NOTE: This story is meant to be read more abstractly than your usual fairy tale fic. It's more of an attempt at some kind of twisted art than actual writing. If you read it literally, I guarantee you, you will get pervy nightmares. This story was written with fixation and agency in mind. Of course you all may take whatever commentary you will, but I would be very grateful if you would let me know so I am aware of what messages my writing conveys.

CAUTION: This story is unusually disturbing. If you are a prude or very squeamish, I suggest you stop reading. This fic can be considered obscene to young or sensitive readers.

Desire Love Desire

A fic by Leila Winters

In a time where dragons and demons ceased to exist and the mystical arts have been forgotten, there is still a spark of magic left if one knows where to look. We come to a mansion where a man moves with regularity in and out his front door dressed in a custom-tailored breathable suit. He always seems to have a perpetual sneer on his face, lips twisted with secret cruelty. His name is Takeda Kanryuu.

"Takeda-sama! Takeda-sama!" the servants call when they see his sparkling white Cadillac coming up the long driveway.

"Takeda-sama! Takeda-sama!" the attendants call after him, taking his hat, scarf, jacket, and anything else he no longer desires as he ascends the stairs to the master bedroom.

The master is a collector of art. He gathers marble statues of beautiful women, tapestries, vases, paintings in exceedingly rare colors, carvings, illustrations, robes, rugs. He touches embroidery done with looping gold thread with slow fingers. He rubs the surface of figurines with a dust rag. He caresses the breasts of naked marble women, faces frozen in sensual delight. When a piece no longer pleases him, he destroys it and buys something new. His pleasures are as fickle as his interest in lovers.

This day, the master is especially gleeful and is having his servants bring up two new paintings for his bedroom. "Yes, Takeda-sama. Yes, Takeda-sama," they say.

He waits as long as he can stand, keeping the cloth coverings on his newest acquisitions. He seems almost ready to cum in his pants. He orders the servants to clear a space on his wall and burn the previous atrocities.

"Yes, Takeda-sama. Yes, Takeda-sama," they say and take away the offending pieces.

Two new works are brought in, covered, and placed on facing walls on a concave corner. The master rushes the servants out and locks the door behind them. He steps up to the hidden paintings and giggles to himself with anticipatory pleasure.

He pulls the cloth from one painting first, on his right. It falls away to reveal a man in a black suit and long coat staring out at you. One hand is laid carefully inside a pocket and the other rests at his side, but lo! just out of sight is a sword that hides behind the length of the man's arm, like an assassin of old.

The master rubs his hands greedily as he stares at the magnificent painting of perfect masculine beauty.

He stands before a forest that perhaps lies at the edge of a yard, though no house or fence or toys with little dogs can be seen in the piece. The grass he stands on is too trim, his clothes too urban. His skin is tan, testament to his vigil outdoors. His hair is like charcoal, darker than the shadows behind him. He waits and watches. His murky blue eyes are dark and watchful with just a pinprick of white that is vast, stretching infinitesimally within its own white vacuum. Beneath, on a gold plaque attached to the frame, "The Guardsman."

The master runs his long fingers down the smooth frame. He is excited, eager. The sight of the dangerous, deadly man titillates and arouses. Indeed, a finer one could not be found.

The master turns then to the other painting and lets the cloth fall. A woman all in tones of blue standing in the shadowy corner of a study looks out. Behind her, a desk and a bookshelf dark with night is visible through the glow of moonlight spilling in from the window on the right. Her face is pale and would look like moonlight in the sun. Instead, it is shrouded in soft shadow. Her lips are red and serious. Her long black hair tumbles back behind the pale blouse she wears, belt clinching a dark skirt that falls past her knee. Her plaque reads, "The Doctor."

The master makes a sound and uses a finger to trace the engraving of her trade. She is womanly strength in shadow. She makes love with her eyes and he longs to make love with his hands. She is perfectly formed and since seeing her, he has dreamed of possessing her every way imaginable.

He looks at both works simultaneously and grows instantly delighted at his new finds. "Mine," he says. "Both of you are mine."

Day after day, he eyes them closely and still he cannot choose the one he covets more. How can one not love them both? They are the most beautiful creatures he has ever seen. They belong to him and no one else may take possession of either of them as long as the master is breathing.

He strokes their frames lovingly before going to bed. "Goodnight, my loves," he says. Yet still he is not satisfied.

He caresses the breasts of a naked marble statuette as she stretches in orgasmic joy, his hand falling to the cool, smooth curve of where her womanhood would be. The young man in bandages kneeling at her feet watches and offers a chalice of cool drink to his goddess. Yet he can find no satisfaction.

He orders men and women to his bedroom where he ravishes them brutally, imagining oil and canvas breathing in flesh. Night after night, he torments himself, his love unfulfilled, and still the doctor and the guardsman continue to only stare with their quiet intensity, indifferent to his love.

At night, while the master sleeps, there are whisperings.

Shh, you'll wake him…

"Your name…your name, beauty personified."
"Hush."
"I love you."
"Not this again."
"I earnestly love you."
"You hardly know me."
"Do you love someone else?"
"Don't be silly."
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
"And how many women have you seen?"
"Enough to know I can only love you."
"Beauty is not love."
"Your passion then."
"Are you calling me loose?"
"I love you."
"Yes, I've heard that one."
"Do you love me?"
"Don't ask, don't tell."
"I must know."
"Romeo."
"Psyche."
"You speak too frankly."
"You speak to wound."
"Hardly. I'm a doctor, remember?"
"Yet you still will not end my suffering and tell me now you feel about me."
A sigh in the darkness. "I must be mad for loving you."
"Do not say it to toy with me."
"No, no. Truly."
"…ah—!"
"Shh!"
"When?"
"Since Kanryuu first put us side by side."
"Myself too."
The room falls into a hush.

This day, with shaking fingers the master reaches out and traces the outlines of his wet dreams. Both are so beautiful, he cannot choose! It tears him up inside, for surely, he must choose one to make love to. Instead he sees the three of them with their bodies straining against each other's in a tangle of limbs.

"Mine," he whispers. "Both of you are mine."

Day after day, Takeda admires each equally and whispers his longings to their heated gazes which excite him so.

"I want only to love you," he implores.

Night after night, the secret whisperings continue.

"My love, are you there?" she calls out.
"Of course."
"What if he tires of one of us? What will we do then?"
"It won't happen."
"Tsk tsk," a new voice says. "Don't be too sure." The statuess turns her face to the two prized paintings who are watching with caution. "I have seen many artworks perish under the careless hand of our master." Her marble fingertips rub at the side of her breast. "Aiyaa, he is too rough with me! What does he take me for?"
"A whore," replies the young man at her feet, bandages marking him for a leper.
"Not another word."
"Yes, Yumi-sama," he demures with some derision.
The doctor blinks out at the animate figures. "What does the master do?"
The naked woman huffs. "Like you don't know. One day you lose his favor—" the alabaster fingers snap ominously in the still air. "—the next day, you are not even a memory." She throws a smug nose in the air. For all her huffish posturing, there is a hint of fear in her voice. Elegant, with a fully formed figure, she has always been a sensual favorite of master Takeda Kanryuu.
Look at how beautiful we look together. We will never fall out of favor, argue the doctor and the guardsman.
"Oh no?" quips the woman of eroticism personified. "You were not always a matching set."
Suddenly, a voice interjects, "Stop trying to scare them!" Across the room a young woman made of porcelain places her hands on her hips. She is innocence. A bird perched on the back of her white fingers flits to her shoulder. A long braid falls down her naked back. She adjusts the lily in her hair with an exaggerated wrist. She now knows preening. She now knows desire. These nights she has watched the guardsman with his flashing eyes and low voice and knows love. She will do anything to keep him from harm.
"Hush, virgin!" hisses the goddess.
Virgin? Yes. She does not know what to do with her feelings. She only knows that she wants, for surely she does not wish for as ugly and vulgar acts as the master practices in his bedroom. She is love encased in fragile porcelain. He is the pick that shatters her.
Before the stone woman can growl out another biting response, the young woman shushes the room into stillness again, her perch giving her a perfect view of the bed where the master is stirring.
No one dares move. No one dares breathe.
The master whispers something in his sleep and no one dares decipher the meaning behind the words.

These days the master has been particularly diligent in his watch. Now he takes his meals in his room so he can feed on beauty and life at the same time. Sometimes he is ravenous. Rapacious. Licentious.

He spends hours examining the two paintings with heated intensity, turning his head the quarter turn to switch from one to the other. The servants whisper that he is mad, he is mad.

This night, he stands facing the center of the wide vee so that he may turn his chin an equal distance to each painting. His newest lover is on his knees before him as the master fixes his eyes on beauty, beauty personified. There is kissing and the sound of wet slaps, lapping. The lover makes more noise on his knees than Takeda does on receiving tongue. He is possessed, secretly delighting in the figures animate and pleasuring him, prostrate on the floor. He knows he must choose, and so he switches from face to face at each level of his desire. The doctor's mouth is soft and warm, though her lips can stretch impressively wide and her little tongue parries and retreats, tantalizing with her easy teases and playful, baby sucks. Yet the guardsman's mouth is strong and powerful as he is mercilessly firm and foreboding, his slow, methodical suction clamping down with agonizing strength and sensuality. He imagines the eyes of his affection staring up at him, cloudy with want for him.

The lover is moaning as the master breathes harder, bracing his legs farther apart. Much longer, and his jaw will come unhinged.

The master knows it is coming. His excitement has risen exponentially, his throat working to try and form sound. As his fingers savagely fist the lover's hair, he first bends over that head with a strained grunt, and then he yanks the vessel back and drops it, the lover collapsing on the cool floor, the master leaning against a frame. As he had reached the pinnacle, he saw only one pair of eyes watching him, one gaze which caught his attention.

The lover forgotten on the floor, the master holds the frame and lifts a hand to caress the face of the maiden contained within. Yes, of course. So simple. So easy.

"I love you, my beauty," he says, breathing hard and breathless. She is the one, the only one he can love.

He leans over and presses his lips against her face.

"Mine…" are his parting words to her.

In the night, the voices are quiet, urgent.
"Oh, my love, what will we do? I am frightened!"
"Me too…"
"Did you see his face today? Did you see it?"
"I was here, of course."
There is quiet.
"My love, let us run away!"
The guardsman is still. Then, he fixes his eyes on the woman who is looking at him so earnestly. "We can't."
She laces her fingers together. "Oh, but please? We must!"
"He will kill us."
"He will kill us if we stay! Let us run away!"
"Let's wait to see what happens."
And so they wait.

The next day, the master strokes her frame and runs a finger up and down her canvas. He whispers declarations and promises to the careful brushstrokes of indigo and soot. He is genteel and subtly seductive, the way one always is with a new lover.

He does not wish to frighten her.

He plants a kiss on lips that are too small to suit his own.

"Soon, my love, soon…" he says, endearments on his breath.

That night the whispers are urgent.

"Let's leave. Flee. Far from this place of horror!"
"We do not know what is out there."
"I don't care! If I must endure his lewdness one more time, I will kill him."
"You can't do that."
"I will do what I please."
"He is our master."
"And am I not your love?"
"Of course you are."
"Yet you will see me with another man."
"I will not."
"You will. You do. I cannot stay here. Do not make me leave without you."
"Do not make me accomplice to your destruction."
There is silence and the porcelain girl looks on with sadness. There is a pain she has never known.
The marble goddess regards her chalice-bearing subject with pity. "What would you sacrifice for me?"
"Everything, Yumi-sama."
She leans down to plant a kiss on his bandaged forehead. "And why is that, dear one?"
"Because you are the stars, the rain, the sun, the mid-morning breeze, and twilight." (1)
As the guardsman's oiled hand lifts off of canvas and clasps that of the doctor, the goddess murmurs softly, "You are a dear one."

The days are filled with such unhappiness, the nights, too, have become tumultuous with emotion. There is bickering and strife among the lovers.

Takeda Kanryuu leans against the painting, caressing her face, tracing those features. He has since neglected the cool touch of marble these past few days and does not rub himself against the hard surfaces as though his love for the doctor has made him purer, more covetous, secretive.

At night, you can hear him, moaning alone in bed, with women whose faces he makes turn to the sheets so he cannot see them, men whose mouths he bounds up so he cannot hear them.

He kisses her softly again. "Have you been faithful, my dear?" Places the flat of his palms on either side of her. "Have you had other lovers?"

His tongue comes out, about to lave at her, but wait. He remembers and falls into a personal fury. He must have her. He must find a way to breathe life into her so that he might die in her arms and lie within them for all eternity.

His eyes narrow as he watches her still expression. His gaze shifts to the painting next to hers on the adjacent wall. He feels a quiet rage.

She is distraught this night.
"He is going to kill us."
"I told you to be careful," sniffs the goddess.
"Hush. The master hasn't touched you in days," retorts the porcelain girl.
"Bitch!"
The doctor is shaking. "His eyes. Did you see his eyes, my love?"
He says nothing.
"He is going to kill you! I will die without you! Let us run away!"
"No, you mustn't!" begs the porcelain girl, eyes wide. "You don't know what will happen out there!"
"It is better than dying here at the hands of a deranged beast, am I right?"
Seeing her so upset, the guardsman is moved by her emotion and moves to comfort her. He pulls himself from his canvas inch by inch and stretches a leg out to climb into hers. He holds her shivering, leafy form and they embrace.
"Let us leave let us leave let us leave," she says over and over and over again.
The goddess watches the porcelain maiden with a knowing look.
The porcelain maiden watches as oil embraces oil and suppresses the longing she feels, bearing witness to the soft, soundless kiss before her. She has never known pain.
"Shh…" he soothes. "It is not so easy. We must proceed with caution."
"No, now."
"Soon, soon."
"He will kill us."
"You will stay his hand."
"I can't. I can't. I can't do anything! He's too big."
"We must wait."
"Wait for what?"
"We will know."
"We are going to die."
"You don't now that."
"I saw it in his eyes."

The next day the master is fire. He sends his meal back twice and rampages through his estate. Life is not so easy for the likes of him, perpetually yearning, seeking satisfaction.

The servants whisper, "Stay away from the master. He is in a bad mood today."

The master is agitated, pacing and lashing out violently at those who dare cross him.

"Yes, Takeda-sama! Yes, Takeda-sama!" they cower.

He presses himself against his most prized possession, finger stroking her face.

"How are you, my darling? Have you been good? Have you been loyal?" His words are dark and pained. He preens, his head coming ever closer. "Have you been disloyal?" Inhales deeply at the canvas's glossy surface.

He pulls a switchblade from his pocket.

"Who have you been seeing, precious?"

He watches her face carefully, but nothing gives her away.

The blade snaps out.

"Unfaithful?"

He holds the sharp edge against her smooth, still cheek.

"Conniving bitch."

Forehead pressed to her, his head lolls side to side in agony. Eyes fall to the foreboding presence of the guardsman.

The master searches: back and forth. He is in a state. He swears he can detect a hint of jealousy in the guardsman's eyes.

So be it.

With slow, languid movements, he smiles again at his treacherous maiden.

"Is this true?" he says in an unnaturally genial voice. The knife seems to slip, a mere flit of movement and sound. A small nick appears on the doctor's neck.

"Tricky, tricky bitch. You are mine forever til dust takes me."

He turns on the guardsman, eyes glinting metallic.

"You're a real fucken bitch, you know that?"

The knife goes up and then it comes down with a muted thud.

"You will never see her again."

That night, as soon as the master is laid to rest, there is the sound of weeping.

"Hush, darling," soothes the marble goddess.
"I tried to warn him. He wouldn't listen."
The statuess scoffs and gives her devotee a playful pat on the head. "Men are like that. They won't listen until they convince themselves it was their idea."
The porcelain virgin stares at the blade protruding from the canvas of her heart's fire. "B-but…how are you?"
"What?"
"Are you okay?"
For the first time, the doctor lifts a hand to the side of her neck. "Me?" She inspects the lines on her palm. "I-I'm fine. It only scratched the surface."
She is shaken.
The sound of soft but harsh breathing can be heard in the stillness.
"My love…?" she dares call out.
At first, there is no reply. Then, a low voice answers, "There is some pain."
Her startled gaze falls on her beloved guardsman clutching his right shoulder, switchblade imbedded in the place where ball joint meets muscle.
"Alive…" she and the porcelain maiden croon together.
"I cannot move from here." He struggles against the hold of the blade.
"No!" exclaims the doctor, already emerging from her wooden cage. "I will come to you."
But he shakes his head. "Your limbs are not long enough to reach. You will fall." His right hand loosens and with a tap of his foot, his sword falls across the framed canvasses like a bridge.
As light-footed as a fox, the doctor tiptoes across the dark threshold and clutches her lover's overcoat by the lapels, overcome. With his good arm, he folds into his dear heart's form as though created by the same single brushstrokes, relieved.
"I-I can't get it out…what are we going to do? You won't be able to leave!"
He admits fault and the despairing couple holds each other close, sure that their future is bleak.
Quiet all this time has been a small tapestry on the opposite wall, watching happenings with a sharp eye. It is a rather plain cloth, no flashy colors, but a black backdrop with solid white letterings. It is a mantra. It is a belief. In three austere characters, the whole of an existence.
The tapestry slips itself from the wall with a soft rustle and glides smoothly along the floor. The artifacts watch with wild anticipation.
Unraveling just a single thread on a corner, the fine rope drifts up into the air, catching an invisible breeze, and loops around the switchblade's handle.
The doctor and the guardsman are watchful.
With a gentle tug, the blade clatters to the ground and the tapestry glides like a silent manta ray across the pale floor, stopping in an untidy pile beneath its place on the wall.
The guardsman clutches his shoulder and the doctor is quick to come to his aid.
"It's going to be okay. I'll fix you," with a glance over her shoulder, she whispers a thanks to the unlikely hero who remains silent and aloof.
"We must leave," he grounds out between clenched teeth.
"Didn't I say that ages ago?"
"I see that I was wrong."
"Yes, well, better now than once you are dead."
"We must go."
"You are in no condition to go anywhere right now."
"Do you think that this is the end? I now know he will not hesitate to kill me."
"And you have only watched while he put his hands on me."
"Do not chastise me so. I was powerless to stop him."
"But not powerless to remove yourself from the situation in the first place."
He hangs his head. "What more can I do?"
She touches his cheek then, softly, lovingly. "I'm sorry. I know that you have only done what you think is right. But you speak truth. Another day in this place, and he will kill us."
They hold each other close, both frightened but unwilling to give voice to their fears. When they move, one would not know that they were not always part of a set.
The porcelain maiden watches in dismay. She watches as her dreams slip away. The guardsman holds onto his lover's hand so gently, so firmly, as he helps her to the ground below. The maiden moves.
"No!"
She has never known jealousy.
She shatters with a deafening echo in the still room.

The master awakens with a start.

He finds the remnants of the virgin who had amused him so at the beginning, shattered and scattered like so much waste. As he looks on, the maiden's nearly in-tact hand seems to be pointing…pointing to those who have caused him so much grief in the past few weeks.

But this time, when he looks, something is different. It makes his eyes twist and heart propel. The guardsman stares out at him with defiant eyes. The knife is gone, gone. The doctor, a look of innocence, of ignorance to the scene earlier that night.

In fear, in anger, in trepidation, in fury, Kanryuu throws a cloth over the watchful guardsman and lays down to sleep again.

The goddess watches in great sympathy for the two lovers who will soon be torn apart.

In the morning, the servants who must clean up the mess will find an open switchblade on the floor, droplets of dried blood before one painting, and a pile of salt before the other.

The servants whisper that the master is unwell.

The day passes and the master is away on business. The servants give a heaving sigh of relief. He has been unwell. Unmanageable. They fear something terrible will soon happen.

Before the master slips under the covers, alone, he tugs at the cloth that obscures him from the guardsman's sight. When the cloth falls away, there seems nothing amiss, not an eyelash out of place in that perfect, deadly face. He can only stare and wonder at it.

A dream. He has only been dreaming.

With this thought, he sinks into oblivion, where the murky waters of Styx numb his anger.

When all is quiet again in the room, there is a soft rustling and moments later, the goddess watches with her back arched as the shadows of her lover companions tiptoe silently past her.
The woman pauses in her step and looks up at the wondrously erotic figure before her—at first a reluctant, watchful, embittered rival—now a sympathetic overseer and reproaching advisor.
"You don't have to say anything, kid," Yumi smiles at her. She didn't want to be left behind, but she could not leave. She at least had her devotee for company and that would have to be enough.
"Thank you. I won't forget you."
"I couldn't forget you if I tried. You've made these weeks the most interesting yet."
The couple scurries across the room and creeps into the waning embers of the fireplace. With the guardsman's sword as a pick, they climb the chimney to the outside world, their textured hands and feet finding the breaks in the brick.
Weary, they perch on the edge of the chimney and look out at a world that is larger than any they have ever seen.
"Is that the sun?" the guardsman points up to the night sky.
The doctor snuggles closer and laughs. "Silly. It is the same light that shines through my canvas. It is the moon."
"How am I to know? I have seen neither before in my life."
"Neither have I."
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"I have spent my life surrounded by beautiful things."
"Are you disappointed?"
"Are you?"
"No."
She kisses him and they hold each other as lovers ought and watch the stars wink back at them.
"Where will we go?" he inquires, watching the pitch sky turn pale.
"Anywhere. Maybe we ought to let the wind take us."
There is a sliver of light. They squint their eyes and wonder at it.
"The sun! The sun is coming up!" she squeals in delight, clutching him tightly.
There is only silence that meets her and she turns a quizzical look on the man who has been her love since she was mounted on the wall beside him.
And she, too, sees what he sees.
"Wh-what is the meaning of this?" she exclaims.
"I do not know," he lifts a hand before both of their eyes, where his smoothly painted tan was once rich.
Her hair, too. Black and lush, slowly begins to fade.
"What is this? Is it the sun?"
They both look out at the cresting red line creeping up to greet them.
They wait and watch their colors wane as the rising star grows in vibrancy. Their victory has turned to somber awareness. As they embrace desperately, the man tucks his chin into her craquelure hair and says in a voice that sounds part plea, part inquiry, "Perhaps we should go back."
"We'll be dead if we return anyway."
And so, they clutch each other as they watch their first-ever sun rise, embracing their newfound freedom, the vista spreading out before them with more color than an oriental rug.
Her hands are soft and insistent, wrapped around him beneath his long coat. His are firm and calming, encompassing her supple torso with his quiet need for her. They watch and they wait, rapt in the intensity of the morning's light.
As the sun's full face hovers above the horizon, the couple has waned into an ashy grey.

The master awakens with a pain in his right shoulder. He flings the bedcovers off and rushes to view his beauties. Something is wrong. He can feel it in him and without.

When he sees the empty canvases, the world turns red. There are the trees and the grass and the shadowy bookshelf with the moonlight creeping in, but the figures and the faces…gone as though they had never existed in the first place.

There are no words to describe what the master feels in this moment, seeing the two most important objects of his vanish overnight. There are no words for the emotions coursing through him as he picks up a steel lamp and beats the goddess' leper to rubble.

The servants are afraid to approach the bedroom.

Fused together by their own wills, the doctor and the guardsman seemed of the same frame, children of the same creation.
A crow flaps by and perches alongside their frozen expressions of awe. It cocks its head, studying them.
With one peck, the gray outline of the couple crumbles into fine debris onto the chimney ledge.
The wind takes them.

END NOTES: the one I feel the most sorry for is Yumi, the erotic goddess. She is by far the loneliest of all the characters.

Snort. I like universal personifications.

FOOTNOTE: (1) Reference to W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues, originally a cabaret parody, reimagined in Four Weddings and a Funeral performed by John Hannah in a stellar heart-shaking performance.

TITLE NOTES: Can be interpreted as either "Desire, Love Desire" or "Desire Love, Desire." It puts a different take on things.

INSPIRED BY: Hans Christian Andersen's The Shepardess and the Chimney Sweep about two figurines in a house of knickknacks and Paul Grimault's 1980 animated film Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird), an adaptation of Andersen's story featuring two paintings escaping a fascist government. Desire Love Desire is an adaptation of an adaptation. Haha.

FINAL NOTE: I would like to hear your impressions about what you feel the story is trying to convey. I need to be aware of what people are taking from my story to know how to form the ideas for current and future projects. Thanks.