Old As Time ((LitShark & princesssexci))

[LitShark]

Belle was strange.

Everyone knew it and spoke about it openly whenever she wasn’t around. Her father was an eccentric, to say the least, but she never helped herself either. Belle never seemed to be concerned with the things that concerned other girls her age. She’d never been known to date—though plenty had tried. She never stopped into the tavern for wine or ale or even just to socialize with other people.

She just stayed up in that terrible tower that drew lightning strikes every time there was a storm. Stayed in that massive library, reading medical books. Her closest acquaintance was with the grave digger. Rumor was that she often took pieces of the newly deceased back to her father for some macabre purpose.

God only knew what she offered the grave digger in exchange.

With so many mysteries swirling about her, it was little wonder that her name was heard more often in hushed whispers that spoken aloud. But to Gaston, the mystery surrounding her made her all the more appealing. The fact that she seemed chaste appealed to his ego and the rumors excited his libido.

“The long hunt pays off the biggest!” Gaston was boasting, drinking Merlot straight from the bottle, “I’ll fell that prize and mount her proper! Then, if she be sullied by grave digger hands or any other, I’ll cast her aside like so much offal.”

It was just after sunset and Gaston was already wasted.

He wouldn’t say so, but he’d been monitoring Belle’s habits. She was due for a rendezvous with the dirt shoveler. He intended to wait at the tavern until she appeared, then intercept her and show her a better way.

“Surely the girl is only interested in the dirt hauler because she doesn’t think that she can do any better. I’m going to show her a better way. LeFou! Has she arrived?”

“Not yet, Boss!” LeFou answered quickly.

“She will be…” Gaston rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, “she will be.”

*-*-*

Within the tower, Dr. Gaultier was meticulously inserting the tips of long, copper needles into the nerve centers of a severed hand. The skin was gelatinous and had a tint of blue from so long being kept in a jar. Cuts and holes from hundreds of experiments still lay open, the hand having long since lost the ability to heal itself. The muscle fibers were still auburn below the blue skin, as the doctor so often ran electrical currents through it.

A wide array of black and red wires were clipped to the copper needles which corresponded to the complex and largely uncharted network of nerves throughout the hand. The wires all led back to a rudimentary typewriter that was joined to a free-standing arc tower where a pair of Tesla coils whipped a blue arc of electricity from one to the other.

Dr. Gaultier stroked his chin for a long moment before pressing a key tenuously.

The index finger twitched.

Another key.

The middle digit curled inward as if making a fist.

Another key.

The thumb curled and then went straight, rigid in fact.

“Daughter! Daughter, I’ve done it! Come and see!” Dr. Gaultier shrieked against the stone walls, his voice echoing all throughout the huge tower.

Dr. Gaultier’s laugh continued as he waited for Belle to approach. He was so close. A few more keystrokes to confirm that the nerves he’d previously charted were still working as expected and he abandoned the typewriter to scribble furiously into his worn book of notes.

He abandoned his desk in favor of a stack of yellowed newspapers. Hand over fist, he tore through dozens of missives in search of the specific weather forecast he was seeking.

“And right on time…” Dr. Gaultier’s eyes sped greedily over the page.

“Daughter! Tonight is the night! Tonight what I need is the most important piece of all. A head! A whole, perfect, fresh human head—the apparatus that runs all of the contingent parts,” Dr. Gaultier went back into the stack of newspapers, “a poet! A great mind of French artistry died in a carriage wreck—his body was crushed, but his head untouched. Bring me that head, daughter. I must have it. Do whatever that friend of yours requires, but bring me that head.”

Dr. Gaultier loaded a massive specimen jar into a harness of leather straps of his own design. He poured formaldehyde into the jar and then wrapped it in a black sheet. Hopefully enough to disguise the head in a jar.

“It will be heavy, even moreso on your way back—just remember to keep your stance wide.”

The thought of him going himself never even occurred to the genius scientist.

 

[princesssexci]

For as long as Belle could remember she was the oddball ofher village in France. In fact, one might say she was way ahead of her time. She enjoyed reading and helping her father with his atrange inventions hoping that one day he would come up with something that would make the townspeople do a double take and regret all the nasty things they’d said and all the rumors.

It was hard being the most unique woman in the village. Belle didn’t mind it though. It set her apart from all the other women, all the other people.

While most girls were focused on whom they were to marry that didn’t concern Belle, at least not right now.

All that mattered was taking care of her dad, helping him with whatever he was going to do.

Belle blew a strand of dark hair out of her eyes and set her book down. It had been about some fae kidnapping a girl for killing one of their own and her payment was to live with them.

Belle made her way into her fathers lab quickly.

“It’s finished?” She looked at him excitedly.

“Daughter! Tonight is the night! Tonight what I need is the most important piece of all. A head! A whole, perfect, fresh human head—the apparatus that runs all of the contingent parts,”


Belle felt her stomach turn. While she had always been one to look for adventure in the great wide, somewhere fetching her father heads from dead bodies wasn’t exactly something she had imagined for herself.

However, she couldn’t never tell her dad no.

“a poet! A great mind of French artistry died in a carriage wreck—his body was crushed, but his head untouched. Bring me that head, daughter. I must have it. Do whatever that friend of yours requires, but bring me that head.”

Belle slowly nodded her head in agreement, though it was hesitant. “Father as much as I love assisting you, there is truly no one else who could retrieve the head?”

Why did that sound so vulgar?

Nevermind that. She shook her head,”Apologies, that was silly of me. I would be more than pleased to help out.”

See, the example was quite clear that her inability to please rhe only living family member she had left was strong.

After all, it wasn’t as if her father had a whole bunch of friends in this town.

 

[LitShark]

Renee Henry pulled his shirt back on as the sun met the horizon, casting long, jagged, crimson fingers across the sky. To most in the town of Colmar, Renee was known only as his job title—gravedigger. The rigors and demands of profession had left his body chiseled and lean, but whether it was superstition or open-handed racism, he was an outcast among his peers.

His closest friend and confidant was a fellow outcast—Belle. But though Renee treasured her companionship and her council, her father had more than a few concerning habits—not least of which was using his daughter to procure for him recently deceased body parts for who knew what purpose.

Renee had been raised in the church and held his faith very closely. He wanted nothing more than to eventually marry and start a family, live a humble and peaceful life—but despite her proclivities for the macabre and her father’s questionable character, Renee loved Belle, which made his wishes for a peaceful life less attainable.

Some days, it seemed impossible.

The hole was dug and Renee had scarcely managed to clamber up his little stepladder before the poet’s coffin was being lowered from the rough-looking cart.

Renee knew of Jean-Phillipe Renoir, the poet’s genius was world renowned—which undoubtedly would make his mind a prize for Belle’s father’s insatiable habit for collection. But rumors had already been spreading about Renee’s treatment of the bodies in his care and moreover, the routine disgracing of innocent remains was nagging at his conscience.

Could he be forgiven? Could he be saved? Or was he already damned? The thought nagged him nightly.

Even now, with his heart heavy in guilt, he felt a vain excitement that he might soon see his intended once again. Belle, who he loved—who also led him into temptation. Was it selfish to look forward to her arrival?

“Merci,” Renee nodded to the cart driver as he helped him lower the casket into the ground.

“The family was very specific. Under no circumstances should the remains be disturbed in any way. Is that clear? The gendarmerie have been alerted and any sign of tampering will be dealt with harshly.”

“Understood, monsieur.”

*-*-*

Dr. Gaultier pursed up his face when Belle suggested that he himself should go get the head himself. Though he didn’t want to think about why, he was aware that she had a special sway over the gravedigger when it came to procuring body parts for his project.

Some pieces had been freebies—like the genitals of a rapist who the law had publicly castrated for his crimes. The right hand of a thief. But for a suitable mind… only Belle’s particular talents could deliver for him.

Gaultier sighed and cradled her face his his palm, looking deep into her expressive brown eyes.

“I know that this has been difficult, chérie. I know that my work has made us outcast in this… community. But I’m so close to completing my great work and then everything—everything is going to change for us.”

Dr. Gaultier leaned in to gently kiss her forehead.

“Now run along and bring me back a head.”

 

[princesssexci]

“Yes father.” Belle said in response to his words. She tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her ear. it was a very good thing that she didn’t really care what the townspeople thought of her.

How she was supposed to convince her friend Renee.

She pulled her hair into a ponytail using a stray piece of material she had scrapped from sewing her own dress.

“Besides, father you know I don’t really care what everyone thinks.” She shrugged her shoulders lightly. It was most of the town that looked down at her but she never really cared all that much.

None of the men seemed to tickle her fancy and most of them were idiots who disliked well read women.

That is except for her special friend.

“I shouldn’t waste time though standing around.” Belle went for her satchel and headed straight for the door. “I will return with your head father.”

And with that, Belle left the small house and made her way to Renee.

 

[LitShark]

Though nothing had been said directly, Renee was expecting Belle to come calling on him today. He felt inwardly conflicted, at once eager to see the young woman who so captivated him and also lamenting the detestable thing she would undoubtedly ask of her. The head of a poet, it was exactly the type of thing her father would covet for his abomination. Like most of the village, he reviled the old man—an enemy to the pious and god-fearing people of France. But unlike the rest, his sincere disgust with the doctor’s work did not extend to his daughter.

No. Renee loved Belle.

In many ways it seemed and felt hopeless. The animosity between Renee and her father only grew each time that she was sent to collect another part for the monstrosity, and moreover, he would never consent for his daughter to marry a lowly grave digger—much less one of his complexion. But none of that mattered to her, when they were together, it was like a world apart from the rest of France—even the rest of the world.

It ached at his conscience that he would do this for her, dismembering and mutilating the bodies of the recently deceased, but no matter how often or ardently he swore to stop doing these favors for her, the sight of her always seemed to melt any resistance within moments of their lips touching.

His inner turmoil was reflected in his work, as he’d dug the poet’s grave in the heat of the afternoon, telling himself that if he hurried to get the man in the ground, he might just pass into the ever-after with his head still attached, but now, as the sun was setting behind the mountains, he was moving painfully slow to fill the hole back in. He might not admit it, but he knew that if he finished burying the man, he would just have to dig him back up when Belle fluttered her long lashes or dragged her fingernails along his scalp.

The sky was afire with reds and oranges, backlighting her as she approached as though she was walking through fire. Even backlit, he recognized her silhouette. She was the devil, coming in the shape of an angel, coming to claim the last bits of his soul.

“Mon Cherie,” Renee smiled, climbing up from the barely filled hole, spiking his shovel into the ground and using it to climb out, “I’m so delighted to see you.”

Renee was damp with sweat, his tank top streaked with dirt and clinging to his muscular body, but he didn’t care. He embraced her enthusiastically, his large hand gently cupping the back of her neck, pulling her closer.

“I’ve missed you so,” he whispered, his lips brushing her neck slightly.

If he could, he would have stayed just like that, in her arms forever—with no room for her father, her father’s work or the blowhard Gaston to come between them. Nothing could come between them if he only ever held her this close… but it was a futile hope. No one could live forever in someone’s arms.

“What brings you here, Mon Cherie? I pray it’s not the head of a poet—settle instead for the heart of a grave digger,” his hand moved from her neck to the small of her back as he parted from the embrace just enough to kiss her softly.

 

[princesssexci]

“Mon Cherie,” Renee smiled, climbing up from the barely filled hole, spiking his shovel into the ground and using it to climb out, “I’m so delighted to see you.”

Belle felt like a fraud. She was instantly pulled into a hug and could smell the sweat on Renee’s skin. A fraud, because she did truly care for Renee but sometimes it seemed like the only time she came around was when her father needed something.

She did care for him so in that, she was not a fraud. She shivered as she felt his lips on her neck as he told her he missed her.

“I missed you too.” She whispered.

Despite her own father being an outcast, she wasn’t sure how he would feel if she were to reveal that at times they were more than just friends or perhaps he already knew.

Perhaps that was why he always told her to find ways to encourage Renee to get her a body part.

“What brings you here, Mon Cherie? I pray it’s not the head of a poet—settle instead for the heart of a grave digger,”

“Can it not be both?” She murmured against his lips as her hand trailed down his chest through the material of his tank top.

“Please Renee, my father is almost done with his project. We just need one head. I will be forever in your debt.” She purred as her hands ran down his strong arms.

 

[LitShark]

Renee closed his eyes, trying to focus on the feeling of Belle against him to distract from what she was actually saying. He was right, as usual. The beauty wanted something beastly from him. His heart churned with conflicting emotions. Her slender fingers seemed to pierce straight into him as her breath caressed his chest. Was he a puppet, that she could so easily extract from him what she wanted by merely clutching his shirt? Perhaps so. He was already considering logistics for the ghastly deed by the time her hands moved onto his muscular arms.

He wanted to refuse her—to tell her if she loved him as he loved her, she wouldn’t ask such a thing of him—he wanted to tell her how much it weighed on his gentle heart to profane the remains of strangers, much less a known genius—but her touch washed away his rehearsed and heartfelt objections like puddles in the rain.

Her lips on his neck released a quivering sigh from his chest as the tension in his muscles went slack. He was her puppet and he was helpless to resist the tug of the strings. The man who had moved tons of dirt, one shovel at a time and built himself into a mountain of muscle was carried along the current of Belle’s wishes as easily as a single grain of sand in a fast-moving stream. Despite everything, as long as the current drew him closer to her, he had no will to fight his way upstream.

“Can we not at least go inside for a little while, let me touch you before I must make my hands unclean?”

Renee didn’t need to wait for her answer, if he was helpless to resist her, he would at least enjoy the process of being seduced. The truth was, she was always going to get what she wanted, but Renee wasn’t interested in skipping the first half of this ‘quid-pro-quo’ bargain they had.

Renee carried Belle into the modest groundskeeper residence that he called home. He owned very little, a furnace that doubled as a cooktop, a twin bed, various tools, axes and shovels—his only real luxury item was an exquisitely plush, leather armchair. He carried her into the warm embrace of that chair as his lips sought out hers.

Renee had been saving money, enough to leave this status obsessed rural life behind. He wouldn’t be able to put them up in a castle, like the one Belle had grown up in, but they could live a luxurious life in the big city—or another country, long enough for them to find new work for themselves.

Perhaps it was intuition, but Renee felt strongly that if Belle remained in the shadow of her father’s legacy, it was only a matter of time before Renee would be digging a grave for her.

For now, he wanted her—wanted to feel her soft skin under his rough palms, to feel her urgent sighs of passion breaking against his skin. He pulled his tank top over his head and dove back into the kiss while his fingers began the process of unlacing her bodice enough for his large hand to move inside and cup her breast.

“May we?” Renee sighed, breaking the kiss to look deeply into her eyes, “tell me you want this too. Even if it’s not true—make me believe that you desire me with the same burning flame that I crave you.”

Renee lowered his lips onto her collarbone, kissing tenderly.