Seven Kisses: A Beauty and the Beast Dark Romance (6 page)

The beast stepped back and, just when she thought he would leave her alone in her little white cell, he stepped to her side, drawing his firm fingers softly up her belly and across her breast.  He hovered over her like Prince Charming about to plant that fateful kiss on Sleeping Beauty’s lips.

What would it feel like to kiss a beast?

A tingle of anticipation rippled through Gabrielle’s insatiable body as he gazed down at her, and then up into the mirror.

“No,” she said.  “Look at me, not at Madame.  Look at
me
.  What’s your name?”

He cocked his head. 

Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me
.   She leaned up as much as her aching neck would allow, giving him a look that said, “Go for it, Big Boy!” 

How would it feel?  Would he take off the mask?

Gabrielle’s heart fluttered as the beast reached for something on the counter.  He took it in hand and brought it to her neck. It wasn’t until she felt the needle piercing her skin that she realized a kiss was too much to ask.

Part Two

Chapter 8

These terrible dreams. These terrible, nauseating, pain-inducing dreams…

Gabrielle rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around her pillow.  Curling her legs until her knees met her elbows, she turned the pillow around so she was holding it like a small, squishy person.  That was better.

Ouch.
  Why did her forearms hurt so much?  They felt burnt, or…

Burnt!

In her mind’s eye, she saw the fire. She smelled that strange scent of burning curtains, bubbling paint, singed carpets.  A house fire smelled nothing like a camp fire.  Camp fire was comforting, controlled, contained.  House fire was toxic, disintegrating, destroying.
Murderous
.

Pushing that memory away, Gabrielle rolled onto her back and gazed up at the ceiling.

Wait a minute…

Where was she?  This wasn’t her apartment.  This wasn’t her bed.  It also wasn’t the place she’d dreamed of, with the witch and the beast and the machine and the monkeys.  This room had a window, which looked out on a sculpture garden.  The walls were painted hospital green and the floors were the same dark wooden slats she’d walked on when she’d arrived.

Loindici Manor.

Her mind was unbearably hazy. She couldn’t tell reality from fiction. She remembered talking to her father on the phone, then entering the premises. A town car pulled up and a girl ran out. “You’re Suzanne now.” She was taken inside and she went along with it because maybe she’d spot a celebrity or two. And then the men in scrubs, the ones who looked like those figures in the sculpture garden below her window, they’d drugged her and she’d had strange sexual dreams about a man, about a beast.

Strange, strange fictions…

Her bed looked as old as the mansion. It had a curved iron headboard, a firm mattress, taught white sheets.  As for her, she wore a white cotton shift with buttons on the cuffs and ribbons woven through the collarless front. Who’d dressed her in this? How long had she been drugged and dreaming?

What day was it? She had concert tickets Thursday.

Ooh… I need to pee. Where’s the bathroom?

The large wooden door stood front and centre, and Gabrielle cast her legs over the side of the bed to go to it.  When she put weight on both feet, her legs collapsed beneath her. They felt like they were made of spaghetti.

That’s weird.

Gabrielle reached for the iron rail at the foot of the bed and tried to heave herself up. Easier said than done.  Her muscles seemed incapable of cooperating. She kept telling them to do this, do that, get up, walk to the door, but they wouldn’t. They couldn’t.

What is wrong with me?

Her most recent dream streamed to mind like a black-and-white movie: she’d thought the beast would kiss her, but instead he plunged a needle in her neck. 

Had that really happened?

No…

Was that why her muscles didn’t work? Because her body was full of drugs?  Because she’d been bound in stirrups for days?

No… impossible!
  Things like that only happened in horror flicks or paperback novels. Not in real life, and certainly not to her.

Letting her head fall onto the white sheet, Gabrielle moaned. “Owww…”

What hurt? Just everything.  Her arms and legs and back and butt and head and
down there
and, god, she needed to pee!

“Okay,” she said to herself. “I’m getting up. Hear that, legs? I’m getting up… NOW.” Her arms trembled as she heaved herself to her feet, but her legs didn’t hold. She fell flat on the bed. “Damn it.”

Rolling on the stark white sheet, she gazed at the dark wooden door.  Where did it lead? Hopefully a bathroom. If only she could cross the room without falling flat on her face. What else was in this bedchamber, anyway?  A large writing desk with the drawers removed. A trash bin. A metal chair with a vinyl chair pad. Looked like it was from the 60s, like something from an asylum.

I’m in an asylum.

Gabrielle didn’t know whether to laugh or cry until an idea came to her. She reached for the chair, pulling it close to the bed.  Turning it away from herself, she used it as a walker and, step by step, made her way to the door. Placing her limp hand on the bronze knob, she turned, turned, turned…

Locked.

Maybe those dreams were real.  Maybe she was being held captive in this place.  Maybe the only way to escape was to make a run for it.

Gabrielle’s heart raced. An bead of sweat broke at the small of her back.  Using the chair for support, she made her way across the room as quickly as her useless muscles would let her. Climbing onto the bed, she sat on her knees with both hands wrapped around the iron headboard.

The window was old. Lead glass. The kind that opened up rather than out or to the side.  Oh god, could her weak arms handle this?  Only one way to find out: she slipped her fingers under the moon-shaped grips.

“Three, two, one…”

She tried pushing, but her body declined. The window didn’t budge. What a weird feeling, knowing her muscles wouldn’t cooperate.  She’d carried two cans of paint home last week and now she couldn’t even lift a window.

Wait—was it locked?

No. There were locks, but she could see that they were unlatched.

Tracing her finger along the windowsill, Gabrielle noticed that she couldn’t get her fingernail in the gap that should have been between the casing and the window itself. They’d been painted together, over the years.

She was trapped.

Just my luck
.

The wooden door moaned, and Gabrielle’s synapses kicked into gear. She snapped her head around so fast her spine made a clicking sound.  She looked up, to where a face might appear behind the door, but saw nothing.

“Who’s there?” she asked, in a panic.  She had no underwear on beneath her nightgown, and the cotton was thin enough to see through.  “Who is it?”

“Ooo. Ooo. Ooo?”

Gabrielle clasped her hand to her heart as she spotted the monkey at her bedside.  “Oh my god!”

Hopping up on the chair beside the bed, he extended a shiny pink hand.  “Eee.  Eee. Ooo?”

He was real. All those dreams, all those encounters, that tiny white room… it was all real?

Gabrielle slumped against the headboard as the monkey took her hand and tugged.

“I don’t believe it,” she said.  “I can’t… no, I can’t handle this, Samuel.”

He looked up into her face, and for a second she worried he would slap her because she’d confused the monkeys again.  But there was a striking amount of care in his face as he tugged her hand.

Her body slumped as she eased toward the edge of the bed.  “What now?”

He held her hand to his cheek, and it reminded her of the beast. 
The beast is real.  All that stuff… it really happened!
  Then Samuel turned his head and nuzzled her palm. Gabrielle couldn’t help giggling.

“Don’t make me laugh! I have to pee.”

Nodding as if to say, “I know,” he said, “Eee! Eee! Eee!” and pulled her toward the open door.  If that was a hallway out there, it was an exceptionally dark one.

Gabrielle gulped as the monkey butler led her over the threshold.

“What fresh hell is this?” Gabrielle asked, as her eyes latched on to a sliver of light.

A lamp clicked on, and Gabrielle screamed as a grotesque face showed itself bathed in the subtle light.  Her heart pounded and she tried to flee, except her legs were barely supporting her as it was and, anyway, where could she go?

“Ooo. Ooo. Eee?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief.  “It’s only you, Gerard.”

Laughing without making a sound, he moved his little shoulders up and down in an exaggerated show of mirth.

“You got me,” she said.  “I almost peed myself.”

Climbing down from the large wooden dresser, Gerard took the hand Samuel wasn’t already holding. 

“Where are you taking me?” she asked as they led her into the relative darkness of a small alcove with a little door.

“Eee! Eee! Eee!” Samuel pointed up the wall, and she trusted him enough to touch the tile.  It felt cool and clean, and when she traced her fingers across it she found a button and pushed.

The lights popped on and the monkeys left her alone, closing the door on their way out.

A bathroom.

Inexplicable tears filled her eyes as she lifted her night dress and fell down on the lav.  She’d never been so happy to see a toilet, even if it was a very old-looking one.  It even had that English-style pull above it to flush.  She’d never seen one in real life, only on TV.  She didn’t think they even existed in this country.

As she relieved herself, Gabrielle glanced down at her bare legs.  She’d waxed fairly recently, so at least they weren’t hairy after days of no shaving—
how long have I been here
?—but that wasn’t really her focus.  The red marks, the bruising where she’d been secured to her stirrups—that’s what caught her eye.

Everything felt real when she saw the physical marks her captors had left on her body.  Look how dark that bruising was, how extensive.  She touched her leg and a bolt of pain ran through her like lightning.

She unbuttoned her fancy cotton sleeves and rolled them up.  They wouldn’t stay rolled for long because of all the lace, but when she looked hard she realized she could see her bruising through the cotton.

Wasn’t the first rule of medicine
do no harm
?  Whoever this Mme de Villeneuve was, she was certainly no doctor. And, if she was a doctor, she should have her license revoked.

Maybe it already had been.  Maybe that’s why Gabrielle hadn’t found Loindici Manor online.

The monkeys knocked at the bathroom door and squealed impatiently. Gabrielle rushed to wash her hands.  No sink?  Okay.  She dipped them the small tub of water sitting on a wooden pedestal.  The mirror above it was so degraded she couldn’t see herself properly, so she gave up primping and opened the door to see what Samuel and Gerard were after.

“What are you two so excited about?” she asked as they each raised a hand.

She let them guide her through the dark room.  When she’d first come in, she’d been so blinded by the need to relieve herself that she hadn’t noticed the luxuriant beauty of the space. The walls were curved, making the room perfectly round. She’d never seen anything like it.

“What is this place?” she asked, in awe.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the low light, she could make out the sparkle of gems and the lustre of fine fabrics.  Her heart welled as she took in the fantastic sight of gorgeous gowns hanging on racks and over furniture pieces, of shimmering necklaces strewn carelessly about.

Samuel and Gerard screeched jubilantly as they escorted her to a round table in the middle of the room.  There were only two chairs, and she sat in one while Gerard jumped up on the other.  Plucking a note from the table, he handed it to her over heaps of pearls and gold.

“What is it?” Her hand trembled as she took the small envelope from him.

“Eee! Eee! Eee!” he replied, pointing as if to say, “Open it up and see!”

Gabrielle turned the envelope over. It was sealed with red wax.  She tried not to tear it, but there was no other way. Lifting the flap, she pulled out a folded piece of paper and struggled to read Madame’s strange calligraphic writing.

“What does this say?” she asked, not that the monkeys would be much help. Unless they could read.

Could they read?

Poking her hip, Samuel said, “Ooo. Eee. Eee!”  He motioned to the dress rack.

“Am I supposed to choose one?”

Gerard reached across the table to tap the note with his finger. “Eee! Eee! Eee!”

Read! Read! Read!

“I know. I’m trying. This writing is hard to understand.”  She squinted, and the scribbles began forming themselves into words.

“Suzanne,” Gabrielle read. “Please pick out a gown to your talking… no, that’s not right… to your
liking
. I have or…ganza?  No, wait,
organized
.  I have organized a special date for you tonight.  The monkeys will help.”

Gabrielle looked from Gerard to Samuel. “I have a date?  Who’s it with?”

Samuel rolled his eyes.  Gerard did as well, crossing his arms to punctuate his impatience.

“What?” she asked. “Is that a silly question?”

The monkey butlers nodded.

“It’s not with Mme de Villeneuve, I hope.”

Tossing their little heads back, they laughed.

Gabrielle’s belly flip-flopped.  “It’s with the beast, then. My date’s with the beast?”

Samuel looked at Gerard and Gerard looked at Samuel, and then they both looked at Gabrielle and nodded.

Her heart had one thing to say, but her mind disagreed completely. She didn’t know why, but she’d developed an odd attachment to this man… to the
beast
.