The Gingerbread Dungeon (3 page)

“You know,” the prince said, “my hand still has to come out.”

Adamantium whimpered at the thought.

“Are you sore enough, darling, that you think I can stop?” the prince asked, flexing his fist inside her and making her gasp.

Adamantium nodded.

“Then you can push me out,” the prince said, and enjoyed the combined look of pain and arousal on her face, as well as the sensations on his hand, as Adamantium slowly used her inner muscles to push him from her body.

Lying down next to her on the bed, the prince wrapped Adamantium in his arms and then slowly drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later, he awoke to find her slipping from the bed.

“Come back and rest,” the prince said.

“I couldn’t get comfortable,” Adamantium responded. “The way you used me left me too sore to manage to fall asleep.” She kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you for that.”

The prince brought her mouth down to his and kissed her passionately for a moment, running his hands over the welts on her back until he felt his arousal grow. “Then come back and do other things,” he said, pulling her onto the bed.

“Climb on top of me,” he continued, moving himself to the center of the bed and looking up at her with expectant eyes.

“But I’m already so sore from earlier.” Adamantium continued to stand by the bed.

“I know,” the prince replied, and reached out a hand to touch her between her legs. “Your being so sensitive is just going to make it better. Isn’t it?”

Adamantium felt a flush of arousal pass through her at the thought of what he was asking and discovered herself growing wet once more under his hand. “Apparently it is,” she said and climbed up to straddle him.

The prince watched her face as Adamantium slowly lowered herself onto his manhood, gasping as he penetrated her sore and aching insides. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“You just feel so big,” she whispered, taking him as deeply as she could, until her hips pressed tightly against his own. “It’s amazing.”

“Good girl,” he said, and let her control the pace as he slowly fucked her to their mutual completion.

Lying beside her again, playing with Adamantium’s body to make her squirm, and remembering of the amazing discussions they’d had the night before, the prince thought to himself that, perhaps, this was one princess whom it might not be so bad to be tied to for the rest of his days. If nothing else, he thought, he could really get into making certain she would be able to pass his test. 

The prince imagined the fateful morning when his mother would enter the guest chamber to see how the princess had slept and find Adamantium tossing and turning on the bed, unable to find a position of comfort. The queen would see the welts left on Adamantium’s skin by the knots of his whip and think them the mark of a princess so sensitive she would be disturbed by a pea.

Just thinking about it made him want to beat Adamantium again, and make her writhe under his hand. Rolling on top of her, and pinning her arms above her head, he asked “So, what are your feelings about princes?”

“A more useless bunch of idiots, I have never met,” Adamantium responded, reaching up to bite her companion on the chin. “I much prefer strong, intelligent men like you.”

The prince looked at Adamantium and began laughing, a deep rumble that started all the way down deep in his belly and continued until he found himself collapsed on top of the princess with her hands trying to push him off and her voice complaining that she wasn’t able to breathe.

“What on earth is so funny?” Adamantium asked, sitting up to stare at him where he still lay shaking with laughter on the bed.

“Oh nothing,” the prince responded, finding that he was completely unable to stop himself from smiling. “I was just thinking about how much fun it was going to be to introduce you to my mother.”

****

Everyone knows how the rest of the story goes. A few months later, after one of many nights of heated passion, the prince brought Adamantium home to meet the king and queen. She impressed them with her kindness, humor, knowledge, and obvious affection towards their son, and when they sent her to bed the king and queen prayed that this princess would finally be the one to pass the test.  When they awoke the next morning to find her tossing and turning upon the seven mattresses of softest down, her back covered with small red dots the size of a pea, they were thrilled to hail her as their future queen. Adamantium and the prince soon married, and they were known as wise and sensitive rulers for the rest of their days… days in which they lived very happily ever after.

--THE END--

Upbraided

When Rapunzel was first imprisoned by the witch, most of the townspeople were of the firm opinion that she had only gotten what she deserved.

“A girl like that,” the baker was heard to mutter, “was bound to get into trouble sooner or later.”

“Her parents let her get away with too much,” said the gossips in the village tavern. “Dressing like a boy, spending all that time alone in the woods, it was only a matter of time until her adventuresome spirit caught up with her.”

Even her parents seemed as resigned to Rapunzel’s fate as they were saddened to lose their eldest child. “She was a quarrelsome girl,” they admitted to the priest when he stopped to offer them his condolences on the church steps the first Sunday after she disappeared. “Perhaps this is God’s hand at work.”

****

Of course, the Sallets had arranged the whole thing themselves.

It had been bad enough when, at twelve, Rapunzel had cut her beautiful, blonde hair and bound her breasts to try to win herself an apprenticeship with the blacksmith in the next village. Her parents had managed to put a stop to that before any of their friends learned a thing. They simply informed their daughter that such things were not proper for a young woman of means and encouraged her, forcefully, to take up weaving.  However, when four years later they’d found her in bed with the miller’s daughter, they knew that more drastic measures were needed if the family were to maintain any semblance of status in the town.

That was when they’d spoken to the witch.

Margaret, as her friends called her, was not your average village witch. Instead of being old, stooped, and covered in warts, she was a very attractive brunette of middling years with a flair for fashion. The women for miles around came to her for creams and unguents to keep their hair glossy, their skin dewy, and their husbands in the mood (or not, depending on individual preference). She was also the Sallets’ nearest neighbor and Rapunzel’s mother’s closet confidant.

“Really, Sabrina,” Margaret had said to her friend, watching as she paced around the kitchen, “if you keep scowling like that you’ll end up with wrinkles that even my magic can’t cure.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Mrs. Sallet replied, “wondering every day what Rapunzel will do to disgrace us next. I found a sword under her bed when I was cleaning last week. A sword! She won’t weave, she doesn’t play the harp, and then there was that horrible situation with Bettina…”

“The miller’s daughter?” Margaret shook her head. “Yes, I’d heard.”

“If only we could have stopped her from cutting her hair.” Mrs. Sallet slumped into the chair across from the witch. “That was when this all started. I just want my beautiful little girl back. I blame myself. I must be the most terrible mother.”

“Oh, Sabrina,” Margaret said, “it’s not your fault. Some girls are just troubled. I’m certain you’ve done your best.”

“If we could just find her a husband, then she could be someone else’s problem.” Mrs. Sallet sighed. “But no one will take her looking the way she does, acting and dressing like a boy. Robert and I fear she will be a burden to us forever, and if she keeps behaving as she does, soon we will be the laughingstocks of the whole village! If only there was something we could do!”

“Well,” said Margaret, “hair does grow, in time, and new dresses can be made. Couldn’t you reason with her?”

“Every time we try she just cuts her hair off again and throws the clothes in the fire. It’s hopeless.”

“
Nothing
is hopeless.” Margaret suddenly got a thoughtful look on her face. “Not with an appropriate use of magic.”

****

And that was how, a few days later, Rapunzel found herself trapped in the top of a sixteen-meter tower with no clothing to wear but beautiful dresses and a thick growth of golden strands shimmering around her head.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she said, staring at herself in the mirror – a confection in pink satin and curls.

“See what a beautiful girl you are? You just have to embrace your femininity.” Margaret ducked as one of Rapunzel’s pumps went flying through the space where her head had been only a moment before.

“I don’t want to embrace my femininity,” Rapunzel said, grabbing a knife from the wooden dining table and beginning to saw off thick handfuls of hair. “I like myself the way I am.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Margaret said, whispering a cantrip to protect her from further thrown objects and smiling from behind a chair.

“You’re not me,” Rapunzel said, continuing to cut the tresses from her scalp. “I would never kidnap someone, build a tower around them, and force them to sit still while I magically gave them a makeover.”

“It’s for your own good, dear.” The knife that Rapunzel threw at Margaret bounced harmlessly off the shield and embedded itself into the wall. When Margaret looked up, the girl’s hair had grown back down to below her shoulders.

“What on earth?” Rapunzel stared at herself in horror and frantically sawed at her curls with a knife.

“As I said…” Margaret smiled. “I wouldn’t do that. Every time you cut it off, it will grow back faster, and if you attack it too violently there could be side effects.”

“Side effects?” Rapunzel snorted before returning to her assault. “It’s hair, what can it do?”

“It’s magic hair now, dear,” Margaret said, “and to be honest I’m not entirely certain. It’s a new spell. It seems to be working brilliantly though.” She smiled to see that strands of golden hair were now curling down to Rapunzel’s waist and started to climb out the window onto her waiting broom.“You’ll grow to like it; you’ll see. Besides, I'm certain it will make me a fortune.”

“This isn’t over, witch.” Rapunzel lunged after her only to feel herself stopped by an invisible shield that seemed to be covering the window.

“No, it’s not.” The witch hovered just outside of arms reach.“And it won’t be until you are rescued by someone who truly loves you. That’s the only way out of the tower. So if you want to have any hope of having a normal life, you’d better embrace your feminine side and start thinking about how to lure in a man. If you don’t, you’re going to be stuck here for good.”

Rapunzel soon discovered that the shield over the window only stopped her from leaving. The five shoes, two serving platters, and green apple that she threw out after the witch went straight through but fell harmlessly to the ground.

She spent the next few hours exploring her prison. It shouldn’t have taken that long, as it was simply a large, round room with a bed, table and chairs, cooking fire, mirror, loom, and enormous wardrobe full of clothing and cosmetics, but Rapunzel wanted to make certain she wasn’t missing a way out. She looked for loose stones, hidden passages, and even for some hint of how the tower had been constructed, but it was to no avail. She didn’t even know how she had gotten there in the first place. One moment she’d been climbing out of her bedroom window and the next thing she knew she was standing in the tower looking at the mirror. The mirror which, she had discovered to her dismay, was as unbreakable as the shield that kept her locked in.

After eating the meal that magically appeared on the table at sundown, Rapunzel picked up the knife again and ran through a series of sword exercises she had learned from the young men of the village until she exhausted herself. Then she sawed off her hair one more time and, leaving the heavy mass piled on the floor, threw herself onto the bed and fell asleep.

Over the next few days, Rapunzel’s life became something of a routine. Get up, eat breakfast, spend a few hours looking futilely for an escape route, have tea, work on retailoring one of the gowns from the wardrobe into something more practical, eat dinner, find some form of exercise, cut off her ever-lengthening fall of hair, and go to sleep. It was excruciatingly dull, and she vaguely wondered how much more of it she could take before she lost her mind. She even, to her horror, found herself considering learning to weave.

Then, about a week into her imprisonment, everything changed. One evening, Rapunzel picked up the rapidly dulling knife to saw at her hair and found herself staring in horror as one of her thick golden tendrils curled up from the floor, grabbed the weapon from her hand, and threw it across the room before she could start to cut.
Side effects
, she thought as the curl rose up towards her face,
this must have been what Margaret meant by side effects.
She closed her eyes as it swung towards her, and then, as it slapped her face, she passed out.

When Rapunzel woke up the next morning, it was to the sensation of something tapping her gently on the cheek. Although she was more than a little concerned about what she’d find when she opened her eyes, whatever was trying to wake her up seemed to realize that she’d gained consciousness, and the poking became more and more insistent until she finally gave in. The intruder, she found herself simultaneously disturbed and completely unsurprised to see, was a lock of golden hair.