The Empress's New Lingerie and Other Erotic Fairy Tales by Hillary Rollins

understand his special child. The king mistook the boy’s acute sensitivity for weakness, thought he needed to be “toughened up” and properly seasoned in order to become a man. So when the prince was just thirteen years old, the king dragged him to the local whorehouse to simultaneously dispose of his virginity and his dreamy romanticism in one swift turn.
    The house of ill-repute the king chose for this task was no cheery brothel filled with large-bosomed, warm-hearted women of experience who might carefully nurture and guide a youngster across that most sacred of lines separating youthful innocence from sophisticated manhood. This was a rough and ungainly place, reeking of whisky and soiled sheets, cooled by the foul winds of corruption and despair that blew through the cracks in the clapboard walls. It was populated by an underclass of dissipated prostitutes in whose false embraces and manufactured moans could be heard the constant tick of the time clock and the avaricious “ka-ching” of the cash drawer. The callow prince was forced to sample every sort of sexual congress with these whores, every lurid fantasy and lascivious posture, and because he was a young man with the healthy physical drives that accompany youth, his body responded in full. But his fragile soul shut down and mourned for its loss, for in his heart he longed for the kind of lovemaking that would express tenderness, caring, emotion, and, above all, sensuality. In this cheerless den each act was lustful and violent, a dance of mastery over one’s subordinate, a contest in which the goal was possession, domination, and the finality of quick, self-centered orgasm. But where was the sweet give-and-take, the ardent passion, the spirituality and depth of meaning that was meant to back up these acts, meant to prolong, celebrate, and edify the process rather than shoot for the grunt-laden finish line?
    The king thought these harsh episodes of counterfeit love would turn his tender child into more of a man; instead, they turned him into a beast. The gradual strangulation of his instinct toward slow-handed, languorous, sensual love made the prince grow bitter and doleful until he found himself completely transformed into the most repellent of creatures. Now his grotesque countenance and twisted form provoked fear and loathing in all he met, and the erstwhile, fair-haired boy was forced to flee the court and hibernate from society in a dark, deserted castle to live the life of a reviled beast.
    The only link to the beauty and nobility of his prior self were the extraordinary roses he planted in the castle garden. The beast tended and nursed these flowers as lovingly as if they’d been his own children, and for the few hours each day that he mulched and pruned and watered the fertile plot, his princely nature would blossom alongside the buds. Soon he had rosebushes of such superior splendor that the handful of citizens brave enough to venture a peek through the garden wall returned home in rhapsody about what they’d seen. “The botanical beast” became a legend across the land. But everyone knew never to venture within those protective walls, and never, ever to pluck even one of the rare blooms. For when he was not tending his plants the cursed prince’s demeanor would return to that of a feral monster, whose rages were even more legendary than his roses; the few who had dared to try and steal cuttings hadn’t lived to see them bloom.

    One day Beauty found herself walking along the road that led past the beast’s castle. She’d heard the dire warnings against disturbing him in his grim habitat, but she’d also heard of the heavenly roses that flourished there. If there was one thing she adored more than anything in the world, it was a perfect rose. To keep such magnificent blossoms hidden away from others was, in Beauty’s estimation, a crime against nature and a horror worse than anything the beast