The pilgrim nodded his head in enthusiastic assent, hoping to further loosen the old woman’s purse strings with his trustworthiness. Unfortunately, the seed of curiosity had already been planted and after her departure, he could think of nothing but the door and the mysteries contained behind it. Without any fire, the icy daggers of wind sluicing through the unpatched roof had become even more formidable, and the shivering religious trekker took to stamping about in an effort to keep warm. With each clippityclomp of his sandaled feet, the forbidden door took on the guise of a harlot, beckoning him nearer and nearer its red-painted presence. Summoning up the courage to place his hand against it, he heard the aged granny’s premonitory refrain echoing in his ears. Suitably chastened, the pilgrim returned to his post before the cold hearth, his heart hammering with the realization that his hostess was due to return at any moment and would likely be very angry at finding her generous hospitality rewarded in so thankless a fashion—in which case he could kiss goodbye any chance of a few coins being thrown his way.
Only the old woman did not return. As the darkness outside the ruinous little inn grew thicker and blacker and, indeed, more menacing, the religious traveler began to feel uneasy at having been left on his own for so long. Although concerned for the absent proprietress’s welfare, it was his own that concerned him the most. He kept hearing a mournful howling—a howling that became louder and more lamenting with each passing minute. Yet rather than being the sound of the wind gusting through the vast empty plain, it seemed to be coming from behind the red door. If he did not learn what lay on the other side, he would go completely mad. Besides, what possible harm could it cause? As long as he did not leave any evidence of his presence, the moth-eaten granny need never even know he had peeked.
The curious fellow moved with trepidation toward the mystery door, steadying himself with a series of deep breaths before placing the perspiring palm of his hand against the paper surface. The old woman probably stores her fortune in here, mused the pilgrim, fully expecting to be greeted with dust-covered sacks of coins. Instead he discovered what appeared to be the inn’s one and only guest room.
And indeed, the wizened old proprietress had not lied when she claimed to be fully booked for the night. For shackled to a wall was an assemblage of guests, all young men of extraordinary pulchritude and vigor. Their muscled flesh had been partially covered with a supple black hide that stretched across their brawny backs and chests like a second layer of skin, offering little in the way of protection to those parts traditionally in need of protection. The contrast of dark against light further accentuated the areas that had been left exposed, as if the intent was to call attention to them. While this was an incongruous enough costume by itself, even more so were the ornamental accessories accompanying it. Bracelets of an unpolished iron encircled the mighty wrists and ankles of each of the inn’s guests. A chain constructed from the same iron had been attached to these cinching cuffs, thus preventing the wearers from straying beyond the confines of the mean little room.
Upon seeing the curious pilgrim peering in at them, the young men began to gesticulate wildly about, the chains keeping them imprisoned rattling and clanging with enough noise to summon the old woman back from wherever she had vanished to in pursuit of firewood. Several attempted to call out to their would-be rescuer, their hopeful faces swelling purple with the effort. For a braided cord of hide had been fitted between their lips, muffling all sound save for the slightest of incoherent murmurs and the occasional frustrated wail.
One of the room’s tethered occupants remained slumped by himself in a corner, making no effort to join the inarticulate pantomimes of the others. He was far handsomer than his fellow companions in both face and form, with an athletic chest and backside that had been generously marked with red stripes of varying degrees of intensity and deliberation. Like the establishment’s more effusive guests, he, too, had come to be attired in only the most inadequate of vests fastened in the front with cords of the same hide as that which subdued his mouth. The garment failed dismally to safeguard his lower portions, which, despite the cruelty of the temperature, had been left totally bare and vulnerable to the elements. As a direct consequence of such abbreviated costuming, the sturdy muscle of his manhood was plainly visible to all, and it remained in a state of perpetual agitation, the ring of plaited hide embracing it at the root having inspired a severe engorgement of blood to occur. The condition looked quite painful, judging by the moans of those afflicted.
For once the pilgrim had finally unfixed his disbelieving eyes from the lethargic figure in the corner, he discovered that the others suffered from this discourteous malady as well. Indeed, the braided rings of hide encircled the upstanding members of everyone in the room, lending a livid and not altogether unappealing purple cast to these thickened pillars of flesh. Several of the shackled young men clutched themselves in poignant anguish, their eyes rolling upward in their sockets as the lustrous black hide of their vests and those of their immediate neighbors became splattered with a thick white froth, which dripped slowly down the robust cylinders of their thighs. Stepping forward, the religious traveler reached out a hand toward the man nearest him, hoping to provide some comfort. As his tremulous fingertips caressed the bulging arc of flesh held imprisoned by its plaited ring, he found himself being sprayed with the same spumy substance that stained the captive’s costume and those of his unfortunate comrades. As if in sympathy, the pilgrim put forth his own contribution, discharging it discreetly within his loose-fitting garments. Nevertheless, his corresponding cry of pleasure was anything but discreet, and he stuffed his fingers inside his mouth to quell it, inadvertently tasting the pleasure of another.
Horrified by his actions and what they had brought about, the pilgrim looked down at his sandaled feet in shame, only to be even more horrified by what he saw on the floor, for its sticky surface had been littered with inspirational pamphlets just like those he carried about the country with him. With his future suddenly laid out before him, he fell backward in a panic, his frantically pumping elbows jabbing holes into the flimsy red door and leaving irrefutable evidence that he had seen inside the forbidden room.
Collecting his rucksack containing his precious pamphlets and his chronically empty cup, the pilgrim dashed out into the chilly night, leaving behind the lurid montage of his enslaved brothers. However, he would not even reach the broken bamboo gate before a loud cry pierced the silence. From the far side of a dead tree appeared the old granny, her ancient form squeezed into a corset of buttery black hide. A cat-o’nine-tails swung from one withered arm, cracking dangerously through the air. “Stop!” she screeched, her once-feeble voice like rusted nails being hammered into the pilgrim’s ears. The kindly, crinkled face she had worn for her unsuspecting guest had melted away, revealing the sadistic visage of the Goblin of Adachigahara.
The religious traveler’s journey-worn legs sprouted invisible wings and he ran like the wind, the tails snapping closely and threateningly at his heels and sending up an explosion of sparks from the frosty ground. He knew now that the old woman’s warning had been intended to lure him into that vile lair, where she planned to catch him in his spying and make him a prisoner. Indeed, two empty sets of irons awaiting the wrists and ankles of some unfortunate soul had been set to one side, eager to be used. How many other unsuspecting pilgrims had come knocking on the door of this dwelling of the damned in expectation of a donation?
The terror-stricken fellow ran and ran until a pink dawn began to break over the great plain of Adachigahara. He ran until not a scrap of flesh remained on the bloodied soles of his feet. Only when the white of his bones showed through did he stop. Although the goblin had vanished into the blackness of the night, her eerie wails continued to haunt him—as did those of the men he had seen imprisoned behind the red door. To think that he had been so close to becoming the fettered amusement for the inn’s godless proprietress. Why, she had not even bothered to read one of his inspirational pamphlets!
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The next place the pilgrim came to would be the place where he chose to spend the remainder of his days, but not without first setting fire to his remaining pamphlets in symbolic thanks for being spared such a fate. Here he met many others like himself, all of whom had managed to escape from the Goblin of Adachigahara. Indeed, some still wore their plaited rings of hide and appeared not to mind in the least when the newest among them stroked their straining flesh to a frothy fulfillment.
For the pilgrim could not so easily forget those he had left behind.
RAPUNZEL
Most familiar to us by way of Germany and the Brothers Grimm, “Rapunzel” originated many centuries earlier in Mediterranean Europe. Perhaps the farthest back it can be traced is to the ancient Greek folktale “Anthousa the Fair with Golden Hair.” Despite its already lengthy past, the possibility remains that the rudiments of this so-called puberty tale may stretch all the way back to the primitive societies living in the days before recorded history.
For long before the Kinder- und Hausmärchen or the tales of the ancient Greeks, it had been common practice among tribal societies to confine a young girl of Rapunzel’s age inside a “puberty hut” during the time of her menstruation. In their construction, these structures often took the form of a tower. Most ancient cultures practiced some manner of isolation of a young girl, separating her from the community at the first onset of her menses. She might be placed in the hands of the elder women of the tribe, who then prepared her for womanhood. Indeed, Rapunzel’s confinement within a tower took place at the age of puberty—with her guardian being an old woman. In Mediterranean versions of the tale, the old woman who takes the girl from her parents is no nurturing mentor, but a flesh-eating cannibal. So gruesome a character could provide further evidence of Rapunzel’s connection to primitive societies, for cannibalism was a part of the belief system and social reality of these cultures, which may have practiced the consumption of human flesh in puberty or religious initiations or even as a result of famine.
By the time of the Grimms, the cannibal character had evolved into a witch/enchantress. In their earlier renderings of “Rapunzel,” the brothers, rather than concluding with the shearing off of the girl’s hair, allow the story to continue with Old Gothel using the shorn tresses to lure the character of the prince into the tower. Seeing this hideous impostor in place of his beloved, the prince leaps from the window, losing his eyesight in the fall. For many years he blindly wanders the desert into which Rapunzel has been banished, along with her twins. Upon their reuniting, Rapunzel’s tears fall into the prince’s eyes, restoring his vision.
As the Grimms continued to revise their story, this second part would eventually be lost, along with any references to procreative matters. Yet this was not the case in the “Rapunzel” appearing in the first edition of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen. In referring to the prince’s visits to the tower, the Grimms wrote: “The two lived joyfully for a time, and the fairy [witch] did not catch on at all until Rapunzel told her one day: ‘Tell me, Godmother, why my clothes are so tight and why they do not fit me any longer.’” Here is a blatant indicator of Rapunzel’s gravid condition—an indicator that in subsequent versions loses its initial punch as the issue of overly tight clothes evolves into the anger of the witch caused by having been told by her ward that she is a good deal heavier to pull up into the tower than the handsome prince. Deeming the tale unsuitable for children, the brothers moved to clean up any objectionable content, which included the apparently unwed and pregnant state of the protagonist.
Although the Grimms thought “Rapunzel” came from an eighteenth-century novelist who heard it from a member of the common class, the German text they adapted was actually a translation of a French literary tale composed by a lady-in-waiting at the court of Louis XIV—which she in turn based on a French folktale. In Charlotte de la Force’s story “The Maiden in the Tower,” the beautiful Persinette finds herself confined inside a tower to prevent her from being carried off and, no doubt, ravished. Yet ravished she will be, as Mlle. de la Force makes no secret of the fact that the unwed Persinette becomes pregnant as a result of the daily visits of a prince.
Indeed, sex and eroticism would make an appearance even before the arrival of the French literary tale. In Giambattista Basile’s story of “Petrosinella” from his volume Il Pentamerone, the prince maintains no qualms about the partaking of fleshly pleasures from Petrosinella as “…he sated his desire, and ate of that sweet parsley of love.” (Note that in some versions, Parsley is also the name for the protagonist, perhaps providing a duel meaning.) Be that as it may, by the time the tale of “Rapunzel” fell into the bowdlerizing hands of the Grimms, any such feasting had been turned into sexual famine.
Since no man would likely scale the wall of a tower just to hear a song, I have revived the erotic spirit from Rapunzel’s early days, for I could not allow such masculine efforts to pass unrewarded.
IN A PASTORAL LAND OF GREEN WHERE nature’s bounty thrived in abundance, there lived a husband and wife. Although it was their greatest wish to have a child, the fertility of their surroundings did not seem fated to extend to their household. To ease the pain of her emptiness, the wife took to blanketing her sorrows in food, growing outward in girth until her husband thought she could grow no more. Indeed, his wife had discovered that there was more than one way to fill a hollow belly.
By some coincidence, the farmhouse located directly adjacent to the couple’s cottage boasted a splendid orchard that had won many awards. It contained the ripest and tastiest of fruits whose delights were enjoyed solely by its lone caretaker, an unsightly crone who went by the name of Gothel. With such choice edibles only a few steps away, it was inevitable that a certain neighbor should find herself obsessed with the desire to visit this rich piece of earth and partake of its verdant contents. Of course it also stood to reason that easy access could not be gained to a parcel of such wondrous fecundity. A high fence topped with barbed wire surrounded it that not even the heartiest and bravest dared venture to climb. For it had been rumored that this orchard belonged to a witch of great power…and an even greater temper.
One morning as the wife stood before an upstairs window gazing longingly down into the perfect rectangle of green on the far side of the fence, her eyes suddenly alighted upon an alligator pear tree. She cried out in what sounded like a fit of agony, for she preferred the alligator pear to even the sweetest of cream cakes brought daily to her by her thoughtful husband. The leathery-skinned fruits dangling weightily from the branches called to her, boasting of the delicious buttery meat that lay hidden beneath—a buttery meat that appeared to be going to waste, the owner of the orchard having made no attempt to harvest any. Every day this bereft neighbor could be seen hovering at the window, the imagined taste of alligator pear on her tongue turning her into a mere ghost of herself.
Returning home one evening with a box of fresh cream cakes—only to discover the previous day’s cream cakes sitting out on the kitchen table uneaten—the woman’s husband could bear no more. “What ails you, Wife?” he prodded gently, believing it to be the absence of the child they could not have. He would be quite taken aback by the explanation for his spouse’s misery—that being her tearful proclamation that she would die if she did not receive at least a tiny serving of the savory alligator pear growing within the fenced orchard. It should be noted that the man loved his wife very much and that it tore at his heart to observe her wasting so pitifully away. Preferring her former buxom self to what now lay beside him in bed each night, the husband decided that he would happily risk the wrath of Old Gothel the witch, since anything had to be better than the skin and bones into which his good and faithful helpmate had turned. He could not endure another night of reaching out and sinking his fingers into the flattened disks of her breasts and the concave pit of her belly where there had once been layers and layers of plush, jiggling flesh.
Under gloaming’s protective cloak, the husband climbed over the barbed-w
ire fence, cutting himself to shreds in the process. Although all remained quiet at the farmhouse, he made haste as he plucked from the bountiful tree an alligator pear for his wife’s supper. With bleeding hands, he delivered it to her like a bouquet from an enamored suitor, basking in the brightness of her smile as she prepared from it a salad and ate of it joyously. Alas, so modest a sampling only piqued the woman’s appetite for more, and by the very next twilight the husband could again be seen scrambling over the high fence separating the two properties, knowing that he would not be granted a moment’s peace until his wife had finally had her palate for the fruit satisfied.
Perhaps good fortune had been at his side the previous day. As for the occasion of his second visit to the forbidden orchard, fortune apparently chose to be elsewhere. The lacerated fellow had barely finished gathering his leathery spoils when all providence took leave of him. “Halt, thief!” came a voice so horrible that it felt as if hundreds of hot needles were being thrust into the hearer’s ears.
The terror-stricken husband straddled the tall fence with great precariousness, with one trembling leg dangling toward the orchard and the other toward freedom, the barbs jabbing purposefully into the crotch of his trousers. Yet he would not have been able to flee if he tried, for the hideous figure of the orchard’s owner held his foot tightly within soil-encrusted fingers. “Please, Madam, have mercy on this poor soul!” he pleaded. “I am here on behalf of my dear wife, who is near to death with longing for a taste of this fine alligator pear.”
In Sleeping Beauty's Bed Page 6