The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(169)

In fact, in their fever to rid themselves of a potentially catastrophic problem, I think they forgot about me.

Empty, hollow, just as the Hatter had promised. I was free. When he came to me each night, I smiled to see him and let him do to me what he will. The more he played with me, the more I found I enjoyed it.

In a matter of days, my parents sat in the twin chairs before Sir Rothfield’s desk—the same desk where I had been forced to spread the evening of my arrival. I was led before them, unblemished of scratches, fattened up on rabbit stew, with not a single mark anywhere on my body.

Beyond the tender place between my legs, the true mark was on my soul.

I smiled at them as if all were well, and took a seat to the side when Sir Rothfield broke the great news. “Your daughter has been cured and the root of her malady discovered.”

Taken with the glow of health in my cheeks, with the sheen of my crimped hair, my mother practically gawked. Meanwhile, my father was too busy eyeballing my physician to do more than sneer. “Considering the cost, she should have been cured months ago.”

The charmer who’d once sat in my parents’ dayroom came forth, no trace of the clinical physician in the smoothness of the old man’s countenance. “Alice’s troubles lie in her need for a husband’s attention. She is of age and should be married immediately... with a daughter of such rare beauty, I’m sure there is some young man you’ve had in mind.”

My mother was the first to speak up, setting her gloved fingertips on my father’s sleeve. “Look at her, Charles. Should the Franklin’s boy get one eye of this face, his papa will have no choice but to invest in our interests. I’d wager I could arrange their marriage by the end of the month.”

“The sooner the better,” Sir Rothfield added, smile tight.

My parents could not be so stupid, but I was made to marvel at how easily Rothfield had sold them on such a slapdash scheme.

It was settled, I would marry, and I was to leave the asylum at once. Just as abruptly as I had been thrust into Rothfield’s power, I was taken from it.

On the ride home, I did not look out the window. There was nothing out there for me.



What is in a wedding day? There was cake. There were flowers. I was halted by a tight corset and laced into a gown so white even Queen Victoria would approve. Conversation was not a thing anyone in attendance found necessary of the bride. Not a soul asked me about my time spent in Italy.

I was to stand smiling beside my new husband, a man whose father had great wealth.

When the small party had ended, a lady’s maid chosen specifically to serve me removed my gown, brushed out my hair, and left me waiting in a bed of clean linen.

My new boudoir was finer than any room in my parents’ brownstone.

Pliant and submissive I lay beneath my husband when he arrived to claim his right. I think I must have pleased him, for he smiled a great deal.

When he flopped over to catch his breath, I waited for the clock to strike. Booming louder than ever before, the walls shook, my lips curved, and silence crashed through the house.

The Hatter stole in, the slippery place between my thighs tight and twitchy.

Happy to sit up and let him watch the lace peignoir slip from my shoulder, I said hello.

His grin, the absolute mirth in his yellow eyes, made my heart sing. “What is this I see? What have you done, Alice?”

What had I done?

Why was my pretty gown spattered and stained red?

My bridal bed’s linens were wet with warmth, blood pooling... blood everywhere.

At my side, eyes flat and unblinking, the man who was my husband lay, dozens of slices open and oozing... as if he’d been carved by a knife.

It had been a knife, for I found it cradled in my palm. The same frosting-crusted knife we had used to cut the wedding cake.

Confusion drew me to say, “The Red Queen must have been here.”

“Oh, my love.” Already the Hatter was crawling over my body, a creeping long-limbed spider ready to devour its meal. “What trouble you are.”

The feel of a kiss, of a foul tongue and of wicked hands tearing lace from my breasts, drew a sigh from my lips. He had a way of touching me everywhere at once, his fingers dancing in the remnants of my late husband’s moment of bliss.

Knees bent, thighs parting of their own accord, I took a deep breath of the grave. “I could use a cup of tea.”

All bones and hard muscle under his hideous clothes, I explored the body of the one who owned me. Where a thick stalk of flesh jutted from his groin, I let my fingers linger, working up and down that veined shaft, eager to drive the Hatter mad.

Desire is a strange kind of demon. It knows how to gnaw a soul into shapes for its pleasure, but it also must be fed.

He was mine as much as I was his. I knew it when he tore my fist from his cock. I relished it when my knees were forced to my ears. And I screamed for him when he began to fuck me so hard the headboard banged a tick-tock against the wall.

Unlike when the corpse at my side had let loose its lust upon me, I rocked my hips and found breathing unnecessary to raw pleasure.

These things my Hatter had taught me. These things I gave him so that the white padded walls might never surround me again.

When he told me to ride him, I bounced on his lap. When he hissed his desire to hump me like a dog takes a bitch, I braced on hands and knees. When the fire came, when I begged for him to end the torment, I knew why hell was so much more glorious than the deceit of heaven and its deaf god.