifting when I stepped outside would upset me enough to not even think about trying to leave here. I never did, either. Testing that was Eva’s idea, it never even dawned on me to try.

  Knowing dad, the other part of your curse, the ‘never know release’ part, was an afterthought just to punish you further, man to man, but the two were intertwined into one curse.

  Since the spell-wall was never told to keep me out, it didn’t even try to, even when I wasn’t alone. And once you were through it, with me, your curse was broken. Since the two parts of your curse were entwined, breaking one broke the other as well.”

  “And since I passed through with you, your curse took me over as well?”

  “I don’t think so, I think that was something else. But to be sure, I need to try something. Eva, are you up for an experiment? I’m not at all sure it will work, but if it does, I think you’ll be curse-free.”

  “Completely curse-free? Or curse-altered, like Gastard?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. But I think completely curse-free. What do you say?”

  “I say the same thing you said before you finally tried to leave the grounds last night. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “That’s the spirit. Come with me.”

  Belle grabbed Eva, taking her, as everyone else trailed behind, to the front door. Without explaining, or even pausing, she walked right up to the door, yanked it open with her free hand, and walked outside, taking the vibrator outside with her.

  She dropped Eva as she shifted, but once beast, she turned to see if she’d been correct about what would happen to the vibe outside.

  She was right!

  Where the vibe should have been, her young, beautiful, housekeeper now stood instead, completely human once again. She watched as the realization dawned on Eva’s face.

  She was outside, and human!

  Eva squealed with delight and started jumping up and down, just like Belle expected. But she didn’t expect what Eva did next.

  She rushed Belle, launching herself at her, arms spread wide open. Eva hugged Belle tight, her beast form not bothering the girl in the slightest. Eva covered Belle’s animal face with grateful kisses, thanking her over and over.

  “Do Vibiere next, Belle. Please?”

  Belle nodded and Eva disentangled herself, letting Belle go back inside to turn human, grab Vibiere and step right back outside. Back and forth Belle went, over and over, bringing every sex toy outside, one by one.

  Gastard watched her a few times, and then picked Cocksring up, stepping outside with him and turning beast as the cock ring turned human. When it worked, Gastard went back for more, stepping outside again, Mrs. Pulse in his hand.

  Soon everyon
e inside was outside, and the lawn was covered in humans who were thrilled to feel the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair once again.

  “Are we really free of the curse? Or will we turn back if we go back inside?” One of them asked.

  Belle had a hunch but couldn’t speak in beast form, so she waved a paw toward the front doors like, go ahead, it’s ok, you’ll see. Sure enough, they were all able to come and go from the manor now, curse free.

  They all filed back inside, so Belle and Gastard could shift human and speak, and congratulatory hugs, back slaps and handshakes could carry on a bit easier for them.

  “How did you know?” Gastard asked her when the gaiety had died down just a little and the two could speak without being constantly interrupted with grateful thank you’s.

  “I figured that the barrier keeping them on this side of the door was like the barrier that had been keeping you off the land. If you could get through the one, with me, then maybe they could pass through this one, if they were also with me. It worked. I broke their curse. I was the one who’d been the cause of everything. I was also the one who could fix everything, it seems.”

  “Everything but your own curse, and now mine?”

  “I have a theory about that, too. I think my personal curse, like Eva said, wasn’t to keep me contained. Forcing them to stay here and take care of me was their curse.

  Dad was protective, too protective. He wanted me to be taken care of, even taken care of, if you know what I mean. Just not by you, or any man.

  My curse was to keep me looking like something no one would ever want to fuck when I left his protection here. Only when you did still want to, and we became one again, in my bed, it short-circuited or something, and spread to you, too.”

  “So how do we break the last curse, then? The short-circuited one? Or are we just stuck with it?

  I’m fine if we are, really. I don’t ever want to lose you again, Belle. If human inside this manor and animal outside of it is the only way I can have you, I’ll take it. I’ll take you in any way I can get you.”

  “Do you mean that? That you’d take me any way you can get me? Because I think that may be the answer to breaking our curse, as well.”