Page 12 of Rumpelstilzchen

Instinctually, Boy sought comfort and brought his hands from behind his back. He placed them on the torso directly in front of his face and gripped the man’s strong and defined obliques.

An animalistic growl so powerful it tilted the frame of the room rang through his bones, and Boy was ground down deeper into desire by the shadows that invaded and surrounded him. They licked at his skin where they had delved under his soaked tunic, and Boy’s heart pounded in his chest.

Never had he been so turned on. So enraptured. His own arousal grew, aching and insistent between his thighs. He twitched with raw need and relaxed into the shadows that caressed him. There, deep in their dark embrace, it was as if the only part of Boy that existed was the strong beat of his heart.

When he thought he couldn’t survive a moment longer, his orgasm took him by surprise.

He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the force of it, and swallowed instinctively. A burst of sweetness melted on his tongue. His breeches, already wet from the damp rot of the cell, now had strawberry juice and ejaculate mixed into their fibres.

Gloved fingers scooped up a dribble of juice at the edge of Boy’s mouth and smeared it softly onto his lips.

“I’m s-sorry… I don’t know what…” Boy’s voice was barely a whisper, recent events having left him unable to form a coherent sentence.

“I know.” The quiet voice carried a soft edge.

For a while, they stayed like that. Boy’s heavy breaths were loud in the otherwise silent room. Never—never—had Boy behaved so… so brazenly. Never had he wanted to.

Had the geist perhaps used his magick on Boy? But, no… the Queen’s Shadow had sought his explicit agreement.

Boy’s thoughts churned wildly until the darkness became so thick that he could no longer keep his eyes open.

Until his knees hurt too much to continue supporting his weight.

Until the comforting shadows floated him down to the floor.

Until he smelled the familiar scent of home—of dried crops and grasses—beneath him.

Until he fell asleep.

seven

Boy

Boy stirred at the sound of the heavy boots that clomped in the passageway outside his cell, but it was fear that woke him with a start.

Horror roiled within at the reminder of his impending death, draining the blood from his face. He uncurled from where he lay, hunched in the foetal position on the floor, to meet his fate head on. Then he remembered the savagery of the Royal Guard the day before and instead dragged himself onto all fours in preparation to kneel.

His knees protested loudly, and immediately Boy was thrown back into the memories of the night before with an unexpected vigour. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he wondered if he hadn’t imagined the whole thing, but when he licked over his chapped lips he tasted the sticky-sweet residue of the magickal strawberries, and his cheeks flamed.

Louder now, the rhythmic footsteps drew him back into the present moment, and cold reality clashed hard against hot fantasy. Wretched and confused, Boy shook with mental fever and his body seized with indecision. So when the Royal Guard opened the door hard enough for it to slam against the stone wall of his cell, Boy didn’t so much as flinch. When the brilliant light from the lamps flooded the room and hurt his eyes, he lacked the wherewithal to blink against it.

Tears brimmed against his lashes and he dug his blunt fingernails into the stone floor, hoping a bite of pain might centre him. Instead of wet and mossy damp, he found the dried husks and stems of grasses, as if he had slept the night upon a thin bed of straw.

Confusion begat clarity, however, when he remembered the guards had carried in a bag of straw and a dusty spinning wheel yesterday, before locking him inside. Had it really been a whole day already? He was about to turn his head to check whether the ominous items were still there when a guard bellowed for him to kneel before the Queen.

Boy stayed exactly as he was—prone, subjugated, and mute. Hushed footsteps announced Her Majesty’s arrival, but she stopped just outside his limited field of vision. The silence that extended between them made Boy’s soul throb. Could she see the platter of food that hadn’t been there when she left? Could she smell the brandy that had spilled down his throat until it saturated his linen tunic? Or was it, perhaps, the weight of the decision as to his manner of death that gave her pause?

“Well,” the Queen finally said upon an exhale. “Rarely does a person surpass my expectations.” Her melodic voice was at stark odds with the dank and decay that provided their ambience.

She stepped closer. The toes of her golden shoes peeked out from underneath a deep red skirt made from a delicate fabric that was woven in an open, weblike pattern. It was reminiscent of the crochet blankets his grandma had made for him and his siblings when they were babes, except this handiwork was on a much more intricate scale and had a unique transparent quality about it. The hem was weighed down by golden embroidery, not too dissimilar from that on the coat her Shadow had worn the night before.

When that memory caused his cheeks to flush a colour similar to the fancy skirt in front of him, he smartly ceased his exploration of the Queen’s clothing and returned his gaze to the cell floor. He was thankful that she hadn’t noticed, or had chosen to ignore him entirely.

Her golden shoe, so pointed at the end that Boy winced on behalf of her toes, swiped at the loose stalks of dried maize tassels that littered the ground beneath him. “Why did you not transform the entire sack?”

The question confused Boy. She had seen through his father’s delusional lies yesterday, he was certain of it. Surely the scattered crops she had so elegantly—yet wordlessly—pointed out were all the evidence she needed to fulfil her promise to kill him. So what was the point of her question?

Boy couldn’t think of a single word to say, and so he said nothing. He’d rather she think of him as stupid than risk upsetting her.