Hi there!
This is an experimental short story based on ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with a twist. It’s my first contemporary story, set mostly in the Scottish Highlands and infused with Scottish/Celtic lore. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
I’m trying my hand at writing in first person/present time and flashbacks, so please let me know how I’m doing with your votes and comments.
For those of you who are readers of my steamy historical ‘Royal Sentence’, I’m working on the next chapter. The reason it’s taking so long -aside for my usual procrastinating tendencies- is that shortly after posting the last chapter a suspicious nodule was discovered on my breast, which was then diagnosed as a fairly rare and aggressive form of cancer. I have since had four surgeries and more coming -I refused radiations, chemo and two other awful drugs- and anaesthesia has a tendency to mess with my brain. My survival chances are 50% at 2 years and 30% at 5 years so I can’t guarantee I’ll manage to finish all my current books but I’ll do what I can. Updates might just be quite irregular. Sorry about that.
That’s it for the pity party.
Good reading!
Part 1
Everything looks better in the sun. Even this room seemed lovely earlier, when I prepared it. Sun rays fell from high and narrow widows to play on bright tapestries and shiny wood paneling. Candles everywhere. A four poster bed. A huge stone fireplace. A princess room in fairy tales. Sooo romantic.
Now, after nightfall, the setting has turned to sinister.
It’s hot in here. The wood stove squatting in the monumental chimney is glowing, and it does a darn good job of heating the space. Which is quite fortunate because I’m right in the center of it, naked, in red silk sheets.
Silk, real, one-hundred-per-cent cocoon issued natural silk, is cool on the skin, as I discovered a few moments ago. I’m wrapped in it like a caterpillar, and shaking like I’m about to emerge a butterfly. I’m a bloody sacrifice, spread on a luxurious wool and linen mattress, made-to-order, because nothing else would fit this monstrosity of a bed. The thing has an antique, emperor-size frame of oak solid enough to have lasted several centuries. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be as old as the walls of the Scottish castle whose tower room it’s furnishing. Thank God, or moths, the drapes are missing. Were they red, I’d fear I am about to become Dracula’s fiancée.
I did not choose any of this, I followed instructions. Followed them to the letter, up to the eye drops I just used, which make my vision blurry, unable to distinguish more than shapes and colors. The soft light of the candles is blinding me, and I jump at every draft or creaking of the floor. There might still be time to run, and I wish I could. I’m rambling, because I’m terrified. I have no idea who might come through the door. It’s a man, but I never met him and his name is a mystery.
What if he is a brute? A sadist? A murderer? No, not a murderer. He needs me alive and healthy.
Only three people know I’m here. Only two know where here exactly is. I am not one of them. Yet I agreed to come here, to do this. Have sex with him.
I’m aware it sounds crazy. I’m not proud of this, I’m not happy with it. I have no choice.
Two months ago, I made a pact with the Devil. And right now, I can only hope it wasn’t meant literally.
“Moira, please check your phone! It’s been ringing off the hook for ten minutes. It’s driving me nuts!”
“Ok, ok, I’ll do it! No need to shout!”
I dropped the dirty plates on the counter and ran to the back office to fish the offending object out of my handbag. I frowned at the screen. I couldn’t place the displayed number. “Hello? Moira MacFinn speaking...”
“Ms MacFinn, I’m Dr. Gordon, physician at Derward General Hospital. We have admitted a gentleman who I believe is your father. Would it be possible for you to come over and fill some paperwork?”
My legs turned to jelly and I leaned onto the desk. “My father? What happened? Is he okay?”
“His life is not in danger, but I don’t want to discuss this over the phone. He is unconscious at the moment. When can you be here?”
Derward General was just out of town, and traffic in our small piece of Texas wasn’t an issue; leaving work without warning was. I couldn’t lose this job. “In about half an hour, I need to get someone to cover my shift. Will that do?”
“Of course. Please ask for me at reception, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with you before you see him.”
He hanged up abruptly. I stood for a minute staring at my phone, before snapping out of it and calling my friend Susie. I had a flash of luck in my otherwise rotten day, as she answered on the second ring and immediately agreed to fill in for me.
Dr Gordon was a psychiatrist. That’s what the nice girl at reception said. She directed me to the mental health aisle, where I learned my dad had attempted suicide. As if it wasn’t bad enough, they had performed a general check-up and found that his heart was in bad shape. Any strong emotion or longstanding worry could kill him.
I was devastated. I hadn’t seen it coming. Trying to kill himself. Why would he do that? I mean, he had debts, a lot of them, but he was a fighter, a rock. He would never give up. Not my dad.
After my mother bailed out, it had just been the two of us, running our horse breeding and boarding ranch. My father was good with his animals, and his business was flourishing until the economy crashed. He had to let his employees go, sell most of his prized breeders for nothing, and remortgage the house in order to survive.
By then I was finishing high school and looking out for universities. I was good enough to get in, not land a scholarship. He said it didn’t matter, that he had planned ahead and put money aside. That he could pay for college and I should go and be happy and don’t you worry about a thing.
Turned out he lied. When I finished my degree, he admitted he had taken a loan from some anonymous philanthropist set to helping the Scottish diaspora, as the banks wouldn’t lend him. I doubted it at first, until he showed me the papers. They seemed legit and the rate was reasonable. I was angry and hurt, but I understood.
I moved back home to save money, and took a job as a waitress to help him pay back. No like there were many openings for English Literature graduates in Derward, Texas. On my free time, I also gave a hand on the ranch, which saved us the cost of an extra farmhand.
Money was tight, but we were managing. He told me were doing fine. Weren’t we?
My father was still out, they were keeping him sedated for a few days so that his body could recover. He had been working himself into the ground, they said. As if I didn’t know that. I had begged him to rest more, and he never listened. He thought I worked too hard, so he tried to have everything done during my shifts. Crazy, stubborn man.
I ranted internally as I held his hand. He looked older, more fragile, in his hospital bed. Not the rock solid, nothing-can-break me man I grew up with. He couldn’t die, I needed him. I wouldn’t let him. He would get better, and when he woke up, I would get answers. Hopefully tomorrow.
A nurse came and asked me to leave. Visitation time was over. I didn’t give her any trouble. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stay by his side anyway. The problem with farming is that animals don’t care if you are tired or ill, or whatever. They need tending to. He would never forgive me for neglecting his beloved horses.
So I kissed his forehead and drove myself home.
The door wasn’t locked and the sitting room was a mess. The furniture had been pushed around in a hurry, and a few nick-knacks my father kept as a shrine to my absentee mother lay in pieces on the floor. Poetic justice.
There was an awful stench, and I found its source in a puddle of vomit on the carpet. Yuck.
