Once there was a courtesan so beautiful that she never had to work a day in her life. While the simple peasant women of the kingdom milked cows, scrubbed floors, or tended to the fields, she wasted her days sleeping until noon. When the sun went down, she spent her nights attending parties of pleasure, balls, plays, and concerts. Her entire existence was a potpourri of luxury and amusement filled with gold, diamond jewelry, couture gowns, and a string of broken hearts.
She had many wealthy lovers. Dukes and earls from the noblest families competed over her affections, fighting duels over which man would have the privilege of showering her with the most expensive and exotic gifts. And to the winners went the spoils: her exquisite body.
Her body was like a market where every sexual desire could be met for a price. Every perverse idea coaxed into fruition. It was a wonderland, a joy without end. It was so breathtaking that it could make a lecher out of the most saintly priest. There wasn't a man alive that grew weary of exploring it.
Along with her beauty, the courtesan was blessed with a fierce wit which she used to plague and torment everybody, her suitor's most of all. She was a shrewd little angel, ruthless in her determination to succeed here on earth and not in heaven. But her inner soul was a black, malignant disease brimming with cruelty.
Her newest lover was a young prince, more handsome than anyone she had ever seen. He had a voice like a nightingale that went straight to every young maiden's heart. Except the courtesan's heart was too cruel to pierce with mere sweet affection. The only thing that mattered to her was that the prince was enormously wealthy. She found that his money was so great that he could grant her everything she was accustomed to and more.
He loved to spoil her, furnishing his lady love with pretty presents: fine hats, gowns, shoes, silk stockings, and pricey baubles. He'd escort her to the city in his fanciest carriage and demand that she choose anything she wanted. She would load him with commissions for jewels and dresses which it would have taken a fortune to buy, and he'd oblige her without a moment's hesitation.
The pleasure she gave was like a drug, and to continue to obtain the same results, he had to double his dose. And only misery or death would be his final prescription. For love is more difficult to give up than life.
A devastating plague arrived in the city. The prince whisked the courtesan far away from the misery and death that swept over the kingdom, away from the gravely ill souls covered in black boils oozing blood and pus.
He took her to a small cottage amid a dark forest located hundreds of miles from the raging epidemic. He isolated her from the world in an enchanting garden hidden in a quiet, secluded valley permeating with endless elm and beech trees scattered amongst gently rolling hills.
But to the courtesan, it seemed to be the most dismal place upon the face of the earth: a pine-scented tomb filled with an oppressive canopy of evergreens looming above the forest floor like death hovering from the sky.
She missed her life in the city. The noise and constant movement seemed to have a magnetic pull on her senses. It was dreamy, picturesque, and poetic, overflowing with foolish glittering promises. While you're hesitatingly standing there, hundreds, hundreds of things have already passed your head and gaze.
Life in the quaint half-timbered cottage was about as dull as watching teeth grow in a baby's mouth compared to the big-city bustle. To her, the only thing more insipid than that was her new lover, the prince.
The two were alone for months, and she did not see anyone but him. She heard no sounds other than the wind blowing through the trees and the howl of wolves at night.
She grew tired of his incessant groveling for her love and affection. Her stomach filled with nausea whenever his clammy hands timidly molested her naked body, handling her like she was a delicate, freshly laid egg: liable to crack its shell with the slightest bit of rough treatment.
One night the prince made love to the young harlot by candlelight. The soft flames flickered low in the darkness as his thin, puckering lips pecked limp wet kisses on her pink nipples and taut stomach. The prince crawled on top of her and pumped benignly away with his tepid member, fumbling his damp hands over her silky skin. She closed her eyes and let her imagination wander.
In the dark theater of her mind, she fantasized of a more forceful lover: one large, brutal, and dumb with cruel piercing eyes who would inflict sweet sinful abuse upon her tender limbs. A lover who took her with an abandon that was so violent it made her body quake with lust instead of steadfast revulsion.
As the courtesan's fantasies twirled around in her head like a whirlpool, she heard the lonely howls of a wolf in the far distance as it stalked through the gloomy forest. It was a welcome distraction, a symphony to her ears as it drowned out the piggish sounds of the prince's heavy panting. He continued humping on top of her like a spastic, unneutered dog until his inevitable climax.
After the disappointing bout of lovemaking with the prince, the courtesan fell asleep. Soon, the reddish glow of the candles faded away, replaced by beams of moonlight entering through the cottage window. The rays of light settled on the strands of her long golden hair as they spilled wildly over her satin pillow.
She was deep in slumber, and her body squirmed in the darkness. A sultry moan passed from her lips as she dreamed that she was running stark naked through the forest, being hunted down like helpless prey by an unseen beast. She ran and ran until it caught her and ravaged her flesh like a wild animal starving for fresh meat.
Even in the dimness of night, the milky complexion of her face flushed hot pink as her torrid fever dream drove her to ecstasy. A tawdry smile set across her glistening red lips as the sounds of her sensual whimpering drifted through the cottage.
As the first beams of morning sunlight filled the tiny house, she woke from her dream, sweaty and tangled in the white monogrammed silk sheets.
She was still groggy, her eyelids sticky with sleep. She rubbed the sleep from them and slowly opened her eyes. The prince was wide awake, lying next to her naked body, staring at her, drunk with happiness. He timidly cupped her bleary face in his hands and placed his lips on hers, giving her the type of kiss that a young boy shares with his grandmother. He gently combed his dainty fingers through her damp golden hair and kissed her forehead, whispering: "I love you."
She glared at him with hot contempt, angrily rolling her body over in a huff. To her, it would be more pleasing to her ears to listen to a dog howl at a crow than to hear yet another man swear that he loved her.
With her plump, heart-shaped buttocks facing him, she pulled the blankets over her head and tried desperately to go back to sleep, hoping to pick up the trail of her sensual dream. She didn't know if she would ever again have a fantasy that vivid.
The prince rose disappointed from the bed. He dressed, gathered his hunting rifle, and set off into the forest to hunt for wild game. He left the courtesan lying under the sheets tossing and turning in heated frustration.
When she finally woke, the early morning had drifted into early afternoon. Her attempts to relive her fantasy of the night before had been a failure. She stretched, letting out a deep yawn, feeling the tightness of her muscles give way to sensual pleasure.
As she sat up in the bed, combing her mess of blonde hair away from her face, she realized that she was all alone. A deep sigh of relief whooshed from her lungs as she threw off the blankets and enjoyed the reprieve from her sensitive lover and his over-eager hands. She lolled naked around the cottage, eating an apple, as the sunlight entering the window bathed her flawless creamy skin with a sensuous glow.
She quickly dressed and left the cottage, stepping out into the glorious warmth of the spring sunlight. It was a day full of nature's finery on display: soft like silk, the beech trees boasted their delicate, ridged green leaves. Dragonflies zipped from side to side. Songbirds skipped about building nests among the bushes while crickets chirped in the meadows.
For the first time in her whole confinement, she felt deep gratitude for being alive in this place on this particular day.
The whole time during her hike, the courtesan's mind drifted to the thought of the beast in her previous night's dream. The monster had been so violent, inhuman, animalistic. It all seemed so genuine as if it weren't a dream at all. For only a short time, a brief, fleeting moment, she had lived her wildest fantasy. But to her, that moment stretched out in her memory into a long, luscious eternity that she would never forget.
Hours passed as she wandered through the forest in a daze. She soon found herself lost amongst the labyrinth of trees. As she strode through the brush, she cried out to the prince for help, hoping that he'd hear her plea's as he hunted game in the woods. There was no answer.
Suddenly her shouts were answered by the loud chilling howl of a wolf. The sound was far away, but the roar seemed to get closer and closer with each mournful cry as it echoed across the trees.
Fright overtook her body, and she began to run, tripping and falling in the thick, thorny brambles, ripping her expensive emerald-colored gown and covering her unblemished skin with tiny razor-like cuts.
As she stumbled through the twisted maze of the forest, she came upon a finely manicured avenue of myrtle trees that led to the entrance of a splendid castle. She wandered through the trimmed lane into a courtyard and was astonished at all the ecstasies that she saw and heard: exotic flowers bloomed, and stone fountains shot jets of cool water as they murmured soft and sweet-sounding music. There were trees full of rare birds so tame that they flew to the courtesan as soon as they saw her, perching upon her shoulders and head.
