i forgot to tell you --
-- i wrote this for my english class. we had to re write a familiar fairy tale in a way that challenges the negative stereotypes of women they have, but we couldn't simply reverse the gender roles or anything like that. little bit angela carter-esque. anyway, i really enjoyed writing mine, and i thought i might share it with you guys. it's an adaptation of sleeping beauty.
Of course, barrenness is always the fault of the woman; don’t let a soul tell you otherwise. She has lead an impious, most wicked life and as punishment she shall be unable to fulfill her womanly duty and continue on the most prestigious bloodline of all: the King’s. She was fifteen years old, beautiful, with only the merest traces of womanhood when the King, a childless widow of twenty six saw her pass by his window one morning. He was struck by the flawlessness of her skin spreading over the delicate features of her face, down her slender neck, the collarbones, the faint beginnings of her breasts. And so, like most young women who don’t say what they want, she didn’t get it, and was wed to the King in an illustrious ceremony. When the whiskered lips touched her trembling ones on the altar, something happened: the light in her eyes was diffused.
They blamed it first upon a deathly fever that struck the night of her wedding. For three weeks she lay in her bed, one moment shivering, the next on fire, always shockingly white. Then upon her lineage. She was not of royal descent, this girl, why should a silly young whelp, beautiful yes, but imperfect in her heritage, be given the right by God to bear a child of the King’s? She grew old young in this heavy life that had been cut out for her, and her shoulders sloped down, and every night she was pressed into the mattress by her King, and yet every month the blood came, a dirty herald of her failures as a woman. She was beaten for her deficiency of course, but only round the head so as not to damage the valuable organs that resided in her young body. Please disregard her penchant for languages, (for yes, class nor sex can determine intellect), please disregard that she ran the palace as well as any woman born and bred into privilege and for God’s sake please disregard any notions regarding the King and his previous childless marriage.
For thirteen years and thirteen months this is how her life went. The King very rarely laid with her now; for fear has the habit of devouring virtue and he found he would rather plant his proverbial seeds in the other, younger ladies of the court in the hopes one of them would bear his child instead. The heat of the shame he felt for his lack of children burned up every single one of his mistresses, and as none of them ever conceived, his philandering was made as though it didn’t exist. No sharp low moans ever crept from under doorways in this palace, save from the chambers of it’s Master. At twenty nine years of age this Queen, no longer beset with beauty (for as you know, no woman is beautiful after twenty five, and certainly not thirty!), began to fear for her life. Should the King have a child with one of those women, or decide a new wife would surely procure him an heir, she would be quietly dispatched, and forgotten. She knew this, and was not ignorant, and moreover, fear does have a way of devouring virtue. She conceived a child, and laid with her husband the same night.
As her belly slowly began to wax to full the King was lauded for leading his wife away from the path of wickedness and into the arms of piety and true goodness. A glow began to come from the Queen’s eyes, an owl-like prick of light in each pupil, and no one ever looked at her hard enough to see that something besides a child might have come to fill her.
The child’s name was Cate, and she slipped from her mother with an eagerness for the world. When she failed to draw breath until the midwife beat her back expertly with a slick hand, and then proceeded to open eyes as pale as rising moons, the King knew she was not his daughter. The Queen was stripped of her title, and sent to live in the highest tower in the palace. And so the King raised Cate, with the help of many governesses, to teach her the high art of being a lady, and heir to the throne, and how to entice a husband when she comes of age. And so it happened that the child was pliant, and delicate, and chaste, and despite her frighteningly pale eyes the King knew she was accomplished, and beautiful, and that she would have no problem in finding a husband, a man that would be worthy of ruling his kingdom when he had left the earthly plane. Cate herself said very little of the tasks and demands set before her and merely complied, a demure smile on her face as she cross stitched, studied Latin, and dabbled gently in piano. She never asked what became of the mother she had never known, and she was never told.
On the eve of her fifteenth birthday, the King decided that she was enough of a lady, enough of a Princess to enter into a marriage with a suitor he found appropriate. He left the palace to visit the gentleman at his estate and make arrangements for a wedding. Cate found herself quite unattended in the palace and wandered far from her usual chambers as the young (especially girls), are wont to do. She came upon the chamber at the top of the tallest tower, and inside the chamber what did she find? A woman, who despite the streaks of grey at her temples, sat perfectly erect at a spinning wheel.
Upon seeing her daughter for the first time in fifteen years, the dam broke in the Queen’s eyes. She saw her former self reflected in Cate’s uncertainty, her blindness. She spoke slowly, as though letting each word roll around in her mouth first, tasting it.
“And so, you are a woman now? You will get married?”
Cate nodded sombrely, her expression without fear or acceptance.
“I have something to give you.”
And in her hand the dethroned Queen held a spindle, gingerly, it’s point breaking the skin of Cate’s silence.
“Thank you.”
The Queen snatched her hand back, almost angrily. “What I have to give you is no light and airy thing. What I have to give you is something I robbed myself of. Tell me, Cate. Would you be happy to marry whatever man the King should choose for you? Would you happily relinquish yourself before you even know who you are? Who your husband is?”
The Queen and her daughter met eyes and infinity fell between them. Across the distance Cate faintly heard her own voice as she answered, “No.”
“Then the gift I have for you is the gift of choice. You may touch the end of the spindle and your rose shall bloom forever.”
And as the King and his chosen son-in-law rushed into the room Cate’s hand reached out and closed upon the spindle. What she saw was blood, what she tasted was fire, and what she felt was a blissful quietening of the senses. She fell backwards as briars encircled her ankles, her wrists, torso, neck, hips, sex, face. Blossoms formed, heavy, fragrant, sensuous, the petals almost too heavy to cling to the writhing vines as they held her. Her fiancee, poor young man, struggled with the brambles as though they were her free will, tearing his hands in futility. Cate’s eyes closed beneath the roses of her innocence. No kiss, no kiss, no kiss. The Queen turned her face to the wall and would not look at either of the men.
Of course, barrenness is always the fault of the woman; don’t let a soul tell you otherwise. She has lead an impious, most wicked life and as punishment she shall be unable to fulfill her womanly duty and continue on the most prestigious bloodline of all: the King’s. She was fifteen years old, beautiful, with only the merest traces of womanhood when the King, a childless widow of twenty six saw her pass by his window one morning. He was struck by the flawlessness of her skin spreading over the delicate features of her face, down her slender neck, the collarbones, the faint beginnings of her breasts. And so, like most young women who don’t say what they want, she didn’t get it, and was wed to the King in an illustrious ceremony. When the whiskered lips touched her trembling ones on the altar, something happened: the light in her eyes was diffused.
They blamed it first upon a deathly fever that struck the night of her wedding. For three weeks she lay in her bed, one moment shivering, the next on fire, always shockingly white. Then upon her lineage. She was not of royal descent, this girl, why should a silly young whelp, beautiful yes, but imperfect in her heritage, be given the right by God to bear a child of the King’s? She grew old young in this heavy life that had been cut out for her, and her shoulders sloped down, and every night she was pressed into the mattress by her King, and yet every month the blood came, a dirty herald of her failures as a woman. She was beaten for her deficiency of course, but only round the head so as not to damage the valuable organs that resided in her young body. Please disregard her penchant for languages, (for yes, class nor sex can determine intellect), please disregard that she ran the palace as well as any woman born and bred into privilege and for God’s sake please disregard any notions regarding the King and his previous childless marriage.
For thirteen years and thirteen months this is how her life went. The King very rarely laid with her now; for fear has the habit of devouring virtue and he found he would rather plant his proverbial seeds in the other, younger ladies of the court in the hopes one of them would bear his child instead. The heat of the shame he felt for his lack of children burned up every single one of his mistresses, and as none of them ever conceived, his philandering was made as though it didn’t exist. No sharp low moans ever crept from under doorways in this palace, save from the chambers of it’s Master. At twenty nine years of age this Queen, no longer beset with beauty (for as you know, no woman is beautiful after twenty five, and certainly not thirty!), began to fear for her life. Should the King have a child with one of those women, or decide a new wife would surely procure him an heir, she would be quietly dispatched, and forgotten. She knew this, and was not ignorant, and moreover, fear does have a way of devouring virtue. She conceived a child, and laid with her husband the same night.
As her belly slowly began to wax to full the King was lauded for leading his wife away from the path of wickedness and into the arms of piety and true goodness. A glow began to come from the Queen’s eyes, an owl-like prick of light in each pupil, and no one ever looked at her hard enough to see that something besides a child might have come to fill her.
The child’s name was Cate, and she slipped from her mother with an eagerness for the world. When she failed to draw breath until the midwife beat her back expertly with a slick hand, and then proceeded to open eyes as pale as rising moons, the King knew she was not his daughter. The Queen was stripped of her title, and sent to live in the highest tower in the palace. And so the King raised Cate, with the help of many governesses, to teach her the high art of being a lady, and heir to the throne, and how to entice a husband when she comes of age. And so it happened that the child was pliant, and delicate, and chaste, and despite her frighteningly pale eyes the King knew she was accomplished, and beautiful, and that she would have no problem in finding a husband, a man that would be worthy of ruling his kingdom when he had left the earthly plane. Cate herself said very little of the tasks and demands set before her and merely complied, a demure smile on her face as she cross stitched, studied Latin, and dabbled gently in piano. She never asked what became of the mother she had never known, and she was never told.
On the eve of her fifteenth birthday, the King decided that she was enough of a lady, enough of a Princess to enter into a marriage with a suitor he found appropriate. He left the palace to visit the gentleman at his estate and make arrangements for a wedding. Cate found herself quite unattended in the palace and wandered far from her usual chambers as the young (especially girls), are wont to do. She came upon the chamber at the top of the tallest tower, and inside the chamber what did she find? A woman, who despite the streaks of grey at her temples, sat perfectly erect at a spinning wheel.
Upon seeing her daughter for the first time in fifteen years, the dam broke in the Queen’s eyes. She saw her former self reflected in Cate’s uncertainty, her blindness. She spoke slowly, as though letting each word roll around in her mouth first, tasting it.
“And so, you are a woman now? You will get married?”
Cate nodded sombrely, her expression without fear or acceptance.
“I have something to give you.”
And in her hand the dethroned Queen held a spindle, gingerly, it’s point breaking the skin of Cate’s silence.
“Thank you.”
The Queen snatched her hand back, almost angrily. “What I have to give you is no light and airy thing. What I have to give you is something I robbed myself of. Tell me, Cate. Would you be happy to marry whatever man the King should choose for you? Would you happily relinquish yourself before you even know who you are? Who your husband is?”
The Queen and her daughter met eyes and infinity fell between them. Across the distance Cate faintly heard her own voice as she answered, “No.”
“Then the gift I have for you is the gift of choice. You may touch the end of the spindle and your rose shall bloom forever.”
And as the King and his chosen son-in-law rushed into the room Cate’s hand reached out and closed upon the spindle. What she saw was blood, what she tasted was fire, and what she felt was a blissful quietening of the senses. She fell backwards as briars encircled her ankles, her wrists, torso, neck, hips, sex, face. Blossoms formed, heavy, fragrant, sensuous, the petals almost too heavy to cling to the writhing vines as they held her. Her fiancee, poor young man, struggled with the brambles as though they were her free will, tearing his hands in futility. Cate’s eyes closed beneath the roses of her innocence. No kiss, no kiss, no kiss. The Queen turned her face to the wall and would not look at either of the men.