Content advisory: explicit description of sexual activities happening between Belle and the "Beast" 

(What is it to be human? How do we define that? Is humanity defined by appearance, or by what lies deeper? I hope I do not spoil things too much for readers if I say I define people by what is within them. We are souls that have bodies, not the other way around).

I'm lying in my curtained bed, resting. Sort of.

Really, I'm reading, and given the somewhat strenuous subject matter (Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, not translated into French) I can't really claim to be getting any rest, but this is supposed to be time spent on myself, used for napping or bathing or sitting on the window seat contemplating the garden outside, and I happen to be using it to get caught up on the rest of the reading list I brought with me when I came here, so I'm going to call it rest.

It isn't the first time I've broken the rules, and it probably won't be the last. So far, the invisible servants that manage this place have yet to report on my behaviour, and I have been very good about putting the books back where I've found them once I'm done reading them.

I want to read books to myself, in my room. It's not that I dislike having to read to him – this morning it was a treatise by Descartes – and I appreciate the necessity of keeping the books safe in the library, but I like being able to read on my own, in bed. At home I had very little time to spend on reading, and all my books got sold when my father sold off all the other possessions to pay off his bad debts, and I had to share the attic with my sisters once we moved to our new home, so I never had any space to myself any more than I had time to myself, after that, and reading books in a room that I can call my own, in a bed that I can curtain off from the world, seems like heaven.

He says he's not keeping me from taking books to my room out of jealousy, but out of a desire to keep the books safe. He says that. I'm not so sure. If my hands had been changed into wolf paws, with claws that shred paper when they try to turn pages, I'd be jealous of anyone who could hold a book properly to read it.

The bell chimes. Evening has been announced.

I put down Marlowe and slide my legs onto the footstool that has been provided to help me get in and out of bed. Once I am on the floor, the cold marble under my bare feet makes me shiver, but soon I'll be in slippers.

Off with my chemise.

The invisible servants open the door of the wardrobe, and show me a selection of dresses. Red, green, black, yellow. The yellow dress is cut lower than I would ordinarily like, but I can always drape a shawl over my shoulders, and the roses embroidered on it in gold and silver and white thread are so lovely that I sigh with longing.

"That one." It has to be that one.

They choose slippers, petticoats, cage, and panniers for me, and a pale corset that lifts my miniscule breasts and actually makes it seem like I have a figure, then waft the dress over my body and tighten it in back. They do all this silently. If I hadn't been able to see the clothing moving out of the wardrobe, and if I hadn't heard them whispering at night when they thought I was asleep, I'd have thought my mind was playing tricks on me.

I don't know why their whispers somehow make them seem more real, less a product of mad delusion, but they do. I know the servants are real because they try to hide their voices from me.

Once I have been dressed, they direct me to the ballroom, lighting candles before me to indicate the way. By now, I could probably figure out the way on my own – I've been to the ballroom every night for the past two months – but having the candles lit for me is a courtesy. It is also, I suspect, a way to keep an eye on me, and to make sure that I don't try to leave the chateau without making my intentions known well in advance. I am allowed to leave, not that I would want to by the terms of the original agreement, but I cannot sneak away.

He is waiting for me. He is wearing the blue velvet coat and breeches that match his eyes, and go so well with his otherworldly silvery white fur. He's been dressed in this ensemble a few times before. I think he chooses it because he knows it takes my breath away.

"Shall we dance?" he asks, and extends a paw to me. 

I gulp, and then nod. I have the right to refuse. I have not refused him yet. I don't think I have it in me to refuse him. "Yes," I reply, and walk toward him, and allow him to take me by the hand and circle my waist with one of his arms.

There will be no music played. It's not that sort of dancing we are about to do. 

His breath is hot on my neck as he takes my flesh in his muzzle. Soft fur, sharp teeth. I gasp. He's not going to tear me apart and feast on me. He's not. He's never done it, and he won't do it. This has to be true. He's done far harsher things to me during the day, for his amusement, and he's always been able to hold himself in check. But his teeth are so sharp. They gnaw into me, and I bleed, and I shudder as his tongue laps at the blood trickling down my neck onto my back and chest.

He crushes me against him with his arm as he gets his taste of me. The cage under my dress does nothing to get in between me and his erection.

The dress is coming off, but it's already been ruined with my blood. Silk rips under his claws. The straps that hold the corset and cage on are next, and my torn clothing is flung to the side. My petticoats hang ridiculously from my hips. He pushes at them, snarls, and rends them. Blood on my thigh. He's raked me again. I still haven't healed from the last time he did that.

"Free me," he growls. I have to help him out of his breeches.

And then he is on me and in me and I cry out as he thrusts in deep and sinks his teeth in my chest and holds me down with his weight as I struggle. I can't help myself. I want him, but he is a creature, and my body rebels against this and fights this dance of ours every time we play it out. I kick, and I push with my legs and arms, and scream, and his only response is to seize my wrists in between his paws and pin my arms under his and take me harder.

It doesn't last long. He's too aroused by my struggles.

"Ma belle cherie," he murmurs, when he is spent. "Why must you fight me so?"

"I don't know." I really can't help myself. "I'm sorry."

"You're not finished yet, are you?"

"No."

"Of course not. I lost control too soon. Spread your legs."

I put my hands under my knees and spread myself apart for him, and he puts his head down and laps at me, working me with his tongue and furry muzzle until orgasm overtakes me and I convulse with pleasure and then lie on my back on the parquet floor, gasping, the mirrors and burning chandelier candles and the room itself spinning around me.

He has himself curled around me now, his arm draped over me possessively. I love it when he cuddles me like this. One winter when I was very little, there was a pack of wolves in the forest near our town, and I cried when my father joined the other hunters to exterminate the wolf pack; to me, they were not a threat, they were family, and I had dreamed of going into the woods and curling up next to them in the snow. It's silly, but I imagine the Beast curled against my body now feels like what the wolves of my childhood would have been, as companions.

I tense myself against what's going to come next.

"Ma belle, will you marry me?"

"No, Beast."

He always asks this. He knows I can't marry him.

But we can't let each other go.

The servants have cleaned up the shreds of my gown and underclothing, and left me a plain velvet dress to cover myself with. I pull it over my head and arms. I am past being embarrassed that they witness what goes on between me and my captor, but I draw the line at their helping me dress immediately after we have engaged in certain activities.

He's still wearing his velvet coat. I have to help him into his breeches, because he can't put them on himself, and there are no servants around to dress him. No one but me.

He's so beautiful in blue.

Later, we eat our dinner together. He likes the company. He must have been very lonely before my father stumbled into his garden, and they worked out the agreement that had me sent here as a hostage. I used to be repulsed by the Beast's dining habits, but his tearing into platefuls of raw meat no longer bothers me. It's not his fault he can't get his paws to hold a knife and fork properly, after all. He said he initially had his servants cut his meat up for him and feed him, but it just didn't feel right.

After dinner it will be time for me to retire to my bed and sleep. The servants will lead the way by lighting candles.

I'm starting to wish I didn't sleep in the great bed alone.