Lustfully Ever After (21 page)

“I love you.” The words are superfluous, but I want to tell him anyway, to give voice to the truth we both know. We hover on the edge, together in a new way. A single breath will send us tumbling into orgasm.

A new sensation stops me—a new sort of stirring, deep in my belly, an odd feeling as though my organs were rearranging themselves. My prince searches my face with those glittering, ebony eyes, and I understand that he feels it too. It’s foreign, outside our charmed circle. At first I’m frightened, thinking that my father’s magicians have found a way to undo our magical connection.

Then simultaneously, we understand. A third. A child. My womb bears the fruit of our love. The realization looms up, enormous, terrifying, and unbearably sweet. Like a tsunami it sweeps us into a wild, shuddering climax. We cling to each other, pleasure wracking our bodies, as he pours his seed into my depths. Meanwhile, the child—our daughter, I’m quite certain—moves with us.

We lie together, exhausted by the intensity of the orgasm and the unbelievable new shape of our relationship. The child is quiet, as though she had fulfilled her goal by announcing her presence.

The moon is setting. My prince helps me to sit up, more gentle
than ever. He retrieves my silver-backed hair brush and starts to work the knots out of my tresses. I close my eyes, to concentrate on the warmth of his hands, the soft tug of the brush, the light scrape of the bristles against my scalp. It takes a long time for me to relax. I don’t want him to leave, especially not now, given what we have learned this night. Still, I can’t help but give in to the peace that comes with his presence.

He stops. I drift, lost in dreams of a time when we can be together always. A sound of metal on metal drags me back to the present.

My prince stands at my side, clothed once more, brandishing a pair of scissors.

“No!” I scream, backing away, the weight of my hair making me slow.

He raises his hand, palm facing me. I stop, obedient despite my fear. He gestures at the tresses flowing from my skull, stretching across the floor, ordered and smooth now from his attentions. Then he points at the window. All at once I grasp his plan.

He’s right. Now that I know I’m with child, my prison will be unbearable—even dangerous. If my father were to find out, he might kill us both, or worse, steal the child and bring her up amid the corruption of the court. I need to escape.

I can’t ride on moonbeams the way my prince can. I will need another route out of my lofty prison.

I sink back onto the bed. My lover strokes my silky hair back from my brow, then sets to work.

The first snip of the shears makes me shudder. He ceases his efforts long enough to kiss my lips and fondle my breasts. Aftershocks of our previous passion rumble through me. I nod for him to continue. My gleaming locks fall to the floor, one by one.

Morning will be here soon. I’ll be alone. I wonder how long
it will take to braid my tresses into the rope I’ll use to lower myself to the ground. I’ll need clothing. With my shorn hair, maybe I can pass as a boy. My prince will meet me outside the perimeter of my prison, I know, with horses and supplies. We’ll leave our respective kingdoms behind and travel as I’ve always dreamed, seeking a better place to raise our child.

The amnesia-inducing roses are a problem. Perhaps I can hold my breath long enough to get clear of their influence. If I can’t, I’ll end up witless and confused like the unfortunates who thought to set me free.

The last rays of the moon are fading. My prince has finished his work. He gives me a pained smile and kisses me one last time before he disappears.

My glorious hair carpets the floor around me. I peer out the window. Peach-colored clouds streak the eastern horizon. I feel incredibly light, as though I might float away.

I don’t mind that my hair is gone. It is, after all, for a good cause. If I forget I’m Princess Rapunzel, that won’t matter either. We might become penniless wanderers. I’ll still be grateful for my freedom and his love.

All I care about is being with my prince. And I’m quite certain there’s no magic on earth that could make me forget him.

 

 

 

 

 

I
n a small apartment above a storefront in lower Manhattan, not very far from where Mulberry meets Canal, lived an aging toymaker named Geppetto and his daughter Giuseppina.

Geppetto had come to America from his village near Naples some eighteen years earlier, intent on a new beginning in the New World following the death of his beloved wife.

“A fool’s journey!” His friend Mastro Cherry had said. “You are already an old man, and New York is no place for the old.”

But Geppetto had gone anyway, driven away by the grief that had lived in every room in his house and in every shop in the village, filled as they were with memories of his wife.

He’d set up his toy shop and apartment both, and business, while not great, kept him busy. But loneliness was a heavy mantle upon his shoulders, and Geppetto had wished for something to alleviate it.

“If only we’d had a child.” He’d said, alone at his near-empty table. “Someone to teach and to love, and whose laughter would fill me with joy.”

Imagine his surprise and delight then, when one morning not long thereafter he had discovered a bassinet in the toy shop doorway, and inside, a cherubic baby girl.

“
Toymaker,
” read the note tucked in alongside the baby, “
I have no warm bed or food for this child; with me she will know only hardship. Many times I’ve passed by your window and admired your beautiful toys. Please give her the same care and attention you’ve given to them, and love her as if she were your own.
”

Geppetto had thought about contacting the authorities, but he’d known that they would take her away from him. So he’d scooped up the bassinet and taken her inside, and no one was ever the wiser.

“I will call you Giuseppina, after my wife.” He’d said, holding her in his arms. Her tiny hand had reached up to grab hold of his snowy white moustache, and he’d chuckled, enchanted already.

“Heh, Pina? What do you think?” He’d whispered to the infant, who’d cooed up at him in response. Taking that for assent, he’d lain her carefully back in her bassinet, and gone to work on fashioning her a cradle.

 

Eighteen years later, a much older Geppetto called out to his now-grown child.

“Pina!” He shouted, banging his fist on her bedroom door, struggling to be heard over the ear-splitting music coming from within. Abruptly, the door swung open.

“It’s
Pino
, Dad—jeez, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s been
Pino
for the almost three years. It’s never gonna change, okay?”

“Pino—I’m sorry…son.” The word did not come easily off Geppetto’s tongue, though in truth, there was nothing girlish about the angry teenager. For as long as he could remember,
Pina—no—
Pino
, he reminded himself, had chosen trucks over dolls, pants over dresses, and short boyish hair over the long wavy locks Geppetto had hoped she would let grow. With a child’s belief in the magical, Pina had whispered to shooting stars and scrunched her eyes shut before blowing out birthday candles, wishing, always wishing, for the same thing: to be a boy. As a teenager with access to the Internet and resources that could scarce have been dreamed of a generation earlier, she found a new vocabulary, one that included words like
gender dysphoria
and
transgendered
. It was hard for Geppetto to understand these things, but he loved his child with all his heart, and though theirs had seldom been an easy relationship, he tried to keep the peace.

“What do you want?” Pino’s tone was aggressive; Geppetto sighed. Pino was ready for a fight. He was, it seemed, always ready for a fight. In the past few years, since he had announced his desire to live as a boy among his schoolmates, he’d come home with more than his fair share of split lips and black eyes. Even in a place as diverse as New York City, children are still cruel and single out those who are different, and Pino had learned that the way to protect himself from this cruelty was never to back down from a fight. He had gained a reputation as a vicious scrapper and had earned the grudging respect of those who had singled him out. His place as one of the boys had been hard earned, but these boys he now called friends were a rough lot, frequently cutting school, drinking alcohol obtained from older brothers and friends, and acting disrespectfully to others.

“You said that you would watch the store for me this afternoon, so that I could visit with my friend Sergio,” Geppetto reminded him.

“Well, I can’t anymore. Me and Rocco and the guys are going to shoot some pool.”

“But Sergio is ill, and I promised that I would stop by the pharmacy on my way over.”

“So just close the damned store already! Nobody ever goes there anyway.” Pino said these words as he shouldered past his father, shrugging into his jacket and pulling open the apartment door. Then he disappeared into the stairwell, and the door slammed shut behind him.

Now there comes a time in every father’s life when he has to say things to his child that they will not want to hear. Geppetto thought long and hard about what he wanted to say to Pino and determined he would speak to him when he returned home. If his child—his son—truly wished to become a man, then he needed to learn how to be a good man, one who was caring and unselfish and who knew right from wrong. He needed to get a job, and he needed to treat others with respect.

The conversation did not go well. Pino erupted into a rage, shouting obscenities at his father, and Geppetto, pushed to his limits, shouted back. Things were said that should not be said between parents and their children, and in the end, Pino had stuffed his duffel bag full of clothes and stormed out of the apartment. That was the last that Geppetto saw of him.

 

“Pino! Let’s go, man!”

“Yeah—just give me a minute!” Pino shouted, stepping in front of the mirror to check his appearance one last time. He ran a hand over his freshly shaved jaw and down over his Adam’s apple, making sure no traces of shaving cream remained. He smoothed back the short hair at his temples and tweaked his faux hawk so that it was perfect. He turned a little to the left, then the right, flexing his pecs and his biceps, then cupped the bulge in the front of his jeans, adjusting it so that it was a little to the left and didn’t quite look like he had a raging hard-on in
his pants. During the day he usually just wore a soft packer, but at night, in the hot Miami clubs that were filled with even hotter women, he needed to be ready to get down to business.

When he’d left New York five years earlier, he hadn’t really known where he was going. All he’d known for certain was that he’d had to get away—from his father, from school, from that whole suffocating life. He’d needed to find someplace where he could be his own man—do what he wanted, when he wanted, and not have to listen to all that bullshit about getting a job and being responsible.

Ironically, when he’d landed in Miami, he actually
had
gotten a job bagging groceries at Publix to pay for the room he’d rented—his old man probably would’ve been happy about that. He’d found a doctor who was cool with the whole f2m thing and had started getting T-shots almost right away. Then he’d found out how much top surgery cost and had given up the room and spent the next eighteen months couch surfing until he had enough money for the whole boobs-be-gone thing.

He’d started working out as soon as the scars on his chest had healed a little, and it was like finding religion. As the months had passed and he’d seen the growing definition in his muscles; seen the transformation of his weak body into the one he’d always dreamed of, he’d thought of little else. He’d lost his job, which hadn’t really been a big deal since he hadn’t had rent to pay or anything, and had taken to spending almost all his time at the gym.

He’d made some good friends—guys he’d met at the gym who’d never taken him for anything other than another guy—and they’d introduced him to the Miami nightlife. Pino had always steered clear of the club scene because he’d been afraid of picking up some hot chick and then having her freak out when she found out he wasn’t a real guy. He couldn’t very well explain
that to his new friends, so he’d sucked up his courage and gone, hanging out nervously on the sidelines until he’d realized that most of the people there would have been too drunk to spot a gorilla on the dance floor, let alone a guy with a silicone dick. He looked right and felt right to the women who pressed up against him, and that was all that seemed to matter. The first time he’d bent a girl over the bathroom sink and pushed her short skirt up over her ass he’d been in awe, and when he’d pushed his cock into her he’d felt like Superman, never mind a real guy. He’d had an epiphany too, somewhere between tucking his cock back in his pants and watching the sway of the girl’s hips as she walked away with a whispered, “
Thanks, stud…,”
these girls weren’t looking for Mr. Right—they were looking for Mr. Right Now, and Pino was happy to oblige.

Back in his buddy’s bathroom, Pino winked at his good-looking self, splashed on some cologne, and opened the door, ready for another night on the town.

“Dude—you spend more time in the bathroom than my girlfriend!”

Pino punched Marcus in the arm with more force than was necessary and grinned at the other man’s grimace.

“Is Katie meeting us there?” Pino asked as the two left Marcus’s apartment and started walking the three blocks to the club.

“Yeah, and she’s bringing a friend of hers too.”

“Sweet,” Pino said, happy to have the night’s diversion fall so neatly in his lap. Marcus stopped Pino with a hand on his arm.

“Listen man, hands off this one, okay?” Marcus was serious.