Beauty and The Beast: Chapter 10

The Beast awoke to feel Rose’s hot little body still pressed against his side. How could such a tiny girl produce so much heat? It was like lying by a fire. As gently as he could, he attempted to move her arm off his chest without waking her. Rousing, she blearily opened her eyes and smiled up at him.

“My lord,” she murmured.

“Go back to sleep,” The Beast told her. “I’ll make us breakfast.”

She nodded and snuggled happily back down into the bedclothes on the floor, closing her eyes again. The Beast tutted in wonder. Had he not known better he would have thought her previous night had consisted in an exemplary romance rather than torture at the hands of a literal monster. Turning around, he saw the shattered four poster bed, forlorn in the thin rays of morning light that edged their way around the curtains. The riding crop lay discarded on the floor a few feet away. Despite the fact that he had planned it for more than a week, and carried it out exactly according to his fantasy, last night hardly seemed real. Yet here, should he have any doubt, was proof that it has been very real indeed. He glanced back to where Rose slumbered in contentment, then shook his head and left the room.

As he made his way down the stairs he turned recent events over in his head. He loved Rose and she clearly loved him, or thought she did, but was that enough? Without even considering it, he had crossed a line by playing with her memory. What he had thought would be a simple build-up to sweeten the finale of their game had caused her real distress. Apparently more than all the tortures he had visited on her.

Thinking about it, there had been other moments where he might have gone too far and she would not have been able to stop him. She could hardly say ‘Goody Two Shoes’ while he was fucking her throat. He’d been careless, and she could easily have paid the price.

The way he was thinking was insane. She had cried and told him she wanted it to stop and he had pressed right on, but somehow that was all right. The thought of her crying because he had hurt her in a way she had not anticipated and did not want, on the other hand, made him feel sick to his stomach. Could the two types of pain really be so different? In the moment, he had given his sadism free rein, something he had sworn to himself he would never do again. Would he really have been able to stop just because she said the name of a silly children’s book?

As he bustled around his well-used kitchen, cooking the morning’s breakfast, he lost himself in the simple industry of it. When he had first become a monster, he had dismissed his servants by pushing notes under his bedroom door to his head butler. That had left him fending for himself for the first time. To begin with it had not been easy; he’d realised very quickly that he’d been coddled. Suddenly he’d been the only person working to keep himself and his vast house in order, and having huge, clumsy hands hadn’t helped.

Bringing a pan of water to the boil over a small fire, he whisked it into a whirlpool and expertly cracked a couple of fresh eggs into it. Over the years he’d found joy in teaching himself to cook and to garden, but his house had fallen into disrepair until Rose joined him.