Beauty and the Beast

He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I’d managed to escape my father’s drunken pawing and I was sitting in my favourite place. It’s so peaceful by the lake, the moonlight rippling towards my bare toes. He made me jump but when I turned and saw his face I was unafraid. I felt safe.

He asked my name. I was ashamed to tell him. He understood. He said that angels don’t have names. I said he can’t have one either then. His laugh was husky and his eyes deep and shimmering. They just seem watery and weak now.

I thought he’d come to rescue me; to take me away from my father, from the louse-ridden bed, from the fear of being mauled again. From my bed I could see the sky through my small window. I could imagine flying away, up to the heavens, while my father sweated over me and the stench of ale wafted from his maw.

He did save me, but where I am now is dark, and cold. The stone bites like ice. There are no windows. It wasn’t always that way. When I first came to live in the mansion in the valley, I slept on silken sheets and looked out on my lake through bay windows taller than myself. He was kind, and gentle, at first.

He was patient with me, with my rough manners. He taught me to hold cutlery correctly, to speak correctly. He taught me to read. Whole worlds opened in his library, taking me beyond the edges of my small experience, and he guided me through them.

I called him Teacher. Sensei. Master. I never saw anyone else.

One day I was at a loss for something to do. I’d seen little more than our suite of rooms, and my Master was out on business. I wandered for hours: I saw the ballrooms, the dining halls, even the kitchens. They were all empty. I was alone in this great house.

Finally I made my way to the West Wing. Most of the rooms were empty, except for one. It was a long hall lined with portraits. All the faces I saw were beautiful. Men and women looked down with shining eyes and red lipped smiles, although they were somewhat tight smiles. The eyes were a little too bright.

At the end of the room was a door. I tugged at it but it would not budge: the first locked door I’d encountered. I put my ear to the door and I thought I heard something. A faint noise, like crying. Like a scream.

Despite the warm evening sunshine flooding through the windows, I felt cold. I hurried away, back towards the safe eastern end of the house. I had barely left the Portrait Room when I heard his voice calling me. I ran along the corridor and he was there. I smiled in relief but he did not return my warmth. His bright eyes were angry.

“You’ve been prying.” It wasn’t a question. I shrunk back, suddenly afraid, away from his accusing eyes. He advanced and raised his hand.

That night he came to me. The bruises were tender. He slipped between the sheets and pulled me close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and kissed my face. It didn’t stop my tears.

He was less patient after that. Every little mistake irked him. He beat me, he took me against my will; all the gentleness of before was gone. I quaked every time I heard his voice, his footstep. Yet I could not leave. He had me trapped in his house, a gilded cage for his angel.

One night, the wine flowed freely. He seemed relaxed and more talkative than usual. Eventually he dozed in his chair. I grabbed the wine bottle and broke it on his brow. He bled and I ran, blindly. I didn’t know where to go. My footfalls echoed in the empty house like cruel laughter. The house mocked me further. I swear its walls moved. Despite my attempts to run northwards, towards the front door, I found myself in the Portrait Room. I turned to run but he was there in the doorway. He loomed, blood dripping from his forehead, his face demonic with rage. I had no choice. I ran to the locked door, desperate, and to my delight it opened at my touch. He raced after me, silent, as if on wings, and I looked into the darkness beyond the door. The scream was louder now, and there were more; a host of tortured cries crept out with an icy cold that tried to suck me in, to swallow me. I turned and he was behind me now, still beautiful, terrible. I could not move.

He grabbed me, clasped my arms, his fingers biting my flesh. His eyes bore into me, and I knew I was doomed. He forced me back, into the dark, down into pitch...

And now I am here. He dragged me past what looked like torture chambers, with men and women in shackles, but their screams seemed breathier, the groans were groans of pleasure.

My cell is small. There are no windows down here. When he comes to me he treats me kindly. I cannot hate him. I love him. When I’m alone I hear the pleasured pain of his other lovers and I echo their cries. Waves of bliss wash over me. I shudder to think of him.

But I cannot forget. When I am quiet the stories of the library come back to me. I remember the tales of Nature’s beauty, of kind lovers, of sweet caresses that don’t leave bruises. I remember my lake. I miss the sunshine.

The house hears my thoughts. I’m sure of it. Sometimes my cell door opens of its own accord, when the others are silent, daring me to leave, but I cannot. He needs me. He loves me.

I am growing weaker. He hates my lank hair, my bony frame. I hate that I am shrivelling. I cannot please him like this. I must wash myself.

The door is open. A flicker of torchlight hurts my eyes. Perhaps I can make it to the lake. I need to be clean.

I feel dizzy but I can stand. My fingernails are bloody. I am stumbling forward, towards the light. I can smell freshness. The corridor seems shorter than before. The house is listening. There are no stairs, just a gentle slope to an open door.

The Portrait Room is streaked with moonlight. The windows are open. I can reach the ground outside. The grass is dew-laden. I wander towards the lake. I can wash. I can be beautiful for him again.

The water is warm. I walk in and it soothes my sores. The lake’s bed is soft as sand. The moonlight shimmers about me, in my hair. I remember the night he came for me. I remember his eyes. They seemed so bright. How they’ve changed.

Now I am swimming. Do I need to go back to the house? He will join me, like he did before.

I’ve reached the other side. I hesitate. The water is so warm. I could just sink...

Something pushes me on. I climb upwards, onto the shore. I look back. The house seems so small from here.

The sun is coming up, to my left. Its warm rays are drying my clothes. I stare at the house.

He’s there, at the door. My heart stutters. I love him. My beautiful monster.

I turn. I am walking towards the hills. Maybe he’ll find me there. I hope he does. I’ll be beautiful there.

Rapunzel

Gold was the colour of my true love’s hair. She wore it loose. Her skin was pale and bruised. She tore her rich dresses in the branches of trees. Her finger nails were filled with earth. She smelled of grass and leaves. She was a little thing but her laugh was as large as a man. Her mother begged her. Her father beat her. There was no taming such a wild princess.

My hair is black and coarse. My skin is much the same. My darkling, she would whisper in my ear. I am not beautiful. Though she said so. When we were girls and played at dressing up. When we were women and shared a bed. She would tear at my clothes with her royal paws. Playing the princess when she wanted. Thank the gods I loved her. It is likely I would have had no choice. She would tell me all her secrets. Dress me in her jewels. No one cared when no one knew. Then she would no longer hide me. She would sit me on her lap by the fireplace for all the servants to see. She would stroke my hair and laugh. She would laugh so sweetly at their hate. 

I am a healer. I am not beautiful but I know things. So I am a witch. In whispers throughout the castle that is what they call me. They sought me when they hurt and shunned me when well. My princess did not care what others thought. Or perhaps she did and loved to defy them. When we were only little she saw the outcast girl that picked herbs in the forest and made her a friend. She had the power to make it so. I was lonely no longer. In payment I took away the scars on her back from her father’s wrath. We witches have our ways.

It was when they brought her suitors. Brutish boys as tall as men but with faces like children. They smiled at her as though she must have been born to love them. Each one she met and hated and fled. Once she even spat in a prince’s face. The guards spent hours searching for her. I found her in a tree. She heaved me up and cried against me and kissed my face and my mouth and my neck. Her strong little paws. She wanted me, she said. Not these men, these boys. These monsters. They would strut and brag and speak to her father of her as though she could not hear them. Or joke about her with the guards as though she were a whore. They spent a few weeks killing things in the woods and laughing with the other men and looking at my love. And smiling at my love. And talking at my love. I never heard them ask her a single question. It made her love me. I was her’s entirely. My loyalty to crown and country had long since collapsed into my love for her. She was my princess, my queen, my all. She loved me for my love.

It was not long after that she would insist I be the one to brush her hair. The hair that should have been bound in pins and intricate knots but fell free to her ankles. I must be the one to bring her food, to dress her, to bathe her. No other servant would do, not the ones who had spent their lives doing these tasks. It was to be the dark witch girl. She would make the rest leave. She would brush my hair and cover me in jewels and silks no matter how I argued. My darkling, do not make me issue a royal command, she would laugh and force me to the chair. Or pull me into her bed. For a time my life was all expensive sheets, golden hair, laughing eyes and pleasure. Her parents heard rumours. Such nasty rumours. Bewitched. The savage princess must be bewitched by that ugly, dark girl. Corrupting. Perverting. Such sweet perversion is love. 

At last her father commanded that I be sent out to one of the villages. They have more need of a healer than a castle with its many physicians. He was reasonable. Forceful. I did not argue. As though I could and keep my life. My love was less demure. She screamed and raged in ways I never knew. I left. A kitchen girl told me how for weeks the princess would tear rooms apart, she would rip her clothes, smash her plates of food. They brought a prince to sedate her. She ripped open his face. Her parents were afraid of their savage daughter. Even her father quaked. They brought me back. The middle of the night the guards came. The air was dark blue and the candles of the castle burnt gold. I was a surprise it seems. My scowling princess raged into the room asking why she should take  commands. The scowl fell beneath her running feet and she grabbed at me and wept. My darling little lion. Gold and cruel and mine.

We knew it would not last. Her parents did not want this tyrant for a daughter. The same kitchen girl, who did not hate me when I cured her baby’s cough, told us how they planned to tame her. Another prince. A grown man, scarred by war, solid and strong and willing to take my love however he had to for the generous dowry. We ran. We dressed in rough servants’ clothes and hid in the those woods we loved. We moved deeper and deeper and found the crumbling tower of an old castle. Our home together. We allowed no door, only one wide window at the very top which we could climb to by a rope ladder I made. Two years almost. Two years a home to my love and I. She was no longer a princess. She had no silks or jewels to crush me with and no one to defy. Yet we were happy. Her laugh was even stronger. We drank the rain and dressed in woodland and had each other. I would hunt through the woods for herbs and rabbits and apples. I did not tell my love that one cannot get fruit all year round. She was too rich to know and I had my ways. Witches often do. So we feasted happily. I would climb our ladder and halfway up the tower I would be greeted by her loose golden hair that grew and grew so well since I began brushing it. I would tug it gently when I climbed and she would laugh and greet me with her mouth.

I was picking blackberries, my arms full of thorns. He climbed up the tower. She did not know. She must have hung down her hair. I found what he ripped out of her at the foot of our home. She must have greeted him with her claws. There is blood beneath her fingernails. Our mirror is in red pieces like jewels. Our sheets are torn. At the foot of our bed is the rest of her golden hair tainted with blood.  Her pale bruised skin. Her hair is as soft as it ever was. My princess was a savage one. I can be more cruel. I will find the monster that took her. We witches have our ways. They may have whispered their hate before. I will make them scream it aloud for all the gods to hear. They will know how I loved her. They will know in flames of gold.

Sometimes, I'm okay with murder...

I was in London for a few days where I was supposed to talk to strangers and ideally charm my way into employment (which failed because I both fear strangers and can only be charming in a stands-about-awkwardly-while-avoiding-eye-contact kind of way). While I was there, failing, I went to see some shows, including Sweeney Todd with Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett.

Since I have seen Imelda Staunton play both parts, I was trying to figure out why I can like Mrs Lovett and hate Dolores Umbridge when the former could arguably be seen as more heinous than the latter. Even when Mrs Lovett locks up poor Toby (a little kid who adores her) so that Sweeney can kill him and protect his secret, I still like her. I like Toby too and I don’t want him to die but I like her. Yet I’ve never forgiven Umbridge for calling Harry a liar. It’s not even that she forces him to scar his own hand (which is hideous), or how indifferent she is to other’s suffering that makes me hate her, it’s just her persistent denial of the truth. Her unfairness. And I know I’m not the only person who hated her far, far more than Voldemort. I like Sweeney Todd as a character even while he casually slits throats, singing wistfully about his daughter but I don’t like that bloke his daughter runs off with. I can’t like a man who sees a pretty girl locked up in a house and immediately decides to ‘steal’ her. How about just freeing her, you prick? It’s because he’s supposed to be the good guy that I have a problem. Sweeney Todd doesn’t think of himself as a good person, he thinks everyone is terrible. (‘We all deserve to die, even you, Mrs Lovett, even I…’)

I’ve been trying to work out what it is that makes a villain likeable. The older I get the more on the villain’s side I seem to be (though it has been a habit of mine since the 90s version of Gladiators. I loved Wolf as a child. I think I felt bad for him because of all the booing he got. That and he was Wolf. I fucking love wolves.) Re-watching Sleeping Beauty a couple of years ago I found myself adoring Maleficent. She’s fantastic. Every time she so much as arches an eyebrow, ominous music plays. How can anyone not respect that? People differ in tastes of course. I love Littlefinger in Game of Thrones while my flatmate can’t stand him. She sees him as smug, manipulative and evil. And he is. But I’m okay with that. He is a player in a power struggle, he had little born advantage so he has become grasping and immoral to get where he is. He badly screws over other characters that I adore but I still like him. I’m not entirely sure why but I think it’s because he is terrible, he knows that and he doesn’t care. In the TV show during his sexposition monologue he beautifully sums up his Machiavellian spirit; ‘I'm not going to fight them. I’m going to fuck them.’ (A line almost as memorable as the aggressive ‘Play with her ass’ in the same speech which has a very special place in my heart.)  I think on a personal level I respect characters who don’t care about morality.

When writing a story it is generally good advice to remember that to everyone’s own mind, they are in the right. We are at the centre of our own universes and morality is different to different people. But I find the characters who try to justify their actions to themselves and to the world pretty boring. I don’t want a sob story or grey areas. I want them willingly immoral. Knowing full well what they are doing is wrong but that it’s beneficial to them ergo worth doing. I don’t mean sadism. I’m not a fan of people getting off on others’ pain. I am however fine with characters who are entirely indifferent to suffering. Which I worry about. That’s not what I’m supposed to feel, is it? But then plenty of other people must be similar. Ultimately whether the public likes an evil character depends on their personality. If someone is charming and if they are pretty it is remarkably easy to forgive them. My favourite moment in The Dark Knight was the Joker slamming a man’s head into a pencil. I delight in it. It makes me smile. It’s quick and clever and gruesome. The casualness of it is fantastic. Which I admit is pretty sick. Andrew Scott’s Moriarty in the BBC’s recent series of Sherlock is insane and thinks he is better than everyone else. And I agree. He is better. Certainly better than me. I don’t look nearly as good in a crown. Hannibal Lecter is well loved  despite the whole killing a eating folks because he is charming and intelligent. That’s it. Sure he has a soft spot for Clarice but really we like him because he’s interesting.

There are plenty of terrible, terrible fictional characters that we adore simply because of their intelligence or confidence or humour or charm. I love my villains calm, self-aware and efficient. Add in some wit and a pretty face and I’ll fall in love with them. Which is pretty messed up.

The lesson? Morality is not very important when it comes to making likeable characters. It’s not a new thing, I know. When Thackeray’s Vanity Fair came out the reading public loved Becky Sharpe for the conniving, clever bitch she was. She never murdered anyone but let’s be honest, plenty of people would have forgiven her is she had.

Basically I’m starting to think if I was willing to kill people maybe I’d be charming enough to have a job by now.