The Empress's New Lingerie and Other Erotic Fairy Tales (13 page)

HANSEL
:

She called it perverted. She called it unnatural. She said we would burn in hell but not before she had banished us from her house, and then she ran off to our father to rat on us and badger him like she always does, crying about how the neighbors would find out and she'd be arrested for harboring such ungodly children under her roof. Like any of this had anything to do with her! What would that ice queen know about how Gretel and I feel about each other? She is incapable of understanding real love. And then to turn our dad against us like that, to make him throw us out with nothing but a few bread crumbs! I never thought he'd go that far, but then I realized that her nagging had actually made him jealous! Jealous that we'd grown up and were young and vital and hot, jealous that I could hold his little baby girl close to me the way he never could, jealous that I got to taste the warmth and generosity of a really beautiful person like my sister Gretel instead of having to sleep with the cold old goat he calls his wife. You know, if it weren't for her he might have actually been happy that Gretel and I were together that way. He knew we both needed love, deserved a little love, but she made him feel ashamed and jealous. Oh, why did she have to stand there watching? I swear, if I could just get my hands on that voyeuristic bitch I would push her into an oven and burn her to a crisp!

GRETEL
:

So now I guess we're just permanently lost in the forest—no father, no mother, no school or stupid so-called boyfriends who don't even want to kiss a girl—just me and my wonderful brother. And this cool little empty cottage we found right in the middle of a clearing in the woods. It's really cute, like one of those gingerbread houses you read about in storybooks when you were a kid, you know? It looks like it was made just for us, like it was waiting for us to arrive or something because there was a warm fire going in the fireplace and tons of snacks to eat and Hansel even found an excellent guitar and amp set up there! Plus, there's this big room in the back with mats on the floor where Hansel and I can practice wrestling to our hearts' content….

That's where the diaries end. But it's a pretty safe guess they lived happily ever after.

         

…there lived a very beautiful but very austere young empress named Victoria who was highly moral and severely strict in all her affairs, whether they be of state or of the heart. In fact, when it came to the latter, her stance was especially rigid: She demanded all potential suitors woo her in the most traditional and outmoded ways such as writing formal letters, calling on her for brief bouts of polite conversation in the company of a chaperone, and imbibing nothing more stimulating than a cup of tea during their intercourse. She also required these gentlemen to employ the utmost in courtly restraint when it came to physical intimacy or expressions of affection; she wouldn't allow even the mildest of kisses on the cheek until she'd secured a suitable offer of marriage. For this reason, despite her beauty and lofty station, the lady remained single and in firm possession of her virginity for many years.

No one knew how Victoria got to be such an ascetic, for she had not been raised that way at all! She'd had very liberal parents who tried to support their daughter's ripening from the innocence of childhood into the sensually charged years of adolescence. They enforced no curfews, vetoed no boyfriends, limited no experimentation that the young Victoria might choose to undertake. And certainly the community did not demand this brand of priggishness, for the peasants who populated her domain were a randy bunch themselves who'd always shared a bit of a wink and a nod of bemused tolerance for the naughty exploits of their rulers. In fact, libidinous temperaments were the only thing serf and sovereign had in common, divided as they were in all other ways by the grave disparities in wealth and status that characterizes such societies. So when her father passed away and Victoria was crowned head of state, the fact that she was such a prude served only to further alienate the people. Of course, deep down in her soul, Victoria harbored a dirty little secret that was unknown even to herself: She hated being the way she was. She yearned to be able to enjoy the fruits of her youth and beauty before they withered on the vine. But it seemed it was simply not in her nature to indulge this part of herself in any conscious manner, and so in her daily life she never crossed the line of what she considered to be proper.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in the way she dressed. She clad herself in plain, broadcloth underwear, which entirely covered her arms, legs, and torso and fully obscured the fact that she had a quite voluptuous body. On top of these unfrivolous foundation garments she layered frumpy, shapeless suits designed with prim high necks, modest hemlines, long sleeves, and bulky waists; the effect was to make her seem chubby, thick-middled, and altogether dour. To cap off this pious and invulnerable look, she pulled her hair straight back in a grim bun, kept her face scrubbed and cosmetic-free, and always wore sensible shoes.

One day, however, two fast-talking strangers arrived in town who changed all that. They claimed to be able to weave a cloth so extraordinarily fine that only the chaste and pure of heart could see it; all who were vile, vulgar, or lustful would find it invisible. As Empress Victoria so valued chastity and purity, they were sure she would find it the ideal fabric from which to cut a wardrobe. After all, if she had a suit made of this stuff she could easily tell who among her courtiers and ministers and ladies-in-waiting were innocent and high-minded enough to serve such a revered empress, and who were not. Intrigued, Victoria agreed to finance the weavers to the tune of a king's ransom in silver and gold, and they quickly set up shop in a little room off the village square. There they could be found, day after day, busy at their loom weaving the shuttle back and forth, back and forth, as if creating a complex tapestry. But to the wondering eyes of the passersby there was nothing there! No threads stretched across the loom, no yardage resulting from their labors—just the empty air being sectioned and sliced by the movements of the incessant shuttle. Of course no one dared reveal that they could not see the magic cloth, for to admit it would be to admit lasciviousness and impropriety and to risk banishment by the puritanical empress.

“I wonder how the cloth is coming,” the empress thought one day. Then she remembered that the cloth would be invisible to anyone who was less than pure-minded and suddenly this made her a tad uneasy. Of course, she was sure she was as pure as she could be, but even so, it might be wise to have someone else look at it first.

“I'll send my honest lady-in-waiting,” the empress decided. “She is my closest confidante and my right hand, and as such, I know her to be a very chaste and goodly young woman of honor.”

So the lady-in-waiting went to where the swindlers sat pretending to weave their wonderful cloth. “Good heavens,” she thought when she saw the empty looms. She opened her eyes wider and wider but still she could see nothing. The weavers begged her to come closer. Pointing at their looms they asked her about the marvelous colors and the splendid pattern.

The lady did not know what to say. “Can it be that I am so low, hewn of such lewd and lecherous stuff, that I cannot see the cloth? I must not let the empress know this!”

“Have you nothing to say?” the swindlers asked her.

“Oh, yes,” replied the lady. “I am just so overwhelmed, you see! This is the most wonderful cloth I have ever seen! What an exquisite pattern! What brilliant colors! I will tell the empress at once.”

“We were sure you would like it,” the swindlers replied. Then they described the colors and the pattern to her. The lady-in-waiting listened closely so she would be able to repeat everything to Empress Victoria.

The empress was pleased; the cloth was turning out to be a fine investment, as it was purportedly of a quality beyond compare. It would undoubtedly make her a most excellent suit while it would also serve to assure her purity and worthiness. She ordered the weavers to increase their production so the cloth could be finished sooner and she paid them more gold for their efforts.

After a while the empress decided to see again how the cloth was coming. “It must be nearly finished by now,” she thought. This time she sent her most honest courtier to have a look at it—a gentleman she thought to be beyond reproach in both thought and deed.

Like the lady-in-waiting before him, the courtier opened his eyes wide and then wider. But he, too, could see nothing. “I cannot possibly let the empress know this!” he thought, for the idea that a man within her court might be less than pure was even more distasteful to the empress than if he'd been a fallen woman. She would be sure to banish him forever. So like the emissary before him, he praised the beautiful colors and intricate patterns of the cloth. “I have never seen anything to compare with it,” he told the empress.

At last Empress Victoria decided she must see it for herself. Surrounded by her ministers, courtiers, and various ladies-in-waiting, she went to the room where the deceivers labored over their empty looms.

“Is it not exquisite?” asked the lady and gentleman who had reported on the cloth to their liege. They pointed at the empty looms, certain that all the others could see the wonderful fabric therein.

Victoria stared and stared. “How can this be?” she thought. “I can see nothing! Oh, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me!” And for the first time in her life, the dark and secret desires that resided below her consciousness began to slowly reveal themselves to her, much to her intense consternation. Could it be that she was not truly as pure of heart as she thought herself to be? If she found the cloth to be invisible, then she must be no better than the lowliest trollop; the idea made her dizzy.

“I must never breathe a word of this,” she thought, “for my life will be deemed a sham and I shall lose all respect from and authority over my people.”

“I must thank you,” she said out loud, turning to the so-called weavers with a gracious smile. “I have never seen such cloth in all my life!” The rest of the company, who like her could see nothing, agreed.

The strange weavers then offered to make her Highness a very special gown out of the fabric—something sober and prim, suitable to her unsullied personage and appropriate for a ceremonious public processional. “For you owe it to your people, madam!” they said. “You must parade through the town proudly! You must show off the new royal robes that bespeak of your untainted heart and mind, to uplift and edify the good among your throng!”

“Yes,” agreed her lady-in-waiting. “For all who see and admire the garment will prove their solidarity with your unimpeachable worthiness.”

“True,” Victoria said. But what she thought to herself was, “What of those among the crowd who may not share my rectitude? Will they not find the garment transparent?” And the very thought made her blush. All those dirty, grubby, grasping little peasants ogling her elevated untouched nakedness, her ripe loins, her superior breasts, and—dare she think it?—her perfect royal ass.

“I will do it,” announced the virginal empress, “but only if these talented gentlemen will also make me special foundation garments to accompany and complement their excellent gown—something fashioned from ordinary cloth, of course, since the wondrous stuff they have woven is certainly too dear to waste on mere underwear.”

The empress had bolts of flannel and broadcloth sent to the weavers so they could build the conservative undergarments she requested to wear with her new gown. But unbeknownst to their benefactor, the two con men sold these goods on the open market and in their place purchased rolls of red satin, coils of black lace, packages of the finest bone stays, and all manner of frilly ribbons, laces, buttons, and bows.

The morning of the processional finally arrived, and Victoria showed up with her entourage to receive her new wardrobe. The craftsmen first made much of laying out the gown cut from the magical cloth. They carried out a wooden hanger as if there was great weight hanging from its frame; they smoothed the place where the skirt would be and puffed up the imaginary sleeves.

“Isn't it magnificent, Your Highness?”

“Why, yes! It's quite unlike any gown I've ever seen. But where, pray tell, are my foundation garments?”

“Ah, of course, madam.” And with a swift flourish, the little men whipped out a collection of the most sensual, delicate, revealing lingerie imaginable. There was a snug-fitting, strapless, red satin bustier that cinched the waist and pushed the breasts up high like voluptuous, succulent fruits ripe for plucking. There was a leather thong that rode deep in the crevice between the ass cheeks and slipped up between the vaginal lips to spread into the tiniest, little, heart-shaped emblem that cupped the tangled bush of the pubic bone. There was a black lace garter belt designed to sit low across her curvy hips, and a pair of smoky, sheer stockings that would caress her legs like the gentlest of midnight mists. The empress gasped. She had never seen underclothes like these and she was stirred and agitated and confused all at once. The ministers and courtiers who accompanied her were likewise shocked and silenced by the suggestive garments on display, and the whole room was hushed until the weavers finally spoke.