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. Thinking of her brought a smile to his grim face, but it was quickly followed by a frown as he remembered the problem he was brooding over. It seemed like he hadn’t done any permanent damage last night, but it was more by luck than judgement. He had to get Rose away from him before he did something they would both regret.
The fact was that he was rapist. Redemption was neither possible for him, nor deserved. Rose had already brought him more happiness than he had thought possible, even before his transformation. It was time to return the favour by giving her life back to her – even if he had to do so against her wishes. His emotions settled into a melancholy yet satisfied resolve. It was a course of action that would leave him with happy memories and no regrets, and once Rose had found herself a more suitable suitor she would feel the same. She would even realise the danger she had literally courted and see that his sending her away had been for the best.
Returning to the task at hand, he took two slices of toast from where they were propped by the fire, put them on plates and scooped the fluffy white eggs onto them. As always, he finished breakfast with a sprinkle of the fine cayenne pepper that Agnes brought him. Picking up the plates and some cutlery, he hurried back upstairs to eat it with Rose before it went cold.
He re-entered Rose’s bedroom to find her slumbering with two of her fingers in her mouth, childishly adorable. Kneeling at the side of their improvised bed, he set down their food and bent to kiss her gently on the forehead, suppressing a smile as she woke and hastily removed her fingers, as if there were a possibility that he had not seen her sucking them and she hoped to conceal that she had been doing so.
“Breakfast,” he told her, sitting on the floor beside her and picking up his plate. She sat up and picked up her own egg, tucking into it with obvious relish. The Beast, having never stayed with Rose to see the pleasure she took in the breakfast he cooked, spent a happy minute simply watching her as she enthusiastically devouring his offering. As a result, by the time he started his own food she had almost finished her own, and she took her turn watching him eat with every indication that the experience was equally pleasing for her. When he had finished he set his plate aside. He didn’t know what to say. It seemed that the time they then spent in silently looking into one another’s eyes, was longer still than breakfast.
It was Rose who spoke first. “We should begin our day,” she said. “There is a garden to be tended, chickens to be fed, and rooms to be cleaned. Maybe we should have a day off soon, but we should plan it ahead of time. Right now I feel like I have commitments to my lord that I must discharge before we discuss Plato this afternoon.”
The Beast’s former resolve was sorely tested. Before him was a girl so beautiful that every instant he looked at her was like seeing a new portrait painted by a master. He had sated his basest desires upon her body, and afterwards she had told him she loved him. Now she was offering to serve him before taking a lesson from him about his intellectual passions. If the word ‘perfection’ ever meant anything, he was regarding it.
Feeling a fierce surge of fondness, he decided to put off breaking the news to Rose about his decision. He would tell her during their lesson later on. “You’re right, of course.” See to your cleaning schedule and I will see to my own tasks. I’ll see you at two for our lesson.
“Yes, my lord,” she replied, inclining her head.
***
After The Beast left, Rose gingerly got up, washed and dressed. Her whole body ached, she was sore where she had been beaten, and between her legs it felt as if she had been clubbed with a brick. Feeling strangely peaceful, she began her chores. It was difficult for her to do the physical work of sweeping, scrubbing and tidying while her cunny throbbed with pain, but she knew that was no excuse for shirking her responsibilities. She did her work with a smile that only grew with each twinge and sting she felt.
When two o’clock arrived, she essayed a small skip towards the library before wincing and slowing to a walk again almost immediately. She entered to find The Beast already sitting in his customary place beside the reading desk. She sat down carefully and nodded to him. “My lord,” she said by way of greeting.
It was common for The Beast to begin their lessons abruptly, so Rose was not surprised when he jumped straight into their work. “As you know, Rose, today we’re discussing Agathon’s dialogue with Socrates. Do you have any first impressions?”
“Only that Socrates is a smug, self-satisfied jackanapes,” opined Rose. It still felt vaguely improper to talk so disrespectfully of the books The Beast venerated so much, but he had encouraged her to state her thoughts directly and honestly, and was prone to impatience when she danced around her criticisms.
The Beast favoured her with a tolerant smile. “You’re not the first to have that reaction,” he said. “But looking beyond the drama, what is the argument at work? What issue does Socrates take with Agathon’s argument?”
“Honestly, it just seems like a lot of wordplay,” said Rose. “Socrates claims he’s looking for clarity, but he makes a lot of needlessly confusing arguments, and Agathon just lets him do it. For instance, he says that love can’t be beautiful because it desires beauty, and you don’t desire what you already have. That’s what I mean by wordplay: beauty and love can mean a lot of different things, but he pretends whenever we talk about them we must be talking about the same thing. That lets him pretend he’s uncovered a logical contradiction when all he’s really done is shown that words are complicated.”
The Beast raised his eyebrows and gave a nod of respect, “That’s very good, Rose,” he acknowledged. “But what of the conclusion that Socrates drives towards – that to love is to want Goodness? Surely that has some merit.”
Rose screwed up her pretty face in concentration. “I think his rhetoric made me suspicious and I didn’t think hard enough about it,” she admitted. “I can see that it does make sense. Just wanting isn’t really loving. You have to want what’s best.”
The Beast’s smile was tight and mournful. “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said. “Which leaves me in a fairly tragic position. If truly I love you, and I believe I do, then it means more than just wanting you. I must want what’s best for you, even if that means sending you away.”
Rose’s chest was as hollow as a drum. “But we talked about this,” she said. “What’s best for me is to be whatever you want. Your other half. I’m starting to think Aristophanes had a good point, and that’s why Plato had to write him to seem so silly. To love is to be a counterpart. That’s what it means to be someone’s other half. To fit together with them so that you make more sense as one couple than as two individuals.”
“Do we truly fit together though Rose?” The Beast asked. “Or are you just infatuated with me because I was somehow the first to see your value? Had you not come to this house, you might have met any number of charming gentlemen who would have been able to show it to you without making you feel it is your place to be harmed. Men who could have loved you without wanting to humiliate you. Who would have seen your strength and not immediately hungered to break it. You are good and pure Rose, and I am a poison to you.”
“You insult me, my lord. If you truly see my value then you know I am capable of knowing what I want and whom I love. You were a better judge of my needs and my character before you presumed to condemn yourself on my behalf.”
The Beast paused. “That’s fair,” he admitted. “Very well then. I will argue from what I know of myself, which our time together has taught me once more. I am a monster Rose. I always was one, and that girl who cursed me knew it. She only changed my appearance to match my soul.”
“In the story you told, she swapped them over,” said Rose. She was looking at him angrily, accusatorially.
“That’s true. She did say something like that. I’ve thought about that detail a lot, and I have to conclude that if it was her intent to make me good, she has failed. My appetites have not changed Rose. If you stay here I will hurt one in a way you do not wish to be hurt. I will torture you body and soul until you break, and I will enjoy doing so. If I truly wish to be good I must send you away. Maybe that is still selfish of me. If so, then so be it.”
“And what if I refuse to go?” Her eyes were brimming with tears, but she set her mouth in stubborn line.
“Then I cannot force you,” he said. “But that will be the end of our game nonetheless. A week ago you told me you trusted me to know what’s best for you. And yet it seems that now my judgement is not to your liking, you have decided you do not. If you disobey me so flagrantly, how can you truly claim to be serving my desires? You have given me power Rose, and I am using it to send you away. That is my final word on the matter”
Rose’s face was an eloquent tale of rage and betrayal. She felt the tears she had so diligently held back break free. She knew that a tantrum would only make The Beast think less of her, so she fled the room before he could see her break down. She did not come out of her room at dinner time, and when The Beast came to check on her he was driven away by the purity of the sorrow that could be heard through her bedroom door.