Like A Queen
An Anthology of Lesbian Fairytales
edited by Cecilia Tan and Rachel Kincaid
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Cambridge, MA
Like A Queen: An Anthology of Lesbian Fairytales
edited by Cecilia Tan & Rachel Kincaid
Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Circlet Press, Inc.
Smashwords Edition
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Table of Contents
Mirror, Clarice Clique
The Queen's Jewel, ADR Forte
Gretel's Dilemma, Kaysee Renee Robichaud
After the Hunt, Michael M. Jones
The Stepmother's Girl, Quatre Grey
Introduction
Fairytales (and their cousins fables, myths, and folk tales) have been told and retold since before the written word. Their details change from generation to generation, and culture to culture. Names and settings shift and mothers become stepmothers as the needs of the storyteller change. This tradition hasn't ended with modern times: contemporary writers such as Neil Gaiman and Francesca Lia Block have wrought beautiful and haunting versions of old stories, and there are already a dozen published books of erotic fairytales - most of them straight, but not all of them. So why put together another one? What can one more set of reworked Cinderellas possibly contribute?
Fairytales were originally conceived as, essentially, indoctrination and training for young children. In every telling they reveal and reinforce the values of the culture that created them: little girls who don't listen to their mothers will be cruelly devoured, and young women who are too eager to use forbidden spinning wheels (or lose their virginities, however you want to read it) will be punished. We tell the same stories now for the same reason, but we change them to impart the messages that we want others to know, and that we ourselves need to hear. The ancient tale of Cinderella offered hope that good-heartedness and hard work could secure a happy life where superficial beauty and trickery could not. The modern "Cinderella story," seen in forms from the exciting new lesbian novel Ash by Malinda Lo to Jennifer Lopez movies, tells us that we deserve to be happy even if we are poor or overworked or uneducated or of color or gay.
With this in mind, the significance of the stories in Like A Queen becomes clear. These stories are fun and sexy and clever, but they are also important. The original Grimm's fairytales were set without exception in a world of compulsory heterosexuality; even worse than being ostracized or punished, queer people didn't even exist. These stories are our way of writing ourselves back into our cultural memory; of making sure that the values that we're imbibing include us and our desire in a positive light - a practice that's necessary no matter how many times it's already been done. As you're about to find out, the results have been amazing. Fairytales often feature women at odds with each other, competing for male attention, but they have now been transformed into spaces where women are powerful, where they grow stronger through their love for one another, where instead of being punished for their sexuality they revel in it with fabulously beautiful princesses and captivatingly severe stepmothers. Magic wands are useful for more than casting spells, and the Princess's bruises didn't come from a pea in the mattress after all. It turns out that there are things in the Witch's gingerbread house even sweeter than candy, and it's definitely not the prince that Cinderella goes to see at the ball. So put on your glass slippers, and don't forget to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind as you venture on to find out what happened once upon a time.
—Rachel Kincaid
Clarice Clique
"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"
She stroked her finger over the gold frame as the surface shimmered into a thousand colors that no normal human eye could see. It was a question she had asked every day for the last hundred years of her life, and always the answer was the same. But today was not like any other day in the last hundred years of her life. In a far away Kingdom that was too small to have ever attracted her attention, a young woman had had a ball to celebrate her twenty first birthday, and at that ball she had met a prince who from the first moment he bent down to kiss her hand had made her spirits soar and her body glow. So the Mirror did not reply "Thou, my Lady, art the fairest of all", and the woman waited, staring into the shimmering surface, wondering if after all this time her magic was beginning to fail her.
"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"
She rested one finger at the top of the mirror and scratched her nail slowly down the surface. The noise reverberated through her castle. Something in her dungeon howled out in agony.
"O Lady Witch, though fair ye be, Snow White is fairer far to see."
She ripped the mirror off the wall and hurled it to the floor, but a moment before it hit the stone and shattered into a million lost pieces something made her click her fingers and freeze it in mid air. She moved a finger and the mirror was back on the wall.
"Show me this Snow White," she ordered.
She stared at the scene, studying every detail. The girl was in bed, the top of a white linen sheet resting on the curve of her bosom. The sheet was not as white as the girl’s skin, though; next to her flesh the expensive material looked old and shabby. The girl’s hair was polished ebony spread out over the pillow and shining even in the night light. Her lips redder than the most precious ruby were parted as she breathed gently in peaceful slumber. The witch watched the rise and fall of the girl’s chest as if being hypnotized by the rhythmic movement.
The witch untied the strings on her corset, letting her robes fall to the ground in disorder.
"Mirror," she said, and the mirror transformed into an ordinary reflection.
She looked at herself, tracing a nail over her hard strawberry nipples. She cupped her hands under her breasts and squeezed their fullness. Her body felt the same as it always did. She touched the soft curves of her stomach and hips, but she wasn’t satisfied. Her alabaster skin did not look as white as it had yesterday, her lips were not as scarlet and her long black hair looked dull.
"Snow White," she said.
The mirror shimmered; the vision of her own body transformed into that of the young princess.
She teased a finger between her legs as she gazed upon the image of the sleeping girl. The pleasure that others had to work so hard for but was so easy for her did not come. She licked her finger and pressed it against her magic spot; there was a tingle but nothing more. She stared hard at the girl, a small crease furrowing her brow. Then her skin was smooth again. She clicked her fingers and was dressed in her traveling robes.
"Mirror, we are going on a journey," she said.
* * * *
She waited in the forest and wondered what she would do with the girl when she finally appeared. She had dealt with these types of damsels many times before: trapping them in towers, feeding them to wolves, sending them into eternal sleep, giving them as brides to beasts. She had felt her magic weaken the farther she had traveled from her castle, but she thought she still had enough strength to transform this girl into a swan. It had been a long time since she had done that, and it would suit this girl more than the last. She would be a perfect white swan.
Then Snow White was there in the clearing, skipping like a girl. She was wearing a short dress, not the usual attire for a grown up princess. The witch watched. There could be no harm in watching and waiting a moment before she cast the spell. As the girl skipped her dress rode up, giving a flash of white thigh. She sang as she picked the fruit off the trees and her voice was as sweet and natural as bird song. When her basket was full the girl turned and began to walk back to the palace.
The witch walked alongside her behind the cover of the trees. She watched as the girl took an apple from the pile of fruit and bit into it, a drop of juice rested on her bottom lip. The witch stared at the single droplet glistening on Snow White’s red lip until the girl escaped from her view and disappeared between the palace gates.
If the witch had been in her own kingdom she could have waved her hand and the walls and guards and everything between her and the girl would have crumbled into dust. But she wasn’t in her own kingdom. She would find another way. She pointed to a tree and the mirror appeared on it.
"Show me Snow White."
The vision was of the girl running into a chamber and hugging an old man. The old man was laughing and took the basket of fruit with another big familial hug. The witch smiled. She had found her way.
* * * *
The King insisted on a grand wedding, and his bride-to-be smiled demurely and agreed with everything he said. In her thoughts the witch ridiculed what this tiny, insignificant man considered ‘grand’. He talked more and more about the wedding night, telling her not to be scared and that he wouldn’t hurt her. Once she had lost control and laughed in his face; she regained her composure enough to perform a memory obliteration and had ensured she didn’t slip up again. Her magic was drained in this kingdom; ingredients were more difficult to find and it took all her concentration to pretend she was a twenty two year old orphaned virgin princess. But she managed it. The wedding took place, and some carefully chosen herbs in the King’s meals meant the wedding night would never take place. Men had never been a problem for her.
When the King was in a sleep he would never stir from, the witch left her bedchamber and went to Snow White’s. The King had never had the satisfaction of removing them so the witch was still dressed in the modesty of her wedding clothes, her whole body covered by the most expensive and finely crafted white satin and lace. The train of her dress rustled against the floor, but there was no one to be disturbed by it. Snow White’s chamber was but a few paces away from the King’s; the witch did not hurry. She took small steps, standing upright and staring directly ahead of her. She looked exactly as she had hours earlier walking up the aisle towards marriage with the King.
The heavy wood of Snow White’s door creaked when the witch pushed it open, but the girl did not start. The witch stood for a moment and let her eyes caress the reality of the image she had first seen in the mirror. The tender white skin, the full parted lips, everything still apart from the gentle rise and fall of the girl’s bosom. The witch’s slippered feet made no sound as she moved to Snow White's side. A breeze stealing in the open window had blown a stray strand of hair over Snow White’s forehead. The witch reached out a gloved hand and slowly stroked it back into place. This was the first time she’d touched the girl. She was used to hearing the minute movements of all around her: a rat scratching at a bag of flour in the cellar, the snore of a servant sleeping in the attic. It surprised her that all she could hear now was the beating of her own heart.
Snow White’s eyes opened wide. She looked up at her new stepmother but she did not say a word. The witch stared down into the large blue eyes and was also silent.
Since the witch’s arrival the girl had been skittering around the palace avoiding her; she had shown great skill in managing never to speak to the witch or stay in her presence for longer than a few minutes. Pleading illness and tiredness, she’d even escaped the ritual kissing of the new Queen’s hand at the wedding ceremony. But now they were alone together and there was no King to concede to his daughter’s every whim.
The witch looked away from the girl and down at her own body, wondering what those bright blue eyes were seeing. She could of course pluck them out and know for certain, but she found she had no desire to break the silence of this night with the girl’s agonizing screams. She held her hand out in front of Snow White’s lips, feeling the warmth of the girl’s breath through the thin lace of her gloves.
"It is not proper for a Queen’s hand not to have been touched by the lips of the Princess." The witch pronounced every syllable as if it was a rare delicacy in her mouth.
Snow White gazed up at her. The girl’s expression was so blank that the witch considered whether the girl’s beauty had made her miss the fact that the princess was dumb, but then Snow White’s ruby lips trembled slightly, and the girl raised her head the small distance needed to make her lips touch the witch’s hand. They stared into each other eyes and neither of them moved. This simple touch had caused a spark of pleasure to shoot through the witch’s nerves, making her feel alive and scaring her. It had been a long time since another had given her even a hint of the sensations that a light touch of her own fingers in her concealed place provided. She knew now was the time to deal with this girl, before it became too late.
She broke away from the girl’s gaze and looked down at her clothes. She suffocated the pleasure she had just felt and made the anger blaze inside her, focusing on her power and her age and the humiliation of the games she’d played merely to get into this chit’s bedchamber.
"Once upon a time in a palace far, far away, I was just like you," the witch said, "but then I discovered that white just wasn’t my color."
She yanked the right glove off and clicked her released fingers. The sound echoed around Snow White’s room as if it was a living creature smashing against the walls. The witch’s wedding clothes changed from pure white to violent red. She ripped at the neck of her gown, tearing the fabric away from her flesh. Snow White had not reacted to the transformation of color, but when the material fell away revealing the full curves of the witch’s breasts, she cried out and pulled the covers tightly round her own naked body.
The witch smiled. She had not intended to destroy so much of the dress, but she pushed her shoulders back and her cleavage out. She was herself now, causing discomfort and fear in those around her.
"I am not scared of you," Snow White said.
The sound of the girl’s voice made the witch pause. They did not normally sound like that, so calm. They normally pleaded for their lives in pathetic tones, they didn’t speak with such confidence. And none of them had made her think of the scent of early morning and the taste of dew drunk from the petals of an angelflower. She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again.
"You will be, my dear, when you see what I am going to do to you." She clicked her fingers and the mirror appeared on the wall.
Snow White did not move; she did not appear to have noticed the mirror. The witch pulled the glove off her other hand finger by finger and let it drop to the floor. The breeze that had stirred Snow White’s hair was building into a storm. She laughed with exhilaration; the power was rising from deep in her womb. She raised her arms above her head.
"I am not scared of you," Snow White said. "I knew what you were the first time I saw you, waiting for me and spying on me in the forest."
The witch’s arms dropped to her side; she tilted her head to one side and lines furrowed her brow.
"You are different. But you are like the rest. You think I am a child and do not know. I tried to warn Papa but he wouldn’t listen to me. I knew you would be here one day, I’ve been waiting for you to come for me. I thought the Prince would stop it happening. But he didn’t come today to protect me from you. Papa told him that I was ill and the illness was making me say things that it was unsuitable for a young girl to say, Papa told him it was best for him to stay away until I was better. He listened to Papa’s messages, not mine."
"How did you see me? How did you know I would come? I don’t sense the gift of futuresight in you."
The witch couldn’t prevent herself from looking at Snow White. She gazed into those blue eyes and Snow White stared back at her, but her eyes seemed to be looking at something else beyond the witch.
"Before I was born they tell me my mother pricked her finger on a needle. There was blood. Droplets of blood fell on snow and they say she saw snow against ebony. She thought it was beauty and she wished that she would have a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony. I was born to her, and then she died." Snow White swallowed hard, the witch glimpsed white teeth biting down on her red lip. Then the girl took a breath and continued. "I know I wasn’t meant to be. My mother wished for something she wasn’t supposed to have and she lost her life because of it. I try, every day, I try so hard to be good, to earn the praise and acceptance of those around me. But I’ve always known what I really am. That’s how I know what you are. We are the same. I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of myself."
A single tear was falling down Snow White’s cheek, the witch did something she’d never done before: she bent over the girl and kissed the tear, holding it on her lips and then swallowing it into her body. She felt the droplet of the girl’s sadness as if it were a thousand hailstones beating against her naked skin. The witch stood up straight. She looked sideways at herself in the mirror and she didn’t know whether the reflection showed an old hag or a young blossoming girl. Every witch that had been defeated had been defeated by love. Love in all its many forms made people reckless, mad with courage. But more than that, love as a force silently untwined all the magics that witches need to weave to survive; it was the equivalent of dropping a shaving of unicorn horn into the most potent potion. All the power would be nullified. Nothing would be left.
The witch turned put her hand up to click her fingers together, but it wasn’t the sound of magic that filled the room. It was the girl’s voice:
"Please."
The witch had heard that word many, many times in her life but it had never before meant what it meant now.
She looked over her shoulder. Snow White was sitting up in bed, her hands by her side, no longer holding the bed sheets around her body. The witch gazed at her. Snow White stared back for a long moment before her eyes dropped to the floor.
The witch looked at the black hair framing the beauty of Snow White’s face and the ends caressing Snow White’s nipples. The witch looked at Snow White’s nipples, perfect pink berries inviting a tongue to lick their round contours while a hand held the firmness of the breasts they decorated. The witch looked at the slight curve of Snow White’s belly and the enticing dip of her belly button. The witch looked at Snow White’s legs. Snow White looked back up at the witch, her big blue eyes wide, her lips parted, and she opened her legs.
The witch gave up. She fell on her knees before Snow White and buried her face in her moist pinkness. She breathed deeply, the scent of wild forests filling her nose. She hardly knew what she was doing, she didn’t care what she was doing; she was all desire. She pushed her tongue deep between Snow White’s lower lips, gasping as the girl’s velvetness molded itself to her. The pleasure was so intense the witch struggled to contain her magic. As her tongue darted in and out of the secret place, Snow White’s body floated and sparkled, a thousand tiny stars sprinkled over her. Snow White started to scream, and kept on screaming. The witch tasted the nectar falling on her tongue. The fire inside her was too strong. She pulled away from the girl and thrust her head out of the window into the cool air. She willed the rain to fall from it sky and it did, extinguishing the tiny flames that were igniting through her body. Her eyes were wild and the moon and stars flashed in and out of the sky. She heard a voice calling her.
"Come back. Come back to me."
Snow White was lying on the bed, one arm reaching out, fingers stretching toward her. She couldn’t resist.
Snow White helped the witch lay down on the bed and stroked her hair. She lay down beside her and pressed the witch’s head into her bosom. The witch glanced into the mirror; she did not recognize herself. Snow White moved down the bed and brushed her own cheek against the witch’s.
"May I kiss you?"
The witch nodded without speaking.
"Thank you," Snow White said.
The witch closed her eyes and waited to feel the ruby lips against her own. Instead, she felt Snow White’s hands tugging at her garments. The witch let herself be undressed, appreciating the cool air of the room on her revealed flesh instead of the layers of fabric. Snow White’s hands brushed against her naked skin, making her breathe a little heavier and sending pangs of longing throughout her body.
"You are beautiful," Snow White said when the witch was naked.
The witch knew she was beautiful, she knew what every iota of her beauty cost in charms and potions and rigorous rituals and spells, but when Snow White said it her spirit soared and she floated a few inches above the bed.
Snow White giggled. "Is it always like this when you are intimate with another? I felt like I was experiencing all the joy in the whole world when you touched me and you had flames shooting out of your body."
The witch smiled, a real, genuine, relaxed smile.
"With a normal mortal they do not usually physically combust." Unless I want them to, she added mentally to herself. "But if it is the right person you choose to be intimate with then it does feel like you are experiencing all the joy this world has to offer."
The witch sat up and moved to stroke Snow White’s cheek but Snow White put her hands on the witch’s shoulders and shook her head.
"Let me kiss you now."
The witch stared into Snow White’s blue eyes as the princess’s head lowered between the witch’s spread thighs. Snow White’s ruby lips disappeared and all the witch knew was pleasure. The girl’s tongue flicked over the witch’s sensitive spot and the witch screamed louder than Snow White had earlier. Snow White caressed the witch’s thighs; she ran her tongue down the woman’s legs to her toes and licked and sucked on them. The witch moaned and begged for Snow White’s lips to touch every part of her body.