Just write. Forget. Escape.
A knock sounded on his dressing chamber door.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
Ignoring him, his stepmother opened the door, reclining seductively against the doorframe. “Now, now, that’s no way to speak to your mother, darling.”
Frederick didn’t bother correcting her, even though the word Stepmother was on the tip of his tongue. He looked away, not wanting to see her low-cut dress, or the way she ran her long, pale fingers through her jet-black hair as she stared at him.
“Your diary can’t be more intriguing than me, now can it?” she teased. She stepped inside his room, closing the door behind her. “Not to a boy who’s all grown up.”
The beautiful enchantress smiled and stood in front of him, her breasts at his eye-level, since he hadn’t stood when she entered. His own personal form of civil disobedience.
The journal flew from his hands by an invisible force, and he gasped.
“Pay attention to me,” she commanded.
“I have nothing to say to you. Get out.”
“I’ve been waiting for your birthday, darling,” she whispered in his ear, her breath hot against his cheek. “I think you’ll enjoy your present.”
With a lascivious smile, she pushed her dress down lower, revealing her dark pink nipples.
Frederick turned his head, not wanting to see. “I’m not interested.”
His stepmother pointed her finger at him, and just like that, his clothing ripped right off his body, leaving him naked next to his fine cotton suit. He looked down in shock—the garments were torn to shreds.
“Much better,” she laughed. “It’s getting interesting now, isn’t it?”
Frederick clasped his hands over his privates to cover himself. What in God’s name was this witch doing?
“You’re out of your mind,” he growled.
“Oh, come on, don’t be a cry baby. I want to see you. All of you.” She grinned and snapped her fingers.
His bed sheets pulled off his bed, almost throwing him to the floor. But then the edges of the sheet wrapped around his wrists, binding him, his nakedness exposed.
“Leave me be!” he shouted.
She ran her hand down his body, reverently touching his flesh. “My husband is gone,” she whispered. “You’re all I have left.”
“I won’t warm your bed in his place,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I’d rather take my chances on the streets.”
Frederick shut his eyes, certain that she would try to hypnotize him into desiring her. Her cold hand caressed his cock, and he shuddered.
He expected her to ravish him, using her enchantments to hold him against his will. Instead, she burst into tears.
“Wh-what?” he asked, looking up at her in surprise. “Why are you crying?”
His stepmother shook her head, a furious expression on her face. “Because you hate me so much.”
“I don’t hate you,” he lied. “I just don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Don’t you love me?” she asked, sounding needy, child-like. “Even a little?”
“No, Stepmother. Not even a little.”
“Fine,” she said, throwing her hands up in anger.
The bed sheets released him, and he sat up, rubbing his wrists.
His stepmother glared at him. “Don’t think I don’t know about that harlot you visit. She doesn’t love you either. Disinherited, not even a real Prince anymore—the only reason she lets you fuck her is because you’re so damn handsome.” She spat the word like it was a curse.
Frederick didn’t respond, surprised his stepmother knew about his dalliances. She must have read his private journal entries. He wrote everything in that journal. Everything. Including how he felt about his stepmother.
“If you weren’t handsome—if you didn’t have that perfect, hard young body—no one would ever love you,” she said.
“That’s not true,” Frederick said. “It’s you no one will ever love! I hate you—”
She glared at him with fire in her eyes.
“—and if you hadn’t enchanted my father,” he whispered, “he would have hated you as well.”
The room went dark, the sconces on the wall all blew out at once by a strong wind. Goosebumps rose on his naked flesh, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up on end.
“You hate me?” She laughed, a manic sound that bubbled up from her throat. “You’re not the only one who can hate. You are a beast, and now the whole world will know it!”
Outside his window, lightning flashed and thunder boomed with a ferocity that made him jump in terror. All the while, his stepmother cackled.