#4 Snow White (1)

     Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a childless Queen. Though she longed and hoped and prayed for one, it was all in vain. One particular day, as the Queen was strolling through her garden of black roses in winter, lamenting her fate, a frog startled her and made her pricked her finger on a rose thorn. Three drops of blood fell unto the white snow.

     On seeing them, the Queen said, "I wish I have a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as this rose." As the queen sigh and about to walk away, the frog spoke "Oh, my Queen. You'll have the daughter you desire on this very day."

     The queen was so overjoyed in hearing this that she immediately ran back into the castle and told the King. Oddly, the King wasn't as overjoyed as she thought he would. But the Queen thought to herself the King would feel joy too after the Princess was born.

     The Queen was right. The King indeed felt delighted of the Princess existence. She was named Snow White as her skin was as white as snow, lips as red as blood and a heart as black and as thorny as the roses.

---10 years later---

     "Where is the King? Did anyone see him?!" shouted the Queen at the people she passed by in the palace. She had been searching and worrying for the King since dusk because he wasn't seen during dinner.

     The Queen looked into every room she passed through till she was at the last room. It was Snow White's. Before she could knock on it and called out Snow White, she heard panting and moaning from behind the Princess' doors. She hurriedly opened them and on Snow White's bed, she saw two shadows conjoining and writhing in unison. The room was too dark for her to make out any details.

     "Snow White? Who's there with you?" the Queen asked as she went to the nearest lamp and lighted it up.

     "NO!" a brash voice shouted from the two shadows.

     The startled Queen immediately swung the lamp at the bed direction. What she saw made her nearly dropped the lamp and started the room ablaze. There was the King on top of Snow White, both of them without a stitch of clothing and pressing against each other in places that almost made the Queen faint.

     “What…w…why?” stammered the Queen.

     “Oh, Mother!” cried Snow White as she smiled. The King was totally speechless, looking at the stupefied face of the Queen.

     Upon seeing the Princess’ smile, the Queen fled out of the room, crying her heart out. She went to her tower just outside the castle ground where she kept a ‘magic’ mirror. To the mirror, she always chanted “Mirror, mirror on the wall…who’s the fairest of them all” and from behind it, out came the Queen’s lover, a huntsman, always answering “You are, my Queen. You are the fairest of them all.” Everyone knew of this, even the King. But he ignored it because he had lovers of himself.

     “Why are you so sad, Mother? I thought you never cared whom Father sleeps with. Even you have your own,” said Snow White, startling the heartbroken Queen.

     “I have them because your Father started ignoring me after you were born! And you! How could you?! How could he?! His own daughter!” cried the Queen in anguish.

     “Oh, please Mother. Everyone knows I’m not really Father’s daughter. That story of a frog telling you, you are going to get pregnant? Hahaha…you were raped, weren’t you, Mother? So, there’s nothing related of me and Father at all. We’ve done nothing wrooong…” Snow White said in a sing-song voice mockingly before she went out of the Queen’s tower, laughing cruelly.

     “NO! You are his daughter! I was pregnant before that happened…nooo…” whimper the Queen in vain. Between sobs, she chanted her ‘magic’ phrase and came in the hunter, hugging the Queen and telling her everything was going to be okay, consoling her.

     “I can’t let this going on. I would rather they died than living in sin. You,” the queen held the hunter’s face. “You have to kill her. Kill Snow White. Yes, do that. For me, please.”

     Even though the hunter also believed Snow White was not the King’s daughter, he agreed to kill her because he didn’t want to lose the Queen, or more specifically, The Queen’s gold.

     Snow White was strolling around in the castle’s garden in her favourite red cloak when she was suddenly grabbed from behind. Before she could even scream and alert the guards, she was dragged into the darker parts of the garden and felt herself being pinned down.

     “Ah! What are you doing? Who are you?!” Snow White struggled with all her might to free herself but the person pinning her down was too strong and heavy.

     The hunter suddenly slapped the Princess and she stopped moving at all. “Shut up, bitch!” he whispered harshly into her ears. Putting his serrated knife at her throat, he told her the Queen wanted her dead because she can’t handle her ‘relationship’ with the King. “And another thing, I think she was jealous of your beauty. My, my…you are very beautiful. And…” he sniffed her throat, “...you smell delicious. But too bad I have to kill you.”

     On hearing that, Snow White immediately relaxed her body and smile seductively at the hunter.

     “Oh, how about you taste me? Then you could really tell whether I’m tasty or not. Come on, I don’t mind. I’m going to die anyway, right. You should…ummm…sample me before killing me,” murmured Snow White while she slowly encircled her arms around the hunter’s neck, bringing his lips closer to hers. “Kiss me,” breathed the Princess.

     The hunter, like the King and every other man, fell into her spell. Her beauty and prowess entrapped them in a bliss they’d never feel before. At the height of his passion, the Princess implored to the hunter, “Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. And if you spare me, you could taste me over and over and over again.”

     The hunter was feeling so good and the Princess looked so innocent, with her flushed face and dewy eyes, that the hunter agreed and shouted it out loud as his ecstasy took over him. Done with his satisfaction, the hunter get up, took a black box from his sack and disappeared behind the trees. After a while, he came back bearing the now bloodied black box.

     “Heart of a pig. The Queen wants me to cut out your heart as proof of your death and wants to eat it because she thinks it’ll make her beautiful,” explained the hunter. “Now go hide yourself. And only come to me when I say so.” Snow White just nod while putting back her clothes.

     The hunter, feeling good of himself, jovially presented the heart to the Queen and she, not suspecting anything, consumed the heart raw, satisfied that the little Princess was dead.

     “Now, I will be the fairest of them all. And have the hearts of all the men,” cried out the Queen in triumph.

~to be continued~

(adapted from Ludwig Kakumei)