The next logical question one might ask would be how my brother and I contrived to be lovers in the first place. There have been many disturbing theories about this mystery as well; most are of the villain/victim mold. But the reality is really, quite simple. It began with my sale into the service of the Furter family. When I say that I was sold, I mean that I was really a sort of indentured servant: I lived in the palace and was in constant service to the princess for the work week, on rest days I went home, with the fee I had earned, to return the following evening. My mother and the Dowager Queen had signed a contract in which I was bound to this routine until Princess Jenner was married or the Queen dismissed me from service, whichever happened first.

My mother was a widow at the time, my father having died shortly after my fourth birthday. We lived in our crumbling family estate on the outskirts of Old City only an hour's walk from the main complex of the Royal Palace. On the princess's sixth birthday, the Dowager Queen decided her daughter was ready to move from having a nurse to having a companion, which is really just a maid with good breeding. She sent scouts to round up a group of children of suitable parentage, between the ages of five and seven for the princess to choose from. I had just turned seven, and despite my family's poverty, my mother was descended of royalty, and my father had been landed gentry, so my bloodline was correct and our proximity to the Palace made me a natural candidate. A group of Imperial Guards assembled us on the East Lawn and the Princess was escorted down to examine us. She surveyed the crowd. I think my hair must have caught her eye, in the sea of pale blondes and silvers; the odd splash of black, my red must have stood out terribly, because she came right to me.

The first time I saw the princess up close I was struck by how different she was. I mean "different" in that one had immediate sense of otherness upon meeting her. She also had a most striking appearance; she had a deep olive color and a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her hair was a dark, dusty brown, as were her eyes, she stood out in the largely pale-skinned and pale-haired crowd. These oddities aside, the most interesting thing about her was her self possession. She looked me right in the eye, "this one will do, Mother."

And that was that.

Once I was accepted as the Princess's companion, I saw very little of my family. That is, I saw little of my family besides my brother, who came to work in the Palace with me as part of my contract. He being a few years older was there to keep me out of trouble work as her butler. We had the same days off, so what time we spent away from Jenner's budding coterie, we spent together. We came home late in the evening at the end of our work week, I would cook something, he would find a suitably light-weight passive to watch, and we would fall asleep together on the sofa.

Many happy years passed this way. Jenner grew into a powerful political force, with my brother and I firmly supporting her. We came to count her as a friend, I came to love her dearly and she was very good to the both of us. We earned more than other, similar servants, we had better privileges. I was happy in my service, I felt needed at Court. My brother and I became very close. My mother remarried, and all was well for some time.

Then the Crown Prince Frank returned from the Rim Territories.

He was angry that the power and adoration he had once enjoyed had deteriorated so much in the decade or so he'd been away. He was even more furious that his little sister enjoyed so much of the prestige that had once been his. So the first thing he tried to do was undermine her power through her supporters, and his first target…was me.

He cornered me alone as I was leaving the bathing rooms one night. I don't remember much of the attack itself, and I will not speak of it now. Suffice it to say that had the Old Queen not decided to pay her daughter a late visit that night, I would not be here to tell the tale. Her voice rang through the corridor, and stopped him cold.

I found myself in Jenner's small parlor with a cup of tea in my hands and my brother at my side. He held me while I tried to recover myself, but the shock was…deep, the shattering sense of violation and fear were overwhelming. I wondered if I would ever feel whole again.

After a time Jenner entered, alone. "Mother is currently deciding on and appropriate punishment for the Prince…Magenta – I…" She paused as if uncertain. "You may take the next week for yourself at your home, and Riff-Raff may go with you. Please feel free to leave when you are ready." Beneath the veil of Court courtesy I could hear an undertone of sympathy and compassion. I knew she was genuinely sorry, and angry, and that the wheels in her mind were working out a plan. That soothed me somewhat, and when I was ready, my brother took me home.

He ran my bath, and while I was in it he aired out my little attic bedroom. My mother lived with her new husband, leaving the now-restored manor house to my brother and I, so the rooms tended to be stuffy.

I emerged from my bathroom wrapped my mother's old seed-silk robe, it clung to me like a fragile, black skin. He turned from the window and for and instant I saw a hunger deep in his eyes, then he turned away. Suddenly I knew. The closeness, the deep understanding…and the new tension between us, the one that had been playing at the edges of my mind for so long now, something had changed between us, forever.

"I'll leave you alone now." He said, suddenly awkward, and began to leave.

I caught his arm, "please…"

He turned to me.

"Stay with me tonight."

He looked hopeful and afraid, and in that moment I understood him completely, I saw it now, the deep desire, the ready restraint, and I suddenly wanted to prove that I was still alive, prove it to him, to myself. I whispered his name, I kissed him, and I drew him down onto the bed with me. He pulled apart the seams of my robe with reverent, shaking hands; undressed me in a long, breathless motion that made me tremble. I fumbled with the laces of his trousers, overcome with a fierce, hungry heat. We had been naked together many times before, but never like this, it had always been so innocent and never so close. I wasn't a virgin, but I was inexperienced, and oh - how I wanted him. He kissed my face, my neck, my breasts. He tried to keep his groin away from mine so I wouldn't feel him, so I pulled him closer, and pressed his hips into mine.

That first night passed in a long, slow exhale. I remember everything, each sigh, each moan, each startled, ecstatic cry. The days and nights passed as in a dream. I traced the lines of his body, he followed the curves of mine. I came over and over, something I didn't know I could do. He held me up, and pulled each out, one by one. I drew him out, I held him back, I made him last - something else I didn't know I could do. We learned each other, until we moved together in a perfect tandem. I won't say that there were no clumsy movements at first, but once you love some one like that, you can't help but do it better the next time. By the end of my week away, I was nearly ready to thank the Crown Prince. Without him, I don't know if we ever would have found each other.

So you see? It was all really very simple.