“Do you like bedtime stories?”
This feels pivotal. Like whatever I say or do in the next moment will determine the course of the cease-fire we seem to have called. Her voice is too soft, and it’s no coincidence she’s asking me in the cloak of darkness.
“I live for them,” I tell her, and it’s the right answer.
“I know a good one,” she offers.
She isn’t herself. Her voice is different. Nervous. And she’s warm now, but she still isn’t pulling away.
“I’m all ears, baby doll.”
She tucks her head beneath my chin and keeps it there, her lips murmuring against my throat when she speaks.
“Once upon a time,” she says. “And this is the way they all start, so just get over it… there was a girl named Tenly. All the world was her oyster. But most especially, the Upper East Side of New York. Her kingdom was filled with more gowns and finery than most girls could ever hope for.”
“Tenly didn’t really care about those things, but she played along for the sake of appearances. She went to boarding school in London and learned different languages. She spent summers in the Hamptons and winters traveling abroad. She was privy to all the advantages a silver spoon could offer. Cotillions, secret societies, the holy trinity of Ivy Leagues. She’d been preparing her whole life for them. Everything was laid out for her already. The rules had been written, the board designed. It moved in one direction, with the allotted stops and notable milestones along the way.”
She pauses and I squeeze her.
“She was destined to marry a prince,” she goes on. “He was a good prince. A fine prince, from a respectable family with all the fine jewels and castles that money could buy. Tenly did not care so much for him at first, but in time, she grew to respect him.”
“It was difficult for her, to pretend all the time. By day she practiced and rehearsed her every word, and by night she lost herself in books and dreams of other worlds. A world where she could be herself and nobody would care. Her mother told her these dreams were impractical, of course, and she should count herself lucky to have such a fine life before her.”
“So Tenly did what she was told. She blended in and performed. She moved along the board and surpassed every expectation laid out for her. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.”
Her hair falls against me, tickling me, but I don’t move. I don’t even breathe as she whispers her confessions in the dark. In the only way she can. Her voice grows distant while she speaks of the way she was raised, and she’s too in the moment to know that I’m here at all now.
“The thing about secret societies is they wouldn’t be coveted if they let any old Jack or Jill in. You need to be special. You need to earn it. Some people though- like Tenly- are supposed to be shoe-ins because of their lineage. She knew she would get in no matter what, even if the girls didn’t like her. Even if they didn’t want her there. And they didn’t.”
“So, on the night of her initiation into the Birds of a Feather, she was betrayed. Not only by the Birdies, but by her prince too. She was the sacrificial lamb offered up for slaughter. The prized toy that the prince and his friends would use to earn their way into their own order. And use her they did. Ruthlessly stealing her virtue and leaving her for dead in the middle of the forest.”
“Scarlett.”
I want to tell her to stop. I’ve heard enough. But it’s a selfish request, and she doesn’t hear me. The secrets spill from her lips freely.
And I know that come tomorrow, there will be more blood on my hands.
“She couldn’t bear to go back there. To face the prince and his friends. So, she let them all think that she was dead. She fled the kingdom and never looked back. She was alone, but she was happy.”
“Was she though?” I whisper in her ear.
“Stories are supposed to end in happily ever after,” she answers.
“But maybe the story isn’t over.”
She sighs.
“You’re right. The story is still being written.”
“Tell me how the rest goes. The part where she meets her new King. Because fuck princes. Tenly needs a King.”
She nods into me and continues.
“Okay. So, she meets this King. He was a good King. A fine King. A strong King. And all over the land, panties dropped for him whenever he smiled at the maidens.”
I snort, and she smiles against my shoulder.
“He was charming and funny and brave, and everything a good King should be.”
