Belle almost made it to the outskirts of town without being stopped, clutching her novel the entire way, when Gaston appeared before her.
"Hello, Belle," he cooed.
"Bonjour, Gaston," Belle replied as cordially as she could manage. Before she could utter a word of protest, the aforementioned man snatched the novel from Belle's hands. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she tried to remain calm, so as to not arouse suspicion that anything may be amiss with the book.
"Gaston, may I have my book, please?"
"How can you read this?" Gaston asked stupidly, popping the book open. "There's no pictures!"
Suddenly, he was flipping through the pages. Belle choked on air and her stomach lurched; he was going to find the booklet. The last thing she needed was another reason for the town to talk about her– or for Gaston to shower her with unwanted attentions.
The first chapter flew by in a blur of fluttering paper.
"Well, some people use their–"
The second chapter went by in a whirl. She had to do something.
The page turned to the start of the third chapter. At the last second, Belle jumped up and purposefully knocked the book from Gaston's hand.
"–imaginations!"
The book tumbled lifelessly to the dirt. Belle reached for it but yanked her hand back when Gaston stamped his heavy boot atop the cover, pressing it further into the mud.
"Belle, it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things." He flashed her a toothy grin. "Like me. The whole town's talking about it…"
The young woman managed to free the book from Gaston's hold and was now wiping the filth from it with her apron.
"It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas and... thinking."
If only you knew the ideas I'm thinking of right now, Belle thought. More than anything she wanted to tell Gaston off, but in the back of her mind she was still pondering the erotic images in the booklet.
Belle sighed and shook her head. "Gaston, you are positively primeval."
"Why thank you, Belle. Hey, what do you say you and me take a walk over to the tavern and have a look at my hunting trophies?"
All Belle wanted to do was retreat to her room to read the sordid material in private; her curiosity was definitely piqued– if the tumbling in her stomach was any indication. "Please, Gaston. I can't. I have to get home and..." She quickly drummed up an excuse. "... help my father."
LeFou abruptly burst into a fit of giggles. "That crazy old loon, he needs all the help he can get!"
Gaston joined the pudgy man in the hilarity, hooting and hollering along with him.
"Don't you talk about my father that way!" Belle fumed.
Gaston flipped around and conked LeFou on the head. "Yeah, don't talk about her father that way!"
"My father's not crazy. He's a genius!"
As if to emphasize her point, a deafening boom sounded in the distance, from the direction of Belle's cottage. Unable to contain themselves, Gaston and his minion resumed cracking up and Belle ran off.
Damn, Gaston cursed inwardly at her escape. She had gone. No matter: he'd surely catch up with her again tomorrow. Hell, maybe tomorrow would be the day he'd finally propose marriage to her.
As he recovered from his laughing fit, Gaston wiped a tear from his eye and looked to his feet. There, with its corner stuck in the mud, was some type of paper. Cocking his head, Gaston crouched to investigate; upon retrieving it from the ground, the hunter could see that it was a booklet. Belle must've dropped it when she dropped her book.
"What's that?" LeFou piped up, his voice coming out as a nasally honk.
Gaston straightened up and stared at the cover; he couldn't read, so the script meant nothing to him. Reading was a silly pastime reserved for powdered, pampered, and perfumed lords, and as a hunter Gaston had never seen any reason to bother to learn such a skill. Opening the booklet to the first page, however…
"My God," Gaston breathed in disbelief, astonished by the imagery. His cock inadvertently twitched and his body warmed. He'd seen illicit papers like these before at the tavern.
"What is it?" the smaller man squeaked. He jumped up and down fruitlessly in an attempt to see.
Gaston flipped to the next page. And the next. And the next.
Belle had been reading erotica.
His prim, proper, well-mannered little beauty had been in possession of obscene reading material. He couldn't wrap his mind around it. Had he been wrong about Belle? Was she actually a loose woman? His future wife could be no such thing.
An idea hatched in Gaston's brain. Maybe this was precisely the opportunity he needed to get her to finally pay him a smidge of attention.
"Come, LeFou," he bellowed. "We're going to pay our little mademoiselle a visit."
–
Nearby, three identical women had observed the exchange between Gaston and Belle with varying levels of jealousy and anger.
"What's wrong with her?" the first one asked incredulously, scrunching her nose.
"She's crazy," the second one spat, narrowing her eyes.
"He's gorgeous," the third one sighed dreamily.
"Does she really think he wants her?" The second one scoffed, smoothing her hands on the front of her crimson smock. Her face deepened into a dark scowl and her voice lowered. "You know, it's been weeks since he's been by to see me."
Both of her sisters gasped in unison.
"Paulette, you aren't serious?" the third one asked, shocked. Her voice squeaked. The first sister smacked her lips in disdain.
The one named Paulette pursed her lips in response. She would never admit that Gaston had been gradually losing interest in her over the past couple years. Ever since that little nit arrived. She told herself he was just young and distracted; that one day he would wise up and realize that it was time for him to stop chasing skirts and settle down, and who better to be his perfect doting wife and bear his sons than she?
Flipping her honey-wheat hair behind her shoulder, Paulette turned to her sisters. "Claudette. Laurette."
She nudged her head to gesture for them to follow, and together they meandered towards Gaston.
"Good morning, Gaston," Paulette purred, intentionally brushing his arm as she rounded to face him. Taken by surprise, the hunter quickly hid the pamphlet behind his back, causing the leader of the triplets to raise an eyebrow at him.
"Good morning, Paulette," Gaston replied tersely. Followed by: "Claudette. Laurette."
The sisters giggled in unison. Laurette turned a rather unbecoming shade of aubergine.
"My, Gaston, what do you have there?" Paulette asked innocently, leaning to try to sneak a peek behind Gaston's back. The bulky man turned to block Paulette's view.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied. The blonde woman narrowed her eyes.
"Gaston," Paulette admonished, feigning insult. "Why, if I didn't know any better, I do believe that I'd think you're hiding something from me."
"It's nothing that a lady like yourself needs to concern yourself with, Paulette," Gaston huffed. He had grown so tired of her. She was curvy, and luscious in all the right places, and he had definitely been attracted to her at a point in time, but whereas she used to stir something in him when he was a wee green lad, he now only found himself impatient to get on with it whenever they interacted. And the longer he spent standing here being distracted by her mindless drivel, the longer she kept him from going after the true prize: Belle.
"I beg your pardon?" Paulette cried, indignant.
Gaston waved her off. "I didn't mean anything by it, Paulette, you know that. Now if you'll step out of my way–"
He didn't bother to finish his sentence before side-stepping his former paramour and running off in the direction of the path. He didn't even say goodbye.
"How rude," Claudette huffed, crossing her arms. Paulette looked ready to kill. She glared down at the smaller creature called LeFou, who let out a squeal and scurried after Gaston with a start, shouting for him to wait up.
Gaston would be hers again. Make no mistake about that.