Snow White and The Queen

The Princess' breasts truly were a wonder, each crowned with the sweetest pink nub. The Queen compared them to her own and then pressed them together as she leaned into her stepdaughter again, kissing her with a lashing tongue while their hips glanced against one another's and legs parted, pressing together with a hint of urgency.

The room grew hot and languid with the pooled heat of their naked flesh. So soft, the Queen thought. The mirror had done its work well. Sometimes it seemed that the Queen was making love to a reflection of herself. The thought was jolting, disturbing, and she pushed it away. She buried herself in the Princess' body instead.

Writhing, thrashing, twisting and turning, they tangled around each other in sinuous knots. The Queen's hands moved lower and the Princess' songlike moans encouraged her. Her lips roamed. The Princess was utterly pliable.

Finally the Queen came to the place where her stepdaughter's thighs met, and there was a small thatch of black hair. Yes, even here, hair as black as night; and below, lips as red as blood.

Her stepdaughter's sex had never been revealed to anyone before. It was the most intimate of secrets. The Queen felt reverent, as she used to before the church altar, or now when she consulted the mirror.

The Queen kissed her, there, once, with a trembling that called to mind their first kiss. Heat blossomed on the spot and the Princess twitched a little. Her beautiful lips parted and allowed a single breathless "Oh!"

The Queen flushed. She kissed again, and again the tiny, sweet "Oh!" again, and the Princess indulged in a longer, more gratified sound. Her hands ran over the Queen's shoulders, pressing down. She did not say "Please," perhaps did not even think it, but the plea was implicit.

The Queen kissed her there more fully and the Princess responded by coiling herself up and crying out. The Queen watched and listened, fascinated. Somehow, just as the Princess' beauty burned with a quality almost inhuman, her pleasure seemed beyond the norm as well.

The Queen wondered what life must be like for such an angel. Was it even something that ordinary people could understand? She pillowed her head in the Princess' lap, letting her tongue slide up and down, penetrating and drawing out another volley of excited cries, and then the Queen poured herself into the moment and the movement of what she was doing.

For the first time she let herself indulge and shut out the thought and memory of everything except the touch, the taste, the feel, and the gratification of what happened now.

The Queen watched the Princess' naked breasts quiver and shake with pleasure until eventually they slowed, and stilled, and she kissed them one at a time, a final consummation.

That night the Queen slept in her stepdaughter's arms, and it seemed that the Princess' figure remained visible even when the Queen's eyes closed, a vision that burned through the expanse of sleep, like a torch in the dark, leading the Queen on to some place she wouldn't know even when she arrived.

***

The Queen woke the next morning alone. She looked at the hollow in the sheets next to her and felt a stab of panic. The room just barely held the lingering vestiges of her stepdaughter's scent, already fading...

She dressed in a hurry, barging into the corridor and waylaying the first servant she found. "Where is my daughter?" The poor serving girl was terrified and unable to speak. "Never mind," said the Queen. She pushed the girl out of the way and found the stable master.

"She went out riding this morning," he said.

"Where?"

"Into the forest, your majesty."

"Can we still catch up if we leave now?" The stable master looked bewildered.

"It's been hours," he said. "The Princess often went for a morning ride in the days before her incarceration. Doubtless she missed the practice."

The Queen said nothing, returning to her private chambers and refusing visitors all day. She even covered the mirror. She sat by the window, waiting for her stepdaughter's party to return but certain that it would not. When night fell, she knew she was right.

"I'll search every rock and tree in the kingdom for her," she said.

"You will not succeed," the mirror said. "You have been betrayed. Now she is under the protection of fairy creatures from the woods, the clever little men who dwell under the ground and are known as the dweorg, or the dvergr.

"They are seven in number, a most powerful charm among their kind, and one that will make it all but impossible to find her."

The Queen sagged. "Then all is lost."

"It may be in my power to undo the seven charms eventually. But first you will have to deal with the war."

The Queen started. "War?"

"Don't you realize?" said the mirror. "You yourself gave her the plan: She will marry an eligible lord from a neighboring kingdom, and then he will use the marriage to drive you from the throne. Likely she will go to Hammand as soon as she is able."

The Queen fretted. "How will I weather it?" she said. "I kept the army small so that they couldn't threaten my position."

"We will attack first," said the mirror, "and head off their invasion. Draft every able-bodied citizen, seize the bulk of their property, and imprison anyone who defies the order. Within a year we can be ready."

The Queen chewed her nails. "And my daughter?"

"In time, I will bring her to you," said the mirror. "This war will swell my power. Do this for me, and she will be yours forever."

So for a year and a day they made ready for war, columns of grim-faced conscripts marching through towns and villages to the music of blacksmith's hammers ringing. Even those people who had once defended their ruler now called her the evil queen, and the stories of her darks powers spread.

When the year was out the invasion force was ready, but it seemed that the Princess never appeared to Hammand, never married, never tried to stage the predicted coup. The Queen was almost disappointed.

Of course, she launched the invasion anyway. She saw no reason not to. But her stepdaughter remained hidden. On the eve of the war the mirror promised to deliver the Princess home, and the Queen spent that day walking the highest towers and battlements of the castle, watching the horizon in all directions.

After sunset she saw a procession of torches making its way to the castle. She ordered the gates opened and the multitude brought in, racing to the courtyard to meet them.

The captain of the guard waited for her there. He was no longer the man he used to be; mad with love for her beauty, he'd hung himself from the battlements six months prior, but lived. The rope mark on his neck would take the rest of his life to fade.

"Your majesty," he said, voice still a bit garbled. "These pilgrims come with a gift for you."

"Who are they? Why have they come? Is it...?"

"The Princess," said the captain, with a nod. The Queen almost leapt for joy.

"Is she here? Is my daughter—"

"Dead. Your majesty."

The Queen froze. The words were impossible. They could not mean...?

A ragged mob of peasants waited in the courtyard, bearing their precious cargo on log rollers. It was a casket of purest crystal with panes as clear as glass, built by the seven dweorg and delivered to the village that morning.

Inside, dressed in whitest lace, with a bouquet of white lilies in her hands, was the Princess. So perfectly preserved was she by the fairy magic that one expected her breast to rise and fall with the quiet breath of a sleeper.

But of course, it did not.

The crowd parted for the Queen. They failed to kneel to her, but she didn't notice. There was something lodged in her throat, and she swallowed hard around it. "How?" she said.

"An old witch fed her a poisoned apple," said the captain. "She confessed the whole story to us. It seems you pardoned her execution years ago, so when she heard the princess had betrayed you and turned fugitive she decided to repay the favor by taking revenge."

The Queen gasped. A tear squeezed from the corner of her eye. Her heart shriveled. She turned and left.

The assembled villagers stirred in her absence. The captain caught her just inside the gate. "We can't keep it here," he said. "The people are already treating it as a shrine, a holy thing."

"I don't care," said the Queen.

"You don't understand what's happening. The people believe that you murdered the princess."

"What?" The Queen turned on him.

"Rumor says that you disguised yourself as the old witch and framed her for the deed."

"Absurd."

"Nevertheless it's what they believe. The people are restless and angry. They have been for some time. They're just waiting for an excuse to act."

"It doesn't matter," said the Queen. "My daughter's heart has stopped. If mine does too, I will scarcely notice."

The mirror was waiting for her. The Queen picked up a silver candlestick from the bureau and raised it over her head. "You lied to me again," she said.

"Not entirely," said the mirror. "I promised that the Princess would be yours forever. Is she not?"

The Queen let the candlestick fly and the mirror shattered. But beyond the now-empty frame she saw a great void, as if the mirror were a window into an impossible abyss. And her reflection was still there, standing on the opposite side, a flesh and blood double.

It stepped into the room, birthed into this world through the narrow passage. The Queen backed away. The Other Queen smiled in a pitiless way, stretching its arms above its head now that it was free.

"Perhaps you would like to bring her back?" said the Other. "It's within my power."

"Your power never gives me anything without finding some way to rob me of it," said the Queen, backing further away from the doppelganger.

"But what more can I take?" said the Other. "Is there any fate worse than this? And won't everything you've done up till now be for nothing if she stays dead?"

The Queen hesitated. "What price do you ask now?"

The Other assumed an unreadable expression. "You," is all it said.

The two stood face to face. The Other touched the Queen's cheek (so cold, those hands, like glass) and kissed he, although it felt not like a kiss at all. Then the Other all but threw her to the floor. The Queen landed hard.

The Other disrobed, revealing that its entire body was the perfect reflection of hers, though of course backward, in the manner of a mirror. Naked to the waist, the Other crouched over her. The Queen's pulse raced. "What's the point of this?" she said.

"Must there be one?"

"Don't play games."

"Maybe I just want you to love yourself?"

The Other climbed on top of the Queen and held her in place, though the Queen did not struggle. The Other's lips were cold and hard, but she didn't mind. What did it matter anyway?

Shards of glittering mirror glass littered the floor. The irises of the Other's eyes seemed broken as well. Its hands felt like vices, mauling her body, stripping her clothes away, tearing and pawing, but the force it used was gratifying. She closed her eyes, relishing the rough touch on her soft flesh. Yes, why not this?

Once it had stripped her the Other forced the Queen's legs open. It ran its cold hands down her thighs and touched her. Then it stripped the remainder of its own garments and stood over her, legs apart, and that's when the Queen saw that the Other was her double in every way except for one: a swollen cock dangled between its legs.

It stroked itself, as if verifying that it was really there, and then it crouched over her again, taking her face in its hand, squeezing her cheeks and directing her vision to its eyes as it prepared to force its way into her. Just breathe, the Queen told herself. Just breathe and remember—

The rest of her thought was cut off by the stabbing sensation below. The Other's icy member slid all the way in. The Queen sobbed, as she had her first time, but just like the first time it was good too. T

he Queen's body shook with the force of the Other's violent movements. She cried out, something between a gasp and a moan. The sound of her own voice horrified her. This went on and on. Before long the Queen's head was pounding and her vision swam, eyes rolling in her head and lips twitching, as if she were drunk or sick or suffering a seizure.

A hazy film came over the world. She stayed on the delirious, half-conscious verge of either death or insanity. The Other's body was a function, nothing more. Not so for the Queen; her body ached in a way that was distinctly sinful.

Once, it stopped, and the Queen thought perhaps the whole thing was over, but it didn't let her rest long, turning her over so that she had to fight to hold her head up and avoid cutting her face on the broken glass. The Other entered her from behind and a feeling like fire ran up from the base of her spine.

She saw her face reflected over and over again in the broken glass, and behind her, her other face. In a moment of mortal horror she realized she could barely tell them apart.

Now she pushed herself back against the violation. Now she welcomed it. She threw her head back, admiring the sinewy strength of her Other body. She lost herself in the hundreds and hundreds of reflections, and herself, and herself, over and over and over again. She saw the bloody O of her lips in the broken mirror and thought: Oh yes, lips as red as blood.

When it was over, the Other seemed to have lost something of its tangibility. The Queen was disappointed; she would have hoped she had more substance than that. She cleaned and dressed herself, then kicked the broken glass with her bare foot. "What now?" she said.

"The relief to the curse that laid your daughter low is simple," said the Other. "All she requires is true love's first kiss."

The Queen prepared to go.

"Wait," said the Other. "The kiss must come not from one who loves her, but from one she loves in return."

The Queen bit her fingers. "There is no such person," she said.

"Not yet, perhaps," said the Other. It gathered up the scattered shards of broken mirror and they melted together into a strange, crystalline mass while the Queen watched, confused.

"For years you have spoken your heart's desire into this mirror. The essence of your heart is here, in the very glass itself, and I will grant it a figure and form pleasing to the princess' eyes."

The mass of liquid glass took on a human shape, and then somehow it became solid and real. Before the Queen was an androgynous thing, a masculine figure invested with the Queen's own beauty, but cold-eyed and smiling like an idiot.

It was a dull puppet, moving at the Other's command, but it appeared alive in every way. The Queen looked at the bizarre creation with a mix of awe and disgust. It was awful, but she knew in her heart that it was the perfect snare for her stepdaughter.

"Shall I send your daughter her charming prince?" said the Other.

The Queen nodded her assent and the toy prince left on his mission, a blank automaton obeying the will of whatever inhuman power inhabited it. The frame of the mirror was empty now, no longer a window to the void, and the Other seemed to have gone, though the Queen suspected that the better part of its dark self went with the "prince."

There was nothing to do now but wait. An hour later the captain arrived, looking shaken and amazed. He stammered out: "Your daughter!"

The Queen nodded. "Is she...?"

"Alive!" said the captain. "A miracle. The people are calling her a goddess."

"And so she is," said the Queen, rising.

"But your majesty—"

"Take me to her."

The masses of villagers were in the hall, forming a closed circle. They didn't part for the Queen, and somewhere in her mind she registered outrage that these filthy, unkempt people should be so presumptuous. But most of her ignored them and simply pushed through.

The captain stayed by her side all the way. There, waiting for her, was her stepdaughter. The Princess' beauty blinded the Queen; she had grown up in the missing year, becoming more fully herself.

Her eyes were two bright blue shards of ice to match the wintry tones of her complexion, and her oh-so red lips were frozen in a coy half smile while her black-as-night hair coiled on top of her head like some lustrous snake.

The puppet prince stood by her side. The Queen almost kneeled. Her heart was ready to burst.

It was a moment before she realized something was wrong: the Princess sat on the Queen's own throne, and on her fair brow rested a crown. The Queen became aware of the closeness of the mob, and for the first time noticed that they carried heavy instruments and sharp-edged farm tools.

The Princess, in her royal splendor, looked at the Queen with a face devoid of life or emotion, as blank-eyed and pitiless as her prince. The air around her was as cold as a January morning. One could scarcely believe her heart beat.

"What's going on?" said the Queen.

The Princess didn't answer. The Queen took two steps up to the throne—her throne—but the toy prince blocked her path.

The villagers stared at her with hateful expressions. They clutched their weapons in dirty, calloused hands. The Queen began to tremble. Then the captain put a scroll in her hand. Tears blurred her vision, but she saw the royal seal pressed into fresh wax at the bottom, though she had handed down no declarations today.

"What is this?" the Queen said. The captain sighed and looked away. It was the Princess who finally gave her the answer:

"It's a writ of execution," she said.