She was no longer asleep. Unlike what people thought. She was awake and painfully aware that if she decided to end the pretense and open her eyes, she had no one and nowhere else to go. She heard the murmurs the wind carried; she knew that the guards defending her castle had fallen; she knew her father had died years before the curse, as anticlimactic as it sounded, disappeared together with the witch's last breath.
She had wished for her death but it never came. She continued to live not getting hungry, not getting weak, and definitely not growing old.
And then he came.
At first, he just stood at her door as if he was unsure about what to do with the unconscious Princess that came with the kingdom he invaded. On the fourth night, he took a step closer; and every night since then he'd take one more step towards her bed until on the 57th night he was finally standing beside her watching her avidly as if fascinated.
She was curious yet afraid. Curious about the man who took the reins of her kingdom from a distant relative's hands yet afraid that she would suffer the same painful fate that befell the fallen king.
She knew he was curious about her, too, for he would run a finger along the curve of her cheek as if to test its softness. On other nights, he would touch her hair, sometimes her whole face, even the sensitive skin just below her jaw. And as the nights passed, she noticed that his touches became more inquisitive, more prying...as if he was waiting for a reaction from her.
She knew that something was different when she heard the heavy iron locks of her door clunk into place. He never locked her door when he came to visit.
She could smell the hint of liquor on his breath when he moved his face close to hers and she wanted to avert her face but she knew that doing so would end her charade. So, she lay still and allowed him to feed his curiosity.
But he wasn't curious, he was, in fact, livid. Livid that he couldn't stop himself from visiting her chambers; furious because his curiosity had somehow led him to believe that she was awake and waiting for him; and mad because he knew that all his thoughts and his feelings were illogical and it drove him crazy.
She felt him move and the bed shifted with his weight. He put a strong, calloused hand against her cheek and she struggled to keep her breathing even. He was careful not to crush her with his weight as she lay unmoving beneath him.
"You are a beauty all right..." he whispered against her cheek and her pulse instantly quickened. "I want so much to..."
She heard him sigh.
"This is crazy..." he murmured with a soft laugh before he heaved out another heavy breath. "I'm so sorry, desecrating maidens is not really my thing. I want my woman warm and eagerly... responsive--" he paused and she held her breath.
Seconds passed and she thought he was getting off the bed until she felt his warm mouth on hers -- demanding, pleading, coaxing. When his eager tongue slipped between her lips, something inside her awakened and the Sleeping Beauty finally opened her eyes...
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Author's Note:
I grew up reading fairy tales and when books in audio cassette tapes became a thing, my childhood and I became willing listeners of these stories about damsels-in-distress and the mighty princes who saved them.
Fast-forward to College and my professor in Comm 2 in U.P. Diliman thoroughly ruined all fairy tales for me by making us write a paper about the effects these fairy tales have on children. That's after she had us read the real version of these stories. I was freaking scarred for life. Hahahahahaha!
And now, here I am rewriting these fairy tales because I'm not really sure why. Maybe because as a woman, I really believe we don't need saving. I mean who needs to play the coy, distressed maiden, when we could hike up our skirts, kick some asses and still get the prince...that is if we really want that prince. We still have a choice even if they're Princes, right?
Cheers!
