Isabella and the Beast (2 page)

“You won’t be alone for long,” she heard the old woman’s voice echo down the hall. “The Master will be coming soon to see you shortly.”

“I don’t want to see the Master,” Isabella whispered to herself, and she bit back the tears that threatened to drown her composure.

She took a few deep breaths, trying to regain her resolve to get herself out of this situation. She got to her feet and began to reluctantly explore the cell that she was imprisoned in. The walls, though made from stone, were nearly flat, and must have taken considerable skill and craftsmanship to construct. The ceiling was high and dark. The cell had three walls alike, and then the iron bars that caged her in like an animal.

Only, she thought, the animal was outside the cage. The
Master
. How cruelly ironic.

A grunting noise raised the skin on her arms, and she backed away from the bars as it grew louder and closer. She felt as if her blood was running cold, and she desperately wished she had some place she could hide.

She knew who was coming. She didn’t want to set eyes upon the surely ghastly abomination. A tall shadow appeared on the ground, and she watched as it drew closer and closer.

Isabella bit her finger to stop herself from making any noise, and backed away as far as possible from the iron gates so that she was pressed up against the cold and damp stone wall.

She thought of her father, and the lessons he’d always taught her. “Think only good things, pure things,” he used to say, “and you’ll be alright. God will look after you.”

She tried to think of pure things, of happy children and the scent of vanilla.

“Do not give in to your body,” she heard her father’s voice echo in her head. “Do not think dirty thoughts! You are a good girl, and you will become a lady, and you must keep your mind clean of such filth!”

“Yes, father,” she whispered to herself, watching the shadow approach closer and closer. “I have thought no filth, and my body is still pure. I am untouched.”

She shut her eyes and bowed her head, repeating the same phrase over and over in a whisper.

“I am untouched.”

The shadow continued to grow and grow, and then he came into view. Isabella gasped as first she saw a hand, then arms and legs, before eventually his entire body.

But his hands were paws, and his paws had claws. He was coated in a lining of long, dark fur. It was just like the stories had told. This wasn’t a man, not fully, anyway. He was part-beast! He looked like no animal she had ever seen before.

Before her was a gigantic creature, seven feet tall. The face was the sole focus of Isabella’s terrified stare. A half-snout, half-mouth protruded from deep-set and bright-yellow eyes, and as the lips of the creature parted into a sneer, she saw sharp teeth bared. The creature’s snout looked almost as if it was from a wild bear, and Isabella’s mind raced, plowing through the possibilities, of what this horrific part-man, part-beast could actually
be
.

She tore her eyes away from the piercing stare of the creature, and dragged them down his gigantic body. Massive shoulders stretching into long and powerful-looking arms, padded palms with lengthy fingers, and tipped with ferocious claws. The chest and abdomen of the creature were the most human in shape and look, a series of abdominal muscles large and prominent, topped with defined upper chest muscles, and even nipples. A coating of fur lined the creature’s shoulders and arms.

She looked back at his face, into his bright yellow eyes that drilled into her with their tunneling stare. She forced herself not to look scared, not to look away, and instead stared into his shining orbs. His nose, or snout, or something that was in between, twitched once, then twice, and she knew it could smell her, smell her sweat, smell her fear.

Then he suddenly inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and exhaling a remarkably human sigh.

“I like your smell,” he growled. His voice was low and guttural. She wasn’t sure what he had just said was a good thing, or a very bad thing. What did he intend to do with her? A thought came into her mind, just fleeting, but it was impure and she chided herself internally. It couldn’t be that!

No, of course it wasn’t that. This beast is an animal! What do animals do? Isabella’s body became rigid as a thought entered her mind: Did he want to eat her?

Goosebumps erupted all over hers skin, and all the while the monster continued to stare at her. It… he opened his eyes, and his mouth slowly opened a little, and there she saw a row of sharp, pure-white enamel.

The impure thoughts once again returned to her. She’d heard of what this beast would do to women. How it preyed only on women... on
virgins
.

She thought of the beast, all power and muscle. An unstoppable force, he would leave his victims completely at his mercy…

“I can’t,” she whispered to herself, breaking eye contact with the beast and looking down at her feet. “Stop it, Isabella.”

“Stop what?” the beast said in his snarling voice. “Can’t what?”

“Nothing,” she whispered back at him. There was a pause, an awkward silence for a moment before Isabella made herself look back into the beast’s eyes.

“I need your help,” the beast eventually said, before his eyebrows softened, tilting downward at their center. He suddenly looked sad, worried, and Isabella knew for sure that the creature before her was once a man, just like the old woman had said.

“Please,” he added in a hoarse whisper.

“My h-help?” Isabella responded, stammering. “I-I don’t understand what you mean.” She was caught off-guard by the beast’s sudden sincerity and…
vulnerability
.

She watched as he put one of his claw-tipped paws to the iron bars and opened the door, the rusty hinges groaning their disapproval. It was never locked! Isabella shook her head. Why hadn’t she tried to open it?

With her back against the cold stone wall, she watched as the beast slowly stepped into her cell. He crouched down, and was startled to see that he had a tail. It curled around him as he lowered himself into a seated position, and then he placed his paws around his knees.

“Please sit down.”

“O-okay.” Isabella nodded and sat down cautiously, keeping her back pressed up against the wall. There was something sad about the way the beast looked, something forlorn. It made her less afraid. She couldn’t help but let her eyes linger on the rippling musculature of the beast’s body, how powerful he looked.

It was at this point that Isabella noticed the beast was wearing clothing. A garment was wrapped around his groin, like underwear.

Even this beast, huge and horrifying, had modesty. Was there more to him that was human? Was it just his body that was beastly, and his mind still that of a man’s? Or did whatever turned him into this also infect his thoughts?

“A long time ago,” he began, his voice deep and rich. “I was cursed. It was a time when magicians roamed these lands. They were old, wrinkled things, both men and women, and they wielded the power of the heavens easily, and perhaps even callously.”

“How long ago was that?” Isabella croaked.

“Long before your time, or your father’s time. Or even his father’s time. I was cursed… punished. It was my own doing, I suppose. I earned that punishment, but it has been over two hundred years now. Two hundred! Time has been cruel to me. And now time is running out.”

“What do you mean?”

“The magician, a wretched thing, told me that I could break this curse. But there was a time limit. Time is running out. If I don’t manage to break the curse by that time, then I will have to live like this—” and the beast gestured at his own body, his face morphing into an expression of obvious disgust.

“Forever?”

“Yes. Forever.”

“How can you break the curse?”

“That is where you come in.”

“Why?” Isabella gasped. What could this thing possibly want with her, a pure and innocent girl? Did he need to drink of her blood? Eat of her flesh?

Or did he need to rob her of her purity? Isabella scolded herself internally again for letting her mind wander to such wrong and filthy thoughts.

“I need,” he began, before taking a deep breath. “I need your child.”

“My child?” Isabella replied, confused. “I do not have a child.”

“You do not understand. I need you to have a child. With me. It is the only way to break the curse. It is the only condition the witch who cursed me spoke of.”

“You’re going to rape me?” Isabella cried, pressing herself against the wall a little harder. She couldn’t help but let her gaze settle on the beast’s crotch.

“No,” the beast sighed. “No. The condition was that you have to agree to bear my child. I cannot force it of you.”

Isabella relaxed visibly, and then shook her head. “I-I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“It is impure.”

“I can give you gold and silver.”

“I’m sorry,” Isabella repeated quietly. “But I can’t. It is wrong. I will not do what you ask of me! You said it yourself, anyway. Unless I agree, it will do you no good to… to take advantage of me!”

“But—” the beast began, before dropping his head. He began to move, and slowly got to his feet, his impressive height dwarfing the seated Isabella.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Will you not consider it?”

“I will not!”

A moment passed before the beast titled his head upward, extended his arms to the side, his claws glinting in the torchlight, and let out a blood-curdling howl that echoed throughout the dungeon. Isabella covered her ears and shut her eyes tightly, drawing her knees upward and burying her face into them.

There was no mistaking it. It was a cry of anger.

But when she opened her eyes again, the beast was gone, and the iron door of the cell closed. She got up and ran to it, trying to pull it open, but she could not. He had locked it!

* * *

With nothing more to do, Isabella lay down on the cold stone floor and quickly fell asleep. She dreamed, and vividly, too. She was riding through the forest, all alone. Even the comforting breaths and snorts of her horse Franco could not be heard. It was as though the beast she was riding on was a mute; not her own animated mount. She was enveloped in darkness, and a haze hung in the air, barely penetrable by eyesight. The trees on either side of her loomed over her, as if to laugh at her, mock her.

Their bark morphed into mouths filled with shiny, sharp teeth. Their branches turned to claws, and they swept downward at her, trying to snatch her from her horse.

Isabella screamed and shook her head, looking downward toward her horse’s mane. She was afraid. Fear coursed through her. Fear was her blood.

The beast appeared, and snatched her from her horse. Like lightning, in the blink of an eye he had leapt from a dark hiding spot, held her tightly in his claw-tipped paws, wrapped her up in his powerful, muscular arms, and landed on the forest floor with a dull thud.

The beast spun his head to look own at his prize, and he lay her on the ground and hovered over her, grinning and growling. She felt the warmth from his large body, felt his hot breath wash over her.

The creature’s chest heaved up and down as the beast breathed deeply. He tensed his arms, clutched his paws closed, and howled, his cry so ferocious the haze around them was blown away momentarily.

In one sudden motion, he looked down at her lying vulnerable on the floor, and he tore her dress from her body. It flew off her, soared sky high before landing on the branch of a tall, tall tree. It was snatched up by the tree’s branch claws, and the mouths returned on the bark, turning to grins and laughter.

Isabella heard the cry of babies, and she looked left and right. There couldn’t be babies in the forest! It was impossible!

She lay under the beast, naked, exposed. The cool hair teased her nipples into stiff points. Goosebumps erupted along the length of her body. She shivered. She shut her legs tightly, crossed them at her ankles, and covered her breasts with her arms.

“No!” she sobbed, shaking her head.

“Yes!” the beast snarled, his lips drawing tight. He leaned closer. His breath grew hotter. He licked up her body, his snaking tongue leaving a trail of his saliva glistening on her supple skin. She squirmed and writhed, feeling the warmth and wetness against her. She felt a tingling in between her legs, a growing yearning; an itch.

The beast continued to lick her, dragging his tongue across her breasts, in between her breasts, up her neck, around her nipples. Tendrils of sensation, the beginnings of pleasure, thrilled through Isabella’s body.

She felt her underwear growing damper and damper, its warm wetness pressing against her center, her most private place, like the beast’s tongue was her body.

Looking down the beast’s body, she saw it. It was huge, massive, and thick. He brought its wide, purple and quivering tip to her entrance while pushing her legs apart. Her underwear was suddenly gone. She looked up to see that it, too, had been snatched up by the outstretched hands of the looming, swaying trees.

She was bared to the great beast before her in entirety. Her purity, her innocence… he could see it all.

He pushed his rod inside of her, and she gripped the wet earth with her fingers. She felt something new. It stretched her. It stung her. She felt pain. But she felt something else, too.

The beast began to invade her again and again and again. She screamed and groaned as he took her, until he rose up, rigid, and let out a monstrous roar as he filled her canal with his thick, sticky seed.

“No!” Isabella screamed, her eyes shooting open. Pleasure thrummed through her; the ecstasy was so potent it was like the sting of a needle. She stared at the high ceiling, her brow and forehead beading sweat, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her pants. A warm and fuzzy pleasure swirled about her mind, and in her center.

She felt herself swollen and hot. She felt herself tingling down there.

“No,” she whispered again, shaking her head slowly from left to right, and she forced herself up and off the ground, and began to pace around the cell. She felt exhausted. The dream had been so real. Her legs still felt wobbly and weak, and yet there was an afterglow, a pleasant and fading sensation of bliss and joy.