Like A Thorn: BDSM Fairy Tales

Excerpt from "The Last Mistress of the Chatelaine"
by Kieran Wyn Dewhurst

The carriage ride passes in silence, my fingers knotting in the lace at my lap. Hard-worn and chilblained–hardly the delicate lily paw of a nobleman’s wife, though that is their new commission. Never to scour ash and piss on the cold front stoop again, or pluck a stinking fowl? It is almost unimaginable to me, this princess’ life of feather beds and silks and servants.
Servants: The withered stick seated opposite me finally stirs from his slumber and lifts hooded lids. He regards me indifferently; I have seen the same expression on those passing the dry bones in the crows’ cages outside the city gates. A surge of indignation at being perceived thus compels me to return his gaze, steadily, though neither of us speak. A mediating rut forces a truce when we are both thrown halfway out of our seats.
Truthfully, I am not much to look at. I am old, as maidens go; two-and-twenty has come and gone for me some time past. My face is sharp; my hair is cut short and has never felt the winding caress of a curling rag or the oil of a proud braid. Much about me invites judgement, and perhaps I am deserving of such if it is true that the rich are there by the grace of God, and the poor are paying for some grievous sin in their soul’s history. For my husband’s sake, I hope it is true what the old women say, that the appetite will come with the eating.
I have my secrets, though; small treasures like birds’ eggs, hidden and shining. I can read and write, and have some numbers. I am clever, and I am bold. My body is strong and healthy, if a little small. It is all these things that have put me where I am now–in a fine black coach pulled by fine black horses being carried off to a fine black-haired nobleman’s estate.
The dowry was staggering, more money than my family would see in three generations. My brothers are soldiers; had they not been fighting the Turks in the war of white geese they would surely have prevented my marriage to the rumoured “Butcher of Belgorod”, but in their absence I was able to secure freedom for my family without interference.
I can smell the cool spring night coming in the windows of the carriage as we continue north into darkness.

* * * *

The walls are white and stone and cold–quite unlike the grimy plaster of my childhood. Every step echoes. I have not decided yet if the myriad retreating footfalls I create make me feel more alone, or less.
I have been here two days now, and the only other human I have seen is the Master’s butler, Ivan. The idea of a single person being responsible for the stables, the coach, the kitchens and the cleaning seems preposterous to me, though I cannot complain about the state of the house or my care; Ivan brings meals to my room at extremely regular intervals, and my bedsheets are replaced daily. Even those mean linens are finer than anything I use to wear next to my skin.
My bedroom is a Queen’s paradise. Gilt furniture, mirrors, wardrobes of fantastic clothing (most of which I am not even sure how to put on). I spend the first day shamelessly wallowing in luxury before curiosity finally drives me to explore; I am quickly overwhelmed by the numberless halls of identical stone, however, and I scurry back to safety. There will be time enough later to familiarize myself with the labyrinth.
Time enough, later, only perhaps. There are many uncertainties to my new situation. I have not permitted myself to linger long on the gossip surrounding my future husband, but I am his seventh wife in seven years.
We will be married tomorrow night, when my Lord returns–so Ivan informed me in as few words as possible this morning when he brought me my bread and salt. He is a husbander of the shaggy ponies my countrymen use for war; they are the same steeds that charge my brothers into bloodshed, perhaps even at this very moment. If only they knew it was their war’s coin I had been bought with! The idea makes me smile.
I will fall asleep tonight, as I do every night, without prayer to shepherd me into pious dreams. I will wash my face and hands, and undress into my sleeping flannel, and think about the swarthy face on the miniature locket resting between my breasts–the portrait of my future husband. Tomorrow night I will give myself to him with the blessing of the Church. The day after, I will be mistress of this place.

* * * *

Around noon, Ivan leads me to a half-cracked door with the sounds and warmth of a fireplace behind it. He knocks, and I hear my Lord’s voice for the first time:
“Come.”
I square my shoulders and enter a room crammed with books, more extravagance. He is seated by the fire, a glass in his hand, boots and whip placed neatly to the side. I curtsey, though his face is still turned away, and wait to be invited forward.
“Here.”
The carpet is soft under my slippers. I approach the fireplace, and the man, carefully.
“My Lord.” I am acutely aware of my beggar’s accent.
“Sit.” I do.
Only now does he deign to look at me. This close, he is impossibly large. My hands clasp each other for comfort, fingers chill despite the fire. His eyes are dark and shining, like cherries, or coal. He makes no sign of either approval or disdain toward my appearance.
“What is your name?” the behemoth asks at last, and drinks. He speaks in quiet, uninflected tones–perhaps a habit from his time among the animals.
“Sophie, my Lord.”
“You know why you are here?”
I take a deep breath before replying. “To become your obedient wife and serve you in every way, under God.”
He laughs suddenly, a flash of square white teeth in a black thicket. The sound is a bright spark thrown from a bed of coals. “You will not find much of God here, girl. Ivan will bring you your wedding dress. You will dress and prepare yourself, as there are no handmaids here to help you.”
This news takes me aback; a girl preparing herself for her own wedding was unorthodox, even faintly sacrilegious. I sit silently for a few moments, unsure how to react, but he reads my discomfort and skewers it swiftly.
“There are, and will be, no other women here.” He turns to stare into the fire, a shadow passing over his eyes. “There is naught here but that which belongs to me.”
“Like me.”
“Like you.”
This exchange unfolds without passion; it is as two vendors discussing the price of cheese. I am glad of it. Better, perhaps, that he sees me as no more than another mare in his stable–valuable, worthy of protection and care, simply a benign addition to his household.
With a startling intensity, he slams his empty glass down on the side table and rises to tower above me.
“You will begin your preparations–the priest arrives at sunset. I need my boots.”
He stands there, expectantly. When I make no move or sound, he seizes his whip and strikes me cruelly across the hands with it. I cry out, recoiling and wringing my fingers. The expression on his face never changes.
“I need my boots, girl. You will not last long in his house if you cannot learn obedience. Do you understand?” At last, a flicker of unfathomable emotion. He holds me fast in his pitiless black eyes. “Do you understand?”
For the lump in my throat, all I can do is nod, kneel. I scramble to comply.

* * * *

We are married at dusk by a jittery priest bearing the unmistakable veins and tremors of drink. He rushes through the ceremony, stumbling over words, and constantly eyes the house at our back as though it might swallow him up at any moment. As it was, he could only be coaxed by gold to come as close as the front garden. Ivan is the sole witness, and this is the first I have seen him approach a semblance of good cheer.
My groom–while dashing in his wedding dress–does not share his servant’s felicity; he is as stone-faced as ever, delivering the responses in a joyless monotone. It seems over as soon as it has begun, sealed by a chaste kiss, and the priest scuttles away with an obscenity of coin weighing his purse. As is custom, my husband pours us all spirit, and we toast to our happiness. The liquor burns my throat.
My now-husband instructs me to await him in my bedroom, and removes himself to his own chambers, taking the bottle with him. So much of this is strange, confusing… but at least now we are married. This small joy lifts my feet as I hurry to my room to prepare for my wedding night.
The night is streaming in with fresh promise when my bedchamber door opens. I pause at the vanity, setting down my comb, and turn to receive my husband.
My Lord has changed out of his wedding clothes but is still carrying the bottle–now mostly empty–and two glasses. He pours and offers me one, which I accept, and he seats himself on the bed. His frame renders it a doll’s miniature in comparison.
“We are married now,” he says thickly. “The wedding night must be finished. Are you… girl... wife... “ He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Have you lain with men before?”
“No, of course not, my Lord! I am pure of body in the eyes of Christ, virtue saved for my husband.” My tone is properly righteous, I hope.
He swats my protestations away. “Bah, I know how things are in the cities for girls. It does not matter to me anyway; I am simply asking so I know how best to... never mind. Try to relax; it will be over soon. I will be as gentle as I can.”
And he is; he unwraps me as though I am made of glass. The layers of wedding silk pool around my hips as he bares first one shoulder, than another. If the bashfulness of girlhood had not already left me some time ago, the vodka would surely have shown it the door–but even so, I have never felt so uncertain of myself as I do now, peeled to the waist for his perusal. My breasts prickle under his gaze and the cool air, and I wait for a reaction.
There is none, no coo of affection, no term of endearment… only hands, hard graceless hands tracing the prominence of my collarbone and the peak of my nipple before they push me back onto the bed and slide the rest of the fabric away from my body. I shiver violently, and he tucks the coverlet down around me so I will be warm while he undresses.
The lamp is burning high in the corner. He reaches to turn down the flame, and I hear myself: “May I not see you, husband?” I am surprised by my own impertinence, and decide to blame the vodka later. He hesitates with his hand on the knob, and then takes his fingers away.
“As you wish.”
My Lord now turns to the task of removing his own garments. He is careful, paced–even mechanical–folding his clothes neatly over the back of a chair. I barely catch a glimpse of his body before he is pulling away the coverlet and sliding in next to me; what I do see is pale and solid and carved. He is a furnace. I am not sure what to do next, so I lie still, and breathe in the heavy scent of stable and vodka sweat that clings to him.
A hand at my forehead, stroking my hair... tender. Its mate is less innocent and marches down my body, pausing at the nub of hip briefly before splaying into soft tangle. My breath comes quick and my heart feels as though it will shake free of its cage as his fingertips find wet pink flesh and curl there, splitting me. I try to still myself but I cannot help but make a small sound as he pulls and presses further, exploring the boundaries of his new domain with unrelenting insistence. He shifts, and then suddenly there is rough beard on my belly, and kisses on my skin–and then the hand between my legs is gone and is replaced by lips and tongue.
My thighs spread apart to accommodate him even as I arch upon the bed, soundless and shocked as his mouth works upon me with kisses of a nature I have never known. The room around me begins to fade to nothing, falling away, leaving only the bed and the man bent at my hips, silently speaking to my pleasure. Something coils deep within my belly and for a moment I am afraid I will have to run for a pot to pass water… but then his hand finds me again and the thought is lost to the white blindness of the fingers now suddenly driven to the knuckle inside me. God forgive me, I wanted them there. I wanted him there.
I fumble in the dark mane, trying to tug, trying to call his attention to me now that my mouth has been reduced to nonsense and noise. He lifts his head finally, and I strain to pull him up. Despite his previous stoicism, he seems bemused now, and he permits himself to be removed from his lower attentions. His body hovers over mine, the muscles in his arms and chest snapping to attention as they support his mass, and my knees creep up to nudge his sides. The lamp gutters low.
I move to kiss him. He checks a flinch before permitting me to seal my lips to his, seeking more than we shared under the priest’s blessing; the flinch stings, but the hurt is quickly lost in the queer taste of my own salt and the roughness of his beard. His tongue is soft and slow against mine, and my petulant knees spur against his flanks, urging him on. He buries his great head in my neck. And then–
The bed creaks in protest as my hips are driven downward into it and my skin screams and stretches with the impalement. The pain fades almost instantly, replaced by heat, by moans and fullness and aching thrust. His body weighs heavily on mine, dwarfing me, and as his muscles bunch and release my hands clutch at his rough back as though I am drowning until finally a sound escapes him–the only sound he has made through our coupling–and I pull him deeply into me with my heels one last time as he spasms.
He opens his eyes and stares at me, unreadable. My Lord strokes my brow again, once, and then disengages from my spent limbs. We breathe in the heady gloom together. Tentatively, I turn to nestle my cheek in the soft forest of his chest, stroking my hand through the pelt, and he slides an arm underneath my back and draws me close. It is sweet.
The sweetness does not last long.
Blood and seed still wet on my thighs, he sits up abruptly and rises to dress. For an instant, I see the dim light gleam on his broad back; it seems marred, somehow, but he pulls his shirt on before I can get a good look.
“Sit up,” he orders grimly. “There are rules to this house you must be told.”
Dumbfounded, I do as he has commanded, watching silently as he tugs his breeches on and ties them. He then withdraws something from his vest pocket–something which glitters in the low light and chimes softly in his fingers. A necklace?
He approaches the bed slowly, and I see a chain stretched between them like a garrotte. I instinctively shrink back but he is on me in a heartbeat. I close my eyes.
... seventh wife in seven years...
The chain wraps around my naked waist, twice, and then something clicks home. There is metal against my belly, heavy and cold. I blink.
“A wedding gift,” he says bitterly. “The keys to the house. They do not come off. Ivan will go over them with you. You are free to enter any room in this place, even my own, save one... the one that is opened by this key.” He indicates a large golden key hanging from my new belt, though he does not touch it. “You must never open that door. Do you understand? You must promise me.”
I nod, bewildered, but find the resolve to speak. “I promise. But how will I know which door that is?”
“You will know. You will come to know every part of this place... of that I am sure.” There is inexplicable sadness in his voice.
“They do not come off... not even to sleep and bathe?”
“They do not come off.” He repeats, tiredly. “Now sleep.”
He turns to leave me alone with my new, apparently constant, companion. I call out to him as he is just reaching the door.
“My Lord... shall I inform you if you are to expect an heir?”
He stiffens and stops, turns, and walks back to me with the dusty step of a soldier weary of the sword. His eyes bright stars, he cups my cheek and says, more kindly than I could ever have imagined, “That will not be necessary, lapushka. There will not be time for a child.”
Then he does leave me, my eyes sore pricked with tears, and when I awaken the next morning in my bloodstained sheets he is gone. I do not see my husband again for a full three months.