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Phoenix
by Garrett Cook

They had sent to my room blushing servant girls, profane courtesans, slavegirls from the orient with skin like new-fallen snow and many visiting cousins and daughters from far off monarchs with tiny ambitious kingdoms. They said a prince must know a man’s arts, they said the rumors made a prince a prince. The field of battle was not the only place in which a prince’s conquests must occur. Even my mother, my sainted mother the queen’s hands were immodest during her kisses goodnight. But, I would have none of them. I would take no wantonness and touch no disrespectful lady. Because of this, every day my father the brave and noble king would strike me many times and yell at me.

“Pasty little deviant! Ingrate! Do you prefer the company of men?” he would often shout as he thrashed me soundly with his scepter. Because of him my days were spent in fear. Because of my mother and family’s constant attempts to further my interest of matters of the flesh, my nights were spent in shame. It is not the life one thinks a prince would have, it does not have the happiness one would attribute to princedom, it does not have the liberty. And when the inevitable talk of marriage came about, I locked myself in my room in sheer terror of the woman my wicked mother and father would choose for me. The idea of selecting my own wife was the sole compromise my parents ever made. But even it was soured by the fact that I would have but one night to choose. To choose a wife in but an evening’s time when all women made me blush and quiver just a little and all advances had been somehow too wrong to accept would be a carnival of terrors with no possible resolution but misery.

I sat in my room and wept until the night of the ball. My face was washed and powdered and the smoothest ointments were put on my skin to rest the black circles beneath my eyes. Even if I could not rest, my face at least could. They dressed me in as fine a garb as a prince could wear. I accepted the orient’s silks although I had refused its finer things, and the vibrant red would bring attention where my plain dark brown hair would bring none. Princes are handsome because they are princes, not the other way around. I suppose I am a man of some physical charm, but I knew well that there were sailors and hunters with finer faces than mine and with stronger bodies. Though it took an hour I was at last the darling little prince they wanted, the darling prince they hoped to marry off to join them with the world and to give them an heir. What a pretty little poppet they had made me. I wondered if those concubines were ever proud.

I danced with one overfed and vapid little duchess after another. I accepted kisses that I did not begin to want. Whether pale or dusky or fair or dark they held no charms for me. They were all one woman in different finery, with different makeup and offering a different favor. I knew when they were being salacious, the aristocratic subtlety they were taught was not so potent as they thought. They were not suggesting, they were begging... and offering to dirty their knees in ways less dignified than begging. I wondered if I were cursed to have one of these boring and lascivious girls as my wife; I knew that I would have to choose tonight. But, oh, did fortune smile on me! Never had a woman truly caught my eye, never had a woman truly caught my heart until her.

She was pale, but not lifeless. It was a wet and glistening white. The concubines were powdered and primped until their faces did not feel like faces. I knew her skin was moist, I knew her skin was thirsty. While others were fair or brunette, her hair was the color of fine wine. It was red enough and dark enough that my eyes briefly thought it a kind of muted purple. I sought to let that hair flow into my throat, I sought to be drunk on it. Her mouth was large and eager, as though her lips were always pursed around some delectable fruit and if they unpursed she would lose the taste. Her body was thin, but womanly, a medley of lines and circles that would deconstruct so easily into shapes beneath an artist’s eye. I don’t think I even remember what she was wearing, outside of the delicate gleam of glass around her subtle feminine ankles.

She seemed a little nervous. Heavens, why ever should such an elegant creature be nervous at a ball? It struck me strange that there might be moments of her life that were not dancing and courtship. I cannot tell you my delight to find her surprised and flattered that I sought to dance. How shy she was, how light in my arms, how full of gratitude for having me there. She lifted her head to kiss me and I felt lightning. How was I alive before kissing her? How did these limbs that now tingled with so much joy and energy ever bring themselves to move before this life that flowed into me? I knew the other ladies blushed as our kiss grew longer and hungrier, as our kiss brought itself to new places, waning and beginning over and over like the flames of a phoenix. This woman, this fire-plumed woman was a phoenix that with fire made me rise from my ashes.

I was sweating and breathless when midnight struck and at last she had to leave. I could have shouted “wait!” or something like that, but I could not find the breath, I could not bring myself to rise from the knees on which I fell when the kiss was finished. How fortunate I was to find that slipper neglected on the ground. Certainly, it was just a slipper, but it was something to know her by. Surely no other woman could wear this slipper, just as no other man could have drawn the sword from the churchyard anvil than my ancestor Arthur. I would have to search the villages and estates for this girl, but I would have searched Dis itself to bring her back.

* * *

For weeks the search went on, until at last she was found in the servant’s quarters of a small estate. Her stepmother begged and cried and told me not to take her as my wife. Her sisters cried, “She is a changeling! Her mother was Morgan LaFey herself! She’s a monster! Her cunt has teeth!”

“It’s true,” shouted the stepmother. “She is a monster! She is an abomination against the lord!”

I refused these profane cries and I must honestly say that I struck the foul mouthed beasts that brought such accusations against my love. I felt ashamed to be prince of a place where such primitive thoughts had spread. They believed it though, they fought me tooth and nail to prevent me from reaching her. I had to push them aside to get down there. I found that they had her in a tiny, bare little room where they were feeding her rats. And during much of the day, they had her constantly doing their chores. Ashes from the chimney covered her peerless face. How appropriate for my phoenix. She stood, embraced me and kissed me as she had kissed me before. My eyes filled with tears at the thought of many satisfied and pleasant nights ahead. I did not fear or shun the favors I would have to give. I knew that I would delight in them.

I lay her down that night and observed the lush landscape that was now mine. Her snowy skin, her joyful lips, her full moon of a face and her blood red hair were now mine and all the splendors besides. She gave a little squeal as I first lowered myself into her, she burned and glowed beneath my kisses. She was aflame, she moved and writhed

My manhood quivered, for tiny little barbs were pushing into it, small pins, gentle pins, happy pins, but pins nonetheless. I could not help but blanch at the pain. She smiled, her smile now turning from angelic to the most wicked and impish smile I had ever perceived. The smile from mother’s kiss goodnight. “I am thirsty, fair prince, would you deny your wife anything?”

“No...” I said, both out of shock and answering her question at the same time.

“I shall miss you when I am round with child, and my child shall be sad to lack a father. But mother made me promise. She gave me the gown and those glass slippers that brought us together. You are not cross, my prince? You shall not cease to bed your wife.”

“Never,” I answered and though my nights were spent in rapture, my days were spent in fear, knowing how little time I had before my bride would be done with me.

Last night I lay my head against her stomach, resting it in a moment of repose and I can honestly say that I have felt the last true dread that I will ever feel. There was a whisper, the voice of a little girl. “Thank you, father, dear,” it said.

*

Garrett Cook is an author of Horror, Dark Fantasy and Bizarro Fiction, and winner of the First Annual Ultimate Bizarro Showdown. He is interested in cult cinema, existential justice, folklore, mythology, comics and the occult. He is the author of Murderland Part 1:h8, Murderland 2:Life During Wartime, Archelon Ranch and the upcoming Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective. You can find out more about his work and more importantly, how to buy it on his blog.

Story © 2010 Garrett Cook.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010.

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